A look back at events on March 19 through history with Mike Badham.

721BC: The first-ever recorded eclipse of the sun was noted in Babylon.

1813: The half-mad missionary and explorer David Livingstone was born in Scotland. The former factory hand wandered through Africa, at one point surviving a lion attack that left him with a useless arm. He discovered the Victoria Falls but was given up for lost in the outside world. He was found by Henry Stanley, who had been dispatched to search for him by newspaper owner Gordon Bennett.

1821: Globetrotter Sir Richard Burton was born. He discovered the source of the Nile and Lake Tanganyika - but is better-known for his interest in sex, which he wrote about a good deal. He was also the first Englishman to visit Mecca and live. (He disguised himself as an Arab.)

1848: Wild West hero Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth, Illinois. Although sanitised in films and by authors such as Stuart N. Lake, he was a horse-thief, card-sharp and pimp as well as being marshal of Dodge City. Actually, the town wasn't as lawless as it's been painted. In its ten-year heyday as a cowtown only a handful of men were shot dead. Most people died of disease or old age. Which may explain why Earp died in bed in 1929. Mind you, he must have had a dodgy 20 minutes in the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona in 1881.

1932: The Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened. It was the world's longest single-span arch bridge at 503m.

1934: One of Britain's strangest murders took place. John Dawson felt a blow on his way back from the pub, but thought it was a stone thrown by kids. Next day, he found he had been stabbed, and he died two days later. Nobody was ever charged with the crime.

1976: A study of 3,000 athletes revealed that a third of them had poor eyesight.

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