ON THIS DAY

Date22 December 2020
Published date22 December 2020
Publication titleEvening Chronicle
James Stuart, the 'Old Pretender', landed at Peterhead to lead a Jacobite rebellion. It failed.

1716:

Lincoln's Inn Theatre, London, put on England's first pantomime, which included Harlequin, Columbine and Pantaloon.

1858:

Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer of popular operas including La Boheme, Madame Butterfly and Turandot, which he never completed, was born in Lucca.

1894:

Alfred Dreyfus, French officer found guilty of selling military secrets, was sent to Devil's Island. Innocent of the crime, he was eventually exonerated.

1895:

Wilhelm Roentgen made the first radiograph, or X-ray - of his wife's hand.

1916:

The British Ministry of Pensions was established.

1938:

A fish identified as a coelacanth, thought to have been extinct for 65 million years, was caught by a fisherman off the coast of South Africa.

1989:

A Romanian revolution overthrew president Nicolae Ceausescu; Ceausescu's son Nicu was arrested.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Australia continued to battle...

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