1901 - Queen Victoria died after being diagnosed with 'cerebral exhaustion', aged 81 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. At the time, her reign was the longest in British history, spanning 63 years.

1990 - John McEnroe becomes the first player ever to be expelled from the Australian Open tennis event.

1982 - While playing a concert in Des Moines, Iowa, Ozzy Osbourne bites the head off a bat thrown on stage thinking it’s a rubber toy. While playing a concert in Des Moines, Iowa, Ozzy Osbourne bites the head off a bat thrown on stage thinking it’s a rubber toy. After the show he was rushed to hospital for rabies shots.

1954 - Originally called Criss Cross, the game, which was based on the crossword puzzle and anagrams, was developed by Alfred M. Butts, an architect, in 1931. It was redesigned, renamed as Scrabble, and marketed by James Brunot in 1948. It was first sold in Great Britain in 1954.

1888 - Birth of Sir Thomas Sopwith, British aviation pioneer. It was a Sopwith Camel that shot down Von Richthofen, the Red Baron. On Sopwith’s 100th birthday, a Sopwith Pup built after World War I, led a fly-past over his home in Hampshire.

1994 – An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale devastates LA. The earthquake was felt as far south as San Diego 200km away and as far north as Las Vegas, 440km to the north east.

1979 - The natural history series “Life on Earth,” presented by David Attenborough, aired on BBC One in the UK for the first time.

2009 - Pilot Chesley Sullenberger lands US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River shortly after take-off from LaGuardia Airport in New York. All passengers and crew members survive.

1943 - World War II: Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt met in Casablanca, Morocco, to discuss their strategy for the next phase of the war.