1852 – London’s famous children’s hospital in Great Ormond Street accepted its first patient, three year-old Eliza Armstrong. It was the first hospital in the English speaking world providing in-patient beds specifically for children. 

1922 – Marconi began regular broadcasting transmissions from Essex.

1945 – World War II: Prague was bombed, probably due to a mistake in the orientation of the pilots bombing Dresden.

1946 – The Bank of England was nationalized by the Atlee government.

1963 – British politician Harold Wilson was elected leader of the Labour Party following the death of former leader Hugh Gaitskell.

1975 – The death of the writer, Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, generally known as P.G. Wodehouse. His career lasted more than 70 years and included novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He wrote 15 plays and 250 lyrics for some 30 musical comedies, but is perhaps best remembered for his stories of the butler Jeeves and his master Bertie Wooster.

1984 – British ice skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won the ice dance gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, gaining maximum points for artistic expression.

1989 – The spiritual leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, condemned Salman Rushdie’s award-winning novel, The Satanic Verses, as an insult to Islam and issued a fatwa (edict) calling on Muslims to kill the author for committing blasphemy. Rushdie and his family went into hiding.

1995 – Sizewell B nuclear processing plant in Suffolk, first synchronised with the national grid. It was the UK’s only commercial pressurised water reactor (PWR) power station, with a single reactor.

1997 – Jurors at the inquest into the death of Stephen Lawrence decide the teenager was unlawfully killed “in a completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths”.

2003 – Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, was put down after being diagnosed with a severe lung infection.

2006 – Chip and PIN was introduced. UK cardholders had to use their PIN (Personal Identification Number) to be sure that they could pay for goods.

2014 – The death (aged 91) of former Preston and England footballer Sir Tom Finney. Finney scored 210 goals in 473 league appearances for Preston North End between 1946 and 1960 and won 76 caps for England. He twice won the footballer of the year title, in 1953-54 and 1956-57.