1997 - Comet Hale-Bopp made its closest approach to Earth in the skies over the northern hemisphere. The comet’s next pass is predicted for the year 4397.

1990 - A demonstration in London against the poll tax became a riot. More than 400 people were arrested.

1999 - British balloonist Brian Jones and Swiss physicist Bertrand Piccard became the first to fly a hot-air balloon non-stop around the world.

1969 - The 385-metre-tall (1,263 ft) TV-mast at Emley Moor transmitting station, United Kingdom, collapses due to ice build-up.

1960 - The naming ceremony of the steam locomotive Evening Star, at the Swindon Works, where the locomotive was built.

2015 - The UK's first Bio-Bus, nicknamed 'the poo bus' was officially launched in Bristol as "Service Number 2". Powered entirely on gas generated by human and food waste, it went into regular service on 25th March.

1689 - The 23rd Regiment of Foot (later known as the Royal Welch Fusiliers) was founded to oppose James II and the imminent war with France.

1909 - Selfridges store (named after its owner Harry Gordon Selfridge) was opened in London's Oxford Street. In September 1997 they opened their first store outside London when the Trafford Centre (Manchester) opened.

1945 - The 617 Dambuster Squadron of the RAF dropped the heaviest bomb of the war (the 22,000-pound "Grand Slam") on the Bielefeld railway viaduct in Germany.