On this day
9:20am Saturday 13th March 2010 in News
1770: Fat man Daniel Lambert was born in Leicester — his adult weight was 739lb and his waist measured 102 inches. When he died, it took 20 men to lower his coffin into the grave.
1884: Novelist Sir Hugh Walpole was born in Auckland, New Zealand.
1894: The first professional striptease took place at the Divan Fayonau Music Hall in Paris. Le Coucher d’Yvette, as the act was billed, showed a girl undressing to go to bed.
1900: British forces under General Roberts captured Bloemfontein in the second Anglo-Boer War.
1927: The lance ceased to be an official weapon in the British Army.
1928: The St Francis Dam near Los Angeles burst, flooding the countryside and killing around 450 people.
1935: The driving test was introduced into Britain. It was voluntary at this stage, becoming compulsory in June.
1938: Hitler invaded Austria, which was made a German Reich province named Ostmark.
1947: The Government announced a mid-week ban on sport to try to boost productivity.
1963: Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung invited Soviet premier Nikita Kruschev for talks to try to heal relations.
1974: Irish premier Cosgrave became the first leader to concede Northern Ireland was a province under UK control.
1985: Russian leader Konstantin Chernenko was buried in Red Square as Mikhail Gorbachev became the youngest member of the ruling Politburo at 54.
1996: Day of the Dunblane Massacre, when gunman Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 children and their teacher in the primary school — before turning the gun on himself.
