1918 – Britain’s first police strike began at midnight, as 6000 policemen campaigned for better pay.

1923 – The birth of Richard Attenborough, English actor and director. He won two Academy Awards for Gandhi in 1982 and has also won four BAFTA Awards. As an actor he is perhaps best known for his roles in The Great Escape, 10 Rillington Place and Jurassic Park.

1930 – The last 36 remaining inhabitants of St Kilda (40 miles west-northwest of North Uist in the North Atlantic Ocean) were voluntarily evacuated to other parts of Scotland. The entire archipelago is owned by the National Trust for Scotland and it became one of Scotland’s five World Heritage Sites in 1986.

1947 – James Hunt, grand prix racing driver was born. He won the 1976 world championship and retired in 1979 only to die prematurely from a heart attack at the age of 45.

1966 – British group The Beatles gave their last live concert performance to a crowd of around 25,000 at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, USA.

1981 – Vandals slashed the picture of Diana, Princess of Wales hanging at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

1986 – Britain’s oldest twins, May and Marjorie Chavasse, both received telegrams from the Queen, to celebrate reaching their 100th birthday.

1997 – Britain’s Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam invited Sinn Féin, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), to all-party talks on Northern Ireland.

2011 – Private security firm G4S sacked two members of staff who tagged the false leg of 29 year old Rochdale offender Christopher Lowcock, allowing him to remove it and flout a court-imposed curfew for driving and drug offences, as well as possession of an offensive weapon.

2012 – The opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. It was one of the largest multi-sport events ever held in the United Kingdom after the 2012 Summer Olympics. The mascot was called Mandeville after Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury. In 1948, Stoke Mandeville Hospital organised the first Stoke Mandeville Games, considered to be the precursor to the Paralympics.

2013 – Lorry driver Ethen Roberts was jailed for five years and three months after admitting causing the deaths of two people when his lorry toppled on to their car on the M62 in West Yorkshire as he read a text message. Investigators found that Roberts had sent and received almost 100 messages to and from the same friend in the three days leading up to the crash, all when the lorry’s tachograph showed that the vehicle was being driven.

2020 – Caeden Thomson, aged 7, who was born 12 weeks early and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, climbed to the top of Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest mountain. His parents had previously been told that Caeden would never sit, walk or talk. Update : as at 12th October 2020 Caeden had raised £22,790 for the charity Scope. His target had been £8,000.