1919 – More than 200 men, returning home after the end of World War One, died when the naval yacht HMY Iolaire hit a reef in bad weather close to Stornoway harbour and sank just yards from the Lewis coastline.

1944 – The death of Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, English architect. After World War I Lutyens became architect to the Imperial War Graves Commission. His work included the Cenotaphs in London, Manchester and Rochdale.

1951 – The first episode of the BBC’s radio serial The Archers – farming folk of Ambridge. It is the world’s longest running radio ‘soap’. By 18th December 2011 it had reached 16,600 episodes.

1962 – The Beatles had an audition for Decca Records, who turned them down and signed Brian Poole and the Tremeloes instead.

1964 – Jimmy Savile presented the very first Top of the Pops, the longest running music show in the world. He also co-hosted the last, on 30th July 2006. After Savile’s death in October 2012, numerous allegations were made that he had sexually abused hundreds of young people, dating back to 1958. Police also confirmed that Savile had been questioned over allegations of child sex abuse in 2007. His gravestone at Scarborough was removed at the request of Savile’s family and plaques and statues of him in other locations were removed to prevent further defacement.

1965 – Stanley Matthews was knighted, the first professional footballer to receive this honour.

1973 – The UK became a fully-fledged member of the European Economic Community.

1985 – Michael Harrison, the son of former Vodafone chairman Sir Ernest Harrison, made the first ever mobile phone call in Britain. He called his father from London’s Parliament Square on the newly-launched Vodafone network using an 11lb (5kg) Transportable Vodafone VT1, which boasted around 30 minutes of talk time. A few days later, a crowd gathered at St Katherine’s Dock in London to watch comedian Ernie Wise make the first public mobile phone call using the same device. All were far from portable and cost around £2,000 – equivalent to roughly £5,000 today.

1995 – Fred West, the 53 year old Gloucestershire builder charged with 12 murders, was found dead in his prison cell.

2002 – Twelve of the European Union’s 15 countries adopt the Euro as their currency. On the same day, Eric Clapton marries Melia McEnery the mother of his baby daughter, in Surrey.

2013 – Phil Taylor claims his 16th and last PDC World Darts Championship title with a 7–4 victory over Dutchman Michael van Gerwen. On the same day, singer Patti Page (Clara Fowler) dies aged 84.

2014 – Right wing newspapers gathered at airports to interrogate an expected influx of millions of unemployed Romanians and Bulgarians after transitional controls were lifted. They were greeted by two new entrants, both of whom already had jobs.