Today
Events: In 1896 the speed limit for horseless carriages was raised to 14mph; in 1940 Coventry Cathedral was virtually destroyed by German bombing; in 1952 the New Musical Express launched its popular-music chart.
Births: King William III, reigned 1689- 1702, 1650; Claude Monet, painter, 1840; Leo Hendrik Baekeland, inventor of Bakelite, 1863; Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India 1947-64, 1889; Aaron Copland, composer, 1900; Hussein, King of Jordan 1953-99, 1935.
Deaths: Gottfried Leibniz, philosopher, 1716; Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, German novelist (Jean Paul), 1825; Georg Wilhelm Hegel, German philosopher, 1831; Hector Hugh Munro (Saki), writer, 1916; Manuel de Falla, Spanish composer, 1946.
Tomorrow
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Events: In 1889 Brazil became a Republic; in 1979 Anthony Blunt was named as the “fourth man” in the Burgess-Philby-Maclean spy ring.
Births: William Pitt the Elder, Prime Minister 1756-61 and 1766-68, 1708; Sir William Herschel, astronomer, 1738; Georgia O’Keeffe, artist, 1887; Erwin Rommel, Commander of the German Afrika Corps in the Second World War, 1891; Aneurin Bevan, statesman, 1897.
Deaths: Albert the Great, tutor of Aquinas in Paris, 1280; Johannes Kepler, astronomer, 1630; Christoph Willibald Gluck, composer, 1787; George Romney, portrait painter, 1802.