1936 – The birth of Tommy Steele, English singer and actor. Most of Steele’s 1950s recordings were covers of American hits, such as ‘Singing the Blues’ and ‘Knee Deep in the Blues’. 

1954 – The British Petroleum Company (BP) was formed.

1967 – Alec Rose, aboard Lively Lady, completed his solo 14,500 mile sail from Britain to Australia, having been at sea for 155 days. He returned successfully to Portsmouth on 4th July 1968 and was knighted the next day by the Queen.

1968 – An 11-year-old girl (Mary Bell) was sentenced to life in detention after being found guilty at Newcastle Assizes of the manslaughter of two small boys. It was said that she strangled the boys, aged four and three, ‘solely for the pleasure and excitement of killing’.

1976 – Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates rejected Opec’s recommended 15% oil price increase and chose to impose a lower price rise of 5%.

1983 – Three police officers and three members of the public were killed and many others injured after a car bomb attack in London. Police believe the IRA planted the bomb in a side street near Harrods department store in Knightsbridge.

1986 – Mrs Davina Thompson, in an operation performed at a Cambridge hospital, became the world’s first heart, lungs and liver transplant patient .

2003 – Former school caretaker Ian Huntley was convicted of the murders of 10 year olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. The judge said that the killings did not meet the criteria for a ‘whole-life tariff’, but that the 40-year term offered ‘little or no hope’ of his release.

2004 – The opening of ‘The Sage – Gateshead’, a concert venue and centre for musical education, located on the south bank of the River Tyne.

2011 – The Grand Theatre in Wolverhampton brought in children to play the seven dwarfs in its pantomime production of Snow White, apparently because dwarf actors were seen as too expensive. But in a statement, the producer said: ‘This was a response to audience discomfort with what was considered by some to be exploitative casting.’

2013 – Alex Salmond’s ‘Team Scotland’ delegation to the Ryder Cup in Chicago spent spent almost half a million pounds during their short stay, according to official figures obtained by The Telegraph.

2014 – The Rev Libby Lane, a parish priest from Crewe, was chosen to be the Church of England’s first female bishop. Her appointment brought to an end 22 years of resistance to the promotion of female priests.

2014 – Dominique Harrison-Bentzen (22) slept rough on the streets of Preston, Lancashire, to raise money for homeless man Robbie after he had offered her his last £3 for a taxi home when she lost her bank card. Dominique raised more than £21,000 to help him after she put posts on Facebook and Twitter, asking people to help raise money to give Robbie a home.

2018 – On This Day, all tolls ceased on the Severn Bridges. The first bridge crossing opened in 1966 with tolls charged in both directions. The arrangements were changed in the early 1990s and the toll was collected on the English side and only for vehicles travelling westwards from England to Wales. People have had to pay to cross the Severn Estuary, with its treacherous tides, since Roman times, be it in a car, in a train or on a ferry.