1327 Deposed King Edward II of England was murdered, with a red hot poker in Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire by order of his wife, to ensure the succession of his son Edward III.

1411 The birth of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and claimant to the English throne. Although he never became king he ultimately governed the country as Lord Protector during Henry VI's madness. His conflicts with Henry's court were a leading factor in the political upheaval of mid-fifteenth-century England, and a major cause of the Wars of the Roses.

1745 Bonnie Prince Charles and his Jacobite army defeated the English at the Battle of Prestonpans, in Scotland.

1746 After a short siege the French, under Admiral La Bourdonnais, captured Madras, India, from the English.

1756 John Loudon McAdam, the engineer who invented and gave his name to macadamised (tarmac) roads, was born in Ayr, Scotland.

1776 Part of New York City was burned shortly after being occupied by British forces.

1832 The death of Sir Walter Scott, Scottish historical novelist, playwright and poet. His works include classics such as Ivanhoe and Rob Roy. The Scott Monument in Edinburgh (see picture) is the largest monument to a writer in the world.

1866 H G Wells, English writer, was born. His books included The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds.

1874 The birth, at 4 Clarence Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire of the composer Gustav Holst, most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets. His house (see picture) is now a museum

1915 Stonehenge (see picture) was sold at auction to Mr C H Chubb for £6,600 as a present for his wife. Mr Chubb presented it to the nation three years later as his wife didn't think it suited her.

1949 The Republic of Ireland beat England 2-0 at Goodison Park - England's first home defeat by a foreign football team.

1955 The Admiralty announced that Britain had formally claimed uninhabited Rockall, a rocky islet 300 miles west of Scotland, to stop the Soviets spying on missile tests.

1962 Bamber Gascoigne's University Challenge was screened for the first time.

1964 Malta became independent from Britain. The island became a republic in 1974, but retained membership of the Commonwealth.

1965 BP found oil in the North Sea.

1972 The birth of Liam Gallagher (born William John Paul Gallagher) musician and singer-songwriter. He was formerly the frontman of the rock band Oasis until the band split up in 2009 and he formed Beady Eye.

1979 An RAF Harrier plane crashed onto houses in a Cambridgeshire town, killing two men and a young boy.

1984 Police and miners clashed at a pit in Maltby, South Yorkshire, in one of the biggest pickets since the miners' strike began.

1985 Madonna scored her first UK No.1 album with Like A Virgin, ten months after its release.

1986 Prince Charles admitted that he talked to his plants.

2012 50 year old Jessica Harper, a former Lloyds Bank worker in charge of online security was jailed for five years for fraud. She submitted 93 false and doctored invoices to pay herself £2,463,750, giving large sums to friends and her three brothers to invest in property.

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