1930 – Frank Whittle submitted his first patent for a jet engine ( British Patent No. 347,206 – granted in 1932). He had his first engine running by April 1937. 

1939 – The Irish Republican Army (IRA) begins its bombing and sabotage campaign in England.

1945 – Adolf Hitler moved into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker. It was located beneath Hitler’s New Reich Chancellery in Berlin and was the last of the Führer Headquarters to be used by Hitler. It became the epicentre of the Nazi regime and it was here during the last week of April 1945 that Hitler married Eva Braun shortly before they committed suicide.

1950 – Listen With Mother began on radio with the words “Hello children. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin”. When the series ended in 1982 there was a national outcry

1957 – The Cavern Club opened in Liverpool. It provided a showcase for many young rock ‘n’ roll musicians, among them the Beatles.

1979 – The natural history series “Life on Earth,” presented by David Attenborough, aired on BBC One in the UK for the first time.

1981 – The Northern Ireland civil rights campaigner and former Westminster MP, Bernadette McAliskey, and her husband, were shot by gunmen at their home in County Tyrone.

1982 – Britain and the Vatican resumed full diplomatic relations after a break of exactly 447 years.

1991 – Operation ‘Desert Storm’ began against Iraq, for its invasion of Kuwait.

2001 – Mitchell Quy, a former casino croupier from Southport, who made television appeals for his ‘missing’ wife Lynsey to get in touch admitted killing her, cutting up her body with DIY tools and then dumping her dismembered body on waste ground. She was missing for 18 months before police discovered her torso in a shallow grave near a roller-coaster at the seaside resort. Her arms and legs were found a day later, dumped in bushes next to a railway line but her head and hands were never located.

2004 – Michael Jackson appears in court and pleads not guilty to seven charges of child molestation.

2009 – Boy George is sentenced to 15 months in prison after being convicted of falsely imprisoning a male escort.

2015 – US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that 2014 had been the hottest globally since records began in 1880.

2015 – Nursery and Son, who had been manufacturing sheepskin coats for 169 years, including sheepskin coats for David Jason (‘Del Boy’) in TV’s Only Fools and Horses, closed its doors for the last time.

2019 – Prime Minister Theresa May wins a vote of no confidence in her government by 325 votes to 306. On the same day, Cairo is engulfed by a huge sandstorm.

2020 – The impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump begins in the Senate.