1958 – Cliff Richard & The Shadows played their first gig together (Victoria Hall, Hanley).

1962 – In Britain, an emerging pop group, ‘The Beatles’ released their first hit record ‘Love Me Do’.

1962 – Dr No, the first James Bond film, was released. Based on the 1958 Ian Fleming novel of the same name it starred Sean Connery as the secret agent 007. The film was produced with a low budget, the first of a successful series of 22 Bond films. A 23rd – ‘Skyfall’, with Daniel Craig as James Bond was premiered in London on 23rd October 2012, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the series.

1967 – For the first time in Britain, a court in Brighton accepted a ‘majority verdict’ from a jury instead of the usual ‘unanimous verdict’ required previously.

1968 – Police baton charged civil rights demonstrators in Derry, Northern Ireland – considered to mark the beginning of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

1969 – The first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus aired on BBC. In all, 45 episodes were created over four series, from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV. The series’ theme song was the first segment of John Philip Sousa’s The Liberty Bell, chosen because it was in the public domain and was free to use without charge.

1974 – IRA bombs killed 5 and injured 65 in two public houses in Guildford, Surrey, England.

1975 – The birth, in Reading, Berkshire of Kate Winslet, English actress and the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations. She achieved worldwide recognition for her leading role in Titanic (1997), the highest grossing film at the time.

1984 – Police and Customs in Essex seized Britain’s biggest ever haul of cannabis made in a single raid, (4.3 tons), with an estimated street value of almost £11 million.

1984 – Leonard Rossiter, actor, (Rising Damp, and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin) died at the age of 57 from a heart attack.

1999 – The Ladbroke Grove rail crash in West London, (also known as the Paddington train crash) killed 31 people and injured more than 520 when two trains collided after one driver passed signals that were showing red.

2015 – The government imposed a new law in England, which required that all supermarkets (or large businesses employing 250 or more full-time equivalent employees in total) must levy a charge of 5p per ‘single-use’ plastic carrier bag used by customers, including plastic bags used for deliveries.

2018 – Banksy’s “Girl With Balloon” automatically shreds moments after being sold for £1 million in London and is re-named “Love is in the Bin”.