1980 Steve McQueen, aged 50 – Actor (The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, Papillon, Towering Inferno, The Sand Pebbles, Love with the Proper Stranger, Hell is for Heroes, Bullitt, The Hunter, Le Mans) He died from lung cancer, in Juárez, Mexico

I always enjoyed his films even though I wasn't a big fan, but I was really saddened by his death. He put up with such a huge struggle to rid himself of the cancer that ended his life.

1874 The Republican Party was symbolised as an elephant in a cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly magazine

I wonder who came up with the donkey for the Dems.