1672: Tsar Peter the Great, who stood 6ft 7 inches in his cotton socks, was born on this day. The man who put a tax on beards, deposed his mentally defective half-brother, shipped his sister and his first wife off to a nunnery and tortured his son to death when he opposed his sweeping reforms. When his favourite mistress was unfaithful to him, he chopped off her head, pickled it and kept it by his bed as a warning to future sleeping companions.

68 AD: Emperor Nero committed suicide after he was declared a public enemy by the Senate of Rome. He had already decided to do it several times before and even asked one of his servants if he would mind going first.

1891: The master of sophisticated "pop music", composer Cole Porter popped into the world in Peru, Indiana.

1870: Charles Dickens, who based his "Nicholas Nickleby" Cheeryble Brothers characters on Bury's very own Grant brothers, died from a brain haemorrhage.

1915: British soldiers in France were chucking "pineapples," the nickname for the new oval and grooved grenades, at their German opposition.

1964: West Germany agreed to pay £1 million compensation to British victims of Nazi persecution.