1975 – Ross McWhirter, TV presenter and co-editor of The Guinness Book of Records, was assassinated by two Provisional IRA gunmen after he had offered a £50,000 reward for information leading to a conviction for several high-profile bombings.

1976 – The four millionth ‘Mini’ car left the production line. More than ten million Minis have been built and sold worldwide since 1959 and almost as many of the new ones have been built in the 20 years under BMW.

1987 – A young man in Somerset tried seven times to kill himself following a row with his girlfriend. He threw himself in front of four cars, and jumped under the wheels of a lorry. He tried to strangle himself and jumped from a window. The real victims were a driver of one car who suffered a heart attack, a policeman who injured his back trying to restrain the man, and a doctor who was kicked in the face when the struggling man reached hospital.

1990 – John Major won his second ballot for leadership of the Conservative Party and became Prime Minister. (Mrs. Thatcher had resigned as Prime Minister 5 days previously.)

2000 – A 10-year-old schoolboy, Damilola Taylor, died after being stabbed in the leg by a gang of hooded attackers near his home in Peckham, south London.

2008 – The Queen Elizabeth II liner (the QE2) retired from active Cunard service. It was planned for her to begin conversion to a floating hotel; however, she remains moored at Port Rashid (Dubai) facing an uncertain future.

2012 – Police admitted that the late Sir Cyril Smith, former MP for Rochdale, was a sex abuser of boys in the late 1960s. Despite not being charged, after inquiries in 1970, 1998, and 1999, the CPS stressed that changes in procedure meant a prosecution would be pursued today.

2013 – The death of actor, Lewis Collins, aged 67. He was the quintessential British hard man, best known as Bodie in the TV the series ‘The Professionals’.

2014 – A new treatment for bladder cancer was shown to completely cure some people, in the first significant breakthrough in the disease for 30 years. Scientists from Queen Mary University of London discovered that an antibody allowed cancer cells to be picked up by the immune system and eradicated before they could spread.

2014 – A consortium made up of ‘Stagecoach’ and ‘Virgin’ won the franchise to run the East Coast mainline rail route. The firms promised to invest £140m in the route over eight years, and to pay the government £3.3bn for the contract.

2014 – Australian Test batsman Phillip Hughes died aged 25, two days after being struck on the top of the neck by a ball during a domestic match in Sydney. He also played for Hampshire, Middlesex and Worcestershire. His final innings score was adjusted to show him being 63 not out, after an update from Cricket Australia.

2014 – The American wife of London financier Sir Chris Hohn was awarded £337m by a High Court judge in a divorce case. The sum was thought to be the biggest of its kind made by a judge in England. The couple separated following 17 years of marriage.

2014 – The car registration plate “25 O” was sold at auction for £518,000, setting a new British record.

2014 – The death, aged 94, of the acclaimed British crime writer PD James. Her books (e.g Death Comes To Pemberley) sold millions of copies around the world during her 50-year career, with many made into television films.

2017 – Eight Donkeys were freed from jail after four days in Orai, Uttar Pradesh, India. Their crime was eating someone’s expensive plants.