1804: Johann Strauss the Elder, composer of waltzes, was born in Vienna.
1836: Isabella Mary Mayson, who became Mrs Beeton of cookery book fame, was born in Heidelberg.
1879: Albert Einstein, physicist and mathematician, was born in Ulm, Bavaria.
1883: Death of German philosopher and father of Communism Karl Marx.
1885: First production of The Mikado, by Gilbert and Sullivan, at the Savoy Theatre, London.
1891: The first telephone cable along the English channel bed was laid by the submarine Monarch.
1929: In Chicago, boogie-woogie pioneer Clarence
Pinetop' Smith was killed as he sat at his piano, by a gunman's bullet not intended for him. He was 24.
1939: The Timeless' Test between South Africa and England in Durban ended - it started on March 3 - because the England players had to rejoin their ship.
1961: The New English Bible was published.
1964: Jack Ruby was found guilty in Dallas of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged assassin of President Kennedy, and was sentenced to death. He died of a blood clot in the lung in 1967.
1977: The Government announced that prices had risen 69.5% since 1974.
1984: Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was shot and seriously injured by Loyalist gunmen.
1991: The "Birmingham Six" - six Irishmen jailed in 1975 for their alleged part in the IRA Birmingham pub bombings and the murder of 21 people - were freed after the court of appeal upheld the men's claim that officers of the West Midlands Police invented or distorted evidence against them.
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