Born on this Day 1st March
1810 Frederic Chopin
1812 Augustus Pugin
1880 Lytton Strachey
1904 Glenn Miller
1905 Doris Hare
1910 David Niven
1918 Roger Delgado
1927 Harry Belafonte
1940 David Broome
1944 Roger Daltrey
1944 Mike d’Abo
1952 Mike Read
1955 Rear Admiral Timothy Laurence
1958 Nik Kershaw
1959 Nick Griffin
1973 Jack Davenport
1990 Harry Eden

Died On This Day
1984 Jackie Coogan
2001 Joseph C. Bamford

Music

1951 Sam Cooke made his first recording, as a member of gospel group The Highway QCs.

1958 Buddy Holly and the Crickets played their first & only British concert, at the Trocadero in London.

1980 Martha and the Muffins entered the British charts with ‘Echo Beach’.

Sport

1949 Joe Loius announced that he was retiring from boxing as world heavyweight boxing champion.

1990 For the first time since 1974, England’s cricket team won a test match against the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. Man of the match was Allan Lamb for his innings of 132.

1992 Nigel Mansell won the South African Grand Prix, 24 seconds ahead of team-mate Riccardo Patrese.

People & Showbiz

1940 Vivien Leigh won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role as Scarlett O’Hara in ‘Gone With The Wind’

1985 The Prince of Wales gave a pint of blood at the North London Transfusion Centre in an attempt to stop the increasing shortage of transfusion blood which was caused by the fear of AIDS. Buckingham Palace claimed that the Prince was the first ever Royal to become a blood donor.

General Events

1498 Mozambique was discovered by Vasco de Gama.

1628 Writs are issued in February by Charles I of England mandating that every county in England (not just seaport towns) pay ship tax by this date.

1692 Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are brought before local magistrates in Salem Village, Massachusetts, beginning what would become known as the Salem witch trials.

1873 E. Remington and Sons in Ilion, New York begins production of the first practical typewriter.

1946 The Bank of England is nationalised.

1966 Russia’s Venus III probe, launched on Nov 16th, landed on Venus, making it the first craft to land on another planet.

1981 Bobby Sands begins his hunger strike.

1990 Minister for Health Virginia Bottomley, announced that the charge for prescriptions would rise by 25p to £3.05.

1991 Red Adair oilwell firefighters were called in to tackle the blazes at Kuwaits 950 producing wells.

1995 Aslef leaders told BR that members were prepared to take industrial action to achieve a ‘substantial’ pay rise above the rate of inflation.

2002 – The peseta is discontinued as official currency of Spain and is replaced with the euro (€).