1901 – Queen Victoria died, aged 81 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. At the time, her reign was the longest in British history, spanning 63 years. 

1920 – The birth of Sir Alf Ramsey, football manager of England when they won the 1966 World Cup. He was knighted in 1967 in recognition of England’s World Cup win the previous year.

1924 – Stanley Baldwin resigned as British Prime Minister at the end of an unsuccessful election and the new Labour Party had their first Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald.

1927 – The first live radio commentary of a football match anywhere in the world, between Arsenal F.C. and Sheffield United, at Highbury.

1941 – World War II: British and Commonwealth troops captured Tobruk from Italian forces during Operation Compass.

1955 – Joe Davis recorded the first official maximum snooker break of 147 in an exhibition match at Leicester Square Hall

1959 – Mike Hawthorn, English race car driver and one-time F1 world champion died, aged 29, in a road accident on the A3 bypass near Guildford driving his British Racing Green Jaguar 3.4-litre car. What happened on that day is still unknown.

1962 – The ‘A6 Murder’ trial began, the longest murder trial in British legal history. James Hanratty was accused of murdering Michael Gregston at a lay-by near Bedford. The trial finally ended on 17th February 1962 with Hanratty sentenced to hang, despite his protests of innocence and disquiet amongst some observers of the trial.

1972 – The United Kingdom, the Irish Republic and Denmark joined the Common Market.

1992 – Rebecca Ridgway became the first woman to row around Cape Horn in a canoe. The expedition began on 8th January in Chile & the 200 mile expedition, through the Beagle Channel to Cape Horn Island, was directed by her father, ex -transatlantic rower John Ridgway.

2015 – Mothers invited to a Scottish Government-backed breastfeeding conference were left angry and bemused after being told that they would not be allowed to breastfeed their babies.

2015 – Survival expert Ray Mears, who was due to make at least £10,000 as a speaker at the Caravan, Camping and Motorhome Show was sacked after he chose caravans as one of his pet hates on the TV show ‘Room 101’.

2017 – Peter Maddox’s bright yellow Corsa car was targeted in the Cotswold village of Bibury by vandals who broke the rear window and scratched ‘move’ on the paintwork. In 2015 people had started to complain on social media that the car was constantly ‘photobombing’ their photographs of the quintessentially English cottages on Arlington Row, Bibury. The cottages appear inside millions of UK passports. In April 2017 a convoy of 100 yellow cars drove through Bibury in an act of solidarity.

2020 – China locks down the city of Wuhan and its 11 million people, in an effort to control COVID-19.