i) births and deaths

14 April 1935: birth of the late great Terrance Dicks, who began in 1968 as script editor for the last four Second Doctor stories, remained as script editor throughout the Pertwee, wrote or co-wrote six TV stories for five Doctors, and most crucially wrote 82 novelisations and spinoff novels, a total which is unlikely ever to be surpassed (Justin Richards is on less than half of that number)

14 April 1956: birth of Peter Capaldi, who played Caecilius in The Fires of Pompeii (Tenth Doctor, 2008), Frobisher in Torchwood: Children of Earth (2009) and most of all the Twelfth Doctor (2013-2016)

14 April 2020: death of Pip Baker, as a result of COVID-19. He and his wife Jane wrote The Mark of the Rani (Sixth Doctor, 1985), Terror of the Vervoids (Sixth Doctor, 1986), the second part of The Ultimate Foe (Sixth Doctor, 1986) and Time and the Rani (Seventh Doctor, 1987).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

14 April 1973: broadcast of second episode of Planet of the Daleks. The Daleks capture the Doctor; Jo links up with Wester the Spiridon; a second Thal ship lands.

14 April 2007: broadcast of Gridlock. The Doctor returns with Martha to New New York, where everyone is locked in a perpetual traffic jam, unwittingly serving the Macra.