1787: Mozart's opera Don Giovanni was first performed, in Prague.

1863: Swiss philanthropist Henri Dunant founded the International Red Cross, after witnessing the tending of the wounded at the Battle of Solferino, north Italy.

1929: "Black Tuesday" -- so called when Wall Street crashed, leading to the Great Depression. Shares had begun to slide dramatically on "Black Thursday" (October 24) and the fall only ended on July 2, 1932, by which time the Dow Jones Industrial Index average had dipped almost 90 per cent.

1956: Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula and troops pushed on towards the Suez Canal, just 20 miles away.

1985: Lester Piggott rode Full Choke at Nottingham to record his 4,349th winner.

1986: The final section of the M25 around London was opened.

1987: Thomas "The Hitman" Hearns won the world middleweight title, making him the first boxer to win a world title at four different weights.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Home Secretary David Blunkett (right) was planning to set up a string of reception centres to house asylum seekers and end the dispersal system which had seen them placed in run-down housing estates across the country.