It happened today – this day in history – October 22

1383: Civil war breaks out in Portugal after King Fernando dies without a male heir.

1721: Tsar Peter The Great becomes All Russian Imperator.

1811: Birth of composer Franz Liszt in Hungary.

1836: Sam Houston inaugurated as the first elected President of the Republic of Texas.

1879: Thomas Edison perfects the carbonised cotton filament light bulb.

1897: The world’s first car dealer opens in London.

1906: Death of artist Paul Cezanne from pneumonia aged 67.

1910: Dr Hawley Crippen is convicted at the Old Bailey of poisoning his wife.

1934: Bank robber Charles ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd is shot dead by FBI agents in Ohio.

1938: Chester Carlson demonstrates the first Xerox copying machine.

1953: Laos gains full independence from France.

1962: President John F Kennedy imposes a naval blockade on Cuba. It is the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

1964: Author Jean-Paul Sartre refuses the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1969: Paul McCartney publicly denies rumours that he is dead.

1973: Death of cellist Pablo Casals aged 94.

1986: Jane Dornacker is killed in a helicopter crash during a live traffic report for WNBC radio in New York.

1989: Death of singer songwriter Ewan MaColl aged 74.

1992: Blazing Saddles actor Cleavon Little dies of colon cancer aged 53.

1995: Death of author Kingsley Amis after a fall, aged 73.

2000: George Michael pays £1.45million for the Steinway piano John Lennon used to write the song Imagine.

BIRTHDAYS: Christopher Lloyd, actor, 81; Sir Derek Jacobi, actor, 81; Catherine Deneuve, actress, 76; Leslie West, guitarist (Mountain) 74; Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun, 73; Arsene Wenger, football manager, 70; Jeff Goldblum, actor, 67; Shaggy (Orville Burrell), singer, 51; Spike Jonze, (Adam Spiegel) director, 50; Saffron Burrows, actress, 47; Michael Fishman, actor, 38; Plan B (Ben Drew) actor/musician 36; Jonathan Lipnicki, actor, 29.