1948 – Champion English golfer Henry Cotton won the British Open Golf Championship for the third time.

1973 – The birth, in Bolton, of comedian Peter Kay. He has sold over ten million DVDs, more than any other comedian.

1985 – The ordination of women as deacons was approved by the General Synod

1987 – Moors murderer Ian Brady offered to assist police searches of Saddleworth Moor for the first time since his conviction.

1996 – Weather experts predicted that global warming would have the effect of moving Britain 100 miles south in the next 25 years, bringing summer droughts and winter rainstorms.

1997 – Six IRA terrorists who plotted to blow up electricity supply stations in the Home Counties were each jailed for 35 years.

1999 – The Scottish Parliament was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on the day that legislative powers were officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the newly devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh.

2001 – Barry George was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of television presenter Jill Dando. He was released in 2008 after doubt was cast on the reliability of gunshot residue evidence.

2005 – The world’s biggest music stars united in Live8 concerts around the globe to press political leaders to tackle poverty in Africa.

2012 – Meteorological Office figures showed that June 2012 had been the wettest since records began in 1910, with double the average amount of rain in the UK. It was also the dullest June on record and the coolest since 1991, with average temperatures of 12.3 degrees C.

2013 – HM Revenue and Customs was urged to show “more urgency” in how it dealt with VAT fraud and tax losses arising out of online trading, after a National Audit Office report found that £32bn of tax was uncollected in 2010, including an estimated £9.6bn in VAT.

2014 – Researchers from Cambridge and Warwick universities, who had been studying the spread of bovine TB over the past 15 years found that infected cows brought to a farm were the most likely cause of the disease. They said that 10 per cent of farms were acting as ‘super-spreaders’ and that badgers were not to blame for most cases of tuberculosis in cattle.

2018 – British divers, John Volanthen, (an IT consultant based in Bristol) and Rick Stanton, (a former Midlands fire fighter), discovered 12 young Thai footballers and their coach, after nine days trapped in caves in northern Thailand. More than 1,000 people were involved in the global operation. All 13 were rescued after 17 days underground. It was the most challenging underground rescue in history.