1923 – Howard Carter, having discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun 12 months previously, lifted the lid off the sarcophagus to reveal a golden effigy of the young king. 

1927 – The birth of actress June Muriel Brown, MBE. She is best known for her role as the busy-body, chain-smoking gossip Dot Cotton in the long-running British soap opera EastEnders.

1940 – World War II: In a daring night raid, known as the Altmark incident, a boarding party from HMS Cossack successfully rescued 299 British prisoners of war from the Altmark, a 12,000 ton German tanker, in Norwegian waters. The Altmark was returning to Germany with the merchant sailors who had been picked up from ships sunk by the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee.

1946 – The birth of actor Ian Lavender. His best remembered role was as Private Frank Pike, the youngest member and ‘stupid boy’ of the platoon in the BBC sitcom Dad’s Army. Lavender has a ‘cameo role’ in the 2016 film adaptation of the series and the actor Frank William takes the role of the Reverend Timothy Farthing. The Dad’s Army went on general release in cinemas on 5th February 2016.

1950 – The birth of Peter Hain Labour Party politician. He served in the Cabinets of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, firstly as Leader of the House of Commons under Blair and as both Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Secretary of State for Wales under Brown.

1957 – Death of the politician Leslie Hore-Belisha, minister of Transport who introduced the driving test, the Highway Code and the Belisha beacon used at zebra crossings.

1965 – A 2nd report from British Railways’ Board chairman Dr. Richard Beeching outlined transport needs for the following 25 years. The report followed his 1st controversial review of the state of the railways, published in 1963 in which he said the system was uneconomic and under-used, and recommended that a quarter of the railway system should be shut down.

1972 – Many homes and businesses were without electricity for up to nine hours a day from this day. Miners, into the sixth week of their strike over pay, picketed power stations and all other sources of fuel supply in an attempt to step up pressure on the Government.

1985 – Ministry of Defence assistant secretary Clive Ponting resigned from his post. He was charged with leaking two documents about the sinking of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano in the 1982 Falklands War.

1989 – Dr. Raymond Crockett, a Harley Street nephrologist, resigned as the director of the National Kidney Centre after revelations that kidneys had been purchased from impoverished Turks to be used in transplants for wealthy patients.

1990 – Wives of Royal Navy seamen protested over a decision to allow WRENs (women sailors) to go to sea.

2002 – Thieves break into George Michael’s London home and steal over £100,000 worth of paintings, jewellery and designer clothes, causing £200,000 worth of damage and driving off in his £80,000 Aston Martin DB7.

2005 – The Kyoto Protocol that aimed to slow down global warming took effect, but the US and Australia refused to support it.