The recent disaster in south-east Asia is probably the worst in living memory, but the first disaster to have a truly global impact occurred in 1883 when the island of Krakatoa erupted, five miles west of Java. The island was destroyed and nearly 40,000 people were killed. The impact was so great that seismographs in Washington, USA, went haywire, London witnessed stunning sunsets and ships sailing in the Red Sea were covered in ash. Also, the recent completion of global telegraphy meant that, for the first time, news of such an event could be relayed to the other side of the world within a few hours.

FIRST RUMBLINGS: 26th August 1883; 6S06 105E25; 13:06 LMT (06:05 GMT)

FINAL EXPLOSION: 27th August 1883; 6S06 105E25; 10:02 LMT (03:01 GMT)

Source: Krakatoa by Simon Winchester (Penguin/Viking 2003), pp.210-11, "The death throes of Krakatoa lasted for exactly twenty hours and fifty-six minutes, culminating in the gigantic explosion that all observers now agree happened at two minutes past ten on the Monday morning, 27 August 1883... The countdown to the final hours of the mountain's existence properly began at six minutes past one in the afternoon of the previous day..."

This year sees the 400th aniversary of the birth of one of the world's great storytellers Hans Christian Andersen. He was the son of a shoemaker and a washerwoman. He always had a talent for writing and at fourteen went to Copenhagen to seek a job in the theatre. He failed, but by the late 1820s he had established his reputation as a writer and attracted the attention of influential patrons of the arts, including the King of Denmark who gave Andersen a travelling pension in 1833 to enable him to travel around Europe, writing poetry, novels and plays. In 1835 he bagan publishing his fairy tales, his greatest work, writing more than 150 of them; amongst the best known are "The Tin Soldier", "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Tinderbox", "The Little Mermaid" and "The Ugly Duckling". He died 4th August 1875.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN: 2 April 1805; Odense, Denmark (55N24 10E23); 01:00 LMT (00:18 GMT). Luc le Marre from birth certificate.

And finally, did you know that William Shakespeare and Miguel Cervantes, the creator of Don Quixote, both died on the same day, 23rd April 1616? There was I, thinking I had come across a veritable nugget of trivia, but I was wrong. It is true they died on the same date, but not on the same day. How come? Well, by 1616, Spain had been using the Gregorian (or New Style) Calendar for more than thirty years, but England was still using the Julian (or Old Style) Calendar, which was ten days behind the Gregorian. So when it was 23 April 1616 (allegedly Shakespeare's 52nd birthday) in England, it was 3 May 1616 in Spain. Cervantes died ten days before Shakespeare.