Saint Hilary's Day, traditionally the coldest day of the year.

1864: Stephen Foster, US composer of minstrel songs and ballads (The Old Folks at Home, Beautiful Dreamer, etc) died after hitting his head on a chamber pot.

1884: Sophie Tucker, singer and vaudeville star known in America as "the last of the Red Hot Mamas", was born in Russia.

1893: The Independent British Labour Party was formed by Keir Hardie.

1904: English composer Richard Addinsell was born. His most famous work was the Warsaw Concerto which he wrote for the 1941 film Dangerous Moonlight.

1921: The first British patent for windscreen wipers was registered by Mills Munitions of Birmingham.

1926: Wyatt Earp, legendary US lawman, who fought the Clanton Gang at the OK Corral, died aged 81 in Los Angeles.

1942: The pilot of an experimental jet fighter became the first to leave his plane via an emergency ejector seat.

1962: An outbreak of smallpox spread throughout Britain.

1964: A reluctant Capitol Records released the first Beatles record in the US "to see how it goes". I Wanna Hold Your Hand became their fastest selling single - one million copies were sold in the first three weeks.

1982: A Boeing 737 crashed into a bridge, hitting five ships and killing 78 people, on the Potomac River in Washington DC.

1990: An army undercover unit shot dead three men robbing a betting shop in west Belfast, causing uproar among republicans. Two of the raiders were hooded and carried replica guns.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Tony Blair said that he believed "passionately" that Saddam Hussein must be stripped of his weapons of mass destruction.