1778 James Hargreaves, the English inventor of the spinning jenny died. After he had begun to sell the machines to help support his large family, hand spinners, fearing unemployment, broke into his house and destroyed a number of jennies, causing Hargreaves to move from Blackburn to Nottingham in 1768.
1838 The British steamer Sirius became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean from England to New York. The voyage took 18 days and 10 hours.
1884 Thomas Stevens starts 1st bike trip around world (2 yrs 9 mths).
1915 The second battle of Ypres started when German troops released clouds of deadly chlorine gas on British troops. It was the first major gas attack of World War I.
1943 Britain discontinued printing £1,000 notes.
1945 World War II - After learning that Soviet forces had taken Eberswalde without a fight, Adolf Hitler admitted defeat in his underground bunker and stated that suicide was his only recourse.
1969 1st human eye transplant performed.
1969 British yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston sailed into Falmouth Harbour, completing the first non-stop solo voyage around the world. He was at sea for 312 days. His yacht was named Suhaili which means "good wind".
1970 First Earth Day celebrated, founded by Gaylord Nelson.
1972 Sylvia Cook and John Fairfax became the first people to row across the Pacific Ocean (the world's largest ocean). They arrived in Australia in their boat Britannia after being at sea for 362 days.
1977 Top Gear aired for the first time. Pictured is host Angela Rippon in what appears to be a... blue... car.
1983 Stern mag announces major historical find-discovery of 60 volume personal diaries written by Adolf Hitler (turned out to be a hoax).
1994 Michael Moorer beats Evander Holyfield in 12 for heavyweight boxing title.
1995 George Foreman beats Axel Schulz in 12 for heavyweight boxing title in Las Vegas.
1999 Luis Garavito [The Beast, Tribilín], Colombian serial killer described as "the world's worst serial killer" (138-300+ victims) apprehended.
2013 Manchester United defeat Aston Villa to claim the 2012/2013 English Premier League.
2014 David Moyes is sacked as manager of Manchester United.
23rd April is the National Day of England and the Feast Day of St. George.
871 The death of Æthelred I (sometimes rendered as Ethelred) king of Wessex from 865 to 871.
1016 Edmund Ironside succeeded his father Æthelred II (Ethelred the Unready) as king of England. Unready, meaning 'poorly advised' was a play on his name, which means 'well advised'.
1348 The founding of the Order of the Garter by King Edward III. It is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St. George as England's patron saint. Membership to the order is limited to the Sovereign, the Prince of Wales, and no more than twenty-four 'members, or companions.'
1516 Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria endorses "The German Beer Purity Law" and adds to it standards for the sale of beer in Bavaria, ensuring beer is only brewed from three ingredients – water, malt and hops.
1564 The birth of poet & playwright William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. He died on his 52nd birthday in 1616.
1661 Charles II was crowned King of England, completing the restoration of the monarchy. His father, Charles I, had been beheaded by Oliver Cromwell following the Civil War.
1702 Queen Anne is crowned at Westminster Abbey, London.
1775 J M W Turner, English painter was born. He was one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting.
1850 William Wordsworth, English poet, died.
1867 Queen Victoria & Napoleon III turn down plans for a channel tunnel.
1879 The first Shakespeare Memorial Theatre opened in Stratford-upon-Avon.
1915 The death, aged 27 (from an infected mosquito bite) of the English poet Rupert Brooke, known for his war sonnets written during the First World War, especially "The Soldier". - If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England.
1931 US gangster film "The Public Enemy" starring James Cagney and Jean Harlow premieres.
1959 1st heliport in Britain opens in London.
1968 The first decimal coins appeared in Britain - the 5p and 10p pieces which replaced the 1 shilling and 2 shilling coins.
1979 Fighting in London between the Anti-Nazi League and the Metropolitan Police Special Patrol Group results in the death of protester Blair Peach.
1980 The British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia was expelled from the country following the broadcast on British TV of the documentary 'Death of a Princess'. It depicted the life and execution of a Saudi Arabian Princess found guilty of committing adultery.
1982 The launch of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer. The entry level model had 16 kB RAM and an external tape recorder was needed to load the majority of software. It was 'a computer for the masses' and much cheaper than its rivals - the Commodore 64 and the BBC Microcomputer.
1983 Canadian snooker player Cliff Thorburn completed the first televised maximum break of 147 during the World Snooker Championships at the Crucible Theatre, in Sheffield.
1985 New Coke debuts; Coca-Cola announced it is changing its secret flavor formula.
1990 Charlie Wilson, the ‘silent man' of the Great Train Robbery (8th August 1963), was shot dead at his home near Marbella, Spain.
1992 McDonald's opens its 1st fast-food restaurant in China.
2003 Beijing closes all schools for two weeks because of the SARS virus. The SARS virus, known technically as SARS-CoV (coronavirus). First appearing in China in 2002, the disease spread to 29 countries before it was stopped.
2011 The death of John Sullivan, the television scriptwriter responsible for several popular British sitcoms, including Only Fools and Horses, Citizen Smith and Just Good Friends.
2013 West Indian cricketer, Chris Gayle, smashes the fastest century in history (30 balls).
2019 Southampton striker Shane Long scores fastest goal in English Premier League history when he nets after 7.69 seconds in 1-1 draw at Watford.
2020 US President Donald Trump suggests COVID-19 might be treated by injecting disinfectant or UV lights into a human body at a White House press briefing. Government officials and disinfectant companies quickly state doing so is not only extremely dangerous but potentially deadly.
1184 BC The Greeks enter Troy using the Trojan Horse.
1066 Halley's Comet sparks English monk to predict country will be destroyed. Around Easter on 24 April 1066, Haley’s Comet appeared in the night sky.The people think it is an evil omen and are terrified.
1558 Mary Queen of Scots, also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, married the French Dauphin at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.
1731 The death of Daniel Defoe, English novelist and author of Robinson Crusoe, his most famous novel. Robinson Crusoe is second only to the Bible in its number of translations.
1833 Jacob Evert & George Dulty patent 1st soda fountain.
1880 Amateur Athletic Association, governing body for men's athletics in England & Wales, is founded in Oxford, England.
1900 The first issue of the newspaper the Daily Express. It was founded by Arthur Pearson.
1906 William Joyce, British traitor and Nazi propagandist ('Lord Haw-Haw') was born.
1916 In Dublin, Irish nationalists, led by Patrick Pearse, launched the Easter Rebellion against British rule.
1932 A mass trespass by thousands of ramblers, led by Benny Rothman, took place on Kinder Scout in the Peak District. Their aim was to establish public right of access on the moors and mountains that were privately owned for grouse shooting.The mass trespass started at Bowden Bridge Quarry, close to Hayfield and had a far-reaching impact that culminated in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 which gave people 'the right to roam' on mapped access land.
1953 Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
1957 English astronomer Patrick Moore presented the first broadcast of The Sky at Night, on BBC television.
1965 The official opening of the Pennine Way, a 256 mile path along the Pennine Hills from The Old Nag's Head at Edale in Derbyshire to 'The Border' at Kirk Yetholm on the Scottish border.
1969 Paul McCartney says there is no truth to rumors he is dead.
1988 Luton Town beat the strong favourites and cup holders Arsenal to win the Littlewoods (League) Cup in front of 95,732 at Wembley. It was decided in the final 10 minutes when Luton saved a penalty and then scored an equaliser and a winner. It was the first major piece of silverware the Hatters had won – and then they broke the trophy during their celebrations.
1989 British jockey Peter Scudamore became the first National Hunt jockey in Britain to ride 200 winners in a season.
1990 Gruinard Island, Scotland, is officially declared free of the anthrax disease after 48 years of quarantine.
1993 A massive bomb ripped through the the City of London, killing one and injuring more than 40.
2018 Golden State Killer suspect Joseph DeAngelo arrested and charged with eight murders after being identified through genealogy websites.
1284 The birth, at Caernarfon Castle of King Edward II, who became the first heir-apparent to bear the title Prince of Wales. King from 1307, he ruled during a period of pestilence, famine and defeats at the hands of the Scots, and was eventually murdered.
1599 The birth of Oliver Cromwell, Protector of England who led his ‘Ironsides’ in the English Civil War against the ‘Roundheads’ of King Charles I. Cromwell’s victories enabled him to have the King tried and beheaded, after which he established a republic.
1719 Robinson Crusoe first appeared in paperback. Written by Daniel Defoe it was based partly on the story of Alexander Selkirk who was marooned on a Pacific island for four years.
1829 Admiral Charles Fremantle arrived in HMS Challenger off the coast of modern day Western Australia prior to declaring the Swan River Colony for Britain.
1848 The first Royal yacht, Victoria and Albert, was launched at Pembroke Docks, after suffering serious damage when first floated.
1850 Paul Julius Reuter sets up carrier-pigeon service, using 40 pigeons to carry stock market prices between Aachen and Brussels.
1859 British and French engineers broke ground for the creation of the Suez Canal. The excavation took some 10 years and altogether more than 1.5 million people from various countries were employed.
1915 ANZAC DAY World War I - 90,000 Australian, New Zealand, British and French forces began landing on the Gallipoli Peninsular to attack Turkish positions. The Lancashire Fusliers won "6 VC's before breakfast" storming the Gallipoli beach.
1916 The start of the Easter Rebellion in Ireland, mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic. It was the most significant uprising in Ireland since the rebellion of 1798.
1953 Two Cambridge University scientists published their answer to how living things reproduced. Francis Crick and James Watson's discovery of the double helix structure of DNA is published in "Nature" magazine.
1954 Bell labs announces the 1st solar battery made from silicon. It has about 6% efficiency. Magazine advert for Bell Labs' new invention, the solar battery.
1970 Freda Payne releases "Band of Gold".
1982 British Royal Marines recaptured South Georgia in the Falkland Islands.
1993 Russia elects Boris Yeltsin leader.
2007 Boris Yeltsin's funeral - the first to be sanctioned by the Russian Orthodox Church for a head of state since the funeral of Emperor Alexander III in 1894.
2012 A new initiative paired the Scottish hamlet of Dull with an American town named Boring. The Dull and Boring plan was hatched after a resident of Dull, near Aberfeldy in Perthshire, cycled through Boring in Oregon.
2019 Microsoft becomes the third US firm to be listed with a market worth of 1 trillion, after Apple and Amazon.
Jack Charlton made his League debut against Doncaster Rovers at Elland Road in Leeds' last Division 2 match of the 1952/53 season - the first of what would be a club record 629 League appearances for the Yorkshire club. As he left the dressing room he asked manager Raich Carter what he should be doing in the match and received the reply 'See how fast their centre forward can limp.'
Football On This Day – 25th April 1986.
Bobby Moore resigned as manager of Southend - the only League club he managed - for personal reasons. His two years at Roots Hall had been tough ones but despite financial problems he had helped turn Southend from Division 4 strugglers to a club who finished 9th in 1985/86 and who would win promotion the following season.
Football On This Day - 25th April 2004.
Arsenal's Invincibles won the league title at White Hart Lane the second time Arsenal had won the title at Spud's home ground having also achieved this in 1971. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzqjhCnAAB4
Football On This Day – 25th April 2007.
Alan Ball, the youngest member of England’s 1966 World Cup winners, tragically died of a heart attack while putting out a bonfire in the garden of his home.
Football On This Day – 25th April 2009.
Losing 2-0 at home to Spurs at the break Manchester United brought on Carlos Tevez as a second half sub. Along with Rooney, Ronaldo and Berbatov - some strikeforce that - United won 5-2 and went on to retain the Premier League title that season.
Football On This Day – 25th April 2015.
They say that politicians should keep clear of animals and children - perhaps football should be added to that list. In a speech in the run-up to the 2015 general election Prime Minister David Cameron said he wished everyone would support West Ham. An ex-Eton boy supporting the Hammers, now that would have been a first - but then the PM remembered he supported Aston Villa! He blamed 'brain fade' for the mistake but most people thought it was just more bulls hit!
1607 Captain John Smith landed at Cape Henry, in Virginia with the first group of colonists who established a permanent English settlement in America.
1895 The start of the trial of playwright Oscar Wide who was charged with homosexuality.
1902 Heavily in debt Second Division side Newton Heath are saved when new investment came their way. As part of a fresh start they decided to make a few changes - their colours were changed from gold and green to red and white and their name became... Manchester United.
1923 The marriage of Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later 'the Queen Mother') to the Duke of York (later King George VI) at Westminster Abbey in London. It was the first royal wedding at the abbey since 1383. The newly formed British Broadcasting Company wanted to record and broadcast the event on radio, but the Abbey Chapter vetoed the idea.
1962 In a joint USA British venture, the first international satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
1965 A Rolling Stones concert in London, Ontario was shut down by police after 15 minutes due to rioting.
1975 Labour Party members voted by almost 2-1 to leave the EEC, underlining the deep divisions over the issue of Europe. But on 6th June in the same year British voters backed the UK's continued membership by a large majority in the country's first nationwide referendum.
1976 The death of Sid James, British based South African actor and comedian. He made his name as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour and also starred in the popular Carry On films.
1982 Rod Stewart is mugged, gunman steals his $50,000 Porsche.
1984 The re-opening of the reconstructed Cavern Club in Liverpool It is located next to the original Club. In the early 1960s the Cavern Club became the most publicised pop music venue in the world, with regular performances from the Beatles, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J Kramer, Cilla Black and many more 60s groups and solo singers.
1986 World's worst nuclear disaster: 4th reactor at Chernobyl nuclear power station in USSR explodes, 31 die, radioactive contamination reaches much of Western Europe.
1989 Naas, County Kildare, in Ireland held their first annual pig race watched by over 7,000 people. One punter won £200 on the favourite, Porky’s Revenge, and the bookies handed the remainder of their money to the charity People in Need.
1991 Soccer star Diego Maradona, suspended for using cocaine, arrested in Argentina for possession & distribution of illegal narcotics.
2000 The government announced a £10m aid package for firms hit by the sale of car giant Rover as a report detailed the wider effects of redundancies.
2014 Documents showed that Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One tycoon, had received £300m from his ex-wife Slavica's trust fund following the pair's divorce in 2009.
2014 The only surviving letter thought to have been written on the ill-fated Titanic, was sold at auction for £119,000.
2018 Serial killer "Golden State Killer" identified after 40 years as a former police officer, responsible for 12 killings, 50 rapes in California.
1296 An English army, led by Edward I, defeated the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar, the only significant field action in the campaign of 1296. The English routed the disorganised Scots in a single charge, in action that was brief and probably not very blood y, since the only casualty of any note was a minor Lothian knight.
1667 The blind, impoverished John Milton sold the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10.
1749 The first official performance of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks in Green Park, London. It finished early due to the outbreak of fire, but Handel stuck to his conducting, whilst the audience ran for their lives.
1773 British Parliament passes Tea Act (Boston won't like this).
1828 The opening of the London Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park, London. Lady visitors were politely requested to refrain from poking the beasts through the bars of the cages.
1840 The foundation stone for the new Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace) was laid by the wife of the architect Sir Charles Barry.
1908 IV Summer (Modern) Olympic Games open in London.
1927 The birth of Sheila (Christine) Scott, English aviator who broke 104 light aircraft records and was the first to fly solo over the North Pole. Despite this, she failed her driving test three times. Her flying endeavours were always under-financed and when funds ran out, she was left to a sad and lonely retirement.
1937 King George VI officially opened the National Maritime Museum.
1939 Conscription for men aged 20 - 21 was announced in Britain.
1940 Himmler orders establishment of Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
1943 Judy Johnson rode Lone Gallant in a steeplechase in Baltimore to become the first woman jockey to ride as a professional.
1944 The birth of Michael Fish, British meteorologist. He became infamous in the wake of the Great Storm of 1987 when it was rumoured that there a hurricane on the way to which he commented 'Well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't!' That evening, the worst storm to hit South East England since 1703 caused record damage and killed 18 people.
1956 Undefeated world heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano, retires from the ring.
1971 Police were forced to physically remove demonstrators from the entrance of a courtroom after they disrupted proceedings inside. Eight people were accused of conspiring to damage, remove or destroy English language road signs in Wales during a rally in December 1970. It was regarded as a major event in the struggle for greater recognition of the Welsh Language.
1981 Paul McCartney's solo rock band Wings disbands.
1982 Trial of John Hinckley begins for the attempted assassination of US President Ronald Reagan.
1992 The House of Commons elected a woman to the post of Speaker for the first time. She was Betty Boothroyd, the 62-year-old Labour MP for West Bromwich.
2014 TV Springwatch presenters Chris Packham and Bill Oddie blamed a risk-averse culture for 'killing childhood'. "Children should be allowed to get up to mischief in the countryside by starting fires, trespassing and scrumping. Parents should let their children roam the countryside unsupervised."
2020 Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned to work after being hospitalised (5th April) and then placed in intensive care with coronavirus. At the time of his return, more than 21,000 had died in hospital from coronavirus, with another reported 4,300 coronavirus deaths in care homes in just two weeks.
A back-heel from Manchester City’s Denis Law resulted in one of the most famous goals in League history – it was against Manchester United, which put United on the verge of relegation. Law was immediately substituted and didn’t play League football again and the match was later abandoned although the result was allowed to stand.
In response to an FA warning following a pitch invasion at Stamford Bridge in March 1985 controversial Chelsea chairman Ken Bates had a shocking solution - a 12-foot high electrified fence around the pitch! It was due to be switched on at the Chelsea v Tottenham First Division fixture on Saturday 27th April 1985 but days before the match the Greater London Council threatened legal action if the switch-on took place. So the big question on match-day was would they or would they not switch on the 12-volts. They didn't - and never would.
28th April is International Workers’ Memorial Day, the day each year when workers come together and remember those who have been killed and injured at work. The slogan for the day is 'Remember the dead – fight for the living'.
1442 Edward IV, King of England and son of Richard, Duke of York, was born. He was the first king of the House of York.
1603 Queen Elizabeth I's funeral took place at Westminster Abbey.
1721 The death of the pirate Mary Read (also known as Mark Read). She began dressing as a boy at a young age, at first by her mother in order to receive inheritance money and then as a teenager in order to join the British military. She and her crew-mate Anne Bonny (also in male disguise) are two of the most famed female pirates of all time, and among the few women known to have been convicted of piracy during the early 18th century, a golden age for piracy. On their arrest, both delayed execution on the grounds of being pregnant, though Mary died the following year, in prison, of a violent fever.
1770 English navigator Captain James Cook and his crew, including the botanist Joseph Banks, landed in Australia, at Stingray Bay, which was later named Botany Bay.
1772 The death, in London, of the world's most travelled goat. She had circumnavigated the world twice, first on Dolphin under Captain Wallis, then on Cook's Endeavour. The Lord of the Admiralty even signed a document acknowledging her age and adventures.
1789 The crew of the Bounty, led by Fletcher Christian, mutinied against the harsh life at sea under Captain Bligh. They were on the return journey from Tahiti where they had spent six months gathering breadfruit trees. Bligh and 17 others were cast adrift in a small boat without a chart. While the mutineers eventually colonized Pitcairn Island, Bligh managed to sail the small craft 3,618 miles to Timor, near Java, arriving there on 14th June.
1881 Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Lincoln, New Mexico.
1888 The birth of Walter Tull, professional football for Tottenham Hotspur and Northampton Town. He was the first 'Afro-Caribbean / mixed heritage' outfield player in the top division of English football, and the first to be commissioned as an infantry officer in the British Army. Northampton South MP Brian Binley has campaigned for Tull to be posthumously awarded the Military Cross for his 'gallantry and coolness' while leading his company of 26 men on a raiding party into enemy territory during World War 1.
1910 Frenchman Louis Paulhan won the London to Manchester air race and the £10,000 prize. It was the first long-distance aeroplane race in England and was first proposed by the Daily Mail newspaper in 1906.
1923 The first FA Cup Final was held at Wembley Stadium. 200,000 people arrived at a stadium which was only designed to hold 125,000 and when 60,000 irate fans rushed the turnstiles a human torrent swept onto the pitch. Players were engulfed by the crowd and 1,000 men, women and children were injured. Finals were made 'all ticket' after that. The game began one hour late and Bolton beat West Ham 2-0.
1944 Exercise "Tiger" ends with 750 US soldiers dead in D-Day rehearsal after their convoy ships were attacked by German torpedo boats off Slapton Sands, Devon.
1965 Luciano Pavarotti makes his debut at La Scala, Milan in Franco Zeffirelli's production of "La bohème" with Mirella Freni.
1966 38th Academy Awards: "The Sound of Music" wins.
1967 Muhammad Ali refuses induction into army & stripped of boxing title.
1972 Courts award 1968 Kentucky Derby prize money to 2nd place winner due to the winner being given drugs before the race.
1973 Bobby Charlton played in his 606th and last League match for Manchester United – a 1-0 defeat against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. His six League goals that season was enough to see him finish as the top scorer for United in 1972/73 when the club finished just above a relegation spot. On the same day his older brother Jackie played his last League game, for Leeds against Southampton at the Dell. Jackie's whole League career was at Elland Road although Bobby went on to play for Preston after leaving Old Trafford.
1986 Soviet TV news program Vremya announces a nuclear accident at Chernobyl nuclear power station, 2 days after the event.
1999 The death of Sir Alfred Ernest 'Alf' Ramsey, manager of the English national football team from 1963 to 1974. His greatest achievement was winning the 1966 World Cup with England on 30th July 1966.
2004 Shrek the sheep from Tarras, Central Otago, New Zealand, is finally shorn live on TV after 6 years avoidance; the fleece weighed 27 kg (60 lb).
2010 Former Prime MInister, Gordon Brown, said that he was 'mortified' after being caught on microphone describing Rochdale pensioner, Gillian Duffy, as a bigoted woman after she had had challenged him on issues, including immigration.
2014 Teacher Anne Maguire (aged 61) was stabbed to death in front of pupils inside Corpus Christi Catholic College - Leeds where she had taught for 40 years. 15-year-old Will Cornick was detained by teaching staff and later sentenced to life imprisonment.
2014 Police announced that they would investigate whether officials in Rochdale tried to cover up sexual abuse at Knowl View school by 11 people, including Rochdale's former MP Cyril Smith.
2019 American diver Victor Vescovo makes the deepest dive ever to the bottom of the Mariana trench at 10,927m (35,849ft), and finds a plastic bag.
2020 US confirmed cases of COVID-19 pass 1 million, while death toll of 58,365 surpasses that of US soldiers killed in Vietnam War.
2020 US Department of Defense releases three declassified videos of possible UFOs from 2004 and 2015.
1429 Joan of Arc arrived at the besieged city of Orleans to eventually lead her French forces to victory (on 6th May) over the English.
1696 There were many attempts on the life of William III, King of England, who attracted opposition, in part because he was a foreigner. On This Day, three would-be assassins, Rookwood, Lowick and Cranbourne, were executed for an attempt that failed.
1884 Oxford University agreed to admit female students to examinations. However, woman were not to be awarded degrees.
1909 In a revolutionary budget called 'The People's Budget', Chancellor David Lloyd George introduced a new 'supertax' of sixpence in the pound for anyone earning more than £5,000 a year (£387.000 in today's money). The new high level of supertax was to pay for old age pensions and re-armament of the forces.
1935 Just one year after their invention by Percy Shaw of Yorkshire, 'cats' eyes' were being inserted into British roads.
1938 The birth, in Bolton, Lancashire of Fred Dibnah MBE, English steeplejack. He had a fascination for steam vehicles and mechanical engineering and became a cult television personality.
1945 The German army in Italy surrendered to the Allies under the British General Alexander. The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, 'Il Duce', who, after a series of military misadventures, became unpopular even among his fellow Fascists, was captured while trying to flee Italy and was executed.
1945 Adolf Hitler married his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designated Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor. Both Hitler and Braun committed suicide the next day.
1985 Tony Tubbs beats defending champion Greg Page by unanimous decision in 15 rounds at Memorial Auditorium, Buffalo for WBA heavyweight boxing title.
1986 The Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson, was laid to rest at Frogmore in Windsor, alongside her husband, the abdicated King Edward VIII.
1990 Snooker player Stephen Hendry beat Jimmy White, to become the youngest ever world professional champion, aged 21 years and 106 days.
1990 Wrecking cranes began tearing down the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate.
1992 Jury acquits Los Angeles Police Department officers on charges of excessive force in the beating of Rodney King; the decision sparks massive riots in the city.
1993 It was announced that Buckingham Palace would be opened to the public for the first time (during August & September) in a bid to raise funds to repair Windsor Castle.
1995 Longest sausage ever, at 28.77 miles, made in Kitchener, Ontario.
2008 The unveiling, in his home town of Bolton, of the 8ft memorial statue to the legendary steeplejack Fred Dibnah. The statue was unveiled on the anniversary of his birth.
2011 The marriage of Prince William, 2nd in line to the throne, and Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey. The day was declared a bank holiday in celebration.
2014 The death (aged 71) of Robert William 'Bob' Hoskins, English actor, known for playing Cockneys and gangsters. His best known works included lead roles in The Long Good Friday, Mona Lisa, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Mermaids and Super Mario Bros.
2014 A campaign poster advertising Nigel Farage's UKIP was inadvertently placed next to a 'Go Outdoors' poster for inflatable tents that bore the slogan - 'No Poles Required'.
1513 Edmund de la Pole, Yorkist pretender to the English throne, was executed on the orders of Henry VIII.
1625 The death of Sir Lawrence Tanfield at Burford in Oxfordshire. Tanfield was a prominent lawyer and politician and lord of Burford manor. Relationships with the locals were poor. There were accusations of Tanfield's corruption and overbearingness and he stripped the vicarage of much of its endowment. Tanfield's widow arranged for him to be buried in Burford church, under an elaborate tomb in the north chapel at dead of night, without the permission of the priests or town. The ghosts of Tanfield and his wife have been reportedly sighted racing around Burford in a fiery coach, bringing death to all who see them.
1789 George Washington became the first President of the United States of America.
1821 The first iron steamship, Aaron Manby, named after the proprietor of the Staffordshire ironworks at which she had been made, was completed. She weighed 116 tons and after trials on the River Thames made her maiden voyage across the Channel.
1900 Casey Jones dies heroically in a train wreck at Vaughn, Mississippi, while driving Cannonball Express (immortalized in"Ballad of Casey Jones").
1904 Ice cream cone makes its debut at St. Louis World's Fair invented by Ernest A. Hamwi.
1938 The FA Cup was televised on British TV in its entirety, for the first time. The TV audience was estimated as 10,000. Preston played Huddersfield Town and Preston won in the last minute of extra time.
1943 The body of a mystery man, a tramp (planted with false invasion plans) was used by Britain to fool Nazi Germany into defending the 'wrong' regions of the Mediterranean, aiding a successful invasion of Sicily.
1944 The first of 500,000 prefab homes went on show in London. They were designed for demobilised servicemen and bombed-out families and consisted of 2 bedrooms, a living room, bathroom and toilet and kitchen on one floor. They covered an area of 616 sq ft and were built by the motor industry
1945 Nazi leader Adolf Hitler committed suicide. Before beginning his assault on Europe, Hitler had assured his followers that the Third Reich would last for 1,000 years. His mistress, Eva Braun, whom he'd married the day before, died alongside him after taking a cyanide pill.
1948 The launch of the Land Rover Defender. The first model was sold for £450 at the Amsterdam Motor Show.
1952 The British public got the chance to read 'The Diary of a Young Girl', written by Anne Frank who hid from the **** in Holland during the war.
1974 England's football manager Sir Alf Ramsey, manager of the England team which won the World Cup in 1966 was sacked, after 11 years as manager.
1976 Muhammad Ali beats Jimmy Young in 15 for heavyweight boxing title.
1980 Armed terrorists seized the Iranian Embassy in London taking 20 hostages and threatening to blow up the building.
1988 The then largest banana split ever, at 4.5 miles long, is made along Market Street in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.
1988 33rd Eurovision Song Contest: Celine Dion for Switzerland wins singing "Ne partez pas sans moi" in Dublin.
1989 World Wide Web (WWW) is first launched in the public domain by CERN scientist Tim Berners-Lee.
1993 The World Wide Web source code is released by CERN, making the software freely available to all.
1993 Virgin Radio broadcasts for the first time in the United Kingdom.
1997 Big Ben stops at 12:11 PM for 54 minutes.
1999 Two people were killed and at least 30 injured in the third nail-bomb attack in London in two weeks. The bomb went off in a public house in the heart of London's gay community.
2009 The Met. Office forecasted 'odds on for a barbecue summer', with no repeat of the washouts of the previous two years but ..... average rainfall for the summer was up 40%.
2012 A flamboyant Australian billionaire ordered a shipyard in China to build him an exact replica of the Titanic. The Chinese navy has been invited to escort Titanic II on its maiden voyage from England to New York in 2016.
2013 A 40 thousand piece, 19.5ft. by 8ft. jigsaw commemorating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee crashed to the floor just days before it was due to go on display at Sandringham. Creator Dave Evans, who had spent five weeks creating the jigsaw believed that it would enter the Guinness World records as the world’s largest jigsaw.
2014 63 year old Jeremy Paxman announced that he was to quit his job as 'rottweiler-in-chief' presenter of Newsnight after 25 years.
2020 The 100th birthday of Captain Tom Moore. On 6th April he set out to raise £1000 for NHS Charities Together by walking 100 lengths of his 25 metre garden and ended up raising almost £30M in donations. It was the largest-ever amount raised by a JustGiving campaign. He later featured in a charity cover version of the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" with Michael Ball, with proceeds going to the same charity. The single topped the UK music charts and made Captain Moore the oldest person to ever achieve a UK number one. He was made an honorary colonel on his 100th birthday, received more than 125,000 birthday cards and will be made an honorary England cricketer by former captain Michael Vaughan. A Great Western Railway intercity express train (No. 800025) was also named in his honour on his birthday and an RAF flypast took place over his house. Navigation
Top grounds nowadays hardly have a blade of grass out of place but there was a time when that was far from true. One of the worst puddings of a pitch was at Derby County's former home, the Baseball Ground, were the pitch was several feet below street level, the drainage was non-existent and the stands stopped any drying winds. Even then Cloughie often ordered that the pitch be watered before a match if a 'sticky' surface would give the Rams an advantage. Things went very wrong though on this day in 1977 when Derby played Manchester City in a First Division match at the Baseball Ground. With minutes remaining and Derby 3-0 up they were awarded a penalty. But the pitch was in such a poor state that the penalty spot had disappeared into the mud. Before the pen could be taken the groundsman, Bob Smith, helped by the referee, had to measure out the distance from the goal line and then paint the mud to mark the new penalty spot from which Gerry Daly scored.
May Day - originally a Roman festival which began on 28th April and lasted several days to mark the commencement of summer. In England, middle and lower classes would gather flowers - ‘go a maying’ - and the prettiest village maid was crowned Queen of the May, celebrated with dancing around the maypole.
1328 The Wars of Scottish Independence ended. England recognized the Kingdom of Scotland as an independent state.
1517 In 'Evil May Day' riots in London, London apprentices attacked foreign residents. Wolsey suppressed the rioters, of whom 60 were hanged.
1707 The Act of Union joined the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1759 Josiah Wedgwood founded the Wedgwood pottery company in Burslem, Staffordshire. Wedgewood was a prominent abolitionist of slavery. He mass produced cameos depicting the seal for the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and had them widely distributed. He was also the grandfather of Charles Darwin and Emma Darwin.
1769 The birth, in Ireland, of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. Known as the Iron Duke, he defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. He was Tory Prime Minister from 1828-30, becoming unpopular when he conceded Roman Catholic emancipation. His London house had its windows smashed by an angry mob on the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.
1840 The first British Penny Black stamp went on sale. Invented by Rowland Hill, it was the world’s first adhesive postage stamp and it became valid for postage on 6th May.
1851 Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, London. Over 10,000 exhibitors set up eight miles of tables. Although technological wonders from around the world were on display, the exposition was dominated by Britain, which was the premier industrialized nation and workshop of the world.
1851 First public flushing toilets the 'Monkey Closets' unveiled by George Jennings as part of The Great Exhibition at Hyde Park, London, costing one penny.
1873 The death, in Zambia, of the missionary, doctor and explorer David Livingstone. He was from humble beginnings and was born in Blantyre, eight miles south east of Glasgow. His mother, father and four brothers and sisters lived in a single room in a tenement known as Shuttle Row, which they shared with 23 other families.
1875 Alexandra Palace reopened after a fire in 1873 burnt it down. It was designed to be 'The People’s Palace' and was later nicknamed 'Ally Pally'. In 1936 it became the headquarters of the world's first regular public television service, operated by the BBC.
1916 The end of the Easter Rising in Ireland, following a week of bitter fighting in Dublin after Irish Nationalists rose against British rule on Easter Monday, 24th April. More than 400 lost their lives.
1927 1st British airliner to serve cooked meals (Imperial Airways).
1930 The planet Pluto is officially named by 11 year-old Venetia Burney.
1939 Batman first appears in Detective Comics #27.
1941 "Citizen Kane", directed by Orson Welles and starring himself, Joseph Cotten and Dorothy Corningore, premieres at the Palace Theater in New York City.
1952 Mr Potato Head introduced.
1955 Stirling Moss and co-driver Dennis Jenkinson became the first British drivers to win the Mille Miglia. His Mercedes Benz finished 30 minutes ahead of the second car, driven by the legendary Argentinian, Fangio.
1963 First one-day cricket competition is played (Gillette Cup); Lancashire beats Leicestershire by 101 at Old Trafford.
1966 Last British concert by Beatles (Empire Pool in Wembley).
1971 Rolling Stones release "Brown Sugar".
1973 More than a million workers joined a one day strike in protest at the pay restraint policy and price rises by the Conservative government under Edward Heath.
1982 British planes attacked two airstrips near Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands to rid the islands of Argentine forces.
1994 Three-time World Formula 1 Drivers champion Ayrton Senna of Brazil is killed in a 309 kmh crash whilst leading the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola in Italy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q_uNYLThsQ
1997 A landslide victory for the Labour Party in the General election brought an end to the Conservative Party's 18 years in power. The new Prime Minister was Tony Blair.
1999 Animated series "SpongeBob SquarePants", created by Stephen Hillenburg, debuts on Nickelodeon.
2000 "Gladiator" directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix premieres in LA (Best Picture 2001).
2015 The death of Geoff Duke, aged 92. He spent 10 years at the highest level of motorcycle racing, winning six World Championships and six Isle of Man TT races during the 1950s.
2017 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Englishman Mark Selby defends title beating John Higgins of Scotland, 18-15; his third world crown.
2018 Scotland is the first country in the world to introduce a minimum price on alcohol.
2018 Chinese authorities label British cartoon "Peppa Pig" subversive and it is removed from the Douyin video website.
2019 Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange sentenced to 50 weeks in jail for breaching his bail conditions in London.
2019 New York City officially names a street Sesame Street at the intersection of West 63rd Street and Broadway in honor of the show's 50th anniversary.
1194 King Richard I gave Portsmouth its first Royal Charter. The date that such a charter was granted is considered to be when a city was founded.
1536 Anne Boleyn, second wife of England's King Henry VIII, was sent to the Tower of London, accused of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft. She was executed 17 days later.
1559 Scottish clergyman John Knox returned from exile to become the leader of the 'Scottish Reformation'. The movement led to the ousting of Mary of Guise, who governed the country in the name of her young daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots.
1568 Mary, Queen of Scots, escaped from Loch Leven Castle in Perth and Kinross with the help of her jailer's family. She was imprisoned there in 1567 and had been forced to abdicate as queen.
1611 The Authorized Version of the Bible (King James Version) was first published and became the standard English language Bible.
1797 A mutiny in the British navy spread from Spithead to the rest of the fleet.
1809 Dartmoor Prison in England opens to house French prisoners of war.
1929 Billie Holiday (14) and her mother are arrested for prostitution following a raid of a brothel in Harlem.
1933 The modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster was born when a sighting made local news. Several London newspapers sent correspondents to Scotland, and a circus offered a £20,000 reward for capture of the beast.
1942 World War II: HMS Edinburgh was sunk in the Barents Sea off the Norwegian coast. Its cargo of gold bars lay in 800 feet of water until salvaged in 1981.
1952 The world's first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1, set off from London to Johannesburg on its maiden flight.
1953 Football legend Sir Stanley Matthews, at the age of 38, won an FA Cup winners' medal as Blackpool came back from trailing 3-1 to beat Bolton 4-3. In recognition of the impact he had on the match, it become known as the 'Matthews Final'.
1962 European Cup Final, Amsterdam: Eusébio scores twice as defending champions Benfica beat Real Madrid, 5-3; Puskás, hits all 3 for Madrid.
1965 Britain's Early Bird satellite began transmitting TV programmes to more than 300 million viewers. The first programme was:- 'Out Of This World'.
1969 The Cunard passenger liner Queen Elizabeth II (QE2) set sail from Southampton on its maiden voyage.
1975 Apple records closes down.
1979 "Quadrophenia" premieres in London.
1980 Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in Wall (Part II)" is banned in South Africa.
1982 The Argentinean light cruiser General Belgrano was torpedoed by the British submarine HMS Conqueror during the Falklands War. The crew of 368 seamen perished and there was considerable criticism in Britain as the ship was sailing outside the 200-mile exclusion zone at the time.
1997 Following Tony Blair's victory in the general election, John Major announced that he was stepping down as leader of Britain's Conservative Party.
2008 First film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe released "Iron Man".
2011 Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI's most wanted man is killed by US special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
2015 The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to her second child (Charlotte Elizabeth Diana), a sister to Prince George. She will be fourth in line to the throne.
2015 Floyd Mayweather Jr. beats Manny Pacquiao on points in 12 rounds in world welterweight unification fight, shatters all financial records for a boxing match.
2016 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Mark Selby of England beats China's Ding Junhui, 18-14 for his second world crown.
2016 Leicester City win the English Premier League title after starting the season at 5,000-1 odds.
Chelsea 2 Tottenham Hotspur 2 – Spurs let a two-goal lead slip in the Premier League match with the dropped points seeing Leicester City crowned as Premier Division champions. Yes, unfashionable Leicester, 5000-1 outsiders at the start of the season, are League champions for the first time in their history. They went on to finish the season 10 points clear of second-placed Arsenal although that margin isn’t really a true reflection of the title race. Leicester and Spurs were neck and neck going into the final few matches but while the Foxes were unbeaten in their last 12 matches Spurs didn’t manage a win in their last four, a run which saw them pipped to the runners-up up spot by their great rivals Arsenal. Leicester’s success was widely seen as the most unlikely triumph in the history of team sport but just nine months later the architect of that triumph – manager Claudio Ranieri – had been sacked.
1497 A rising broke out in Cornwall, provoked by taxation. James Tutchet led an army of 15,000 from Taunton through the southern counties to attack London.
1788 The first daily evening newspaper, the Star and Evening Advertiser, was published in London.
1841 New Zealand was declared a British colony.
1926 Britain's first General Strike, in support of the miners started 'On This Day'. It ended on 12th May.
1934 Science fiction writer H.G.Wells predicted there would be a world war before 1940.
1934 The birth of boxer Henry Cooper. He was known for the effectiveness of his left hook, "Enry's 'Ammer", and his knockdown of the young Muhammad Ali. Cooper, who died on 1st May 2011, held the British, Commonwealth and European heavyweight titles several times throughout his career and is the only boxer to have been awarded a knighthood.
1951 King George VI opened the Festival of Britain. It was built on an old bomb site near Waterloo Station in London.
1952 Newcastle United became the first team since 1891 to win two FA Cups in succession by beating Arsenal 1-0.
1956 Granada TV broadcast for the first time at 7.30 p.m. With the ending of the BBC's monopoly on broadcasting, viewers saw their first television advertising and four days later Granada did the first sports outside broadcast.
1968 The first heart transplant in Britain was carried out at the National Heart Hospital in Marylebone, London. It was undertaken on an unnamed 45-year-old man.
1978 First unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail ("spam") is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the US west coast.
1991 356th & final episode of long running series "Dallas".
1997 Garry Kasparov begins chess match with IBM supercomputer Deep Blue.
1997 42nd Eurovision Song Contest: Katrina and the Waves for United Kingdom wins singing "Love Shine a Light" in Dublin.
1999 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Stephen Hendry of Scotland defeats Welshman Mark Williams, 18-11 for a record 7th world crown.
1999 The body of missing English climber George Mallory was found near the summit of Mount Everest. He had gone missing more than 60 years earlier.
2000 The London Stock Exchange and Germany's Deutsche Boerse merged, creating the world's second largest stock market.
2000 Two Libyan men pleaded not guilty to charges that they were involved in the Lockerbie bombing of PanAm flight 103 in 1988.
2007 Three year old Madeleine McCann went missing from her family's holiday apartment at the Ocean Club, in Praia da Luz, Portugal. To date, she has not been found.
2008 Boris Johnson won the race to become Mayor of London - ending Ken Livingstone's eight year reign at City Hall.
2015 Chelsea wins the 2014–15 English football Premier League.
1471 The Battle of Tewkesbury, one of the last battles in the Wars of the Roses. Edward IV defeated a Lancastrian Army and killed Edward, Prince of Wales. Many of the Lancastrian nobles and knights sought sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey although the Abbey was not officially a sanctuary.
1535 Five Carthusian monks from London Charterhouse monastery hung, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, London, for refusing to acknowledge Henry VIII as head of the Church of England.
1675 King Charles II ordered the construction of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. It played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation and is best known as the location of 0 degrees longitude, which has determined mapping co-ordinates since that time.
1780 The first Derby was run at Epsom. The winner was Diomed. The idea of the race was first discussed in 1778 at a house party given by the 12th Earl of Derby and a toss of a coin settled the name. The other founder was Sir Charles Bunbury.
1859 The Cornwall Railway opened across the Royal Albert Bridge and linked the counties of Devon and Cornwall. The bridge spans the River Tamar between Plymouth, on the Devon bank, and Saltash on the Cornish bank.
1893 Cowboy Bill Pickett invents bulldogging, the skill of grabbing cattle by the horns and wrestling them to the ground.
1896 The first British halfpenny newspaper, the Daily Mail, was published. It was the first paper to sell more than one million copies and was heralded as the birth date of modern journalism.
1904 A provisional agreement was signed in Manchester’s Midland Hotel by the Hon. Charles Rolls, seller and repairer of motor cars, and Henry Royce, electrical engineer and builder of a single motor car. In 1907 the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost was the first of their many luxury models.
1932 Al Capone enters Atlanta Penitentiary convicted of income tax evasion.
1945 World War II: The North Germany Army surrendered to British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.
1953 The Duke of Edinburgh was awarded his pilot's 'wings' during a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
1966 Harold Wilson's government agreed to increase doctors' and dentists' salaries by up to 30% after fears that thousands of GP's would leave the Health Service for private practice.
1979 The Conservative Party won the general election, making Margaret Thatcher Britain's first woman prime minister.
1982 Twenty sailors were killed when the destroyer HMS Sheffield was hit by an Argentinian Exocet missile during the Falklands War. The Falklands National Monument in Cardiff bears the names of the 255 sailors,soldiers and airmen who died on the UK side. The memorial centres on a five-tonne rock from the Falkland Islands, a gift from the islanders.
1984 The death of Diana Dors, the English equivalent of the blonde bombshells of Hollywood. She described herself as, 'The only sex symbol Britain has produced since Lady Godiva.'
1990 Angela Bowie reveals that ex-husband David slept with Mick Jagger.
1994 Arsenal win 34th European Cup Winner's Cup against Parma of Italy 1-0 in Copenhagen.
2000 The London Mayoral contest ended in victory for Ken Livingstone, an independent candidate and MP expelled from the Labour Party.
2002 English FA Cup Final, Millennium Stadium, Cardiff (73,963): Arsenal beats Chelsea, 2-0 for 8th title.
2014 Science students at the University of Leicester concluded that the wooden puppet Pinocchio (who was prone to telling tales and whose nose would double in length for each lie) could only have told a maximum of 13 lies. After 13 lies it was concluded that the nose would be 140 metres long and the force exerted downwards would cause his neck to snap.
2015 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Stuart Bingham beats Shaun Murphy, 18-15 for his lone world title.
2018 California overtakes Great Britain to become the worlds fifth largest economy.
2020 India begins lifting some restrictions in regions with fewer COVID-19 cases.
1215 Rebel barons renounced their allegiance to King John; part of a chain of events that led to the signing of the Magna Carta.
1494 On 2nd voyage to New World Christopher Columbus sights Jamaica, landing at Discovery Bay.
1760 The first public hanging took place at Tyburn in London. Earl Ferrers was executed after being convicted of murdering his valet. He was the first to be hanged by the new 'drop' which had just been introduced in the place of the barbarous cart, ladder and medieval three-cornered gibbet.
1821 The death of Napoleon Bonaparte, he was exiled to the remote British-held island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. He died there aged 51 most likely from stomach cancer.
1863 Irish boxer Joe Coburn KOs American Mike McCoole in the 67th round in his first defence of Heavyweight C'ship of America in Charlestown, Maryland.
1877 Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
1904 The birth of Sir Gordon Richards,the first jockey ever to be knighted. He was the first to ride 4,000 winners and his career total of 4,870 victories was a world record that stood until 1956 when it was broken by Johnny Longden of the United States.
1921 Perfume Chanel No. 5 released by fashion designer Coco Chanel.
1930 British aviator Amy Johnson took off from Croydon Airport in her Gypsy Moth plane 'Jason'. She became the first woman to fly solo to Australia, arriving on 24th May.
1945 World War II: Canadian and UK troops liberated the Netherlands and Denmark from Nazi occupation.
1964 The first meeting of a 'Clean Up TV' campaign led by Norah Buckland and her friend Mary Whitehouse. The organization was later given the name of The National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association.
1964 The Council of Europe declared 5th May as Europe Day, an annual celebration of peace and unity in Europe.
1966 Borussia Dortmund of West Germany win 6th European Cup Winner's Cup against Liverpool of England 2-1 in Glasgow.
1967 The first ever all-British satellite, Ariel 3, was successfully launched into orbit from the United States
1980 The SAS stormed the terrorist-occupied Iranian Embassy at Knightsbridge in London. Four gunmen were killed in the attack and all 19 hostages were rescued.
1981 Riots in Northern Ireland followed the death of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands in the Maze prison.
1997 William Hague was elected leader of the Conservative Party.
2001 Britain's tourist industry hoped that the bank holiday weekend and good weather would attract visitors to areas previously closed due to foot and mouth disease.
2005 Labour, under Tony Blair, won a historic third term in Government for Labour, but with a greatly reduced majority.
2012 English FA Cup Final, Wembley Stadium, London (89,102): Chelsea beats Liverpool, 2–1; Didier Drogba scores winner for Blues' 7th title.
2014 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Mark Selby beats Ronnie O'Sullivan 18-14, the first of 4 world titles.
Probably the most famous footballing injury of them all. At the 1956 FA Cup final between Manchester City and Birmingham City Bert Trautmann,the Manchester City 'keeper was injured when making a save. He was treated for several minutes on the Wembley pitch but with no substitutes in those days,he played on to help his side record a 3-1 win. Three days later it was found that he had broken his neck when making the save. His surgeon was blunt in his assessment of the injury - 'You should be dead' he told the player. But Trautmann always denied that it was a brave act, 'If I had known I had broken my neck, I would have been off like a shot'.
Football On This Day – 5th May 1973.
A major upset in the FA Cup Final at Wembley when for the first time since 1931 a club from outside of the top flight won the competition. Second Division Sunderland beat the then-mighty Leeds United, the FA Cup holders, 1-0. Memorable moments were the first half goal from Ian Porterfield and a brilliant second half double-save by Sunderland ‘keeper Jim Montgomery to foil goalscoring efforts from Trevor Cherry and Peter Lorimer. Another memorable image was that of the jubilant celebratory jog down the Wembley pitch made by Sunderland manager Bob Stokoe – a former Newcastle United player. That image has now been immortalised in a statue of Bob situated outside of Sunderland’s Stadium of Light ground.
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1778 James Hargreaves, the English inventor of the spinning jenny died. After he had begun to sell the machines to help support his large family, hand spinners, fearing unemployment, broke into his house and destroyed a number of jennies, causing Hargreaves to move from Blackburn to Nottingham in 1768.
1838 The British steamer Sirius became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean from England to New York. The voyage took 18 days and 10 hours.
1884 Thomas Stevens starts 1st bike trip around world (2 yrs 9 mths).
1915 The second battle of Ypres started when German troops released clouds of deadly chlorine gas on British troops. It was the first major gas attack of World War I.
1943 Britain discontinued printing £1,000 notes.
1945 World War II - After learning that Soviet forces had taken Eberswalde without a fight, Adolf Hitler admitted defeat in his underground bunker and stated that suicide was his only recourse.
1969 1st human eye transplant performed.
1969 British yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston sailed into Falmouth Harbour, completing the first non-stop solo voyage around the world. He was at sea for 312 days. His yacht was named Suhaili which means "good wind".
1970 First Earth Day celebrated, founded by Gaylord Nelson.
1972 Sylvia Cook and John Fairfax became the first people to row across the Pacific Ocean (the world's largest ocean). They arrived in Australia in their boat Britannia after being at sea for 362 days.
1977 Top Gear aired for the first time. Pictured is host Angela Rippon in what appears to be a... blue... car.
1983 Stern mag announces major historical find-discovery of 60 volume personal diaries written by Adolf Hitler (turned out to be a hoax).
1994 Michael Moorer beats Evander Holyfield in 12 for heavyweight boxing title.
1995 George Foreman beats Axel Schulz in 12 for heavyweight boxing title in Las Vegas.
1999 Luis Garavito [The Beast, Tribilín], Colombian serial killer described as "the world's worst serial killer" (138-300+ victims) apprehended.
2013 Manchester United defeat Aston Villa to claim the 2012/2013 English Premier League.
2014 David Moyes is sacked as manager of Manchester United.
23rd April is the National Day of England and the Feast Day of St. George.
871 The death of Æthelred I (sometimes rendered as Ethelred) king of Wessex from 865 to 871.
1016 Edmund Ironside succeeded his father Æthelred II (Ethelred the Unready) as king of England. Unready, meaning 'poorly advised' was a play on his name, which means 'well advised'.
1348 The founding of the Order of the Garter by King Edward III. It is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St. George as England's patron saint. Membership to the order is limited to the Sovereign, the Prince of Wales, and no more than twenty-four 'members, or companions.'
1516 Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria endorses "The German Beer Purity Law" and adds to it standards for the sale of beer in Bavaria, ensuring beer is only brewed from three ingredients – water, malt and hops.
1564 The birth of poet & playwright William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. He died on his 52nd birthday in 1616.
1661 Charles II was crowned King of England, completing the restoration of the monarchy. His father, Charles I, had been beheaded by Oliver Cromwell following the Civil War.
1702 Queen Anne is crowned at Westminster Abbey, London.
1775 J M W Turner, English painter was born. He was one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting.
1850 William Wordsworth, English poet, died.
1867 Queen Victoria & Napoleon III turn down plans for a channel tunnel.
1879 The first Shakespeare Memorial Theatre opened in Stratford-upon-Avon.
1915 The death, aged 27 (from an infected mosquito bite) of the English poet Rupert Brooke, known for his war sonnets written during the First World War, especially "The Soldier". - If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England.
1931 US gangster film "The Public Enemy" starring James Cagney and Jean Harlow premieres.
1959 1st heliport in Britain opens in London.
1968 The first decimal coins appeared in Britain - the 5p and 10p pieces which replaced the 1 shilling and 2 shilling coins.
1979 Fighting in London between the Anti-Nazi League and the Metropolitan Police Special Patrol Group results in the death of protester Blair Peach.
1980 The British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia was expelled from the country following the broadcast on British TV of the documentary 'Death of a Princess'. It depicted the life and execution of a Saudi Arabian Princess found guilty of committing adultery.
1982 The launch of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer. The entry level model had 16 kB RAM and an external tape recorder was needed to load the majority of software. It was 'a computer for the masses' and much cheaper than its rivals - the Commodore 64 and the BBC Microcomputer.
1983 Canadian snooker player Cliff Thorburn completed the first televised maximum break of 147 during the World Snooker Championships at the Crucible Theatre, in Sheffield.
1985 New Coke debuts; Coca-Cola announced it is changing its secret flavor formula.
1990 Charlie Wilson, the ‘silent man' of the Great Train Robbery (8th August 1963), was shot dead at his home near Marbella, Spain.
1992 McDonald's opens its 1st fast-food restaurant in China.
2003 Beijing closes all schools for two weeks because of the SARS virus. The SARS virus, known technically as SARS-CoV (coronavirus). First appearing in China in 2002, the disease spread to 29 countries before it was stopped.
2011 The death of John Sullivan, the television scriptwriter responsible for several popular British sitcoms, including Only Fools and Horses, Citizen Smith and Just Good Friends.
2013 West Indian cricketer, Chris Gayle, smashes the fastest century in history (30 balls).
2019 Southampton striker Shane Long scores fastest goal in English Premier League history when he nets after 7.69 seconds in 1-1 draw at Watford.
2020 US President Donald Trump suggests COVID-19 might be treated by injecting disinfectant or UV lights into a human body at a White House press briefing. Government officials and disinfectant companies quickly state doing so is not only extremely dangerous but potentially deadly.
1184 BC The Greeks enter Troy using the Trojan Horse.
1066 Halley's Comet sparks English monk to predict country will be destroyed. Around Easter on 24 April 1066, Haley’s Comet appeared in the night sky.The people think it is an evil omen and are terrified.
1558 Mary Queen of Scots, also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, married the French Dauphin at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.
1731 The death of Daniel Defoe, English novelist and author of Robinson Crusoe, his most famous novel. Robinson Crusoe is second only to the Bible in its number of translations.
1833 Jacob Evert & George Dulty patent 1st soda fountain.
1880 Amateur Athletic Association, governing body for men's athletics in England & Wales, is founded in Oxford, England.
1900 The first issue of the newspaper the Daily Express. It was founded by Arthur Pearson.
1906 William Joyce, British traitor and Nazi propagandist ('Lord Haw-Haw') was born.
1916 In Dublin, Irish nationalists, led by Patrick Pearse, launched the Easter Rebellion against British rule.
1932 A mass trespass by thousands of ramblers, led by Benny Rothman, took place on Kinder Scout in the Peak District. Their aim was to establish public right of access on the moors and mountains that were privately owned for grouse shooting.The mass trespass started at Bowden Bridge Quarry, close to Hayfield and had a far-reaching impact that culminated in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 which gave people 'the right to roam' on mapped access land.
1953 Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
1957 English astronomer Patrick Moore presented the first broadcast of The Sky at Night, on BBC television.
1965 The official opening of the Pennine Way, a 256 mile path along the Pennine Hills from The Old Nag's Head at Edale in Derbyshire to 'The Border' at Kirk Yetholm on the Scottish border.
1969 Paul McCartney says there is no truth to rumors he is dead.
1988 Luton Town beat the strong favourites and cup holders Arsenal to win the Littlewoods (League) Cup in front of 95,732 at Wembley. It was decided in the final 10 minutes when Luton saved a penalty and then scored an equaliser and a winner. It was the first major piece of silverware the Hatters had won – and then they broke the trophy during their celebrations.
1989 British jockey Peter Scudamore became the first National Hunt jockey in Britain to ride 200 winners in a season.
1990 Gruinard Island, Scotland, is officially declared free of the anthrax disease after 48 years of quarantine.
1993 A massive bomb ripped through the the City of London, killing one and injuring more than 40.
2018 Golden State Killer suspect Joseph DeAngelo arrested and charged with eight murders after being identified through genealogy websites.
1284 The birth, at Caernarfon Castle of King Edward II, who became the first heir-apparent to bear the title Prince of Wales. King from 1307, he ruled during a period of pestilence, famine and defeats at the hands of the Scots, and was eventually murdered.
1599 The birth of Oliver Cromwell, Protector of England who led his ‘Ironsides’ in the English Civil War against the ‘Roundheads’ of King Charles I. Cromwell’s victories enabled him to have the King tried and beheaded, after which he established a republic.
1719 Robinson Crusoe first appeared in paperback. Written by Daniel Defoe it was based partly on the story of Alexander Selkirk who was marooned on a Pacific island for four years.
1829 Admiral Charles Fremantle arrived in HMS Challenger off the coast of modern day Western Australia prior to declaring the Swan River Colony for Britain.
1848 The first Royal yacht, Victoria and Albert, was launched at Pembroke Docks, after suffering serious damage when first floated.
1850 Paul Julius Reuter sets up carrier-pigeon service, using 40 pigeons to carry stock market prices between Aachen and Brussels.
1859 British and French engineers broke ground for the creation of the Suez Canal. The excavation took some 10 years and altogether more than 1.5 million people from various countries were employed.
1915 ANZAC DAY World War I - 90,000 Australian, New Zealand, British and French forces began landing on the Gallipoli Peninsular to attack Turkish positions. The Lancashire Fusliers won "6 VC's before breakfast" storming the Gallipoli beach.
1916 The start of the Easter Rebellion in Ireland, mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic. It was the most significant uprising in Ireland since the rebellion of 1798.
1953 Two Cambridge University scientists published their answer to how living things reproduced. Francis Crick and James Watson's discovery of the double helix structure of DNA is published in "Nature" magazine.
1954 Bell labs announces the 1st solar battery made from silicon. It has about 6% efficiency.
Magazine advert for Bell Labs' new invention, the solar battery.
1970 Freda Payne releases "Band of Gold".
1982 British Royal Marines recaptured South Georgia in the Falkland Islands.
1993 Russia elects Boris Yeltsin leader.
2007 Boris Yeltsin's funeral - the first to be sanctioned by the Russian Orthodox Church for a head of state since the funeral of Emperor Alexander III in 1894.
2012 A new initiative paired the Scottish hamlet of Dull with an American town named Boring. The Dull and Boring plan was hatched after a resident of Dull, near Aberfeldy in Perthshire, cycled through Boring in Oregon.
2019 Microsoft becomes the third US firm to be listed with a market worth of 1 trillion, after Apple and Amazon.
Jack Charlton made his League debut against Doncaster Rovers at Elland Road in Leeds' last Division 2 match of the 1952/53 season - the first of what would be a club record 629 League appearances for the Yorkshire club. As he left the dressing room he asked manager Raich Carter what he should be doing in the match and received the reply 'See how fast their centre forward can limp.'
Football On This Day – 25th April 1986.
Bobby Moore resigned as manager of Southend - the only League club he managed - for personal reasons. His two years at Roots Hall had been tough ones but despite financial problems he had helped turn Southend from Division 4 strugglers to a club who finished 9th in 1985/86 and who would win promotion the following season.
Football On This Day - 25th April 2004.
Arsenal's Invincibles won the league title at White Hart Lane the second time Arsenal had won the title at Spud's home ground having also achieved this in 1971.
Football On This Day – 25th April 2007.
Alan Ball, the youngest member of England’s 1966 World Cup winners, tragically died of a heart attack while putting out a bonfire in the garden of his home.
Football On This Day – 25th April 2009.
Losing 2-0 at home to Spurs at the break Manchester United brought on Carlos Tevez as a second half sub. Along with Rooney, Ronaldo and Berbatov - some strikeforce that - United won 5-2 and went on to retain the Premier League title that season.
Football On This Day – 25th April 2015.
They say that politicians should keep clear of animals and children - perhaps football should be added to that list. In a speech in the run-up to the 2015 general election Prime Minister David Cameron said he wished everyone would support West Ham. An ex-Eton boy supporting the Hammers, now that would have been a first - but then the PM remembered he supported Aston Villa! He blamed 'brain fade' for the mistake but most people thought it was just more bulls hit!
1607 Captain John Smith landed at Cape Henry, in Virginia with the first group of colonists who established a permanent English settlement in America.
1895 The start of the trial of playwright Oscar Wide who was charged with homosexuality.
1902 Heavily in debt Second Division side Newton Heath are saved when new investment came their way. As part of a fresh start they decided to make a few changes - their colours were changed from gold and green to red and white and their name became... Manchester United.
1923 The marriage of Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later 'the Queen Mother') to the Duke of York (later King George VI) at Westminster Abbey in London. It was the first royal wedding at the abbey since 1383. The newly formed British Broadcasting Company wanted to record and broadcast the event on radio, but the Abbey Chapter vetoed the idea.
1962 In a joint USA British venture, the first international satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
1965 A Rolling Stones concert in London, Ontario was shut down by police after 15 minutes due to rioting.
1975 Labour Party members voted by almost 2-1 to leave the EEC, underlining the deep divisions over the issue of Europe. But on 6th June in the same year British voters backed the UK's continued membership by a large majority in the country's first nationwide referendum.
1976 The death of Sid James, British based South African actor and comedian. He made his name as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour and also starred in the popular Carry On films.
1982 Rod Stewart is mugged, gunman steals his $50,000 Porsche.
1984 The re-opening of the reconstructed Cavern Club in Liverpool It is located next to the original Club. In the early 1960s the Cavern Club became the most publicised pop music venue in the world, with regular performances from the Beatles, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J Kramer, Cilla Black and many more 60s groups and solo singers.
1986 World's worst nuclear disaster: 4th reactor at Chernobyl nuclear power station in USSR explodes, 31 die, radioactive contamination reaches much of Western Europe.
1989 Naas, County Kildare, in Ireland held their first annual pig race watched by over 7,000 people. One punter won £200 on the favourite, Porky’s Revenge, and the bookies handed the remainder of their money to the charity People in Need.
1991 Soccer star Diego Maradona, suspended for using cocaine, arrested in Argentina for possession & distribution of illegal narcotics.
2000 The government announced a £10m aid package for firms hit by the sale of car giant Rover as a report detailed the wider effects of redundancies.
2014 Documents showed that Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One tycoon, had received £300m from his ex-wife Slavica's trust fund following the pair's divorce in 2009.
2014 The only surviving letter thought to have been written on the ill-fated Titanic, was sold at auction for £119,000.
2018 Serial killer "Golden State Killer" identified after 40 years as a former police officer, responsible for 12 killings, 50 rapes in California.
1124 David I becomes King of Scots.
1296 An English army, led by Edward I, defeated the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar, the only significant field action in the campaign of 1296. The English routed the disorganised Scots in a single charge, in action that was brief and probably not very blood y, since the only casualty of any note was a minor Lothian knight.
1667 The blind, impoverished John Milton sold the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10.
1749 The first official performance of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks in Green Park, London. It finished early due to the outbreak of fire, but Handel stuck to his conducting, whilst the audience ran for their lives.
1773 British Parliament passes Tea Act (Boston won't like this).
1828 The opening of the London Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park, London. Lady visitors were politely requested to refrain from poking the beasts through the bars of the cages.
1840 The foundation stone for the new Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace) was laid by the wife of the architect Sir Charles Barry.
1908 IV Summer (Modern) Olympic Games open in London.
1927 The birth of Sheila (Christine) Scott, English aviator who broke 104 light aircraft records and was the first to fly solo over the North Pole. Despite this, she failed her driving test three times. Her flying endeavours were always under-financed and when funds ran out, she was left to a sad and lonely retirement.
1937 King George VI officially opened the National Maritime Museum.
1939 Conscription for men aged 20 - 21 was announced in Britain.
1940 Himmler orders establishment of Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
1943 Judy Johnson rode Lone Gallant in a steeplechase in Baltimore to become the first woman jockey to ride as a professional.
1944 The birth of Michael Fish, British meteorologist. He became infamous in the wake of the Great Storm of 1987 when it was rumoured that there a hurricane on the way to which he commented 'Well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't!' That evening, the worst storm to hit South East England since 1703 caused record damage and killed 18 people.
1956 Undefeated world heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano, retires from the ring.
1971 Police were forced to physically remove demonstrators from the entrance of a courtroom after they disrupted proceedings inside. Eight people were accused of conspiring to damage, remove or destroy English language road signs in Wales during a rally in December 1970. It was regarded as a major event in the struggle for greater recognition of the Welsh Language.
1981 Paul McCartney's solo rock band Wings disbands.
1982 Trial of John Hinckley begins for the attempted assassination of US President Ronald Reagan.
1992 The House of Commons elected a woman to the post of Speaker for the first time. She was Betty Boothroyd, the 62-year-old Labour MP for West Bromwich.
2014 TV Springwatch presenters Chris Packham and Bill Oddie blamed a risk-averse culture for 'killing childhood'. "Children should be allowed to get up to mischief in the countryside by starting fires, trespassing and scrumping. Parents should let their children roam the countryside unsupervised."
2020 Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned to work after being hospitalised (5th April) and then placed in intensive care with coronavirus. At the time of his return, more than 21,000 had died in hospital from coronavirus, with another reported 4,300 coronavirus deaths in care homes in just two weeks.
A back-heel from Manchester City’s Denis Law resulted in one of the most famous goals in League history – it was against Manchester United, which put United on the verge of relegation. Law was immediately substituted and didn’t play League football again and the match was later abandoned although the result was allowed to stand.
Football On This Day – 27th April 1985.
In response to an FA warning following a pitch invasion at Stamford Bridge in March 1985 controversial Chelsea chairman Ken Bates had a shocking solution - a 12-foot high electrified fence around the pitch! It was due to be switched on at the Chelsea v Tottenham First Division fixture on Saturday 27th April 1985 but days before the match the Greater London Council threatened legal action if the switch-on took place. So the big question on match-day was would they or would they not switch on the 12-volts. They didn't - and never would.
28th April is International Workers’ Memorial Day, the day each year when workers come together and remember those who have been killed and injured at work. The slogan for the day is 'Remember the dead – fight for the living'.
1442 Edward IV, King of England and son of Richard, Duke of York, was born. He was the first king of the House of York.
1603 Queen Elizabeth I's funeral took place at Westminster Abbey.
1721 The death of the pirate Mary Read (also known as Mark Read). She began dressing as a boy at a young age, at first by her mother in order to receive inheritance money and then as a teenager in order to join the British military. She and her crew-mate Anne Bonny (also in male disguise) are two of the most famed female pirates of all time, and among the few women known to have been convicted of piracy during the early 18th century, a golden age for piracy. On their arrest, both delayed execution on the grounds of being pregnant, though Mary died the following year, in prison, of a violent fever.
1770 English navigator Captain James Cook and his crew, including the botanist Joseph Banks, landed in Australia, at Stingray Bay, which was later named Botany Bay.
1772 The death, in London, of the world's most travelled goat. She had circumnavigated the world twice, first on Dolphin under Captain Wallis, then on Cook's Endeavour. The Lord of the Admiralty even signed a document acknowledging her age and adventures.
1789 The crew of the Bounty, led by Fletcher Christian, mutinied against the harsh life at sea under Captain Bligh. They were on the return journey from Tahiti where they had spent six months gathering breadfruit trees. Bligh and 17 others were cast adrift in a small boat without a chart. While the mutineers eventually colonized Pitcairn Island, Bligh managed to sail the small craft 3,618 miles to Timor, near Java, arriving there on 14th June.
1881 Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Lincoln, New Mexico.
1888 The birth of Walter Tull, professional football for Tottenham Hotspur and Northampton Town. He was the first 'Afro-Caribbean / mixed heritage' outfield player in the top division of English football, and the first to be commissioned as an infantry officer in the British Army. Northampton South MP Brian Binley has campaigned for Tull to be posthumously awarded the Military Cross for his 'gallantry and coolness' while leading his company of 26 men on a raiding party into enemy territory during World War 1.
1910 Frenchman Louis Paulhan won the London to Manchester air race and the £10,000 prize. It was the first long-distance aeroplane race in England and was first proposed by the Daily Mail newspaper in 1906.
1923 The first FA Cup Final was held at Wembley Stadium. 200,000 people arrived at a stadium which was only designed to hold 125,000 and when 60,000 irate fans rushed the turnstiles a human torrent swept onto the pitch. Players were engulfed by the crowd and 1,000 men, women and children were injured. Finals were made 'all ticket' after that. The game began one hour late and Bolton beat West Ham 2-0.
1944 Exercise "Tiger" ends with 750 US soldiers dead in D-Day rehearsal after their convoy ships were attacked by German torpedo boats off Slapton Sands, Devon.
1965 Luciano Pavarotti makes his debut at La Scala, Milan in Franco Zeffirelli's production of "La bohème" with Mirella Freni.
1966 38th Academy Awards: "The Sound of Music" wins.
1967 Muhammad Ali refuses induction into army & stripped of boxing title.
1972 Courts award 1968 Kentucky Derby prize money to 2nd place winner due to the winner being given drugs before the race.
1973 Bobby Charlton played in his 606th and last League match for Manchester United – a 1-0 defeat against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. His six League goals that season was enough to see him finish as the top scorer for United in 1972/73 when the club finished just above a relegation spot. On the same day his older brother Jackie played his last League game, for Leeds against Southampton at the Dell. Jackie's whole League career was at Elland Road although Bobby went on to play for Preston after leaving Old Trafford.
1986 Soviet TV news program Vremya announces a nuclear accident at Chernobyl nuclear power station, 2 days after the event.
1999 The death of Sir Alfred Ernest 'Alf' Ramsey, manager of the English national football team from 1963 to 1974. His greatest achievement was winning the 1966 World Cup with England on 30th July 1966.
2004 Shrek the sheep from Tarras, Central Otago, New Zealand, is finally shorn live on TV after 6 years avoidance; the fleece weighed 27 kg (60 lb).
2010 Former Prime MInister, Gordon Brown, said that he was 'mortified' after being caught on microphone describing Rochdale pensioner, Gillian Duffy, as a bigoted woman after she had had challenged him on issues, including immigration.
2014 Teacher Anne Maguire (aged 61) was stabbed to death in front of pupils inside Corpus Christi Catholic College - Leeds where she had taught for 40 years. 15-year-old Will Cornick was detained by teaching staff and later sentenced to life imprisonment.
2014 Police announced that they would investigate whether officials in Rochdale tried to cover up sexual abuse at Knowl View school by 11 people, including Rochdale's former MP Cyril Smith.
2019 American diver Victor Vescovo makes the deepest dive ever to the bottom of the Mariana trench at 10,927m (35,849ft), and finds a plastic bag.
2020 US confirmed cases of COVID-19 pass 1 million, while death toll of 58,365 surpasses that of US soldiers killed in Vietnam War.
2020 US Department of Defense releases three declassified videos of possible UFOs from 2004 and 2015.
1429 Joan of Arc arrived at the besieged city of Orleans to eventually lead her French forces to victory (on 6th May) over the English.
1696 There were many attempts on the life of William III, King of England, who attracted opposition, in part because he was a foreigner. On This Day, three would-be assassins, Rookwood, Lowick and Cranbourne, were executed for an attempt that failed.
1884 Oxford University agreed to admit female students to examinations. However, woman were not to be awarded degrees.
1909 In a revolutionary budget called 'The People's Budget', Chancellor David Lloyd George introduced a new 'supertax' of sixpence in the pound for anyone earning more than £5,000 a year (£387.000 in today's money). The new high level of supertax was to pay for old age pensions and re-armament of the forces.
1935 Just one year after their invention by Percy Shaw of Yorkshire, 'cats' eyes' were being inserted into British roads.
1938 The birth, in Bolton, Lancashire of Fred Dibnah MBE, English steeplejack. He had a fascination for steam vehicles and mechanical engineering and became a cult television personality.
1945 The German army in Italy surrendered to the Allies under the British General Alexander. The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, 'Il Duce', who, after a series of military misadventures, became unpopular even among his fellow Fascists, was captured while trying to flee Italy and was executed.
1945 Adolf Hitler married his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designated Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor. Both Hitler and Braun committed suicide the next day.
1985 Tony Tubbs beats defending champion Greg Page by unanimous decision in 15 rounds at Memorial Auditorium, Buffalo for WBA heavyweight boxing title.
1986 The Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson, was laid to rest at Frogmore in Windsor, alongside her husband, the abdicated King Edward VIII.
1990 Snooker player Stephen Hendry beat Jimmy White, to become the youngest ever world professional champion, aged 21 years and 106 days.
1990 Wrecking cranes began tearing down the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate.
1992 Jury acquits Los Angeles Police Department officers on charges of excessive force in the beating of Rodney King; the decision sparks massive riots in the city.
1993 It was announced that Buckingham Palace would be opened to the public for the first time (during August & September) in a bid to raise funds to repair Windsor Castle.
1995 Longest sausage ever, at 28.77 miles, made in Kitchener, Ontario.
2008 The unveiling, in his home town of Bolton, of the 8ft memorial statue to the legendary steeplejack Fred Dibnah. The statue was unveiled on the anniversary of his birth.
2011 The marriage of Prince William, 2nd in line to the throne, and Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey. The day was declared a bank holiday in celebration.
2014 The death (aged 71) of Robert William 'Bob' Hoskins, English actor, known for playing Cockneys and gangsters. His best known works included lead roles in The Long Good Friday, Mona Lisa, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Mermaids and Super Mario Bros.
2014 A campaign poster advertising Nigel Farage's UKIP was inadvertently placed next to a 'Go Outdoors' poster for inflatable tents that bore the slogan - 'No Poles Required'.
1513 Edmund de la Pole, Yorkist pretender to the English throne, was executed on the orders of Henry VIII.
1625 The death of Sir Lawrence Tanfield at Burford in Oxfordshire. Tanfield was a prominent lawyer and politician and lord of Burford manor. Relationships with the locals were poor. There were accusations of Tanfield's corruption and overbearingness and he stripped the vicarage of much of its endowment. Tanfield's widow arranged for him to be buried in Burford church, under an elaborate tomb in the north chapel at dead of night, without the permission of the priests or town. The ghosts of Tanfield and his wife have been reportedly sighted racing around Burford in a fiery coach, bringing death to all who see them.
1789 George Washington became the first President of the United States of America.
1821 The first iron steamship, Aaron Manby, named after the proprietor of the Staffordshire ironworks at which she had been made, was completed. She weighed 116 tons and after trials on the River Thames made her maiden voyage across the Channel.
1900 Casey Jones dies heroically in a train wreck at Vaughn, Mississippi, while driving Cannonball Express (immortalized in"Ballad of Casey Jones").
1904 Ice cream cone makes its debut at St. Louis World's Fair invented by Ernest A. Hamwi.
1938 The FA Cup was televised on British TV in its entirety, for the first time. The TV audience was estimated as 10,000. Preston played Huddersfield Town and Preston won in the last minute of extra time.
1943 The body of a mystery man, a tramp (planted with false invasion plans) was used by Britain to fool Nazi Germany into defending the 'wrong' regions of the Mediterranean, aiding a successful invasion of Sicily.
1944 The first of 500,000 prefab homes went on show in London. They were designed for demobilised servicemen and bombed-out families and consisted of 2 bedrooms, a living room, bathroom and toilet and kitchen on one floor. They covered an area of 616 sq ft and were built by the motor industry
1945 Nazi leader Adolf Hitler committed suicide. Before beginning his assault on Europe, Hitler had assured his followers that the Third Reich would last for 1,000 years. His mistress, Eva Braun, whom he'd married the day before, died alongside him after taking a cyanide pill.
1948 The launch of the Land Rover Defender. The first model was sold for £450 at the Amsterdam Motor Show.
1952 The British public got the chance to read 'The Diary of a Young Girl', written by Anne Frank who hid from the **** in Holland during the war.
1974 England's football manager Sir Alf Ramsey, manager of the England team which won the World Cup in 1966 was sacked, after 11 years as manager.
1976 Muhammad Ali beats Jimmy Young in 15 for heavyweight boxing title.
1980 Armed terrorists seized the Iranian Embassy in London taking 20 hostages and threatening to blow up the building.
1988 The then largest banana split ever, at 4.5 miles long, is made along Market Street in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.
1988 33rd Eurovision Song Contest: Celine Dion for Switzerland wins singing "Ne partez pas sans moi" in Dublin.
1989 World Wide Web (WWW) is first launched in the public domain by CERN scientist Tim Berners-Lee.
1993 The World Wide Web source code is released by CERN, making the software freely available to all.
1993 Virgin Radio broadcasts for the first time in the United Kingdom.
1997 Big Ben stops at 12:11 PM for 54 minutes.
1999 Two people were killed and at least 30 injured in the third nail-bomb attack in London in two weeks. The bomb went off in a public house in the heart of London's gay community.
2009 The Met. Office forecasted 'odds on for a barbecue summer', with no repeat of the washouts of the previous two years but ..... average rainfall for the summer was up 40%.
2012 A flamboyant Australian billionaire ordered a shipyard in China to build him an exact replica of the Titanic. The Chinese navy has been invited to escort Titanic II on its maiden voyage from England to New York in 2016.
2013 A 40 thousand piece, 19.5ft. by 8ft. jigsaw commemorating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee crashed to the floor just days before it was due to go on display at Sandringham. Creator Dave Evans, who had spent five weeks creating the jigsaw believed that it would enter the Guinness World records as the world’s largest jigsaw.
2014 63 year old Jeremy Paxman announced that he was to quit his job as 'rottweiler-in-chief' presenter of Newsnight after 25 years.
2020 The 100th birthday of Captain Tom Moore. On 6th April he set out to raise £1000 for NHS Charities Together by walking 100 lengths of his 25 metre garden and ended up raising almost £30M in donations. It was the largest-ever amount raised by a JustGiving campaign. He later featured in a charity cover version of the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" with Michael Ball, with proceeds going to the same charity. The single topped the UK music charts and made Captain Moore the oldest person to ever achieve a UK number one. He was made an honorary colonel on his 100th birthday, received more than 125,000 birthday cards and will be made an honorary England cricketer by former captain Michael Vaughan. A Great Western Railway intercity express train (No. 800025) was also named in his honour on his birthday and an RAF flypast took place over his house.
Navigation
Top grounds nowadays hardly have a blade of grass out of place but there was a time when that was far from true. One of the worst puddings of a pitch was at Derby County's former home, the Baseball Ground, were the pitch was several feet below street level, the drainage was non-existent and the stands stopped any drying winds. Even then Cloughie often ordered that the pitch be watered before a match if a 'sticky' surface would give the Rams an advantage. Things went very wrong though on this day in 1977 when Derby played Manchester City in a First Division match at the Baseball Ground. With minutes remaining and Derby 3-0 up they were awarded a penalty. But the pitch was in such a poor state that the penalty spot had disappeared into the mud. Before the pen could be taken the groundsman, Bob Smith, helped by the referee, had to measure out the distance from the goal line and then paint the mud to mark the new penalty spot from which Gerry Daly scored.
May Day - originally a Roman festival which began on 28th April and lasted several days to mark the commencement of summer. In England, middle and lower classes would gather flowers - ‘go a maying’ - and the prettiest village maid was crowned Queen of the May, celebrated with dancing around the maypole.
1328 The Wars of Scottish Independence ended. England recognized the Kingdom of Scotland as an independent state.
1517 In 'Evil May Day' riots in London, London apprentices attacked foreign residents. Wolsey suppressed the rioters, of whom 60 were hanged.
1707 The Act of Union joined the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1759 Josiah Wedgwood founded the Wedgwood pottery company in Burslem, Staffordshire. Wedgewood was a prominent abolitionist of slavery. He mass produced cameos depicting the seal for the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and had them widely distributed. He was also the grandfather of Charles Darwin and Emma Darwin.
1769 The birth, in Ireland, of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. Known as the Iron Duke, he defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. He was Tory Prime Minister from 1828-30, becoming unpopular when he conceded Roman Catholic emancipation. His London house had its windows smashed by an angry mob on the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.
1840 The first British Penny Black stamp went on sale. Invented by Rowland Hill, it was the world’s first adhesive postage stamp and it became valid for postage on 6th May.
1851 Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, London. Over 10,000 exhibitors set up eight miles of tables. Although technological wonders from around the world were on display, the exposition was dominated by Britain, which was the premier industrialized nation and workshop of the world.
1851 First public flushing toilets the 'Monkey Closets' unveiled by George Jennings as part of The Great Exhibition at Hyde Park, London, costing one penny.
1873 The death, in Zambia, of the missionary, doctor and explorer David Livingstone. He was from humble beginnings and was born in Blantyre, eight miles south east of Glasgow. His mother, father and four brothers and sisters lived in a single room in a tenement known as Shuttle Row, which they shared with 23 other families.
1875 Alexandra Palace reopened after a fire in 1873 burnt it down. It was designed to be 'The People’s Palace' and was later nicknamed 'Ally Pally'. In 1936 it became the headquarters of the world's first regular public television service, operated by the BBC.
1916 The end of the Easter Rising in Ireland, following a week of bitter fighting in Dublin after Irish Nationalists rose against British rule on Easter Monday, 24th April. More than 400 lost their lives.
1927 1st British airliner to serve cooked meals (Imperial Airways).
1930 The planet Pluto is officially named by 11 year-old Venetia Burney.
1939 Batman first appears in Detective Comics #27.
1941 "Citizen Kane", directed by Orson Welles and starring himself, Joseph Cotten and Dorothy Corningore, premieres at the Palace Theater in New York City.
1952 Mr Potato Head introduced.
1955 Stirling Moss and co-driver Dennis Jenkinson became the first British drivers to win the Mille Miglia. His Mercedes Benz finished 30 minutes ahead of the second car, driven by the legendary Argentinian, Fangio.
1963 First one-day cricket competition is played (Gillette Cup); Lancashire beats Leicestershire by 101 at Old Trafford.
1966 Last British concert by Beatles (Empire Pool in Wembley).
1971 Rolling Stones release "Brown Sugar".
1973 More than a million workers joined a one day strike in protest at the pay restraint policy and price rises by the Conservative government under Edward Heath.
1982 British planes attacked two airstrips near Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands to rid the islands of Argentine forces.
1994 Three-time World Formula 1 Drivers champion Ayrton Senna of Brazil is killed in a 309 kmh crash whilst leading the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola in Italy.
1997 A landslide victory for the Labour Party in the General election brought an end to the Conservative Party's 18 years in power. The new Prime Minister was Tony Blair.
1999 Animated series "SpongeBob SquarePants", created by Stephen Hillenburg, debuts on Nickelodeon.
2000 "Gladiator" directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix premieres in LA (Best Picture 2001).
2015 The death of Geoff Duke, aged 92. He spent 10 years at the highest level of motorcycle racing, winning six World Championships and six Isle of Man TT races during the 1950s.
2017 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Englishman Mark Selby defends title beating John Higgins of Scotland, 18-15; his third world crown.
2018 Scotland is the first country in the world to introduce a minimum price on alcohol.
2018 Chinese authorities label British cartoon "Peppa Pig" subversive and it is removed from the Douyin video website.
2019 Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange sentenced to 50 weeks in jail for breaching his bail conditions in London.
2019 New York City officially names a street Sesame Street at the intersection of West 63rd Street and Broadway in honor of the show's 50th anniversary.
1952 Mr Potato Head introduced. - Cancelled 2021 by the liberal loonies
1194 King Richard I gave Portsmouth its first Royal Charter. The date that such a charter was granted is considered to be when a city was founded.
1536 Anne Boleyn, second wife of England's King Henry VIII, was sent to the Tower of London, accused of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft. She was executed 17 days later.
1559 Scottish clergyman John Knox returned from exile to become the leader of the 'Scottish Reformation'. The movement led to the ousting of Mary of Guise, who governed the country in the name of her young daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots.
1568 Mary, Queen of Scots, escaped from Loch Leven Castle in Perth and Kinross with the help of her jailer's family. She was imprisoned there in 1567 and had been forced to abdicate as queen.
1611 The Authorized Version of the Bible (King James Version) was first published and became the standard English language Bible.
1797 A mutiny in the British navy spread from Spithead to the rest of the fleet.
1809 Dartmoor Prison in England opens to house French prisoners of war.
1929 Billie Holiday (14) and her mother are arrested for prostitution following a raid of a brothel in Harlem.
1933 The modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster was born when a sighting made local news. Several London newspapers sent correspondents to Scotland, and a circus offered a £20,000 reward for capture of the beast.
1942 World War II: HMS Edinburgh was sunk in the Barents Sea off the Norwegian coast. Its cargo of gold bars lay in 800 feet of water until salvaged in 1981.
1952 The world's first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1, set off from London to Johannesburg on its maiden flight.
1953 Football legend Sir Stanley Matthews, at the age of 38, won an FA Cup winners' medal as Blackpool came back from trailing 3-1 to beat Bolton 4-3. In recognition of the impact he had on the match, it become known as the 'Matthews Final'.
1962 European Cup Final, Amsterdam: Eusébio scores twice as defending champions Benfica beat Real Madrid, 5-3; Puskás, hits all 3 for Madrid.
1965 Britain's Early Bird satellite began transmitting TV programmes to more than 300 million viewers. The first programme was:- 'Out Of This World'.
1969 The Cunard passenger liner Queen Elizabeth II (QE2) set sail from Southampton on its maiden voyage.
1975 Apple records closes down.
1979 "Quadrophenia" premieres in London.
1980 Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in Wall (Part II)" is banned in South Africa.
1982 The Argentinean light cruiser General Belgrano was torpedoed by the British submarine HMS Conqueror during the Falklands War. The crew of 368 seamen perished and there was considerable criticism in Britain as the ship was sailing outside the 200-mile exclusion zone at the time.
1997 Following Tony Blair's victory in the general election, John Major announced that he was stepping down as leader of Britain's Conservative Party.
2008 First film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe released "Iron Man".
2011 Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI's most wanted man is killed by US special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
2015 The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to her second child (Charlotte Elizabeth Diana), a sister to Prince George. She will be fourth in line to the throne.
2015 Floyd Mayweather Jr. beats Manny Pacquiao on points in 12 rounds in world welterweight unification fight, shatters all financial records for a boxing match.
2016 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Mark Selby of England beats China's Ding Junhui, 18-14 for his second world crown.
2016 Leicester City win the English Premier League title after starting the season at 5,000-1 odds.
Chelsea 2 Tottenham Hotspur 2 – Spurs let a two-goal lead slip in the Premier League match with the dropped points seeing Leicester City crowned as Premier Division champions. Yes, unfashionable Leicester, 5000-1 outsiders at the start of the season, are League champions for the first time in their history. They went on to finish the season 10 points clear of second-placed Arsenal although that margin isn’t really a true reflection of the title race. Leicester and Spurs were neck and neck going into the final few matches but while the Foxes were unbeaten in their last 12 matches Spurs didn’t manage a win in their last four, a run which saw them pipped to the runners-up up spot by their great rivals Arsenal. Leicester’s success was widely seen as the most unlikely triumph in the history of team sport but just nine months later the architect of that triumph – manager Claudio Ranieri – had been sacked.
1497 A rising broke out in Cornwall, provoked by taxation. James Tutchet led an army of 15,000 from Taunton through the southern counties to attack London.
1788 The first daily evening newspaper, the Star and Evening Advertiser, was published in London.
1841 New Zealand was declared a British colony.
1926 Britain's first General Strike, in support of the miners started 'On This Day'. It ended on 12th May.
1934 Science fiction writer H.G.Wells predicted there would be a world war before 1940.
1934 The birth of boxer Henry Cooper. He was known for the effectiveness of his left hook, "Enry's 'Ammer", and his knockdown of the young Muhammad Ali. Cooper, who died on 1st May 2011, held the British, Commonwealth and European heavyweight titles several times throughout his career and is the only boxer to have been awarded a knighthood.
1951 King George VI opened the Festival of Britain. It was built on an old bomb site near Waterloo Station in London.
1952 Newcastle United became the first team since 1891 to win two FA Cups in succession by beating Arsenal 1-0.
1956 Granada TV broadcast for the first time at 7.30 p.m. With the ending of the BBC's monopoly on broadcasting, viewers saw their first television advertising and four days later Granada did the first sports outside broadcast.
1968 The first heart transplant in Britain was carried out at the National Heart Hospital in Marylebone, London. It was undertaken on an unnamed 45-year-old man.
1978 First unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail ("spam") is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the US west coast.
1991 356th & final episode of long running series "Dallas".
1997 Garry Kasparov begins chess match with IBM supercomputer Deep Blue.
1997 42nd Eurovision Song Contest: Katrina and the Waves for United Kingdom wins singing "Love Shine a Light" in Dublin.
1999 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Stephen Hendry of Scotland defeats Welshman Mark Williams, 18-11 for a record 7th world crown.
1999 The body of missing English climber George Mallory was found near the summit of Mount Everest. He had gone missing more than 60 years earlier.
2000 The London Stock Exchange and Germany's Deutsche Boerse merged, creating the world's second largest stock market.
2000 Two Libyan men pleaded not guilty to charges that they were involved in the Lockerbie bombing of PanAm flight 103 in 1988.
2007 Three year old Madeleine McCann went missing from her family's holiday apartment at the Ocean Club, in Praia da Luz, Portugal. To date, she has not been found.
2008 Boris Johnson won the race to become Mayor of London - ending Ken Livingstone's eight year reign at City Hall.
2015 Chelsea wins the 2014–15 English football Premier League.
1471 The Battle of Tewkesbury, one of the last battles in the Wars of the Roses. Edward IV defeated a Lancastrian Army and killed Edward, Prince of Wales. Many of the Lancastrian nobles and knights sought sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey although the Abbey was not officially a sanctuary.
1535 Five Carthusian monks from London Charterhouse monastery hung, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, London, for refusing to acknowledge Henry VIII as head of the Church of England.
1675 King Charles II ordered the construction of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. It played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation and is best known as the location of 0 degrees longitude, which has determined mapping co-ordinates since that time.
1780 The first Derby was run at Epsom. The winner was Diomed. The idea of the race was first discussed in 1778 at a house party given by the 12th Earl of Derby and a toss of a coin settled the name. The other founder was Sir Charles Bunbury.
1859 The Cornwall Railway opened across the Royal Albert Bridge and linked the counties of Devon and Cornwall. The bridge spans the River Tamar between Plymouth, on the Devon bank, and Saltash on the Cornish bank.
1893 Cowboy Bill Pickett invents bulldogging, the skill of grabbing cattle by the horns and wrestling them to the ground.
1896 The first British halfpenny newspaper, the Daily Mail, was published. It was the first paper to sell more than one million copies and was heralded as the birth date of modern journalism.
1904 A provisional agreement was signed in Manchester’s Midland Hotel by the Hon. Charles Rolls, seller and repairer of motor cars, and Henry Royce, electrical engineer and builder of a single motor car. In 1907 the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost was the first of their many luxury models.
1932 Al Capone enters Atlanta Penitentiary convicted of income tax evasion.
1945 World War II: The North Germany Army surrendered to British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.
1953 The Duke of Edinburgh was awarded his pilot's 'wings' during a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
1966 Harold Wilson's government agreed to increase doctors' and dentists' salaries by up to 30% after fears that thousands of GP's would leave the Health Service for private practice.
1979 The Conservative Party won the general election, making Margaret Thatcher Britain's first woman prime minister.
1982 Twenty sailors were killed when the destroyer HMS Sheffield was hit by an Argentinian Exocet missile during the Falklands War. The Falklands National Monument in Cardiff bears the names of the 255 sailors,soldiers and airmen who died on the UK side. The memorial centres on a five-tonne rock from the Falkland Islands, a gift from the islanders.
1984 The death of Diana Dors, the English equivalent of the blonde bombshells of Hollywood. She described herself as, 'The only sex symbol Britain has produced since Lady Godiva.'
1990 Angela Bowie reveals that ex-husband David slept with Mick Jagger.
1994 Arsenal win 34th European Cup Winner's Cup against Parma of Italy 1-0 in Copenhagen.
2000 The London Mayoral contest ended in victory for Ken Livingstone, an independent candidate and MP expelled from the Labour Party.
2002 English FA Cup Final, Millennium Stadium, Cardiff (73,963): Arsenal beats Chelsea, 2-0 for 8th title.
2014 Science students at the University of Leicester concluded that the wooden puppet Pinocchio (who was prone to telling tales and whose nose would double in length for each lie) could only have told a maximum of 13 lies. After 13 lies it was concluded that the nose would be 140 metres long and the force exerted downwards would cause his neck to snap.
2015 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Stuart Bingham beats Shaun Murphy, 18-15 for his lone world title.
2018 California overtakes Great Britain to become the worlds fifth largest economy.
2020 India begins lifting some restrictions in regions with fewer COVID-19 cases.
1215 Rebel barons renounced their allegiance to King John; part of a chain of events that led to the signing of the Magna Carta.
1494 On 2nd voyage to New World Christopher Columbus sights Jamaica, landing at Discovery Bay.
1760 The first public hanging took place at Tyburn in London. Earl Ferrers was executed after being convicted of murdering his valet. He was the first to be hanged by the new 'drop' which had just been introduced in the place of the barbarous cart, ladder and medieval three-cornered gibbet.
1821 The death of Napoleon Bonaparte, he was exiled to the remote British-held island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. He died there aged 51 most likely from stomach cancer.
1863 Irish boxer Joe Coburn KOs American Mike McCoole in the 67th round in his first defence of Heavyweight C'ship of America in Charlestown, Maryland.
1877 Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
1904 The birth of Sir Gordon Richards,the first jockey ever to be knighted. He was the first to ride 4,000 winners and his career total of 4,870 victories was a world record that stood until 1956 when it was broken by Johnny Longden of the United States.
1921 Perfume Chanel No. 5 released by fashion designer Coco Chanel.
1930 British aviator Amy Johnson took off from Croydon Airport in her Gypsy Moth plane 'Jason'. She became the first woman to fly solo to Australia, arriving on 24th May.
1945 World War II: Canadian and UK troops liberated the Netherlands and Denmark from Nazi occupation.
1964 The first meeting of a 'Clean Up TV' campaign led by Norah Buckland and her friend Mary Whitehouse. The organization was later given the name of The National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association.
1964 The Council of Europe declared 5th May as Europe Day, an annual celebration of peace and unity in Europe.
1966 Borussia Dortmund of West Germany win 6th European Cup Winner's Cup against Liverpool of England 2-1 in Glasgow.
1967 The first ever all-British satellite, Ariel 3, was successfully launched into orbit from the United States
1980 The SAS stormed the terrorist-occupied Iranian Embassy at Knightsbridge in London. Four gunmen were killed in the attack and all 19 hostages were rescued.
1981 Riots in Northern Ireland followed the death of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands in the Maze prison.
1997 William Hague was elected leader of the Conservative Party.
2001 Britain's tourist industry hoped that the bank holiday weekend and good weather would attract visitors to areas previously closed due to foot and mouth disease.
2005 Labour, under Tony Blair, won a historic third term in Government for Labour, but with a greatly reduced majority.
2012 English FA Cup Final, Wembley Stadium, London (89,102): Chelsea beats Liverpool, 2–1; Didier Drogba scores winner for Blues' 7th title.
2014 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Mark Selby beats Ronnie O'Sullivan 18-14, the first of 4 world titles.
Probably the most famous footballing injury of them all. At the 1956 FA Cup final between Manchester City and Birmingham City Bert Trautmann,the Manchester City 'keeper was injured when making a save. He was treated for several minutes on the Wembley pitch but with no substitutes in those days,he played on to help his side record a 3-1 win. Three days later it was found that he had broken his neck when making the save. His surgeon was blunt in his assessment of the injury - 'You should be dead' he told the player. But Trautmann always denied that it was a brave act, 'If I had known I had broken my neck, I would have been off like a shot'.
Football On This Day – 5th May 1973.
A major upset in the FA Cup Final at Wembley when for the first time since 1931 a club from outside of the top flight won the competition. Second Division Sunderland beat the then-mighty Leeds United, the FA Cup holders, 1-0. Memorable moments were the first half goal from Ian Porterfield and a brilliant second half double-save by Sunderland ‘keeper Jim Montgomery to foil goalscoring efforts from Trevor Cherry and Peter Lorimer. Another memorable image was that of the jubilant celebratory jog down the Wembley pitch made by Sunderland manager Bob Stokoe – a former Newcastle United player. That image has now been immortalised in a statue of Bob situated outside of Sunderland’s Stadium of Light ground.