1882 – The first electric trams in Britain ran; from Leytonstone in East London.

1890 – The Forth Railway Bridge in Scotland was opened by the Prince of Wales. The bridge is more than one and a half miles long and took six years to build

1912 – Suffragettes, demanding votes for women, smashed every window they passed in Knightsbridge as a protest at government inaction.

1923 – Sir Patrick Moore, astronomer, was born.

1945 – The birth of the webmaster of the Beautiful Britain website!

1951 – The birth of former Scottish footballer and manager Kenny Dalgleish.

1966 – Beatle, John Lennon, caused outrage amongst Christians by stating “We’re more popular than Jesus Christ right now. I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.” Beatles’ records were consequently banned in many US states and in South Africa.

1967 – The first gas from the North Sea was piped ashore near Durham.

1969 – The Kray twins, Ronald and Reginald, were found guilty of murder.

1972 – Kenneth Grimes, from Hampshire became the first individual to win more than £500,000 on the football pools.

1974 – Following the election, Edward Heath failed to persuade the Liberals to join a coalition and resigned. Harold Wilson would become Prime Minister for a third time, but with a narrow majority.

1975 – Charlie Chaplin was knighted after a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

1976 – An Irish born mother-of-four, plus six other people, (known collectively as the Maguire Seven) were jailed for possessing explosives. Their convictions were later quashed.

1997 – In London, the match-fixing trial of footballers Bruce Grobbelar, John Fashanu and Hans Segers ended in deadlock, with the jury failing to reach verdicts.

2015 – The UK government announced that it was selling its 40% stake in the cross-Channel train operator Eurostar to an Anglo-Canadian consortium, for £757.1m.

2018 – Gary Oldman wins the Oscar for best actor at the 90th Academy Awards for his role as Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour”. On the same day, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal are poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury.

2019 – Keith Flint, front man with The Prodigy, is found dead at his home in Essex aged 49. On the same day, actor Luke Perry dies after suffering a stroke six days earlier.