Mike Badham looks back at events on history on July 24

459: Saint Simeon Stylites died. His chief claim to same was that he spent 36 years sitting on a pillar.

1790: A shower of meteorites fell on south west France. They impressed to locals so much that they sent them to Paris, but the French scientific establishment declared it must be a hoax.

1946: In the first-ever ejection seat test, Bernard Lynch ejected from a Gloster Meteor at 320mph. The device made millions world-wide for the Martin-Baker company, which had once designed a cheap fighter with a fuselage like a drainpipe.

1783: Simon Bolivar was born. He liberated five South American states from Spanish rule -Bolivia is named after him.

1775: Detective Francois Vidocq was born. He founded the French Surete, but as an ex-convict was widely suspected of being hand in glove with criminals. He was played by George Sanders in the 1946 movie A Scandal in Paris.

1802: Novelist Alexandre Dumas was born: his father an officer, mother a Negro slave. He wrote The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo plus much else, helped by a team of hacks.

1837: World's first parachute accident killed inventor Robert Cocking when he tested it from a balloon near London.

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