480BC: The Greeks defeated the Persians at the Battle of Salamis to halt their advance into Europe.

1846: The German astronomer Johann Galle discovered Neptune.

1848: Chewing-gum was first commercially produced by John Curtis on a stove in

his home in Bangor, Maine, and sold as State Of Maine Pure Spruce Gum.

1889: Wilkie Collins, English novelist and pioneer of detective fiction (The Woman In White, The Moonstone), died in London.

1912: The first Keystone Cops film was released in America by Mack Sennett, called Cohen Collects A Debt.

1939: Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist and founder of pyscho-analysis, died in Hampstead, aged 83.

1940: The George Cross, the highest British civilian award for acts of courage, was instituted.

1964: The first performance of Fiddler On The Roof took place in New York with Zero Mostel singing If I Were A Rich Man.

1973: Juan Peron was re-elected President of Argentina after being ousted almost 18 years earlier.

1974: The BBC Ceefax teletext service began, the world's first.

LAST YEAR: A teacher was jailed for 12 months for the manslaughter of a boy who drowned on a trip to the Lake District.