1955 - The popular board game Scrabble went on sale in the UK. Originally called Criss Cross in 1931, it was redesigned, renamed as Scrabble, and marketed in the US by James Brunot in 1948.

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 Los Angeles. 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.

2012 - The Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia runs aground at Isola de Giglio, killing 32. The eight-year-old vessel was on the first leg of a cruise around the Mediterranean Sea when she deviated from her planned route and struck a rock formation on the sea floor.

2001 - Sven Goran Eriksson becomes the first non-British manager to be appointed coach of the England national football team. Eriksson had initially agreed to take over after the expiration of his contract in June 2001, but decided to resign his post early at Lazio.

1980 - Nigel Short, age 14, from Bolton, Lancashire, became the youngest International Master in the history of chess. Short earned the title of grandmaster at the age of 19 and was ranked third in the world by FIDE from July 1988 to July 1989.