1554At the tender age of 16, the ‘nine days queen’, Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley were beheaded; he on Tower Hill, she on Tower Green, after being implicated in the Wyatt's rebellion. The rebellion arose out of concern over Queen Mary I's determination to marry Philip II of Spain, which was an unpopular policy with the English. It is believed that Lady Jane was born here, at Bradgate House (see picture) in Leicestershire and spent the greater part of her short life there.

1688The conclusion of the ‘Glorious Revolution’. James II fled with his family to France, and the Prince of Orange and Princess Mary were declared King and Queen of England, France and Ireland.

1733Englishman James Oglethorpe founded Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, and its first city at Savannah. The 12th of February is known as Georgia Day for its historic importance to the state.

1808A mortar-fired lifeline was used for the first time to save a person from a shipwreck, at Gorleston. It was invented by George William Manby who lived in the Norfolk village of Hilgay. He also invented the first modern form of fire extinguisher and built an 'unsinkable' ship but the boatmen rocked his boat back and forth, so that it eventually turned over. It's said that the men thought Manby's mortar a threat to their livelihood as they depended on the cargo left over from shipwrecks.

1809Charles Darwin, English naturalist and author of The Origin of Species, was born, in Shrewsbury. This statue (see picture) is outside Shrewsbury library, a building that was once Darwin's former school. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection. He published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species. By the 1870s the scientific community and much of the general public accepted evolution as a fact. The Quantum Leap sculpture in Shrewsbury (see picture) was created to celebrate the bicentenary of Darwin's birth.

1843 The birth of John Graham Chambers Chambers who codified the "Marquess of Queensberry rules" upon which modern-day boxing is based. It is thought that boxing's Marquess of Queensberry rules were created within the compounds of Lockerbie House, Dumfriesshire ( picture) possibly within the room now known as "The Queensbury Dining Room".

1846 The death of Henry Duncan, a minister of the Church of Scotland who founded the world's first commercial savings bank, paying interest on its investors' modest savings. This statue of him (see picture) is at Dumfries. See also ( picture) of the Blue Plaque.

1932Ramsey MacDonald introduced a bill to improve youth courts, raise the age of juveniles and ban whipping of under 14s.

1943William Morris (Lord Nuffield), the founder of Morris Motors, created the Nuffield Foundation, Britain's biggest charitable trust, with a gift of £10 million. The Nuffield Foundation's income comes from the interest on its investments. It does not fund raise or receive funding from the Government. It is financially and politically independent.

1954The British Standing Advisory Committee on cancer claimed that the illness had a definite link with cigarette smoking.

1991Government ministries and bridges in Iraq were destroyed during the Gulf War.

1993A 2 year old boy, James Bulger, was abducted from the Strand Shopping Centre, Bootle, and later killed by two 10 year old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. They were the youngest people to be charged with murder in England and Wales during the 20th century. A mere eight years later, in June 2001, the parole board ruled that the boys were no longer a threat to public safety and could be released. They were given new identities and moved to secret residence locations but on 2nd March 2010 Jon Venables was returned to prison, short term, for a violation of the terms of his licence of release.

1994One hundred people made history by walking from France to England for the first time in millions of years. Each represented charities and voluntary organisations and walked the 31 mile Channel Tunnel which took, on average, 13 hours to complete.

1996Prime Minister John Major pledged to rebuild the Ulster Peace Process, telling Sinn Fein to choose between 'the ballot or the bullet'.

2017 Elaine Hopley, a 45 year old Scottish mother-of-two, broke the solo female record in a prestigious rowing race across the Atlantic. Her time for the event, dubbed "the world's toughest row", was 59 days, 19 hours and 14 minutes. She was raising money for Alzheimer Scotland and completed the challenge in her boat Jan, named after her mother.

2019 The death, aged 81, of Gordon Banks, English goal keeper. He made 628 appearances during a 15-year career in the Football League, and won 73 caps for England. He retired in August 1973 after losing the sight in his right eye in a motoring accident the previous year. Banks' consistent performances in goal led to the re-wording of a common English phrase to 'As safe as the Banks of England.'

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