1450Irish born Jack Cade led a 40,000 strong demonstration march from Kent to London to protest against laws introduced by King Henry VI of England. Cade was later beheaded for treason.

1497Cornish rebels Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank were executed at Tyburn, London. The rebels had marched on London to protest at King Henry VII levying a tax to pay for an invasion of Scotland as they believed that this was a northern affair and had nothing to do with them.

1693The first women's magazine, The Ladies' Mercury, was published by John Dunton in London. It contained a question-and-answer column which became known as a 'problem page'.

1746In Scotland, Flora MacDonald helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape to the Isle of Skye dressed as an Irish maid, following his defeat by the English at the Battle of Culloden.

1759General James Wolfe began the siege of Quebec against the French. He was killed at the height of the battle on 13th September but earned posthumous fame and became an icon of Britain's victory in the Seven Years War and subsequent territorial expansion.

1846The birth of Charles Stewart Parnell, Irish nationalist leader who was Member of Parliament for Meath; later leader of the Nationalist Party supporting a policy of violence which led to imprisonment in 1881. His career ended when he was cited as the co-respondent in a divorce case and was dumped by his party.

1899Indian born English cricketer Arthur Edward Jeune Collins, aged 13 and often known by his initials A. E. J. Collins, achieved the highest-ever recorded score in cricket. He scored 628 not out over four afternoons but, despite this achievement, Collins never played first-class cricket. He was killed in action in 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres.

1939The first scheduled airline service of Boeing 314 flying boats was operated by Pan Am between Newfoundland and Southampton.

1944After 21 days of bloody fighting through the Normandy countryside, Allied forces took Cherbourg in France.

1957A report by the Medical Research Council found the link between smoking and lung cancer was one of 'direct cause and effect'.

1963The US President John F Kennedy visited his ancestral homeland in County Wexford, Ireland. During his stay he made much of Ireland's subjugation and religious persecution by the British.

1967Barclays Bank (Enfield branch) opened Britain's first cash dispenser.

1968Maggie Wright, playing Helen of Troy in the Royal Shakespeare Company production in London, became the first actress in Britain to appear nude on the ‘legitimate’ stage.

1971England's first national Scrabble Championship was held in London. The winner was teacher Stephen Haskell.

1988Dave Hurst and Alan Matthews, both from England, became the first blind climbers to reach the summit of Europe’s highest mountain, Mont Blanc - 15,781 feet high.

2009 The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (see picture) was inscribed as a World Heritage Site. The aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal over the valley of the River Dee in Wrexham in north east Wales. It is the longest and highest aqueduct in Britain.

2012'The Belfast Handshake', the first historic encounter between the Queen and the former IRA commander, Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, who went on to become Northern Ireland's deputy first minister. (Prince Philip's uncle, Lord Mountbatten, the Queen's second cousin, was assassinated by the IRA who blew up his fishing boat in County Sligo in 1979.)

2014Staff at Dartmoor prison (see picture) had offered sun cream to inmates who had managed to climb on to a rooftop during sunny weather the previous week, the Ministry of Justice confirmed. They said that the offer of sun cream was a standard procedure, as part of the jail's 'duty of care' that was in line with health and safety rules.

2014The mummified body of Anne Leitrim, who was in her 70s, was discovered in her flat in Bournemouth, where she had lain undiscovered for six years. Her remains were finally found when bailiffs visited the property to collect unpaid debts.

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