1896 – Queen Victoria surpassed her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history. The record stood until 9th September 2015 when Queen Elizabeth II became the longest serving monarch of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

1910 – The Duke of York’s Picture House opened in Brighton. It is now the oldest continually operating cinema in Britain.

1914 – Three British cruisers, Aboukir, Hogue, and Cressy, were torpedoed and sunk by German U-boats, killing more than 1,400.

1934 – The worst pit disaster in Britain for 21 years killed more than 260 miners in an explosion and fire at the Gresford Mine in Wales.

1955 – Independent Television (ITV) began operating. Only six minutes of advertisements were allowed each hour and there was no Sunday morning TV permitted. The first advertisement screened was for Gibbs SR toothpaste.

1967 – The liner Queen Mary began her 1000th and last Atlantic crossing. A New York docks strike meant that passengers had to carry their own luggage aboard.

1986 – Surgeons at Harefield Hospital performed a heart & lung transplant operation on the world’s youngest patient – a10 week old baby.

1989 – An IRA bomb attack on the Royal Marines School of Music killed 11 people, (10 of them young soldiers) and injured twelve of the bandsmen.

1991 – Bryan Adams made chart history when his song – Everything I Do, I Do It For You, had its twelfth consecutive week as the UK No.1.

1999 – Screaming Lord Sutch’s Official Monster Raving Loony Party honoured his memory with a two minute scream at a pub in Ashburton, Devon. The singer, born David Sutch, hanged himself on 16th June 1999.

1999 – Singer Diana Ross was arrested on Concorde after an incident at Heathrow Airport. The singer claimed that a female security guard had touched her breasts when being frisked, and she retaliated by rubbing her hands down the security guard.

2013 – Sir Bradley Wiggins added the Tour of Britain title to his collection after sealing an emphatic victory in London. Wiggins, who won the Tour de France and Olympic time trial in 2012, had led since winning the third stage and began stage eight with a 26-second advantage.

2014 – Tesco suspended four senior executives and called in investigators following the discovery that its profits had been artificially inflated by £250m. More than £2bn was wiped off the value of Tesco’s shares.