A look back at events in history on October 15 with Mike Badham.

70BC: The eccentric Roman poet Virgil was born. After studying the sciences he became a rich courtier and wrote The Aeneid. When Rome's rulers decided to confiscate the land of the rich, Virgil read the small print - and saw that cemeteries were exempt. So he built an expensive tomb on his property and buried his favourite pet, a fly.

1783: The first pilot, de Rozier , rose 80ft in the air in a tethered Montgolfier hot air balloon. Five weeks later he took a friend on a 45-mile flight near Paris. De Rozier was also the first man to be killed in a flying accident, trying to cross the Channel on June 15, 1785. He made the mistake of using a balloon combining hot air and hydrogen, and it exploded halfway across.

1839: Queen Victoria proposed to Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha. The 20-year-old queen found it embarrassing, but clearly the prince could not pop the question to one of higher rank. He accepted her hand (natch) plus a ginormous salary and the future level of German genes in the royal family was assured.

1844: Hitler's favourite thinker Friedrich Nietzsche was born. As well as dreaming up the idea of the Master Race, Fred caught a nasty disease in a naughty establishment in Paris frequented by rent boys and died at 56 - not bad actually for a Victorian. 1917: The inept Dutch spy and exotic dancer Mata Hari was shot in Paris after being found guilty of espionage for the Germans.

1928: The German airship Graf Zeppelin completed its first transatlantic flight.

1934: The parents of 12-year-old Grace Budd got a letter from Albert Fish, 82, confessing that he'd killed and eaten their daughter. They had not seen her or Fish since he took her to a party six years before. Strangely, they had never tried to find out what had become of the child.

1940: The Battle of Britain was in full swing. The BBC announced that 185 German planes had been shot down in one day. After the war, doubt was cast on these claims.

1944: The new French government announced that it would try Vichy war criminals.

1948: A flying saucer that appeared over London caused many accidents as drivers took their eyes off the road. When the UFO crashed near Marble Arch it turned out to be a kite made of cooking foil, with a red light attached.

1961: Human rights group Amnesty International was set up in London.

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