EVENTS: In 1757 British troops under Robert Clive defeated the Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey; in 1626 a religious treatise which had been found in the stomach of a fish was delivered to Cambridge University, eventually to be printed under the title Vox Piscis; in 1972 Edward Heath’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Anthony Barber, announced that he would float the pound; in 1985 an Air India jet disintegrated in mid-air off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people on board; in 1992 the New York crime boss John Gotti was sentenced to life imprisonment after his conviction for racketeering and murder.
BIRTHS: John Fell, Bishop of Oxford, 1675-86, author and editor, born in Longworth, Berkshire, 1625; Giambattista Vico, cultural historian, born in Naples, 1668; Anna Akhmatova, poet and critic of Stalinism who had a large underground following, born near Odessa, Ukraine, 1889; King Edward VIII who reigned from January 20 to December 10, 1936, born in White Lodge, Richmond Park, Surrey, 1894; Robin Milford, composer, born in Oxford, 1903; Jean Anouilh, dramatist who, during the Second World War, thinly disguised his opposition to the Nazis with themes from classical mythology, born in Bordeaux, France, 1910.
DEATHS: Sir James Hall, experimental geologist, died in Edinburgh, 1832; James Mill, Utilitarian philosopher, died in London, 1836; Lady Hester Stanhope, traveller who adopted Eastern male dress, died in Djoun, Lebanon, 1839; Patrick Chalmers, antiquary, died in Rome, 1854; Cecil James Sharp, founder of the English Folk Dance Society, died in London, 1924; Sir Charles Oman, historian, died in Oxford, 1946; Sanjay Gandhi, son of the Indian Prime Minister, was killed in a plane crash in New Delhi, 1980.