A look back at events in history on December 3 with Mike Badham.

1533: Ivan the Terrible was crowned Prince of Russia at the age of three. His father Vassily was sick with gangrene in the leg, and moved to secure the throne for his son.

1745: John Toler was born. Although he knew little law, he became chief justice of Ireland, and was famed for sleeping through trials and then passing the death sentence.

1753: Samuel Crompton was born. He worked in the textile industry and played the violin in a Bolton theatre. He devised a cross between the machines of Hargreaves and Arkwright, and called it the Mule. He made little cash from his invention, for he couldn't afford a patent, so others profited more from his work. 1795: Rowland Hill was born. Famed as the bloke who invented the adhesive postage stamp, it is rumoured that he actually pinched the idea from James Chalmers, a Scottish bookseller who had written to him with the idea.

1803: Cat-loving parson Robert Hawker was born in Devon. He was so fond of churches that he had all five chimneys on his house built as replicas of church spires.

1823: Belzoni the Great died. He was a strong man - real name Giovanni Batista - who could hold aloft a frame carrying ten men.

1940: The Government announced an extra Christmas ration of 4oz sugar, 2oz tea.

1967: South African Dr Christian Barnard carried out the first heart transplant at Groote Schuur hospital. His patient was Louis Washkanski (54), a grocer. He died three weeks later from an infection. The heart was OK.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.