1035: Death of Canute, Danish king of England.

1660: John Bunyan, author of A Pilgrim's Progress, was jailed for preaching without a licence.

1840: Sculptor Auguste Rodin was born in Paris.

1859: The man who invented the leotard - Jules Leotard - gave the world's first flying trapeze display in Paris.

1901: More than 200 died as gales swept Britain.

1911: The Rev Chad Varah, founder of the Samaritans, was born.

1919: The first flight from England to Australia began from Hounslow with Ross and Smith in a Vickers Vimy. They landed safely on December 13.

1931: Abbey Road recording studio in London was opened by Sir Edward Elgar, who conducted his Pomp and Circumstance march with the London Symphony Orchestra.

1944: Tirpitz, pictured above, the last of Hitler's fleet of "unsinkable battleships", was sunk in a Norwegian fjord by Lancaster bombers.

1974: A salmon was caught in the Thames, the first since around 1840.

On this day last year: An airliner carrying 255 people crashed into New York, two months and a day after the September 11 suicide hijackings.

BIRTHDAYS: Booker T Jones, soul musician, 58; Neil Young, singer/songwriter, 57; Kevin Ratcliffe, football manager, 42; Nadia Comaneci, gymnast, 41; Mariella Frostrup, TV presenter, 40; Tonya Harding, former figure skater, 32.