1916 – The Battle of Somme began. The British Empire and France went to war against the German Empire during World War I. The battle lasted until November 18, 1916 and up to 1.3 million people died. 

1963 – The British Government admitted that the former diplomat Kim Philby, a high-ranking member of British intelligence had worked as a double agent before defecting to the Soviet Union.

1967 – Colour television came to Europe with a seven hour transmission on BBC 2 from the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships.

1969 – Prince Charles was invested Prince of Wales by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, at Caernarfon Castle in north Wales.

1977 – British tennis player Virginia Wade won the Women’s Singles Championship at Wimbledon in its Centenary Year and during Queen Elizabeth II’s Jubilee year.

1996 – In addition to a practical exam, learner drivers in Britain had to pass a written exam for the first time.

1998 – The first meeting of the historic Northern Ireland Assembly in Belfast, following the signing of the Good Friday Peace Agreement.

2005 – The final unveiling of Anthony Gormley’s’ Another Place’ on Crosby Beach near Liverpool, where 100 cast iron figures face out to sea.

2006 – The death of Freddie Trueman OBE, Yorkshire and English cricketer, generally acknowledged as one of the greatest fast bowlers in history. Yorkshire born Prime Minister Harold Wilson once described Trueman as the ‘greatest living Yorkshireman’.

2007 – A smoking ban came into force in England, making it illegal for anyone to smoke in an enclosed public place and within the workplace.

2009 – Sir Cliff Richard is ordered by the local council to demolish a £30,000 conservatory at his home in Surrey as it contravenes planning rules. On the same day, actor Karl Malden dies aged 97 and actress Mollie Sugden dies aged 86.

2014 – Tracey Emin’s modern artwork ‘My Bed’ was sold at auction by Christie’s in London for £2.2m. The work features an unmade bed surrounded by a floor littered by empty vodka bottles, cigarette butts and condoms. It was put up for sale by the art collector Charles Saatchi with a guide price of between £800,000 and £1.2m.

2015 – The death (aged 106) of Sir Nicholas George Winton MBE. He was a British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia during the 9 months before war broke out in 1939. The operation was later known as the Czech Kindertransport.