A look back at events in history on February 19 with Mike Badham.

1473: Astronomer Nicholas Copernicus was born in Poland. By 1530 he had worked out that the earth went round the sun, and not the other way about. This got him in trouble with the Church.

1596: Isobel Cockie was burned at the stake in Scotland for being a witch. It seems that she had foretold future events, but maybe she got the winner of the 2.30 wrong.

1717: David Garrick, the great actor, was born in Hereford. Trained in the family wine business, he turned to amateur dramatics, but later also ran the Drury Lane Theatre in London.

1761: Swiss painter Theodore Gardelle lived in London at the house of a Mrs King. For some reason he bumped her off on this date. He cut the body up, but left the bits lying around the house. He was soon arrested and later hanged at Newgate prison.

1878: Thomas A. Edison patented the phonograph, which he looked on as an amusing toy. Within 50 years it had made a billion pounds!

1897: The first Women's Institute was founded in Ontario, Canada. 1901: The Mercedes car was named after the young daughter of a Daimler Co. director.

1906: Eccentric William Kellogg set up the Battle Creek Toasted Cornflake Co. Corn Flakes were originally intended as a health food for psychiatric patients.

1942: Sir Stafford Cripps joined the War Cabinet; Lord Beaverbrook left it through ill-health.

1943: German occupiers seized Dutch works of art for Hitler's art gallery.

1945: US troops landed on Iwo Jima. Meanwhile 1,000 Japanese soldiers were cornered by the Allies in a Burmese swamp. All but 20 of them were eaten by crocodiles during the night.

1959: Britain, Turkey and Greece signed a treaty guaranteeing the independence of Cyprus.

1961: Convicted killer Harold Thirkettle was accidentally stabbed to death in Dartmoor Jail. He was watching a film next to another prisoner, who was suddenly stabbed in the dark. The assailant fled. Pulling the knife from the wound, the injured convict lashed out, fatally wounding Thirkettle.

1985: The first episode of EastEnders was broadcast on BBC TV.

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