On this day: Goldie the eagle escaped London Zoo

1700: Southwest Pacific island of New Britain was discovered by English navigator William Dampier.

1861: Warsaw Massacre occurred when crowd was fired upon by Russian troops during demonstration against Russian rule.

1879: The discovery of saccharin was reported by chemists Constantin Fahlberg and Ira Remsen of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

1900: Labour Party was formed with Ramsay MacDonald as secretary.

1918: British hospital ship, Glenart Castle, was sunk by U-boat in the Bristol Channel.

1933: Reichstag, German parliament building in Berlin, was burned, and Nazis blamed Communists.

1952: United Nations held first meeting in New York headquarters.

1965: Goldie the eagle escaped from London Zoo and settled in Regent’s Park. His freedom flights were followed by television and newspapers until his capture on 10 March.

1985: A “Save the Doctor” campaign was started in Britain when the BBC left Dr Who out of plans for BBC1.

1989: Derrick Morris, 58, of Swansea, became Britain’s longest living heart swap patient, nine years after his operation. He lived another 16 years.

1989: Yugoslavia imposed emergency measures in strike-torn southern province of Kosovo.

1991: Nine Orkney children from four families on South Ronaldsay were taken into care after allegations of child sex abuse. They were returned home on 4 April.

1992: A bomb exploded at London Bridge train station, injuring 28 people. IRA claimed responsibility as part of threatened pre-election bombing campaign.

1993: Three shoppers badly hurt in an IRA bomb blast in Camden Town, north London.

1995: Appeal judges ordered eight Ayrshire children, victims of alleged abuse, to be reunited with their parents nearly five years after they had been taken from them.

2010: Central Chile was hit by an 8.8 magnitude earthquake which left more than 700 people dead and two million affected.

BIRTHDAYS

Annabel Goldie, MSP, 63; Peter Andre, singer, 41; Lord Ashdown of Norton Sub Hamdon, MP 1983-2001, leader of Liberal Democrats 1988-99, 73; Robert Anthony Carmichael Hamilton, 13th Lord Belhaven and Stenton, 87; Derren Brown, magician and psychological illusionist, 43; Chelsea Clinton, 34; Steve Harley, singer, 63; Rabbi Baroness Neuberger DBE, 64; Oliver Peter St John, 9th Earl of Orkney, 76; Prof Roger Scruton, philosopher, 70; Dame Antoinette Sibley DBE, prima ballerina, 75; Timothy Spall OBE, actor, 57; Joanne Woodward, actress, 84.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1807 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet; 1861 Rudolf Steiner, social philosopher; 1902 John Steinbeck, novelist and Nobel laureate; 1907 Kenneth Horne, comedian; 1912 Laurence Durrell, author; 1924 Magnus Shearer, Lord Lieutenant of Shetland 1982-94; 1933 John Crichton-Stuart, 6th Marquess of Bute.

Deaths: 1735 John Arbuthnot, writer and creator of “John Bull”; 1936 Ivan Pavlov, discoverer of the conditioned reflex; 1990 Leslie Ames, cricketer; 1 2002 Spike Milligan KBE, comedian and author.