1944: The phantom anaesthetist made his first attack in Illinois. His victim said he had prised her window open and sprayed her with a sweet-smelling gas which paralysed her legs and made her vomit. Over the next twelve days, 24 more women made official complaints, many giving intimate descriptions. Though a police dragnet was mounted, the phantom was never caught, and is now thought by psychologists to have been no more than figment of mass hysteria.

1875: Edgar Rice Boroughs was born. Under the nom de plume of Norman Bean, he sold his first Tarzan story in 1912 and got just £700 for what he thought was a lousy yarn! His hero nevertheless became the subject of 40 films and 26 books, translated into 56 languages. 1422: The youngest King of England Henry VI crawled to the throne aged nine months, on the death of his father. He signed his first royal decree with a thumb print appointing Dame Alice Butler his nurse and giving her licence to "chastise him reasonably from time to time." At the age of four he opened Parliament for the first time, sitting on his mother's knee.

1715: Sun King Louis XIV of France died four days before his 77th birthday after a reign of 72 years, 110 days, the longest in European history.

1896: Chop Suey was created, but not in China! A chef of the Chinese Ambassador Li Hung-Change in the USA, fed-up of seeing his finest oriental cuisine left uneaten by unappreciative guests dreamed up chop suey to "look Chinese and taste New York."

1854: Engelbert Humperdinck was born on this day. Yes, this was the German classical composer whose amusing name was adopted by Gerry Dorsey. Engelburt went on to write the opera Hansel and Gretl.

1689: Russia put a tax on beards.