1983 the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie was imprisoned in France.
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1987 Liberace, pianist known for his flamboyant costumes, died.
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1999 South African president Nelson Mandela made his last State of the Nation speech to parliament before retiring.
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2008 tornados killed 57 people in the southern United States.
1685 King James II acceded to the throne.
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1919 William Rossetti, writer and brother to Christina and Dante Gabriel, died.
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1945 Bob Marley, singer-songwriter, was born in Nine Mile, Jamaica.
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1952 Queen Elizabeth II acceded to the throne while visiting Kenya.
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1958 seven members of the Manchester United football team were among those killed in an air crash in Munich.
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1964 France and Britain agreed to build a Channel tunnel.
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1971 astronaut Alan Shepard became the first person to hit a golf ball on the moon.
1812 Charles Dickens, novelist and social critic, was born in Portsmouth.
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1863 HMS Orpheus was wrecked off New Zealand, killing 185 sailors.
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1940 Disney’s film Pinocchio was given a gala premiere in New York.
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1971 Swiss men voted to allow women to vote in federal elections and to stand for parliament.
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1974 prime minister Edward Heath called a snap election.
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1992 ministers from the 12 European Community countries signed the Maastricht treaty.
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2005 Ellen MacArthur completed her single-handed round-the-world voyage in the record-breaking time of 71 days 14 hours and 18 minutes.
1587 Mary Queen of Scots was executed at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, aged 44.
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1725 Peter the Great, tsar of Russia since 1682, died aged 52.
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1872 Robert Southwell Bourke (6th Earl of Mayo), Viceroy of India, was assassinated in the Andaman Islands.
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1924 the gas chamber was first used as a form of execution when Gee Jon was put to death in Nevada for murder.
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1965 a ban was announced on cigarette advertising on British television.
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1983 Shergar, the Aga Khan’s Derby winner, was kidnapped from stables in Co Kildare and, despite a ransom demand, was never seen again.
1540 the first recorded race meeting in England was held at Roodee Fields, Chester.
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1567 Lord Darnley, consort of Mary Queen of Scots, was murdered in Edinburgh.
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1933 ten days after Hitler had become German chancellor, members of the Oxford Union voted against fighting for “King and Country”.
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1972 the British government declared a state of emergency after a month-long miners’ strike.
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1979 Trevor Francis became the first British footballer to break the £1m transfer fee when he signed for Nottingham Forest.
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1996 an IRA bomb exploded in London’s Docklands, killing two and injuring 100.
1355 the St Scholastica’s Day riot began in Oxford, with opposing forces of town and gown on the rampage for three days.
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1837 Alexander Pushkin, Russian writer, died following a duel with his wife’s admirer.
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1931 ceremonies began to inaugurate New Delhi as the capital of India (in place of Delhi).
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1962 Gary Powers, the US pilot of a U2 spy plane shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, was exchanged in Berlin for a KGB agent.
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1964 the Great St Bernard Tunnel under the Alps between Switzerland and Italy was opened to traffic.
1852 the first flushing public lavatory for women opened in Bedford Street, London.
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1858 a 14-year-old French girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed that a beautiful lady, later identified as the Virgin Mary, appeared to her near Lourdes.
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1878 the first weekly weather report was issued by the Meteorological Office.
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1975 Margaret Thatcher became the first woman leader of a British political party.
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1977 the heaviest recorded crustacean, a lobster weighing 44lb 6oz, was caught off Nova Scotia in Canada.
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1990 Nelson Mandela was released from prison in South Africa after 27 years in captivity.
1554 Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England for nine days, was executed aged 16.
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1809 Charles Darwin, naturalist, was born in Shrewsbury.
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1809 Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the US, was born in Hodgenville, Kentucky.
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1818 Chile proclaimed its independence from Spain.
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1912 Hsuan-t’ung (Pu-Yi), the last emperor of China, was forced to abdicate.
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1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first US president to deliver a political speech on radio.