MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY

2006: NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter entered Mars orbit and began searching for signs of water on the planet. [Test your knowledge of Mars.]

1997: The cult television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered; created by Joss Whedon , the show centred on Buffy Summers, “an alternative feminist icon” who battles vampires, demons, and other assorted supernatural forces of evil. [Take our quiz about famous vampires.]

1969: James Earl Ray pled guilty to murdering American civil rightsleader Martin Luther King, Jr., and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. [Was Martin Luther King, Jr., a Republican or a Democrat?]

1903: American playwright and politician Clare Boothe Luce —who was noted for her satiric sense of humour, which she displayed in such oft-quoted aphorisms as “No good deed goes unpunished”—was born. [Test your knowledge of literary devices.]

1903: American jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, an outstanding improviser whose style is characterized by lyricism and purity of tone, was born in Davenport, Iowa. [Take our music quiz .]

1876: Alexander Graham Bell's “liquid” transmitter design permitted the first transmission of speech by Bell to his assistant, Thomas Watson. [ Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about inventions and inventors.]