It happened today – this day in history – September 30

1399: Richard II abdicates.

1791: Mozart’s “Magic Flute” premiers in Vienna.

1846: Anesthetic ether used for first time by American dentist Dr William Morton who extracts a tooth.

1888 Jack the Ripper murders Liz Stride and Kate Eddowes in Whitechapel.

1936: Pinewood Studios opens in Bucks.

1938: The Treaty of Munich, signed by Chamberlain, Mussolini, Hitler and Deladier forces Czechoslovakia to give territory to Germany.

1946: Hermann Goering and Joachim von Ribbentrop are sentenced at the Nazi war trials in Nuremberg.

1955: Film star James Dean is killed in a car crash.

1960: The Flintstones premiers on US television

1966: Botswana gains independence from Britain.

1967: Radio 1 begins broadcasting on the BBC with Tony Blackburn playing Flowers In The Rain by The Move.

1971: Ian Paisley and Desmond Boal launch the Democratic Unionist Party in Norther Ireland.

1975: Schoolboy Michael Fenerty from Philadelphia who skipped class to meet his musical hero handed his teacher an absence note with a difference. The typewritten note was signed by Bruce Springsteen.

2012 and 2018: Europe retains the Ryder Cup.

BIRTHDAYS: Ian Ogilvy, actor, 76; Rula Lenska, actress, 72; Frank Rijkaard, former footballer, 57; Monica Bellucci, actress, 55; Marion Cotillard, actress, 44; Martina Hingis, former tennis player, 39; Ola Jordan, dancer, 37; Olivier Giroud, footballer, 33; Ezra Miller, actor, 27; Max Verstappen, Formula 1 driver, 22.