1786 – The satirical book “Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect” by Robert Burns was published. 

1956 – Yorkshire born cricketer Jim Laker (who played for Surrey) became the first man to take all 10 wickets in a Test match innings as he returned figures of 10 wickets for 53 runs against Australia’s in the second innings at Old Trafford, Manchester. His match figures for the two innings gave him an incredible 19 wickets for a mere 90 Australian runs.

1959 – Cliff Richard had his first British No.1 with ‘Living Doll’.

1968 – The first episode (entitled The Man and the Hour) of Dad’s Army, a British comedy about the Home Guard in the Second World War. The TV series regularly gained audiences of 18 million viewers during the 1970s and is still repeated today.

1969 – The pre-decimal half penny ceased being legal tender. It had been a regular feature of British coinage since the 13th century.

1970 – Black Tot Day occurred On This Day. It was the last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy that dated back to 1665. It was poured as usual at 6 bells in the forenoon watch (11am) after the pipe of ‘up spirits’. Some sailors wore black armbands, tots were ‘buried at sea’ and in one navy training camp there was a mock funeral procession complete with black coffin and accompanying drummers and piper.

1972 – The British Army use 12,000 soldiers supported by tanks and bulldozers to re-take the no-go areas controlled by the Provisional IRA. On the same day, nine civilians are killed when three car bombs explode in Claudy, Co Londonderry.

1973 – Militant Protestants, led by Rev Ian Paisley, disrupted the first sitting of the new Northern Ireland Assembly in Belfast.

1990 – In the England v India Test Match at Lords, a total of 1603 runs were scored, in exactly 1603 minutes.

1992 – The death of Leonard Cheshire, the British pilot and philanthropist who created the Leonard Cheshire Disability charity.

1998 – The British Government announced a total ban on landmines, a month before the first anniversary of the death of Princess Diana.

1999 – NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector into the Moon, ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon’s surface.

2009 – The death (aged 76) of Sir Robert William “Bobby” Robson CBE, English footballer and football manager. He was manager of Newcastle from September 1999 to 30th August 2004.

2012 – The Queen’s granddaughter, Zara Phillips wins a silver medal as part of the GB Olympic Equestrian team and Michael Phelps becomes the greatest medal winner in Olympic history as part of the winning American 4 x 200m freestyle relay team.

2019 – Russian President Vladimir Putin orders the Russian army to help put out huge wildfires in Siberia covering three million hectares (7.4 million acres) after 700,000 people sign petition. On the same day, US officials announce Osama bin Laden’s son and potential successor Hamza has been killed in US air strikes in Pakistan.