The Times On This Day: Facts and trivia for every day of the year

1815 Napoleon escaped from exile in Elba.

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1848 The Communist Manifesto was published, having been printed in London.

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1924 Adolf Hitler appeared in court, charged with treason for leading the failed coup d’état known as the beer-hall putsch.

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1935 a Heyford bomber flying in the main beam of a BBC short-wave transmitter gave back reflected signals to the ground, winning Robert Watson-Watt government approval to develop radar technology.

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1936 Hitler opened the first factory to manufacture the Volkswagen, the people’s car.

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c. 272 Constantine the Great, Roman emperor 306–337, was born in modern Nis, Serbia.

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1814 Beethoven’s 8th Symphony received its premiere in Vienna.

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1879 at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, Constantin Fahlberg and Ira Remsen accidentally discovered saccharin.

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1900 a meeting of trade unionists, Marxists and Fabians resulted in the foundation of the Labour Representation Committee, or British Labour Party.

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1902 John Steinbeck, novelist, was born in Salinas, California.

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1933 arson destroyed part of Germany’s Reichstag building, leading to the suspension of civil liberties.

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1939 General Franco’s rebel Nationalist Government was recognised by Britain and France.

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1533 Michel de Montaigne, philosopher who popularised the essay form, was born.

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1900 after a four-month siege during the Boer War, the 20,000-strong British garrison in Ladysmith was relieved.

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1922 Lord Allenby, high commissioner in Egypt, announced the termination of the British protectorate and the inception of Egyptian independence.

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1956 Jay Forrester patented random-access coincident-current magnetic storage, which would become the standard memory device for computers.

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1975 a London Underground train crashed at Moorgate station, killing 35 people.

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1986 the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme was assassinated while walking home in Stockholm, a crime that remains unsolved.

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1868 Conservative Party leader Benjamin Disraeli formed his first government.

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1880 the 9.3-mile St Gotthard railway tunnel, then the longest in the world, was completed, linking Switzerland and Italy.

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1940 Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American actress to win an Oscar, for Gone With the Wind.

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1956 Pakistan became an Islamic republic.

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1960 thousands of people were killed in an earthquake in Agadir, Morocco.

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1960 Hugh Hefner opened the first Playboy Club in Chicago.

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1984 Pierre Trudeau resigned after 15 years as premier of Canada.

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