1885: Jumbo the elephant was killed by a train. Owned by Phineas T. Barnum, he was believed to be the largest African bush elephant ever held in captivity. After a show in Ontario, Jumbo, along with his tiny stablemate Tom Thumb, was being led back to his private carriage along a supposedly unused railway track, when an unscheduled freight train smashed into them.

1784: The first hydrogen balloon voyage in Great Britain was made by youthful Italian attache Vincent Lunardi.

1916: The first tanks to be used in battle lumbered in the mist through the mud of the Somme. Despite one single tank capturing an entire village and another a trench of 300 soldiers, what the enemy didn't know was that the tanks were hopelessly inefficient, the crews untrained and around a third broke down on the way to the front.

1890: Crime writer Agatha Christie was born. Her books went on to sell more than 300 million copies.

1830: The railway claimed its first passenger victim when MP William Huskisson was struck down by Stephenson's Rocket. Ironically, it was Huskisson who had championed the cause of the railways.

1978: Muhammed Ali proved he was the greatest when he seized his world title back from Leon Spinks at the Superdrome in New Orleans.