Todays birthdays

Rosamund Pike (pictured), actress, 41

Nick Mason, rock musician (Pink Floyd), 76

Mimi Rogers, actress, 64

Bridget Fonda, actress, 56

Alan Cumming, actor/director, 55

Robbie Earle, former footballer, 55

Mike Patton, rock singer (Faith No More), 52

Dean Headley, former cricketer, 50

Mark Owen, singer (Take That), 48

Marat Safin, retired tennis player, 40

1596: Sir Francis Drake died at sea off Panama.

1756: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg. He composed 20 operas, 17 masses, 41 symphonies, 27 string quartets and 21 piano concertos and still died a pauper in 1791, aged 35.

1778: Joseph Bramah patented the valved flush toilet.

1832: Lewis Carroll, childrens author, was born in Daresbury, near Warrington, as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

1859: Kaiser Wilhelm II, third German emperor and grandson of Queen Victoria, was born. He was forced to abdicate after World War I.

1879: ThomasEdison patented his electric lamp.

1885: Jerome Kern, US composer regarded as the father of the modern musical, was born in New York. His major work was Show Boat.

1901: Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer whose operas include Rigoletto, Traviata and Aida, died aged 87.

1926: John Logie Baird gave a public demonstration of television to members of the Royal Institution in London.

1944: The 900-day siege of Leningrad ended.

1951: Atomic bombs were tested in Nevada for the first time.

1967: Round-the-world yachtsman Francis Chichester was knighted by the Queen at Greenwich with a sword which once belonged to Sir Francis Drake.

1973: America signed a ceasefire to end its military action in Vietnam (above).

1992: Gennifer Flowers accused Arkansas governor Bill Clinton of being a liar after he denied having a 12-year affair with her.

2010: American novelist JD Salinger, author of The Catcher In The Rye, died aged 91.

There is no truth behind it. Unless journalists know something more than I do Actor James Norton (pictured) addresses speculation he will be the next James Bond

Suppose the world were only one of Gods jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one? Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw

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On this day: January 27 - Metro Newspaper UK