1772: Poet Samuel Taylor 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.
1934: In China, Mao Tse Tung's Long March with his Communist army began.
1966: Disaster struck the Welsh mining village of Aberfan when a colliery slag tip slid down the side of a hill. 116 children died.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The IRA carried out its largest-ever act of disarmament but a series of moves to restore the peace process failed when UUP leader David Trimble demanded more transparency.
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