1920 – The unveiling of the Cenotaph War memorial in Whitehall, London to commemorate the war dead. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and takes its name from the Greek words kenos and taphos meaning empty tomb.

1923 – Under the Matrimonial Causes Bill, British women were given equal divorce rights with men.

1934 – The official opening, by King George V, of the first Mersey Road Tunnel in Liverpool.

1950 – Richard Branson, British entrepreneur, was born. According to the Forbes 2011 list of billionaires, Branson is the 4th richest citizen of the United Kingdom.

1957 – The birth of Sir Nicholas Alexander Faldo (Nick Faldo), professional golfer who has won three Open Championships and three Masters. He was ranked the World’s No. 1 on the Official World Golf Ranking for a total of 98 weeks.

1970 – Radio 1 DJ Kenny Everett was sacked after he joked on air that the wife of the conservative transport minister Mary Peyton had ‘crammed a fiver into the examiner’s hand’, when taking her driving test.

1975 – Former British MP John Stonehouse was flown back from Australia to face charges relating to his attempt to falsify his own death.

1992 – John Smith was elected leader of the Labour party, with Margaret Beckett as his deputy.

2000 – Police confirmed that the body they had found in a West Sussex field the previous day was that of missing eight-year old Sarah Payne. Her murderer, Roy Whiting, was convicted in December 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment.

2003 – The body of government scientist Dr. David Kelly was found in woodland, in Oxfordshire. Dr. Kelly had been at the centre of a row between the British Government and the BBC about the use of intelligence reports in the run up to the war against Iraq.

2009 – Henry Allingham, the world’s oldest man and one of the last surviving World War I servicemen, died, aged 113.

2017 – Singer R Kelly denies allegations that he is holding several young women in an “abusive cult”.

2018 – Google is fined a record $5.1 billion by the EU for abusing its power in the mobile phone market.

2019 – One of world’s earliest mosques at 1,200 years old is discovered by archaeologists in Israel’s Negev Desert.