On this day: American Airlines Airbus crash 12 November 1603: Sir Walter Raleigh went on trial in Winchester for high treason. 1660: John Bunyan, author of A Pilgrim's Progress, was jailed for preaching without a licence. 1867: First political party conference held by Conservatives at Freemason's Tavern, Great Queen Street, London. 1869: Edinburgh University admitted women to the study of medicine, the first in Britain. 1902: Enrico Caruso, the Italian tenor, recorded On With The Motley. It became the first record to reach one million sales. 1912: The remains of Captain Robert Scott, EA Wilson and HR Bowers, who died on their journey from the South Pole, were discovered. 1918: The Republic of Austria was declared, thus ending the Habsburg dynasty. 1927: Leon Trotsky expelled from Communist Party in Russia, and Joseph Stalin became undisputed ruler. 1927: The first veteran car rally from London to Brighton took place, with 51 entries. 1927: The first automatic telephone service came into operation, in London. 1928: The New Oxford Theatre, the first cinema outside the US to show talking pictures, opened in Manchester. 1933: Nazis dominated German elections. 1937: Japanese troops occupied Chinese city of Shanghai. 1941: Soviet troops halted Germans at outskirts of Moscow. 1942: Tobruk fell to the Allies. 1951: Come Dancing was first transmitted on BBC television. 1956: An iceberg bigger than Belgium found in South Pacific. 1982: Yuri Andropov succeeded Brezhnev as Soviet leader. 1987: Van Gogh's Irises sold for a world record £30.2 million. 1990: Cullen report on Piper Alpha disaster (6 July, 1988) criticised Occidental oil company and Department of Energy over death of 167 workers. 1996: 350 people died when a Saudi Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Airlines Ilyushin 76 collided in mid-air over India. 1998: US vice-president Al Gore signed the Kyoto Protocol. 2001: In New York City, American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300 en route to the Dominican Republic, crashed minutes after take-off from JFK, killing all 260 on board and five on the ground. 2003: Shanghai Transrapid set a new world speed record (311 mph) for commercial railway systems. 2010: Holiday company Pontin's called in the administrators. Ryan Gosling, actor, 34; Nadia Comaneci, Olympic gold medallist gymnast, 53; Mariella Frostrup, television presenter, 52; Lucas Glover, golfer, 35; Tonya Harding, figure skater, 44; Anne Hathaway, actress, 32; Booker T Jones, soul musician, 70; Anne Nolan, of the singing Nolan Sisters, 64; Cote de Pablo, actress, 35; Carlton Cole, footballer, 31; Ashley Williams, actress, 36; Neil Young, rock/folk guitarist and songwriter, 69; Wim Kieft, dutch footballer, 52; Michael Moorer, world heavyweight boxing champion, 47; Jason Day, golfer, 27; Craig Parker, actor, 44; Charles Manson, murderer, 80; Hassan Rouhani, president of Iran, 66; Benni McCarthy, footballer, 37; Les McKeown, lead singer of Bay City Rollers, 59; Paul McNamee, tennis player, 60;Arthur "Pooch" Tavares, member of the singing Tavares Brothers, 71; Errol Brown, singer-songwriter (Hot Chocolate), 66; Brian Hyland, 1960s and "70s recording artist, 71. Births: 1790 Letitia Tyler, US first lady; 1833 Alexander Borodin, composer; 1840 Auguste Rodin, French sculptor; 1842 John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, Nobel prize-winning physicist who discovered argon; 1866 Sun Yat-Sen, founder of Chinese republic; 1886 Ben Travers CBE, playwright and novelist; 1889 DeWitt Wallace, magazine publisher who founded Readers Digest; 1912 Prebendary Chad Varah, founder of the Samaritans; 1917 Jo Stafford, singer; 1922 Kim Hunter, actress; 1924 Sam Jones, jazz musician;1928 Bob Holness, British radio and television presenter; 1929 Princess Grace of Monaco (Grace Kelly), film actress; 1936 Tobert White, Motown guitarist. Deaths: 1035 King Canute II (the Great); 1094 Duncan II, king of Scotland; 1854 Charles Kemble, actor; 1865 Elizabeth Gaskell, novelist; 1916 Percival Lowell, astronomer; 1947 Baroness Emma Orczy, playwright, novelist and artist (The Scarlet Pimpernel); 1948 Umberto Giordano, composer; 1981 William Holden, actor; 1982 Dorothy Round, British former World No 1 tennis player; 1985 Dicky Wells, jazz trombonist; 1989 Dolores Ibárruri, Republican leader of Spanish civil war; 1995, Sir Robert Stephens, actor; 2001 Tony Miles, chess grandmaster.