On This Day - 9th April
1413
Henry V was crowned King of England. He was the second English monarch from the House of Lancaster.
1483The young Edward V acceded to the throne on the death of Edward IV. The
boy was murdered in the Tower 75 days later, on 25th June.
1511St John's College, Cambridge, founded by Lady Margaret Beaufort (mother of King Henry VII and paternal grandmother of King Henry VIII), received its charter.
1585The expedition organised by Sir Walter Raleigh departed England for Roanoke Island (now in North Carolina) to establish a permanent English settlement in what later became the Virginia Colony.
1649The birth of James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, claimant to the English throne,
who led a failed rebellion against James II which cost him his head. His 320
accomplices were sentenced to death by Judge Jeffreys.
1747The Scottish Jacobite Lord Lovat was beheaded on Tower Hill, London,
for high treason. He was the last man to be executed in this way in Britain,
in a form of execution which had been reserved for the nobility.
1770The explorer Captain Cook arrived in Botany Bay, Australia, the first
European to do so.
1806English engineer and inventor Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born. He was
perhaps the greatest of the 19th-century engineers and designed railways, bridges,
tunnels, viaducts and ships. Much of his work still survives, including his SS Breat Britain (see 
picture) which was launched in 1843 and is in the Great Western Dockyard, Bristol.
1838The opening of the the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London.
1937The Kamikaze arrived at Croydon Airport in London. It was the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly to Europe. The flight from Tokyo to London took 51 hours, 17 minutes and 23 seconds
1969Sikh busmen in Wolverhampton won the right to wear turbans on duty.
1969Brian Trubshaw, the first British pilot to fly Concorde, made his first
flight in the British built prototype. The 22 minute flight left from a test
runway at Filton near Bristol and landed at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.
1983English trainer Jenny Pitman became the first woman to train the winner
of the Grand National (Corbiere) at Aintree, Liverpool.
1984About 100 pickets were arrested during violent clashes with police outside
two working coal pits in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
2002The funeral of the Queen Mother was held at Westminster
Abbey.
2003Iraqis pulled down symbols of Saddham Hussein as US tanks rolled into
Baghdad.
2005The Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles were married, in a civil
ceremony at the Guildhall in Windsor.
2014Nicholas Jacobs, aged 45, was cleared of killing officer PC Keith Blakelock at Broadwater Farm in Tottenham in October 1985. PC Blakelock was stabbed 43 times and an attempt was made to decapitate him. The prosecution of Jacobs followed a previous trial in 1987, when three men were convicted of the murder, before being freed four years later on appeal.
2021 The death was announced of Prince Philip (aged 99), husband of Queen Elizabeth II for more than 70 years. He officially retired from royal duties in May 2020 after 22,219 solo engagements. The Duke was the longest-reigning consort in British history and had recently been treated at King Edward VII Hospital for a pre-existing heart condition and at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital for an infection.