1002 - St Brice's Day Massacre - All Danes in England ordered to be killed , on the orders of King Ethelred.
1642 - ECW:- Royalists scarper at the Battle of Turnham.
1941 - Aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal torpedoed and sunk by U81.
1970 - 150mph cyclone kills 500,000 in Ganges Delta.
1985 - Volcanic mudslide buries 23,000 in Armers, Columbia.
1990 - World Wide Web begins.
Born today:
1850 - Robert Louis Stevenson, author
1918 - Jack Elam, actor
1952 - Art Malik, actor
1955 - Whoopi Goldberg, actress
1582 - William Shakepeare marries Anne Hathaway.
1922 - BBC begins its radio service in the UK.
1952 - 1st regular UK singles chart published by NME.
1969 - BBC begins its colour TV service.
1973 - Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Phillips in Westminster Abbey.
1973 - Bobby Moore makes his 108th and final appearance for England.
Born today:
1719 - Mozart, composer
1805 - Mendelssohn, composer
1840 - Monet, painter
1948 - Charles, Prince
1515 - Thomas Wolsey invested as Cardinal.
1864 - ACW - Union General Sherman burns Atlanta, and begins his March to the Sea.
1942 - The Battle of Guadalcanal ends in a US victory.
1941 - SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the arrest of all homosexuals in Germany.
1943 - And again, this time the gypos cop it.
1949 - Godse & Apte are executed for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi.
1968 - The liner Queen Elizabeth completes her last passenger voyage when she docks in Southampton.
2007 - A cyclone hits Bangledesh, killing 5,000.
Born today:
1891 - Erwin Rommel, German Field Marshall
1905 - Mantovanni, composer
1932 - Petula Clark, singer
1945 - Anni-Frid Lyngstad, ABBA singer
Died today:
1954 - Lionel Barrymore, actor
1958 - Tyrone Power, actor
1983 - John le Mesurier, actor
2002 - Myra Hindley, Moors murderer
1857 - Record no VC's won in a single day, at the Relief of Lucknow.
1938 - Willie Hall scores 3 goals in 3 minutes for England v Ireland.
Born Today:
1896 - Oswald Mosley, Fascist
1972 - Willie Carson, Jockey
1961 - Frank Bruno, Boxer
Died Today:
1272 - Henry III, in the Tower
1724- Jack Sheppard, highwayman, hanged at Tyburn in front of 200,000 spectators
1960 - Clark Gable, actor
1982 - Arthur Askey, comedian
1994 - Doris Speed, Corrie actress
1558 - Elizabeth I becomes Queen, on the death of 'Bloody Mary'.
1796 - Battle of Arcole: Napoleon defeats the Austrians.
1812 - Battle of Krasnoi: Napoleon drives off the Russians.
1855 - David Livingstone discovers the Victoria Falls.
1869 - Work begins on the Suez Canal.
1970 - Stephanie Rahn becomes the 1st Page Three Girl.
2004 - Arnie becomes Governor of California.
Born today:
1887 - Bernard Montgomery, Field Marshall
1925 - Rock Hudson, actor
1934 - Fenella Fielding, actress
1937 - Peter Cook, comedian
1939 - Auberon Waugh, author
1942 - Martin Scorsese, film director
1944 - Danny DeVito, actor
1960 - Jonathan Ross, overpaid fool
1095 - Pope Urban II calls for the 1st Crusade.
1307 - William Tell shoots an apple off his son's head (allegedly).
1421 - The Zuiderzee seawall breaks, flooding 70 villages and drowning 10,000 peeps.
1477 - William Caxton company prints the 1st book in England.
1852 - State Funeral of the Duke of Wellington at St Pauls Cathedral.
1916 - 1st Battle of the Somme ends (started July 1st). Over 1m casualties on both sides.
1943 - 6,000 surviving Jews at Janowska concentration camp are murdered by the Nazis.
1978 - Jonestown, Guyana: a cult mass murder/suicide leaves over 900 dead, including 270 children.
1983 - World's 1st all-girl sextuplets born, in Liverpool.
1987 - 30 die in fire at King's Cross underground station.
1991 - Islamic kidnappers free Terry Waite in Beiruit, after 4 years.
Born today:
1928 - Mickey Mouse, Walt's baby
1901 - George Gallup, pollster
1906 - Sir Alec Issigonis, car designer (Morris Minor, Mini Minor)
1942 - Linda Evans, JR's missus
1960 - Kim Wilde, singer
Died today:
2002 - James Coburn, actor
1863 - President Abraham Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg Address.
1969 - Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad & Alan Bean become the 3rd & 4th humans to walk on the Moon.
1984 - A fire in a petrol depot in Mexico City kills 500.
1990 - Singing duo Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award as session musicians provided the vocals.
1994 - 1st National Lottery draw held.
Born today:
1942 - Calvein Klein, fashion designer
1961 - Meg Ryan, actress
1962 - Jodie Foster, actress
1820 - A 80ton sperm whale attacks the whaling ship 'Essex', inspiring the novel 'Moby Dick'.
1906 - Charles Stewart Rolls & Henry Royce chuck together a car.
1917 - The Battle of Cambrai begins.
1936 - A lake wall breaks nr Kazuno in Japan, drowning 360 miners.
1945 - Start of the Nuremberg Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals.
1947 - Princess Elizabeth marries Lt Philip Mountbattan.
1962 - The Soviet Union agrees to remove its missiles from Cuba, avoiding WWIII.
1970 - The 10-bob note is withdrawn from circulation.
1979 - 200 Sunni Muslims revolt, and take 6,000 pilgrims hostage in Mecca.
1985 - Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released, shortly followed by Husbands 1.0.
1992 - A fire causes widespread damage in Windsor Castle.
Born today:
1787 - Samuel Cunard, ship owner
1889 - Edwin Hubble, astronomer
1908 - Alastair Cooke, broadcaster/journalist
1925 - Robert F Kennedy, politician
1942 - Norman Greenbaum, singer
1956 - Bo Derek, perfect 10
Died today:
868 - Edmund, Saxon King of East Anglia. The Vikings tied him to a tree, shot him full of arrows, then beheaded him. He is buried in.....Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
1910 - Leo Tolstoy, novelist
1975 - Franciso Franco, Spanish leader
1995 - Sergei Grinkov, skating champion
2007 - Ian Smith, PM of Rhodesia
1120 - The White Ship sinks in the English Channel, drowning the son of King Henry I.
1177 - Baldwin IV of Jerusalem & Raynald of Chatillon defeat Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard.
1667 - An earthquake rocks Shemakha in the Caucasus, killing 80,000.
1703 - The Great Storm hits the UK, 120mph winds kill 9,000.
1839 - A cyclone devastates Coringa, India; 300,000 perish.
1867 - Alfred Nobel patents dynamite.
1950 - A violent snowstorm hits Pickens, West Virginia; 320 die in 57" snow.
1952 - 'The Mousetrap' opens at the Ambassador Theatre, London, to become the longest continuously running play.
1984 - 36 top musicians record Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas" for famine relief in Ethiopia.
1987 - A typhoon hits the Plilippines with winds up to 165mph; 1,000 die.
1953 - Hungary becomes the 1st foreign team to beat England at Wembley (6-3)
2005 - Death of Georgie Best, footballing wizard.
1476 - Vlad Dracula becomes ruler of Wallachia.
1864 - Oxford professor Charles Dodgson presented a little girl called Alice Liddell with a story she had inspired him to write. It was called Alice in Wonderland and was written under the pen name of Lewis Carroll.
1922 - Howard Carter & Lord Carnarvon are the 1st peeps to enter the tomb of Tutankhamun in over 3,000 years.
1970 - The heaviest rainfall ever , 1.5" in a minute, falls on Guadaloupe.
1983 - 6,800 gold bars worth £26m are stolen from the Brinks Mat vault at Heathrow airport.
2003 - Last flight of the Concorde.
Born today:
1919 - Frederick Pohl, sci-fi writer
1922 - Charles M Schultz, peanut
1923 - Pat Phoenix, aka Elsie Tanner
1939 - Tina Turner, singer
1981 - Natasha Bedingfield, singer
1984 - Matt, nice guy (but a bit mean wiv the cakes)
Died today:
1996 - Michael Bentine, goon
1942 - The French Navy scuttles its fleet to prevent it falling into Nazi hands.
1944 - 4,000 tons of explosive stored underground in Staffs detonate, killing 68. The explosion is heard over 100 miles away, and is recorded in Geneva as an earthquake.
1976 - The 4 millionth mini leaves the production line.
Born today:
1907 - L Sprague re Camp, writer
1920 - Buster Merryfield, actor
1925 - Ernie Wise, comedian
1928 - 'Josh' Kirby, artist
1940 - Bruce Lee, martial arts exponent
1942 - Jimi Hendrix, guitarist
Died today:
1895 - Alexandre Dumas, author
1934 - Hoodlum Baby Face Nelson dies in gun battle with the FBI.
1975 - Ross McWhirter, co-founder of the Guiness Book of Records, is assassinated by the IRA.
2000 - Damiola Taylor, 10, dies after being stabbed in Peckham.
2006 - Alan 'Fluff' Freeman, disc jockey
28th
1729 - Natchez Indians massacre over 200 French men, women & children at Fort Roselie, Mississippi.
1942 - A fire in a nightclub in Boston, Massachusetts kills 490.
1979 - A DC-10 crashes into Mt Erebus, New Zealand killing all 257 on board.
1987 - A South Africa flight falls into the Indian Ocean; all 159 die.
Born today:
1628 - John Bunyan, author
1757 - William Blake, poet
Died today:
Enid Blyton, author
1781 - The crew of the slaveship 'Zong' throw 173 Africans over the side in order to claim off the insurance.
1864 - US cavalry massacre 150+ Cheyenne & Arapaho unarmed Indians at Sand Creek, Colorado.
Born today:
1898 - C S Lewis, author
1973 - Ryan Giggs, footballer
Died today:
1975 - Graham Hill, racing driver
1979 - Zeppo Marx, comedian
1981 - Natalie Wood. actress
1986 - Cary Grant, actor
1987 - Irene Handl, actress
2001 - George Harrison, Beatle
1872 - 1st international footy match - Scotland 0 - England 0.
1886 - The Folies Bergere stages its 1st revue.
1902 - Outlaw Kid Curry sentenced to 20 years hard labour.
1934 - The Flying Scotsman becomes 1st loco to exceed 100mph.
1936 - The Crystal Palace burns down.
1954 - Mrs Liz Hodges of Alabama becomes the only known person to be struct by a mereorite, suffering only a bruise!
1982 - Michael Jackson releases 'Thriller'.
1982 - A letterbomb addressed to M Thatcher explodes inside No 10.
Born today:
1810 - Oliver Winchester, gunsmith
1835 - Mark Twain, author
1874 - Sir Winston Churchill, PM
1937 - Frank Ifield, singer
1955 - Billy Idol, musician
1960 - Gary Lineker, footballer & crisp eater
Died today:
1900 - Oscar Wilde, witty writer
2007 - Evel Knieval, stunt rider
1958 - A fire at Our Lady of the Angels school in Chicago kills 92 kids & 3 nuns who were praying at the time.
Born today:
1761 - Madame Marie Tussaud, waxworker
1935 - Woody Allen, actor
1939 - Lee Trevino, golfer
1940 - Richard Pryor, actor
1945 - Bette Midler, singer
1946 - Gilbert O'Sullivan, singer
1958 - Charlotte Tilton, poisonous dwarf
Died today:
1135 - Henry I, King
1866 - George Everest, surveyor & namesake of Mt Everest
1997 - Stephane Grappelli, violinist
1805 - Napoleon destroys the Russians & Austrians at the Battle of Austerlitz.
1769 - Britain's 1st cremation took place, in London.
1907 - The Football Association was formed, in Manchester.
1929 - Britain's 1st public telephone boxes came into service.
1943 - The Bevin Boys start to work down the mines.
1966 - The mini-skirt is banned from the Houses of Parliament.
1976 - Fidel Castro becomes President of Cuba.
1995 - Nick Leeson sentenced for fraud leading to the collapse of Barings Bank.
Born today:
1978 - Nelly Furtado, singer
1981 - Britney Spiers, singer
Died today:
1547 - Hernan Cortes, conquistador
1814 - Marquis de Sade, pornographer
1982 - Marty Feldman, comedian
1997 - Big Daddy, wrestler
1967 - 1st human heart transplant is carried out by Dr Christiaan Barnard, in Capetown.
1977 - Wings 'Mull of Kintyre' starts 9 week run at No 1, and becomes 1st single to sell over 2m copies.
1984 - A leak from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India kills 3,800 outright and injures 1/4 to 1/2 million others (6,000 die later).
1988 - Edwina Currie says most of the UK's eggs have salmonella.
1992 - The tanker 'Aegean Sea' runs aground off the Spanish coast, spilling 8,000 tonnes of crude oil.
Born today:
1948 - Ozzy Osbourne, bat murderer
1949 - John Akii-Bua, athlete
1952 - Mel Smith, comedian
1953 - Franz Klammer, skier
1959 - Eamonn Holmes, TV presenter
Died today:
1888 - Carl Zeiss, lens maker
1894 - Robert Louis Stevenson, author
1919 - Pierre-Auguste Renoir, painter
1980 - Oswald Mosley, fascist
1995 - Jimmy Jewel, actor
1154 - The only Englishman to be a pope, Nicholas Breakespear, becomes Adrian IV.
1791 - The world's 1st sunday newspaper, The Observer, is published.
1798 - Income Tax is introduced.
1872 - The Mary Celeste is found drifting crewless in mid-Atlantic.
1937 - The Dandy makes its appearance.
1952 - The Great Smog descends on London; approx 12,000 die as a result.
1957 - 2 trains collide in thick fog at Lewisham; 90 die, 167 injured.
1961 - Birth control pills available on the NHS.
1991 - Hostage Terry Anderson is released in Beirut, after 7 years in captivity.
Born today:
1930 - Ronnie Corbett, comedian
1949 - Jeff Bridges, actor
1949 - Pamela Stephenson, actress
Died today:
1976 - Benjamin Britten, composer
1993 - Frank Zappa, musician
1993 - A record by Mr Blobby reached No 1 in the charts.
Born today:
1839 - George Armstrong Custer, 7th cavalryman
1901 - Walt Disney, film maker
1932 - Little Richard, singer
1946 - Jose Carreras, tenor
1963 - Eddie 'the eagle' Edwards, ski jumper
1975 - Ronnie O'Sullivan, snooker player
Died today:
1791 - Wolfgang Armadeus Mozart, composer (now de-composing)
1870 - Alexandre Dumas, author
1926 - Claude Monet, painter
![On This Day In History (11) - Forums [Biker Match]](/images/backgrounds/strips/8mobileLQ.jpg)
![On This Day In History (11) - Forums [Biker Match]](/images/backgrounds/strips/8desktopLQ.jpg)
