1284The Statute of Rhuddlan (also known as the Statutes of Wales) was enacted 'On This Day'. It introduced the English common law system to Wales, allowing the King to appoint royal officials such as sheriffs, coroners and bailiffs to collect taxes and administer justice.

1847The birth, in Edinburgh, of Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell. He was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone.

1857The Second Opium War: Britain and France declared war on China, using the killing of a missionary as the pretext.

1869Sir Henry Wood, English conductor, was born. He is best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms.

1894Gladstone resigned as Prime Minister, aged 84, because his sight and hearing were failing, but he continued to sit as an MP until the General Election. Gladstone was born in Liverpool to Scottish parents. See picture of the Gladstone memorial in Liverpool. He first entered the House of Commons in 1832 and was both the oldest person to serve as Prime Minister and the only Prime Minister to have served four terms.

1934The largest ever English football crowd outside Wembley watched the match between Manchester City and Stoke City, in the FA Cup 6th round. Spectators numbered 84,569.

1943World War II: 173 people were killed in a crush while trying to enter an air-raid shelter at Bethnal Green tube station, in London.

1955A statement was made that London would become a smokeless zone at the beginning of October.

1966The BBC announced that it would begin broadcasting television programmes in colour in 1967.

1974A Turkish airliner en route to London crashed near Paris, killing all 345 people on board. Among the victims were 200 passengers, many of them British, who had been transferred from British Airways flights cancelled because of a strike by engineers at London airport.

1982The Queen opened the new £153m Barbican Arts Centre

1985NUM members (National Union of Mineworkers) returned to work after their costly year long strike, without a peace deal being won by their leader Arthur Scargill.

1991The Queen needed three stitches in her hand after intervening in a corgi fight.

1995Camilla Parker Bowles and her husband Andrew divorced. She married Prince Charles on 9th April 2005.

1995A bill which would ban hunting with hounds in England and Wales became the first such proposal to get a second reading in parliament.

1995It was announced that British police were to be issued with stab proof vests in dangerous operations.

2000Tens of thousands of football fans paid their last respects to Sir Stanley Matthews, regarded as one of the greatest players of the English game, who died on 23rd February.

2015 Paul Coyle (aged 50), the former treasurer and head of tax at Morrisons supermarkets was jailed for 12 months after pleading guilty to two counts of insider trading after buying Ocado Group shares. He was also handed a confiscation order for £203,234.

2018 The death of Sir Roger Bannister (aged 88), the first man to run a mile in under 4 minutes, a feat he achieved at the Iffley Road Sports Ground, Oxford on 6th May 1954, in a time of 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.

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