LITMIR.BIZ

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      1886 Karl Benz patented the first automobile.

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      1942 Desert Island Discs was first broadcast by the BBC.

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      1996 Venice’s opera house, fatefully named La Fenice (The Phoenix), was completely destroyed by fire, suspected to be arson.

30 JANUARY

      1649 King Charles I, who had reigned since 1625, was executed in Whitehall.

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      1661 Oliver Cromwell was ritually executed, more than two years after his death.

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      1790 the first lifeboat was tested by Henry Greathead of South Shields.

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      1933 Hitler was sworn in as German chancellor.

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      1948 Mahatma Gandhi, Indian leader, was assassinated in Delhi.

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      1965 Sir Winston Churchill’s state funeral took place in London.

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      1968 the Vietcong launched the Tet Offensive against South Vietnam.

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      1972 British troops killed 13 people during a civil rights march in Londonderry on what is now known as Bloody Sunday.

31 JANUARY

      1606 Guy Fawkes and his fellow Gunpowder Plot conspirators were executed.

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      1788 Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), leader of the Jacobite rebellion, died in Rome aged 68.

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      1858 the Great Eastern steamship, the largest vessel in the world, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was launched.

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      1929 Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Union.

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      1983 the wearing of front seatbelts in cars was made compulsory in Britain.

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      1990 the first McDonald’s restaurant in Russia opened in Pushkin Square, Moscow.

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      2010 Avatar became the first film to gross more than $2 billion worldwide.

1 FEBRUARY

      1851 Mary Shelley, who at 21 wrote Frankenstein, died aged 54.

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      1874 Hugo von Hofmannsthal, poet, dramatist and librettist (Der Rosenkavalier), was born in Vienna.

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      1884 publication of the first fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary.

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      1896 the world premiere of Puccini’s opera La Bohème took place in Turin, with Arturo Toscanini conducting.

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      1910 the first British labour exchange opened.

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      1915 Stanley Matthews, footballer, was born in Stoke-on-Trent.

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      1924 Britain formally recognised the Soviet Union.

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      1974 Ronald Biggs, one of the Great Train Robbers, was arrested by Brazilian police in Rio de Janeiro.

2 FEBRUARY

      1650 Nell Gwyn, comic actress and mistress of King Charles II, was born.

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      1709 Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, was rescued after being marooned for four years on an island off Chile.

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      1901 the state funeral of Queen Victoria took place at Windsor.

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      1972 the British embassy in Dublin was burnt down by demonstrators protesting the killings on Bloody Sunday two days previously in Londonderry.

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      1977 the Pompidou Centre opened in Paris.

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      1979 Sid Vicious (Simon John Ritchie), bass guitarist of the Sex Pistols, died in New York aged 21.

3 FEBRUARY

      1761 Richard (Beau) Nash, dandy who developed Bath into the most fashionable spa town in England, died.

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      1877 The Celebrated Chop Waltz, better known as Chopsticks, music for the piano by 16-year-old Euphemia Allen, was registered at the British Museum.

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      1919 President Woodrow Wilson attended the first meeting of the League of Nations in Paris.

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      1924 Woodrow Wilson, 28th American president 1913–21, died aged 67.

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      1960 Harold Macmillan made his Wind of Change speech to the South African parliament.

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      1969 Yassir Arafat was appointed chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

4 FEBRUARY

      1911 Rolls-Royce commissioned its famous figurehead, The Spirit of Ecstasy, from the sculptor Charles Sykes.

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      1927 Malcolm Campbell set the land-speed record at 174.88mph in his 12-cylinder Napier-Campbell Blue Bird on Pendine Sands, Carmarthen Bay.

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      1945 the Yalta conference opened, at which Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin discussed strategy for the final months of the war.

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      1962 The Sunday Times issued the first colour supplement in Britain.

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      1968 the world’s largest hovercraft (165 tons and costing £1.75 million) was launched at Cowes, Isle of Wight.

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      1971 the British carmaker Rolls-Royce declared itself bankrupt.

5 FEBRUARY

      1811 the Prince of Wales, later King George IV, was declared Prince Regent.

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      1887 Verdi’s Otello received its world premiere at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan.

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      1920 the RAF College at Cranwell, Lincolnshire, opened.

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      1982

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