1772: Poet Samuel Tayor Coleridge (The Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan) was born in Ottery St Mary, Devon.

1805: Lord Nelson, English naval hero, was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar -- dying at the precise moment the Franco-Spanish fleet surrendered.

1833: Alfred Nobel, industrialist, inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prizes, was born in Stockholm.

1858: The Can-Can was first performed in Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld in Paris.

1918: The "Spanish flu" epidemic started in Britain, eventually killing approximately twice as many as died in World War One.

1934: In China, the Long March began of Mao Tse Tung (pictured right) and his 100,000-strong Communist army.

1950: Chinese forces occupied Tibet.

1960: Britain's first nuclear-powered submarine, Dreadnought, was launched at Barrow-in-Furness.

1966: Disaster struck the small Welsh mining village of Aberfan when a colliery slag tip slid down the side of a hill and engulfed a row of houses, a farm and a school. Of the 144 people who died, 116 were children.

On this day last year: US jets mounted a new aerial bombardment of Afghanistan, a day after special forces killed Taliban troops and destroyed key targets in ground attacks.

BIRTHDAYS: Geoffrey Boycott, broadcaster and former cricketer, 62; Pop musician Manfred Mann, 62; Sir John Stevens, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, 60; former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 53; Peter Mandelson, Labour MP, pictured, 49; Carrie Fisher, actress, 46; Julian Cope, rock musician, 45; East 17 singer Tony Mortimer, 32; Mick Jagger's daughter Jade Jagger, 31; David Campese, rugby player, 40; Paul Ince, footballer, 35.