1942 – World War II – German bombers hit Exeter, Bath and York in retaliation for the British raid on Lübeck.

1968 – The first decimal coins appeared in Britain – the 5p and 10p pieces which replaced the 1 shilling and 2 shilling coins.

1980 – The British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia was expelled from the country following the broadcast on British TV of the documentary ‘Death of a Princess’. It depicted the life and execution of a Saudi Arabian Princess found guilty of committing adultery.

1982 – The launch of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer. The entry level model had 16 kB RAM and an external tape recorder was needed to load the majority of software. It was ‘a computer for the masses’ and much cheaper than its rivals – the Commodore 64 and the BBC Microcomputer.

1983 – Canadian snooker player Cliff Thorburn completed the first televised maximum break of 147 during the World Snooker Championships at the Crucible Theatre, in Sheffield.

1990 – Charlie Wilson, the ‘silent man’ of the Great Train Robbery (8th August 1963), was shot dead at his home near Marbella, Spain.

2011 – The death of John Sullivan, the television scriptwriter responsible for several popular British sitcoms, including Only Fools and Horses, Citizen Smith and Just Good Friends.

2013 – Data from the UK Peace Index showed that rates of murder and violent crime had fallen more rapidly in the UK in the previous decade than anywhere else in Western Europe, with a fall in UK homicides per 100,000 people from 1.99 in 2003, to 1 in 2012.

2014 – Research by Leicester University found that people who migrate to the Mediterranean are unhappier than those who remain in northern European countries, including the UK. Reasons cited included not having a sense of belonging, struggling without family ties and a damage to social standing by perhaps living in a less economical country.

2021 – Judges quashed the convictions of 39 former sub-postmasters and mistresses who were convicted of stealing money, after the Post Office installed the Horizon computer system in branches. The clearing of the names of 39 people follows the overturning of six other convictions in December, meaning that more people were affected than in any other miscarriage of justice in the UK.