1472Orkney and Shetland were pawned by Norway to Scotland in lieu of a dowry for Princess Margaret, daughter of Christian I, the King of Norway and Denmark. As the wife of King James III of Scotland she was the Queen Consort and the mother of the future King James IV of Scotland.

1547Edward VI, aged 9 years old, was crowned at Westminster Abbey. Edward, the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant.

1757The birth of John Fuller, better known as 'Mad Jack' Fuller, although he himself preferred to be called 'Honest John' Fuller. As Squire of the hamlet of Brightling, in Sussex he was well known as a builder of follies, but was also a philanthropist and a patron of the arts and sciences. He was eventually elected as a Member of Parliament but was a noted drunk, which led to a number of 'incidents' in the Houses of Parliament. His parliamentary career is probably most noted for his staunch support of slavery and in one such debate he claimed that West Indian slaves lived in better conditions than many people in England. In 1811, a pyramid-shaped building was erected in the churchyard in Brightling, as a future mausoleum for John Fuller. And there he was buried, in 1834.

1839 The birth, on this site (see picture) at Settle in the Yorkshire Dales of Benjamin Waugh, social reformer and campaigner who was a co-founder of the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. It evolved to become the NSPCC some five years later with Waugh as its first director and Queen Victoria as its first patron.

1938Anthony Eden resigned as British foreign secretary after the prime minister Neville Chamberlain decided to negotiate with Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.

1940The birth of Jimmy Greaves, England's third highest international goalscorer and the highest goalscorer in the history of Tottenham Hotspur football club. He was famed for his trademark catchphrase "It's a funny old game."

1947Lord Louis Mountbatten, cousin of King George VI and a hero of World War II, was appointed the last Viceroy of India, on the same day that London announced that the British would leave India by June 1948. In the same year he was granted the title of Baron Romsey. The family coat of arms 'In Honour Bound' (see picture) is in Romsey Abbey, where he is also buried.

1952Jeannette Altwegg won Britain’s first Olympic Gold Medal for figure-skating at the Winter Olympics in Oslo.

1958The government announced the closure of Sheerness docks, one of the oldest naval dockyards in the UK.

197911 members of a loyalist gang known as the 'Shankill butchers' were sentenced for 19 sectarian murders in Belfast following a sensational trial.

1982US entrepreneur John de Lorean’s luxury sports car project in Belfast, set up with over £17 million of British taxpayers’ money, went into receivership. On his return to the US he was asked bluntly, ‘Are you a con man?’

1989Police hunted two IRA bombers who attacked an army barracks at Tern Hill in Shropshire. Fifty members of the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment escaped injury when two men were seen acting suspiciously in the early hours of the morning.

1990Environmentalists attacked the Government of Margaret Thatcher for proposing to spend £12.4 billion on new roads.

2015 Chelsea Football Club suspended three supporters as the club investigated racist chanting and phone footage of commuter, Sylla Souleymane being pushed and prevented access to a carriage on the Paris Metro.

2015 Plans to build a wind turbine opposite Dylan Thomas's Boathouse (see picture) in Laugharne were quashed at the High Court. Carmarthenshire council's planning committee had voted in favour of the development at Mwche farm in June 2014.

2023 The 100th birthday of "The House in the Clouds" at Thorpeness, Suffolk (see picture). It is 70 feet high and was originally a water supply storage tank for Thorpeness village. Disguised as a house for aesthetic reasons, it is now available as a Holiday Let.

2023 At 17:40 today, police confirmed that the body found in the River Wyre at St. Michael's on Wyre yesterday morning, was that of Nicola Bulley, who went missing during a riverside walk on 27th January. An extensive search by two diving teams, her friends, police and police helicopters failed to find her, but she was eventually spotted in the water by two walkers.

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