1945 – Delegates from nations around the world signed the United Nations Charter, designed to help ensure future world peace. The first meeting of the U.N. General Assembly occurred in London early the following year.

1959 – The St. Lawrence Seaway, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II and President Eisenhower.

1974 – British actor Richard Burton divorced his wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor for the first time. They remarried on 10th October 1975 and divorced for the second time on 29th July 1976.

1977 – Peter Sutcliffe (the Yorkshire Ripper) killed 16 year old Jayne MacDonald in Leeds. She was the fifth of his 13 victims. Her murder changed public perception of the killer, as she was the first victim who was not a prostitute. In 1981 Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attacking seven others. He is currently serving 20 sentences of life imprisonment in Broadmoor Hospital.

1986 – Entrepreneur Richard Branson set off on his second attempt to claim the transatlantic powerboat record for Britain. He smashed the previous record by two hours but was denied the Blue Riband by the trustees of the award because he had broken two rules of the competition; he had stopped to refuel and his vessel did not have a commercial maritime purpose.

1991 – After campaigning to prove their innocence for 15 years, the ‘Maguire Seven’ were cleared by the Court of Appeal of running an IRA bomb factory in England.

1997 – Dresses belonging to Diana, Princess of Wales were auctioned for more than £2million in New York.

1999 – The National Stadium of Wales also known as the Millennium Stadium, held its first major event, an international rugby union match, when Wales beat South Africa in a friendly by 29–19 before a test crowd of 29,000.

2012 – A gas explosion in a house in Shaw, Lancashire, killed two-year-old Jamie Heaton who was discovered in the rubble of the adjoining property. The blast also caused £1.2million of damage along the street and a number of houses had to be demolished. 28-year-old Andrew Partington was arrested two days later and jailed for 10 years after it was proved that he had cut the gas pipes in his terraced home following an argument with his girlfriend.

2014 – David Greaves, 43, who took two cash tills and three plasma televisions from The Railway pub in Accrington, Lancashire, lost his stolen goods when two other opportunistic thieves took them as he went back to steal more. Greaves was sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for 12 months.