2008 - Chris Hoy encapsulates British dominance of track cycling at the Beijing Olympics beating teammate Jason Kenny to win the sprint, adding to his keirin and team sprint gold medals.

1932 - Scottish aviator, Jim Mollison made the first westbound solo transatlantic flight in a light aircraft when he arrived in New Brunswick, Canada after leaving Portmarnock in Ireland 30 hours earlier.

1979 - “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” directed by Terry Jones, starring Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, & John Cleese, premieres in the US (8th November 1979 in the UK). “Wait till Biggus Dickus hears of this!”

2004 - Flash floods devastated the north Cornwall coastal village of Boscastle after the area’s average August rainfall fell in just two hours.

1941 - Corporal Josef Jakobs was executed by firing squad at the Tower of London at 7:12 a.m. making him the last person to be executed at the Tower for treason.

1971 - Kevin Keegan makes his League debut for Liverpool at Anfield, scoring after 12 minutes against Nottingham Forest. Keegan began his playing career at Scunthorpe United in 1968, before Bill Shankly signed him for Liverpool.

1910 - The death of Florence Nightingale, English nurse who came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers.

1964 - A massive manhunt got under way across Britain after Charlie Wilson, one of the gang involved in the Great Train Robbery, broke out of the high-security Winson Green prison in Birmingham.

2016 - Scientists discovered the oldest living Greenland Shark, with an estimated age of 392 years old. The international team of scientists declared the shark the longest-living vertebrate in the world.