1849 – Sir John Ambrose Fleming, English electrical engineer, was born. His inventions included the Fleming Valve and many related devices that led to the development of modern electronics.

1898 – C.S. Lewis, author of the Narnia Chronicles, was born.

1907 British nurse Florence Nightingale, aged 87, was presented with the Order of Merit by Edward VII for her work tending the wounded during the Crimean War.

1934 – In Britain, the first live radio broadcast of a royal wedding – the marriage of the Duke of Kent to Princess Marina at Westminster Abbey in London.

1940 – The city of Liverpool endured nearly eight hours of bombing, which left 166 people dead and 2,000 people homeless. At the time, Prime Minister Winston Churchill described the tragedy as “the single worst civilian incident of the war.”

1947 – The UN approved Britain’s plan for a partition of Palestine.

1956 – Panic-buying breaks out at garages across the country as the government gives details of its petrol rationing plans. On the same day, Chris Brasher becomes the first Briton to win an Olympic gold medal in track and field since 1936 with the 3,000m Steeplechase at the Melbourne Olympics.

1962 – Britain and France announced a joint agreement to design and build Concorde, the world’s first supersonic airliner.

1963 – The Beatles record I Want To Hold Your Hand was released, with advance orders of one million in the UK alone.

1965 – Housewife Mary Whitehouse began her Clean Up TV Campaign by setting up the National Viewers and Listeners’ Association to tackle ‘bad taste and irresponsibility’.

1975 – Racing driver Graham Hill is killed when the small plane he is travelling in crashes in Hertfordshire. On the same day, the volcano Kilauea erupts in Hawaii.

1976 – Lancaster Council cancels the Sex Pistols gig at Lancaster Polytechnic, saying: “We don’t want that sort of filth in the town limits”.

1986 – The death of Cary Grant, British-born American actor. He was considered one of Hollywood’s definitive leading men and was named the second Greatest Male Star of All Time (after Humphrey Bogart) by the American Film Institute.

1995 – On his historic visit to Britain, US President Bill Clinton praised British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Prime Minister John Bruton for their joint efforts to bring peace in Northern Ireland.

2001 – George Harrison, musician, actor, songwriter and former lead guitarist with the Beatles died of lung cancer, aged 58. Often referred to as the ‘quiet Beatle’, Harrison became an admirer of Indian culture and mysticism, and introduced it to the other Beatles, as well as to their Western audiences.

2013 – The consecration of the Rev. Pat Storey as the UK and Ireland’s first woman bishop, at a service at Christ Church Cathedral – Dublin.

2013 – A double engine failure caused a police helicopter to crash into the Clutha Vaults pub in Glasgow. Ten people died in the accident; all three on board, six on the ground and another person died two weeks later from injuries received.

2015 – Great Britain won the Davis Cup for the first time since 1936 after Andy Murray beat Belgium’s David Goffin to clinch the decisive point in Ghent.

2019 – A terrorist knife attack at Fishmongers Hall by London Bridge, kills two and injures three.