1885 – ‘A lady well-known in literary and scientific circles’ was the only clue The Times gave to the identity of the woman who was cremated by the Cremation Society in Woking, Surrey. She was the first person to be officially cremated in Britain and was a Mrs. Pickersgill, the first of three cremations that year.

1902 – The British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes died in Cape Town, aged 48. Rhodes who controlled 90% of the world’s diamond production, was influential in establishing the British crown in South Africa and Rhodesia.

1920 – The British special constables, known as the Black and Tans, arrived in Ireland. Their nickname came from the colours of their uniform.

1923 – BBC Radio started regular weather forecasts.

1945 – David Lloyd George, British statesman and Liberal Prime Minister, died. He was Prime Minister of a wartime coalition government between the years 1916–22, Leader of the Liberal Party from 1926–31 and a key figure in the introduction of many reforms which laid the foundations of the modern welfare state. His boyhood home village was Llanystumdwy (Gwynedd ) which houses the Lloyd George Museum.

1973 – Women stockbroker were allowed on the floor of the London Stock Exchange for the first time in its 200 year history.

1973 – Noël Coward, English playwright and entertainer died.

1976 – Queen Elizabeth II sent the first royal e-mail, from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment in Worcestershire.

1981 – Four Labour defectors, known as the Gang of Four, launched the Social Democrats party. The four were Roy Jenkins, (former Labour cabinet minister), David Owen, William Rodgers and Shirley Williams. Their aim was to ‘reconcile the nation’ and ‘heal divisions between classes’.

1999 – Ex-miners suffering from lung diseases won a compensation deal worth £2 billion. It was the biggest industrial injuries case in British legal history.

2006 – From 6 a.m. the prohibition of smoking in all substantially enclosed public places came into force in Scotland.

2007 – Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams made history in Northern Ireland with their first face-to-face meeting, where they agreed on the restoration of the Stormont assembly and the return of power sharing.

2012 – New record temperatures for Scotland were set at Cromdale in Moray, which reached a temperature of 23.3C. making it the hottest 26th March since records began. The unseasonable warm weather made the UK hotter than southerly parts of Europe, including Barcelona, Nice, Majorca and Faro.

2015 – Richard III, the only English monarch without a marked grave, was reinterred at Leicester Cathedral after much wrangling, including High Court action over his final resting place. Richard III’s body was buried in the now demolished Franciscan Friary in Leicester and was discovered in September 2012 under what had become a car park.