1898 – American Astronomer William Henry Pickering discovered Phoebe, one of Saturn’s moons.

1891 – The London to Paris telephone link came into operation.

1922 – Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was jailed for six years by the British authorities for encouraging public disorder. He was released in February 1924 for an appendicitis operation, having served only 2 years of his sentence.

1925 – Two floors of the Madame Tussaud’s waxworks in London were destroyed by fire.

1947 – The Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, (born in Corfu – Greece on 10th June 1921), became a naturalized Briton On This Day.

1960 – The naming ceremony of the steam locomotive Evening Star, at the Swindon Works, where the locomotive was built. Evening Star was the last steam locomotive built for British Rail and holds the distinction of being the only British main line steam locomotive that was earmarked for preservation from the date of its construction.

1967 – The Torrey Canyon oil tanker, with a cargo of 100,000 gallons of crude oil, ran aground on rocks between Land’s End and the Scilly Isles and its cargo discharged into the sea. The RAF and the Royal Navy were called in to napalm bomb the slick in an attempt to reduce the risk of pollution. In the weeks that followed the accident, oil escaped and spread along the shores of the south coast of England and the Normandy coast of France. Worst hit were the Cornish beaches of Marazion and Prah Sands, where sludge was up to a foot deep.

1982 – Moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse brought a charge of gross indecency against a National Theatre director under the Sexual Offences Act 1956. The play, Romans in Britain featured male rape scenes. The trial was halted after intervention by the Attorney-General.

1992 – White South Africans backed a motion to end apartheid and create a multi-racial government.

2003 – The UK government recognized British Sign Language (BSL) as an official language.

2012 – Wayne Rooney apologized to a 9-year-old fan after accidentally breaking his wrist.

2014 – Rhossili Bay near Swansea plummeted in the TripAdvisor rankings of the world’s best beaches after some visitors grumbled about dark sand, cloudy water and bad weather.

2015 – Two Polish men were rescued after trying to paddle from Britain to Calais in a rowing boat, after failing to find jobs in Britain. Last year 28 illegal immigrants were caught trying to smuggle themselves out of Britain.