A look back at events in hsitory on February 25 with Miek Badham

1723: Sir Christopher Wren died. His greatest achievement was St Paul's Cathedral. Over the door it says: If you seek his monument, look around you in Latin.

1873: The great Caruso was born in a Naples slum. Of his 20 siblings, only two lived. His voice was so outstanding that he could sing everything from tenor down to bass, and he didn't learn to read until he was grown up.

1876: Charley Peace was hanged in Armley Jail, Leeds. He had been living a respectable suburban life in London, playing the violin and going to church. After he was sussed out as the notorious burglar and cop-killer, he was sent up North but leapt from the train in handcuffs. Recaptured and sentenced to hang, he quipped on the scaffold: "Will you cure my cough?" 1902: Herbert Booth set up his vacuum cleaning company. The year before, he'd seen a device for blowing dust out of railway carriages, which wasn't much use. So he just reversed the idea. His horse-drawn machines used to tour London and suck dirt out of houses through long tubes. Fashionable ladies used to have their friends round to drink tea and watch the house being cleaned. Booth's firm later became the makers of Goblin cleaners, a small version for the suburban housewife. The upright cleaner was invented by an Ohio janitor, Murray Spangler, in about 1904. This was manufactured by Hoover Ltd.

1937: 500 workers staged a sit-in at Douglas Aircraft, Santa Monica, after bosses fired three shop- stewards. Police arrived with machine guns and tear gas - and jailed 350.

1940: The first squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force arrived in Britain.

1964: Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champion of the world.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.