1914 - The new, and at that time the largest Cunard ocean liner, RMS Aquitania weighing 45,647 tons, set sails on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York City.

1954 - Diane Leather, of Birmingham University, became the first woman to run a mile in under 5 minutes. Her time was 4 min 59.6 seconds.

1951 - BBC radio broadcast the first edition of The Goon Show, starring Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe.

1852 - The opening of Grimsby Royal Dock. Grimsby once had the largest fishing fleet in the world. Albert, Prince Consort laid the first stone on 17th April 1849.

1897 - Dracula, a novel by Irish author Bram Stoker was published. The town of Whitby in North Yorkshire, has associations with Bram Stoker as he based much of his Dracula novel here whilst staying in Whitby in 1890.

1967 - Glasgow Celtic became the first British football club to win the European Cup beating Inter Milan 2-1 in Lisbon.

1891 - Princess Alexandrina Victoria was born at Kensington Palace in London, the only daughter of the Duke of Kent. As Queen Victoria, she reigned for 63 years, from 1837 until her death in 1901.

1931 - The official opening of Whipsnade Zoo near Dunstable, in Bedfordshire. Animals began arriving at Whipsnade in 1928, with pheasants, llama, wombats and skunks among the first to arrive. When Whipsnade Park Zoo opened, it was an immediate success and welcomed tens of thousands of excited visitors in its opening week.

1981 - Peter Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper, was sentenced to life imprisonment after the judge described him as 'an unusually dangerous man'. He was found guilty of killing 13 women and the attempted murder of 7 others.