Golf Central

A strange day, to say the least, particularly on this day in 1929. At St Andrews, Joyce Wethered became only the second player in history to win The Ladies British Open Amateur Championship four times, while in Rome, Benito Mussolini joined the gallery to watch an exhibition match featuring Gene Sarazen and Johnny Farrell on the invitation of the American embassy. There is no anecdotal evidence that Mussolini was inspired to take up the game, although it does seem to have a certain appeal to authoritarian figures with fascist tendencies.

In the real world, the New York Stock Exchange was formed on this day in 1792, while Charlie Chaplin's corpse was found, after being stolen from near his home in Switzerland on this day in 1978. Two people were prosecuted for this peculiar kidnapping stunt after Swiss police monitored 200 pay phones, capturing the perpetrators who demanded a £400,000 ransom.

It's Penblwydd Hapus! as they say in Wales to scary Hollywood actor and golfer Dennis Hopper (72), elegant former world champ boxer Sugar Ray Leonard (52) and Jim Nantz (49), US sports commentator who has the onerous role of conducting proceedings in the Butler Cabin after the conclusion of The Masters.

It would also have been Vladimir Ylyich Lenin's 138th birthday had he not joined the great socialist republic in the sky in 1924.