1831: George Pullman, US industrialist and inventor who designed the de luxe railway carriages that bear his name, was born.

1847: Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, was born in Edinburgh.

1869: Sir Henry Wood, English conductor, was born in London. In 1895 he founded the Promenade Concerts (Proms) and he conducted them until his death in 1944.

1875: Bizet's Carmen was first performed at the Opera Comique in Paris. Critics called it "painful, blatant, noisy and eminently repulsive" and the composer died brokenhearted three months later.

1974: A Turkish Airlines DC-10 crashed near Paris, killing more than 340 people, including members of an English rugby club.

1991: Estonia and Latvia voted to secede from the Soviet Union.

LAST YEAR: Vietnam war hero John Kerry emerged as the Democrat to challenge George Bush.