1189The death (aged 56) of Henry II, King of England. He was born in Normandy at Le Mans in 1133, was the first king of the House of Plantagenet and was made Duke of Normandy in 1150 by King Louis VII of France.

1189The date of accession of Richard I (Richard the Lionheart). In English law the phrase 'time immemorial' means a time before legal history and beyond legal memory. In 1275, by the first Statute of Westminster, the time of memory was limited to the reign of Richard I, beginning on 6th July 1189.

1483England's King Richard III was crowned. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at the Battle of Bosworth Field was the decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses. This funeral crown (see picture) was commissioned by an historian who was involved in the Leicester dig (in 2012) that discovered Richard III's remains.

1535Sir Thomas More was beheaded on London's Tower Hill for refusing to accept Henry VIII as head of the church. He lifted his beard from the axe, on the basis that it had committed no offences against the king!

1553The death of Edward VI, the first Protestant king of England. He died at the tender age of 15, having been crowned king when he was just 9 years old. He was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour. Edward named his cousin, Lady Jane Grey as his successor and she was queen for a mere nine days. The country, however, considered Mary the rightful ruler, and within a few days days she made a triumphal entry into London.

1557King Philip II of Spain, consort of Queen Mary I set out from Dover to war with France, which eventually results in the loss of the City of Calais, the last English possession on the continent, and Mary I never seeing her husband again.

1685James II defeated the Duke of Monmouth, claimant to the throne, at the Battle of Sedgemoor, Westonzoyland in Somerset (see picture) of the Sedgemoor Memorial and a close-up picture. Sedgemoor was the last major battle to be fought on English soil.

1855 The death of Andrew Crosse, an early pioneer and experimenter in the use of electricity. Crosse was born and died at Fyne Court, Broomfield, Somerset. The house burnt down in 1894 but this information room (see picture) at Fyne Court tells the story of the man known locally as 'The Thunder and Lightning Man'. This obelisk (see picture ) in Crosse's memory is in the grounds of the Church of St Mary & All Saints, Broomfield.

1892Britain's first non-white MP was elected when Dadabhai Naoraji won the Central Finsbury seat.

1907The opening of Brooklands - the world's first purpose-built motor racing circuit.

1919The first airship to cross the Atlantic, the British-built R34, arrived in New York.

1924The first photo was sent experimentally across Atlantic by radio, from the US to England.

1944 The death of Diana Hope Rowden. She was a Special Operations Executive (SOE) member who was executed, by lethal injection, in Natzweiler concentration camp after a new agent turned out to be a false agent planted by the Germans. She was awarded the French honour of Croix de Guerre 1939-1945. This commemorative plaque (see picture) is in Moreton-in-Marsh, where she had been promoted to Section officer in July 1942.

1952After nearly a century of service, trams made their final appearance in London.

1957Future Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney were introduced to each other when Lennon's band, the Quarrymen, performed at the St. Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton, Merseyside.

1960 The death of Aneurin Bevan, often known as Nye Bevan. He was a Welsh Labour Party politician and Minister for Health in the post-war Attlee ministry from 1945-51. Bevan spearheaded the establishment of the National Health Service, to provide medical care free at point-of-need to all Britons. See picture of his statue in Cardiff.

1964The Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night was premiered in London, with royal attendance.

1978Eleven people died and seventeen were injured in a blaze on the Penzance to Paddington sleeper train.

1978Three bags of horse manure were hurled from the public gallery in the House of Commons during a debate on Scottish Home Rule. Yana Mintoff, daughter of the Prime Minister of Malta, was later arrested and fined.

1988An explosion aboard the North Sea oil rig Piper Alpha, off the coast of Aberdeen, resulted in the loss of 167 lives. It is the world's deadliest ever oil rig accident.

2005The International Olympic Committee announced that the 2012 Olympic Games would be held in London.

2014Permanent secretary Mark Sedwill, the most senior civil servant in the Home Office was to give evidence to MPs. The department admitted that more than 100 official files relating to allegations of historical child abuse by politicians between 1979 and 1999 were "presumed destroyed, missing or not found". The files were in addition to a dossier alleging historical child abuse involving powerful and famous figures at Westminster in the 1980s that were "also missing."

2014From 4:30am cash could no longer be used on any of London's 24,500 buses, in a move that Transport for London (TfL) said would save £24m a year. A prepaid or concessionary ticket, Oyster card or a contactless payment card would be needed to travel.

2022 Yesterday evening, at about 6:00pm, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid both resigned from Boris Johnson's cabinet, citing a row over Johnson's integrity and his handling of sexual misconduct claims against ex-Deputy Chief Whip Chris Pincher. In total, 59 ministers and aides resigned, a new record of resignations in just over 24 hours of British politics. Tory grandee, Sir Roger Gale branded the Prime Minister's behaviour as staggering and raged at all the lies that the British public had been subjected to. In spite of it all, the Prime Minister was absolutely defiant that he would not resign.

• Contact Form