1882 – The Royal Astronomer witnessed an unidentified flying object from the Greenwich Observatory. He described it as a circular object, glowing bright green.

1887 – The birth of Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, English soldier who was a painstaking planner, which contributed to his most successful battle in North Africa when he broke through Rommel’s lines during the Second World War.

1919 – King George V proclaimed Armistice Day, later to be known as Remembrance Day.

1922 – Britain elected its first Communist Member of Parliament, J T Walton-Newbold standing for Motherwell, Scotland. He eventually joined the Labour Party.

1955 – Anglesey became the first authority in Britain to introduce fluoride into the water supply.

1959 – Two Scottish airports, Prestwick and Renfrew, became the first to offer duty free goods in Britain. Heathrow followed soon after.

1964 – Britain said that it was banning all arms exports to South Africa.

1970 – Stephanie Rahn becomes the first topless page 3 girl in The Sun newspaper. On the same day, Douglas Engelbart receives the patent for the first computer mouse.

2014 – The family of murdered schoolgirl April Jones (aged 5) watched the demolition of the house owned by her killer Mark Bridger. The rented home was bought by the Welsh government in August and is where Bridger is believed to have killed and dismembered April after snatching her outside her parents’ home in Machynlleth, mid Wales, on 1st October 2012. Detectives believe that Bridger dismembered her body at the cottage and disposed of her remains at numerous locations around the countryside.

2014 – Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, gave his final press conference and parliamentary speech before handing over to Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first female First Minister.

2014 – According to Dutch scientists, a single 10-second kiss can transfer as many as 80 million bacteria. The research was published in the journal Microbiome.

2014 – The Anglican General Synod formally enacted legislation allowing women to be nominated and appointed as bishops. The first woman bishop – the Rt. Rev. Libby Lane, was consecrated Bishop of Stockport in a ceremony at York Minster 10 weeks later, on 26th January 2015.

2019 – A 55-year-old man became the first known person to contract COVID-19. The unnamed man hailed from the Hubei province, where the virus was first recorded. Despite cases of the virus being found as early as this, the Chinese government didn’t recognize it as a new virus until a few weeks later.