1721Prisoners at Newgate Jail were used as 'guinea pigs' to test vaccines used against disease.

1757Thomas Telford, Scottish civil engineer was born. He built the Menai suspension bridge in Wales (see picture), plus a further 1200 bridges and more than 1000 miles of roads in Britain. The new town of Telford in Shropshire is named after him and there is a statue of him in the town. See picture.

1796Horatio Nelson captured from the French, the island of Elba, to which Napoleon Bonaparte was later exiled.

1870The Elementary Education Act was passed. It gave compulsory, free education to every child in England and Wales between the age of five and 13.

1902Following a six-week delay due to an emergency appendectomy, Edward VII was crowned in Westminster Abbey following the death of his mother Queen Victoria. Edward was the first British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which was renamed the House of Windsor by his son, George V.

1907Robert Baden-Powell's first Boy Scout encampment concluded at Brownsea Island in Dorset. The experimental camp developed into the worldwide Scouts and Guides organizations.

1914World War I: HMS Birmingham sank a German submarine, the first to be sunk by the Royal Navy.

1958Cliff Richard performed at Butlin's Holiday Camp in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, as Cliff Richard and The Drifters.

1963ITV transmitted the first edition of the pop music programme Ready Steady Go to rival the BBC's Top of the Pops. The presenter was Cathy McGowan.

1971During 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland, British security forces launched Operation Demetrius. Hundreds were arrested and interned, thousands were displaced and twenty were killed in the violence that followed.

1979Brighton established the first nudist beach in Britain, despite protests from those fearing depravity.

1981Six English lifeguards set a relay swim record of the English Channel of 7 hours 17 minutes.

1984Daley Thompson won the Olympic decathlon at the Summer Games in Los Angeles.

1996A West Midlands woman Mandy Allwood announced that she was expecting octuplets.

1999Charles Kennedy won the race to succeed Paddy Ashdown as leader of the Liberal Democrats.

2006At least 24 suspected terrorists were arrested in an overnight operation. The arrests were in relation to a plot to detonate liquid explosives carried on board at least 10 airliners travelling from Britain to the United States and Canada. In July 2010 three men were found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court and sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiracy to murder.

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