1767 Pitcairn Island was discovered by Midshipman Robert Pitcairn on an expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret. The islands are best known as home of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers, an event retold in numerous books and films. Pitcairn measures about 2 miles across and is the least populated jurisdiction in the world with only 48 inhabitants, from four main families of Bounty descendents.
1871 Jesse James robs a bank of $45,000 in Corydon, Iowa.
1920 The first RAF air display took place at Hendon, near London.
1928 A policeman's helmet and a bunch of roses were among the pictures shown on John Logie Baird's first colour television test transmission at Baird Studios, in London.
1938 LNER locomotive No.4468 'Mallard' achieved the world speed record for steam traction. A maximum speed 126 mph was reached between Grantham and Peterborough. Mallard was in service until 1963, when she was retired, having covered almost one and a half million miles.
1940 World War II: British warships attacked three battleships of the French fleet - Dunkerque, Provence and Bretagne. Fearing that the French ships would fall into Nazi hands, the British Force attempted to coerce the French battleship squadron to join the British cause, surrender their ships in British ports or scuttle their ships. The French Navy refused, as complying with the demand would have violated the Armistice signed with Germany. The British warships opened fire and 1200 French sailors perished, 977 on the Bretagne alone.
1952 The SS United States set sail on her maiden voyage to Southampton. During the voyage, the ship took the coveted Blue Riband away from the RMS Queen Mary, until that date the fastest passenger liner to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
1954 The end of food rationing in Britain - almost 9 years after the end of World War II. Smithfield Meat Market in London opened at midnight instead of 6am to cope with the demand for beef.
1959 British Open Men's Golf, Muirfield: 23 year old South African Gary Player wins the first of his 9 major titles.
1967 "News at 10" premieres on British TV.
1969 Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones is found dead in his swimming pool in England. The death is ruled accidental, although Jones, 27, has high levels of alcohol in his blood.
1971 Jim Morrison of The Doors is found dead in a bathtub at age 27. No autopsy is performed, and while drugs are suspected, the official cause is listed as "heart attack induced by respiratory problems."
1973 At the Hammersmith Odeon in London, David Bowie appears as Ziggy Stardust for the last time, explaining: "Not only is this the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do." Many take this to mean Bowie was retiring from music altogether, though Bowie just means he is retiring Stardust. This show is later made into a movie directed by D.A. Pennebaker called Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars.
1976 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Sweden's Björn Borg beats Ilie Năstase of Romania 6-4, 6-2, 9-7 for the first of 5 straight Wimbledon titles.
1982 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Martina Navratilova beats Chris Evert 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 for the first of 6-straight Wimbledon singles titles.
1984 Derek Underwood (Kent's left arm spin bowler) scored his first cricket century, after 22 years of playing in first-class cricket.
1985 "Back to the Future" starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd is released.
1996 It was announced that the Stone of Scone, the symbol of Scottish nationalism, stolen by Edward I of England in 1296, was to be returned to Scotland from Westminster Abbey where it has been used in the coronation of 30 British monarchs.
1996 Cliff Richard leads the Wimbledon Centre Court crowd in singing during a rain delay. His backing singers are former tennis stars Virginia Wade, Martina Navratilova, Hana Mandlíková, Pam Shriver, Liz Smylie, Gigi Fernández and Conchita Martinez.
2004 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Maria Sharapova becomes first Russian player to win Wimbledon beating defending champion Serena Williams 6-1, 6-4.
2011 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Novak Đoković of Serbia beats Spaniard Rafael Nadal 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3 for his first Wimbledon title.
2012 Antonio Esfandiari wins a record $18.3 million after winning the 2012 World Series of Poker $1,000,000 Buy-In.
One of the more controversial football transfers. Sol Campbell moves on a Bosman free transfer from Tottenham to near neighbours Arsenal, leaving Spurs fans just a tad upset.
The defender won a double in his first season. An FA Cup followed in his second and then came an unbeaten season as the rock of the Invincibles, before another FA Cup in 2005 and a Champions League final goal in 2006.
Who could argue that he’d made the wrong decision? Sol Campbell won the title at White Hart Lane - something he’d have dreamed of doing for years. Only he did it with Tottenham’s bitter rivals, before partying with Thierry Henry and co on the patch of grass he used to call his own.
At last England won a World Cup penalty shoot-out! After defeats against West Germany in 1990, Argentina in 1998 and Portugal in 2006 they got the better of Colombia in the Spartak Stadium in Moscow. It was England 1 Colombia 1 at the end of extra time in the Round of Last 16 match and ominously it was Jordan Henderson who became the first player to fail to score from the penalty spot. But then Uribe and Bacca missed for Colombia before Eric Dier slotted home the final penalty to give England a 4-3 victory. Surely England would now go on to win the World Cup...
Today is gonna be the day That they're gonna throw it back to you By now you should've somehow Realized what you gotta do I don't believe that anybody Feels the way I do about you now.
1776 The American Congress voted for independence from Britain.
1829 Britain's first regular scheduled bus service began running, between Marylebone Road and the Bank of England, in London.
1838 Huskar Colliery Mining Disaster in Silkstone England: mining pit floods drown 26 children, leads to 1842 'Mines and Collieries Act' bans women and children working underground.
1840 The Cunard Shipping Line began its first Atlantic crossing when the paddle steamer Britannia sailed from Liverpool en route to Halifax. The voyage took 14 days.
1862 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known under his pseudonym Lewis Carroll, told Alice Liddell a story as they were rowing on the Isis through Oxford, that, three years later, would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels.
1865 First edition of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll is published.
1879 In the Anglo-Zulu War, the Zululand capital of Ulundi was captured by British troops and burnt to the ground, thus, ending the war.
1884 Statue of Liberty presented to US in Paris.
1892 Western Samoa changes the International Date Line, so that year there were 367 days in this country, with two occurrences of Monday, July 4.
1903 Dorothy Levitt became the first English woman in the world to compete in a 'motor-race'.
1910 "Fight of the Century": Jack Johnson beats James J. Jeffries by TKO in 15 in Reno, Nevada to retain his world heavyweight boxing title.
1947 The 'Indian Independence Bill' was presented before the House of Commons, proposing the partition of the Provinces of British India into two sovereign countries – India and Pakistan.
1954 FIFA World Cup Final, Wankdorf Stadium, Bern, Switzerland: Helmut Rahn scores twice as West Germany beat Hungary, 3-2.
1969 British tennis player Ann Jones won the Wimbledon women's singles title, beating American Billie Jean King in the final.
1977 Manchester United manager Tommy Docherty was sacked by the club's directors after it became known that he was having an affair with Mary Brown, the wife of the club physio.
1981 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: John McEnroe ends Björn Borg's streak of 5 straight Wimbledon titles with a famous 4-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-4 victory.
1990 Footballer Paul Gascoigne's booking, (that would have excluded him from the World Cup Final, had England got there), resulted in the famous on pitch crying scenes from Gascoigne.
1993 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Pete Sampras beats fellow American Jim Courier 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 6-3 for his first of 7 Wimbledon titles.
1995 John Major emerged as the winner in an unprecedented parliamentary election for leadership of the ruling Conservative Party.
1996 Prince Charles, Prince of Wales delivered his terms for a divorce from Diana, Princess of Wales - an offer of £15m reportedly backed by the Queen.
1999 Victoria Adams, better known as Posh Spice of The Spice Girls, marries David Beckham. The couple draw lots of press coverage and become known as "Posh and Becks."
2001 In a world record fee for a goalkeeper, Juventus signed Parma's Gianluigi Buffon in a £32.5m deal.
2003 Barry White, age 58, dies two months after suffering a severe stroke while awaiting a kidney transplant.
2004 UEFA European Championship Final, Estádio da Luz, Lisbon, Portugal: In a huge upset Greece beats host nation Portugal, 1-0.
2010 After attending a gay pride parade in London, George Michael crashes his Range Rover into a Snappy Snaps photo store in Hampstead, England. Convicted of driving under the influence of cannabis, he goes to prison on September 21 and serves four weeks.
2014 Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson (who went on to become director of communications for Prime Minister David Cameron) was sentenced to 18 months in prison after he was found guilty of conspiracy to hack phones.
1295 Scotland and France formed an alliance, the so-called 'Auld Alliance', against their common enemy - England.
1687 Isaac Newton published his 'Principia', stating Newton's laws of motion, Newton's law of gravitation, and a derivation of Kepler's laws of the motion of the planets. The Principia is regarded as one of the most important works in the history of science.
1817 The first gold coin sovereigns were issued in Britain.
1841 Thomas Cook, a Baptist cabinet maker, founded the first travel agency. The first official 'Cook's Tour' involved almost 600 teetotallers taking the train from Leicester to Loughborough to attend a temperance meeting.
1865 The Locomotives and Highways Act in Britain introduced a speed limit for road vehicles of 4 mph in rural areas and 2 mph in urban areas.
1937 Spam, the luncheon meat is first introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation.
1942 Future 'James Bond' author, Ian Fleming graduates from a training school for spies in Canada.
1945 Churchill lost the General Election after leading Britain throughout World War II. Attlee’s Labour Party won 393 seats to the Tories’ 213.
1948 Britain's National Health Service came into operation when Aneurin Bevan, the health secretary, launched the NHS at Park Hospital in Davyhulme. It was the climax of a hugely ambitious plan to bring good healthcare to all. Doctors immediately announced the setting-up of a fighting fund to oppose the legislation, fearing a loss of earnings.
1948 The birth of Aneira Reece at Amman Valley Hospital in Carmarthenshire. She was the first baby born to be born under the National Health Service, just after the clocks chimed midnight. She was named Aneira, after the founding father of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan.
1954 The BBC broadcast its first daily television news programme.
1954 Elvis Presley records his debut single, a cover of Arthur Cruddup's "That's All Right, Mama".
1968 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Rod Laver beats Tony Roche 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 to earn first ever prize money (£2,000) offered at Wimbledon.
1969 The Rolling Stones gave a free concert in Hyde Park, London, two days after the death of guitarist Brian Jones. It was attended by 250,000 people.
1973 Test cricket debut of English umpire Harold "Dickie" Bird v NZ at Leeds.
1975 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Arthur Ashe becomes first African-American to win Wimbledon, beats countryman Jimmy Connors 6-1, 6-1, 5-7, 6-4.
1975 At Knebworth Festival in England, Pink Floyd debut their album "Wish You Were Here" with pyrotechnics and an exploding plane which flies into the stage
1980 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Björn Borg beats John McEnroe 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-7, 8-6 for his 5th straight Wimbledon crown with famous 22-minute, 34-point, fourth-set tiebreak.
1982 A draw against hosts Spain in the World Cup second group stage saw England eliminated despite an unbeaten record. It was Ron Greenwood’s last match as England manager and the last England appearances for Kevin Keegan and Trevor Booking who both came on as late substitutes for their only appearances in the World Cup finals.
1987 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Pat Cash of Australia scores his only Grand Slam singles success 7-6, 6-2, 7-5 over Ivan Lendl. Celebrating a title at The Championships changed when Pat Cash pioneered the Champions Climb. This is the moment the Australian changed tradition forever.
1994 Amazon.com founded in Bellevue, Washington by Jeff Bezos.
1996 The birth of Dolly, possibly the world's most famous sheep. She was cloned by scientists in Edinburgh in what was hailed as one of the most significant breakthroughs of the decade. The cell used as the donor for the cloning was taken from a mammary gland, so she was named after Dolly Parton because the scientist thought the country star was the person most synonymous with mammary glands.
2003 SARS is declared "contained" by the WHO. The SARS virus, known technically as SARS-CoV (coronavirus) first appeared in China in 2002,the disease spread to 29 countries before it was stopped.
2012 The Shard, Europe's tallest building to date and 'a gleaming feat of glass and gravity-defying engineering', was officially unveiled in London. It stands at 309.6 metres tall, cost £1.5bn and was 12 years in the making.
2012 Police apologised after a terror alert closed the M6 Toll for more than four hours. Armed officers, troops, firefighters and bomb disposal experts responded after a coach passenger saw smoke coming from another passenger's bag. Police later confirmed that the device was an electronic cigarette which gives off a visible vapour.
2014 The Tour de France cycle race made its first visit to the north of England. Day 1 started in Leeds and took in the town of Skipton. The day's stage continued through the Yorkshire Dales National Park and Ripon, before ending the day in Harrogate.
2019 Former governor of Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio Cabral says he paid a $2 million bribe to secure votes for his city to be granted 2016 Olympics.
1189 Richard the Lionheart is crowned King of England, upon the death of King Henry II. In English law the phrase 'time immemorial' means a time before legal history and beyond legal memory. In 1275, by the first Statute of Westminster, the time of memory was limited to the reign of Richard I, beginning on 6th July 1189.
1483 England's King Richard III was crowned. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty.
1535 Sir Thomas More was beheaded on London's Tower Hill for refusing to accept Henry VIII as head of the church. He lifted his beard from the axe, on the basis that it had committed no offences against the king!
1553 Mary I acceded to the throne, becoming the first queen to rule England in her own right.
1557 King Philip II of Spain, consort of Queen Mary I set out from Dover to war with France,which eventually results in the loss of the City of Calais,the last English possession on the continent and Mary I never seeing her husband again.
1685 James II defeated the Duke of Monmouth, claimant to the throne, at the Battle of Sedgemoor, Westonzoyland in Somerset. Sedgemoor was the last major battle to be fought on English soil.
1798 US law makes aliens "liable to be apprehended, restrained, ... & removed as alien enemies".
1886 Horlick's of Wisconsin offers 1st malted milk to public.
1892 Britain's first non-white MP was elected when Dadabhai Naoraji won the Central Finsbury seat.
1907 The opening of Brooklands - the world's first purpose-built motor racing circuit.
1907 Tom Reece takes 5 weeks to compile the highest recorded billiards break in a match (499,135) in London, his 'cradle' cannon method is soon banned.
1919 The first airship to cross the Atlantic, the British-built R34, arrived in New York.
1924 The first photo was sent experimentally across Atlantic by radio, from the US to England.
1934 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: British home favourite Fred Perry beats Australian Jack Crawford 6-3, 6-0, 7-5 for the first of 3 straight Wimbledon titles.
1952 After nearly a century of service, trams made their final appearance in London.
1957 Future Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney were introduced to each other when Lennon's band, the Quarrymen, performed at the St. Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton, Merseyside.
1964 The Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night was premiered in London, with royal attendance.
1968 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Billie Jean King beats Judy Tegart 9-7, 7-5 to earn first ever prize money (£750) offered to women at Wimbledon.
1972 David Bowie performs "Starman" on Top Of The Pops, causing an uproar among the conservative British audience by singing with his arm flirtatiously draped around the shoulder of guitarist Mick Ronson – a move that makes him as a household name overnight.
1978 Eleven people died and seventeen were injured in a blaze on the Penzance to Paddington sleeper train.
1978 Three bags of horse manure were hurled from the public gallery in the House of Commons during a debate on Scottish Home Rule. Yana Mintoff, daughter of the Prime Minister of Malta, was later arrested and fined.
1988 An explosion aboard the North Sea oil rig Piper Alpha, off the coast of Aberdeen, resulted in the loss of 167 lives. It is the world's deadliest ever oil rig accident.
1994 "Forrest Gump", starring Tom Hanks is released.
2000 West Ham United FC pays a record £1.8 million for the late Bobby Moore's collection of memorabilia; 79 items including his 1966 World Cup winner's medal.
2002 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Serena Williams beats older sister Venus 7-6, 6-3 for her first Wimbledon singles title.
2003 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Roger Federer beats Australian Mark Philippoussis 7-6, 6-2, 7-6 for his first Grand Slam title.
2005 The International Olympic Committee announced that the 2012 Olympic Games would be held in London.
2008 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Rafael Nadal of Spain ends Roger Federer's 5 year reign at Wimbledon 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7.
2014 From 4:30am cash could no longer be used on any of London's 24,500 buses, in a move that Transport for London (TfL) said would save £24m a year. A prepaid or concessionary ticket, Oyster card or a contactless payment card would be needed to travel.
2016 South African athlete Oscar Pistorius is sentenced to 6 years in jail for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013.
2016 Chilcot Report, UK's Iraqi War Inquiry released; concludes Tony Blair overstated case for war.
1307 England's King Edward I, conqueror of Wales and 'Hammer of the Scots' died on the Solway Burgh Marshes on the way to Scotland to fight Robert the Bruce. He was succeeded by Edward II.
1456 A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death.
1550 Traditional date Chocolate thought to have been introduced to Europe.
1865 Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt are executed for their role in the conspiracy to assassinate US President Abraham Lincoln.
1919 The birth of the actor John Pertwee, best known for his role in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who, in which he played the third incarnation of the Doctor from 1970 to 1974. He was also the title character in the series Worzel Gummidge.
1927 Christopher Stone became the first 'disc jockey' on British radio when he presented his 'Record Round-up' from Savoy Hill.
1928 Sliced bread sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company, Missouri, using a machine invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder. Described as the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped. This led to the popular idiom "greatest thing since sliced bread".
1930 The death of Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, best known for his detective fiction featuring the character Sherlock Holmes. He was a pupil at Stonyhurst College and he named Sherlock Holmes' nemesis, Moriarty, after a fellow pupil.
1940 Ringo Starr, English drummer with the Beatles, was born.
1955 Dixon Of Dock Green began on BBC TV with Jack Warner as George Dixon. The programme ran for 367 episodes over 21 years.
1956 "Hancock's Half Hour" premieres as a TV show starring Tony Hancock and Sid James.
1967 England's round-the-world yachtsman Sir Francis Chichester was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. For the ceremony, the Queen used a sword that had originally belonged to Sir Francis Drake.
1968 The Yardbirds disband immediately after a gig in Luton, England. Jimmy Page begins forming what will become Led Zeppelin.
1974 FIFA World Cup Final, Olympiastadion, Munich, Germany: Striker Gerd Müller scores 43rd minute winner as West Germany beat the Netherlands, 2-1.
1978 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Martina Navratilova wins her first Grand Slam singles title beating Chris Evert 2-6, 6-4, 7-5.
1981 England cricket captain Ian Botham resigned after no wins in 12 matches under his reign and a pair in the 2nd Test v Australia at Lord's.
1982 Ipswich Town manager Bobby Robson was appointed manager of England replacing Ron Greenwood.
1984 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Martina Navratilova beats Chris Evert 7-6, 6-2 for her 26th Grand Slam title.
1985 German tennis player Boris Becker, an unseeded 17 year old became the youngest player to win the men's singles championship at Wimbledon.
1990 Exactly 8 years after being appointed England manager Bobby Robson took charge of England for the last time. Hosts Italy beat England 2-1 in the World Cup 3rd/4th place match which saw Peter Shilton make his record 125th and final appearance for his country.
2004 Fred Dibnah, Bolton born steeplejack, steam enthusiast and later TV presenter, went to Buckingham Palace to receive an MBE from the Queen. He initially planned to drive his beloved traction engine into the palace grounds, but was refused, as the Royal Parks Agency feared that its weight would damage the surface of The Mall.
2005 A series of bomb attacks on London's transport network killed 52 people and injured 700 others. It was the largest and deadliest terrorist attack in London's history.
2009 After a private ceremony at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, Michael Jackson's public funeral is held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
2010 Marksmen searched empty buildings, woods and fields in and around the town of Rothbury in Northumberland in the hunt for suspected gunman Raoul Moat, wanted over the shooting of three people the previous weekend. The manhunt lasted almost seven days, and was the largest in modern British history. After a standoff with the police, Moat shot himself on 10th July.
2013 Andy Murray won his first Wimbledon title and ended Britain's 77-year wait for a men's champion with a victory over world number one Novak Djokovic. The Scot won 6-4, 7-5 and 6-4.
2014 A precious hoard of Roman and Late Iron Age coins were discovered in a cave in Dovedale, Derbyshire, where it had lain undisturbed for more than 2,000 years. Experts said that it was the first time that coins from the two separate civilisations had been found buried together.
2014 Five pupils from Nottingham's Djanogly City Academy staged an unsuccessful 'Great Escape' breakout from school, by trying to tunnel under a 12ft high security fence with cutlery. (Pupils had been banned from leaving the school at lunchtime to ensure that they stayed safe and to improve attendance).
1884 The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) was founded in London.
1889 John L. Sullivan successfully defends last officially sanctioned, bare-knuckle world heavyweight prizefighting championship; Jake Kilrain's trainer throws in towel after 75 x 1-minute rounds near Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
1918 National Savings stamps were introduced in Britain.
1941 Twenty B-17s flew on their first mission with the RAF over Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
1947 New Mexico's Roswell Daily Record reports an alien aircraft has crashed near a local ranch with the headline "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer In Roswell Region."
1961 For the first time since 1941, Britain provided both women finalists for the Wimbledon Ladies' singles title - Christine Truman and Angela Mortimer
1965 Ronald Biggs, who was serving a 30-year prison sentence for his part in the Great Train Robbery, escaped from Wandsworth prison.
1967 The death of Vivien Leigh, English film actress whose films included Gone With The Wind.
1969 Singer/actress Marianne Faithfull, girlfriend of Mick Jagger, attempts suicide with barbiturates while on the set of the film Ned Kelly (also starring Mick). She is dropped from the cast of the movie, eventually recovers, and when awaking from her coma, tells friends that "wild horses couldn't drag me away." The Rolling Stones song "Wild Horses" is built around that phrase.
1985 Britain lifted its trade ban with Argentina after the Falklands crisis ended.
1986 British Steel made a profit for the first time in 17 years.
1988 A London double-decker bus parked in Battersea, was put on sale for £40,000. It had been converted into a luxury home to overcome rising property prices in the capital.
1990 FIFA World Cup Final, Stadio Olimpico, Rome, Italy: 85th minute penalty by Andreas Brehme gives West Germany, 1-0 win over Argentina.
1996 British girl group the Spice Girls release their debut single "Wannabe" in the UK.
2014 FIFA World Cup: Germany defeat Brazil by a record 7-1 in the semi-finals to make it to the final; Miroslav Klose of Germany breaks the World Cup goal scoring record with 16 goals.
1540 England's King Henry VIII had his six-month marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, annulled.
1553 The Duke of Northumberland announced to Lady Jane Grey that Edward VI had died and that she was queen of England. The proclamation was made the next day, but her reign lasted for only nine days. Her successor was Mary I.
1877 The first Wimbledon Lawn Tennis championship was held at its original site at Worple Road. The men's singles title was won by Spencer Gore - beating fellow British player W.C. Marshall in three sets.
1917 The loss, at Scapa Flow, of the British battleship Vanguard. It was one of the most tragic accidents in the history of the Royal Navy and was caused by an internal explosion of cordite. All but two of the 845 men on board at the time were killed. The bodies that could be recovered now lie in Lyness Royal Naval Cemetery, Hoy and the wreck itself is afforded statutory protection as a designated war grave under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.
1938 In anticipation of World War II, 35 million gas masks were issued to Britain's civilian population.
1947 Princess Elizabeth (the Queen) and Philip Mountbatten announced their engagement.
1955 Bill Haley & His Comets' "Rock Around The Clock" becomes the first Rock song to hit #1 on the Billboard Pop chart, where it stays for eight weeks. The song was originally released as a the B-side of "Thirteen Women," but became a massive hit after it appeared in the film Blackboard Jungle.
1977 Elvis Costello quits his job at cosmetics factory to pursue a music career.
1981 Nintendo releases arcade game Donkey Kong in Japan.
1982 Queen Elizabeth II woke to find an intruder (Michael Fagan) sitting at the end of her bed, raising further concerns about poor Palace security.
1984 A massive fire, caused by a lightning strike, devastated large parts of York Minster causing an estimated £1m damage.
1989 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Boris Becker of Germany beats Sweden's Stefan Edberg 6-0, 7-6, 6-4 for his 3rd and last Wimbledon title.
1999 Scotland celebrated one of its most significant political events for centuries; the formal opening of the new Scottish Parliament by the Queen. There was public uproar over the cost and delays. The final cost was £414 million (10 times over budget) and it was three years late.
2001 "The Office" mockumentary created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, starring Ricky Gervais and Martin Freeman premieres on BBC Two in the UK.
2006 FIFA World Cup Final, Olympiastadion, Berlin, Germany: Italy beats France, 5-3 on penalties; 1-1 after extra time.
2014 The Times Higher Education magazine's annual exam howlers competition came up with these and many others. (1) All cars will be be fitted with Catholic converters (2) Hitler's role in the Second World War is often overlooked (3) The hole in the ozone layer is caused by arseholes (4) Stalin was extremely surprised when he was taken from behind by Hitler.
Arsenal appointed their youngest manager with 34-year-old Terry Neill replacing Bertie Mee. The former Arsenal captain had managed Hull and Tottenham before arriving back at Highbury.
Football On This Day – 9th July 2006.
If ever there was to be a prize for the most famous footballing foul I've got a feeling that one that occurred on 9th July 2006 would probably top the list. The foul was committed towards the end of extra time when the score was 1-1 at the World Cup final between Italy and France at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. The protagonists were the two goalscorers - France's Zinedine Zidane and Italy's Marco Materazzi. A shirt tug and exchange of words was followed by Materazzi ending up on the floor having been headbutted to the chest by Zidane. Zidane was red-carded. The speculation after the match centred on what was said between the two....it seems that an insulting comment about a family member led to the headbutt. As to the World Cup - Italy beat France 5-3 on penalties to become world champions, Zidane won the player of the tournament award but never played for France again.
Arsenal appointed their youngest manager with 34-year-old Terry Neill replacing Bertie Mee. The former Arsenal captain had managed Hull and Tottenham before arriving back at Highbury.
Football On This Day – 9th July 2006.
If ever there was to be a prize for the most famous footballing foul I've got a feeling that one that occurred on 9th July 2006 would probably top the list. The foul was committed towards the end of extra time when the score was 1-1 at the World Cup final between Italy and France at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. The protagonists were the two goalscorers - France's Zinedine Zidane and Italy's Marco Materazzi. A shirt tug and exchange of words was followed by Materazzi ending up on the floor having been headbutted to the chest by Zidane. Zidane was red-carded. The speculation after the match centred on what was said between the two....it seems that an insulting comment about a family member led to the headbutt. As to the World Cup - Italy beat France 5-3 on penalties to become world champions, Zidane won the player of the tournament award but never played for France again.
Arsenal appointed their youngest manager with 34-year-old Terry Neill replacing Bertie Mee. The former Arsenal captain had managed Hull and Tottenham before arriving back at Highbury.
Football On This Day – 9th July 2006.
If ever there was to be a prize for the most famous footballing foul I've got a feeling that one that occurred on 9th July 2006 would probably top the list. The foul was committed towards the end of extra time when the score was 1-1 at the World Cup final between Italy and France at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. The protagonists were the two goalscorers - France's Zinedine Zidane and Italy's Marco Materazzi. A shirt tug and exchange of words was followed by Materazzi ending up on the floor having been headbutted to the chest by Zidane. Zidane was red-carded. The speculation after the match centred on what was said between the two....it seems that an insulting comment about a family member led to the headbutt. As to the World Cup - Italy beat France 5-3 on penalties to become world champions, Zidane won the player of the tournament award but never played for France again.
138 The death of the Roman Emperor Hadrian who ordered the building of a wall across northern England to keep out the 'barbarian Scottish tribes'.
1040 Lady Godiva rode naked on horseback through the streets of Coventry to force her husband, the Earl of Mercia, to lower taxes.
1212 The most severe of several early fires of London began in Southwark and burned most of the city to the ground including Southwark Cathedral.
1460 In England's Wars of the Roses, the Yorkists (commanded by Richard Neville, the 16th Earl of Warwick) defeated the Lancastrians and captured Henry VI at the Battle of Northampton.
1553 Lady Jane Grey, the 9 days Queen, took the throne of England until 19th July when she was succeeded by Mary I. She was later charged with high treason and executed in November of the same year.
1645 Battle at Langport, Somerset: Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army beats Royalists.
1940 World War II: The first in a long series of German bombing raids against Great Britain, as the Battle of Britain, which lasted three and a half months, began.
1947 The Government announced that Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II) would get extra clothing coupons for her wedding dress.
1954 Gordon Richards rode his last mount, at Sandown; the 21,834th of his almost 34-year racing career.
1958 Britain's first parking meters were installed, in Mayfair, London.
1960 UEFA European Championship Final, Parc des Princes, Paris, France: Viktor Ponedelnik scores in extra time as Soviet Union beat Yugoslavia, 2-1.
1967 Bobbie Gentry records "Ode to Billie Joe" - single goes on to win 4 Grammys.
1969 The funeral is held for The Rolling Stones founding member Brian Jones, who was found dead in his swimming pool on July 3rd. His bandmates Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman attend, but Mick Jagger and Keith Richards do not.
1973 John Paul Getty III, grandson of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, is kidnapped in Rome by Italian gangsters wanting a ransom.
1975 Test Cricket debut of Graham Gooch, v Australia, out for a pair.
1985 Tina Turner stars opposite Mel Gibson in the post-apocalyptic action flick Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Turner sings two hit songs for the movie: "One Of The Living" and "We Don't Need Another Hero."
1985 The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior was blown up in Auckland harbour, New Zealand. French foreign intelligence agents blew up the boat to prevent it interfering with French nuclear tests in the South Pacific.
1997 More than 100,000 people packed Hyde Park in London for a countryside rally to protest against Government proposals to ban fox hunting.
2000 Coldplay release their debut album "Parachutes".
2000 Figures released by the government showed that one in four British homes were using the Internet.
2011 The last ever edition of the News Of The World. The newspaper was launched in 1843 and its closure came after a string of new allegations about the paper's extent of phone hacking and corrupt payments made to police officers.
2016 UEFA European Championship, Stade de France, Saint-Denis: Eder scores in extra time as Portugal upset France, 1-0.
2016 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Scotsman Andy Murray beats Canadian Milos Raonic 6-4, 7-6, 7-6 for his 2nd Wimbledon and 3rd Grand Slam title.
2018 The final 4 boys and their coach are rescued from Tham Luang Nang Non cave, Thailand after being trapped there for 18 days by monsoon flooding.
2018 Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo joins Italian champions Juventus in a deal worth £99.2m, becoming one of the four most expensive players of all time.
Back on this day in 1978 the footballing talking point was centred on Tottenham Hotspur. In those days a 'foreign' player in the English game was Welsh, Scottish or Irish so when Spurs - who had just won promotion from the Second Division - signed two players from the Argentine squad that had just won the World Cup it became front-page news. Ossie Ardiles was part of the winning Argentine team while Ricky Villa had played in a couple of matches as a sub prior to the final. Both players became firm favourites at White Hart Lane and after they arrived the trickle of foreign players into the English game slowly became a flood and things would never be the same again.
Football On This Day – 10th July 1989.
Transfers that see players move between local rivals are often controversial ones - on this page alone Nick Barmby's move from Everton to Liverpool and Sol Campbell's transfer from Spurs to Arsenal have been shown as not being too popular. North of the border it was once almost unheard of for players to have played for both the great Old Firm rivals - Rangers and Celtic. But in Glasgow it went a lot deeper than just footballing rivalry - religion was involved. In simplistic terms Rangers was the Protestant club while Celtic were the Catholic one but inevitably it went deeper than that. Rangers were the native Scots club and Celtic the Irish-Scots club. Anyway, Mo Johnston was a Celtic player from 1984 to 1987 when he joined Nantes. When his contract with the French club ended in 1989 he was widely expected to rejoin Celtic but on 10th July 1989 it was announced that he had joined Rangers. Rangers had signed a former Celtic player who was a Catholic. Ok the reality was that he wasn't the first ex-Celtic player to be signed by Rangers nor was he the first Catholic to play for them but it was a transfer that hit the front pages and united many Celtic and Rangers fans in widespread protests. He had a successful spell at Ibrox before moving to Everton in 1991.
1274 Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland was born. His body is buried in Dunfermline Abbey,while it is believed his heart was interred in Melrose Abbey.
1656 Ann Austin and Mary Fisher became the first Quakers to arrive in America and were promptly arrested. Five weeks later they were deported back to England.
1776 Captain Cook sailed from Plymouth in the Resolution accompanied by the Discovery on his last expedition. He was killed in Hawaii in a fight with Hawaiians in 1779.
1848 London's Waterloo Station was officially opened. With over 91 million passenger entries and exits between April 2010 and March 2011, it is Britain's busiest railway station.
1859 A Tale Of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, was published.
1859 Big Ben, in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament, tolled for the first time. In September it cracked under the hammer, a mere two months after it officially went into service. According to the foundry's manager, a hammer more than twice the maximum weight specified had been used and for three years Big Ben was taken out of commission.
1884 Old Trafford (Manchester) became England's 2nd official Test Match cricket ground (after the Kennington Oval in London).
1900 Charlotte Cooper beats Hélène Prévost to become the 1st female Olympic tennis champion and the 1st individual female Olympic champion in any sport.
1930 Australian cricketer Don Bradman scored a world record 309 runs in one day in a Test match against England, held at Headingley. The 21 year old is 105 at lunch, 220 at tea, and 309 at stumps.
1950 Puppets Andy Pandy, Teddy and Looby Loo first appeared on BBC TV. The episodes were repeated for more than 25 years, until the film wore out.
1960 "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee is first published by J. B. Lippincott & Co.
1966 England started their 1966 World Cup campaign with a disappointing 0-0 draw with Uruguay at Wembley. In that match England fielded nine of the players who would later play in the World Cup final. Jimmy Greaves and Manchester United's John Connelly were the two players who didn't make the final, being replaced by the goalscorers in the final, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters.
1969 David Bowie releases the single "Space Oddity" 9 days before Apollo 11 lands on the moon.
1982 FIFA World Cup Final, Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid, Spain: Italy beats West Germany, 3-1 in front of 90,000.
1989 Laurence Olivier, English actor and director died.
1991 Labour MP Terry Fields was sentenced to 60 days in prison for refusing to pay his poll tax.
2010 FIFA World Cup Final, Soccer City, Johannesburg, South Africa: Andrés Iniesta scores an extra time winner as Spain beats the Netherlands, 1-0 for first World Cup title.
2013 Greenpeace protesters climbed to the summit of London's Shard, the tallest building in western Europe at 1,016 ft and then unfurled a blue flag with 'Save the Arctic' written on it.
2018 England are beaten 2-1 in extra time by Croatia in the semi-final of the world cup held in Russia.
2019 Last models of Volkswagen's Beetle car are produced in Pueblo, Mexico, ending production worldwide after 80 years.
1543 England's Henry VIII married Catherine Parr, his sixth and last wife, at Hampton Court Palace. Catherine was the fourth commoner Henry had taken as his consort, and she outlived him. She was also the most-married English queen, having a total of four husbands.
1690 William of Orange defeated the deposed Catholic, King James II, at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland.
1730 The birth of Josiah Wedgwood, English potter, founder of the Wedgwood company and credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery.
1794 British admiral Horatio Nelson lost his right eye at the siege of Calvi, in Corsica.
1861 Wild Bill Hickok reputed to have shot and killed David McCanles, possibly his first kill. Hickok later acquitted after found he acted in self defense.
1910 Charles Rolls, aged 32, pioneering pilot and co-founder of Rolls-Royce,was killed when he crashed his biplane in a flying competition in the Southbourne district of Bournemouth. He was the first Briton to be killed in a flying accident.
1932 Yorkshire cricketer Hedley Verity took 10 wickets for 10 runs in a county championship match against Nottinghamshire at Headingley, Leeds.
1947 The birth of Gareth Edwards, former Welsh rugby union footballer and described by the BBC as 'arguably the greatest player ever to don a Welsh jersey'.
1962 The Rolling Stones performed their first ever concert, at the Marquee Club in London.
1969 Tony Jacklin became the first British golfer since 1951 to win the Open Championship.
1974 The manager of Liverpool football club, Bill Shankly announced his retirement.
1984 Robert Maxwell bought the Mirror Group newspapers.
1989 Judy Leden became the first woman to cross the English Channel by hang glider. She was launched from a hot air balloon 13,500 ft above Dover and completed the flight in less than 30 minutes.
1998 FIFA World Cup Final, Stade de France, Saint-Denis: Zinedine Zidane scores twice as France wins first World Cup beating Brazil, 3-0.
2013 Journalist and broadcaster Alan Whicker died at the age of 87 after suffering from bronchial pneumonia. His TV career stretched nearly six decades and he was best known for his documentary series, Whicker's World, which ran from 1959 to 1988 on both the BBC and ITV.
1568 Dean of St. Paul's London, Alexander Nowell perfects a way to bottle beer.
1713 A treaty signed between Great Britain and Spain at Utrecht ceded Gibraltar to Britain in perpetuity.
1837 Queen Victoria became the first sovereign to move into Buckingham Palace.
1911 The night of the 1911 census. A suffragette hid in a broom cupboard in the House of Commons so that she could record The House of Commons as her address, ‘thus making my claim to the same right as men’.
1919 The British airship R34 landed in Norfolk, completing the first airship return journey across the Atlantic in a time of 182 hours.
1923 The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles. It originally reads "Hollywoodland" but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949.
1939 Frank Sinatra makes his recording debut.
1943 The Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history, involving some 6,000 tanks, 2,000,000 troops, and 4,000 aircraft, ended in defeat for Germany.
1955 Nightclub hostess Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be hanged in Britain - executed at Holloway Prison for the murder of her lover David Blakely.
1967 In the heat of the mountain stage of the Tour de France, British cyclist Tony Simpson, 29, collapsed and died.
1978 BBC bans Sex Pistols "No One is Innocent".
1983 The House of Commons voted 361-245 against the restoration of the death penalty.
1985 Two simultaneous 'Live Aid' concerts, one in London (Wembley Stadium) and one in Philadelphia, raised over £50 million for famine victims in Africa. Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially opened Live Aid. The 16-hour 'super concert' was globally linked by satellite to more than a billion viewers in 110 nations.
1987 Kylie Minogue releases her debut single "Locomotion".
1991 Bryan Adams went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with Everything I Do I Do It For You from the film Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves. It stayed at No.1 for a record breaking 16 weeks, and was also a No.1 in the US and 16 other countries.
2012 Financially troubled Scottish football club, Rangers, is voted into the third division.
2014 FIFA World Cup Final, Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Mario Götze scores an extra time winner as Germany beat Argentina, 1-0.
2016 Theresa May, the former Home Secretary, became Prime Minister after David Cameron resigned (24th June) following a referendum that voted in favour of leaving the European Union.
2018 Chelsea FC sacks high profile manager Antonio Conte despite winning 2016-17 EPL and 2018 FA Cup, replaced by ex-Napoli boss Maurizio Sarri.
1766 The official opening of the 137 mile long Grand Union Canal (Britain's longest canal) that links London to Birmingham.
1789 Bastille Day - the French Revolution begins with the storming of the Bastille Prison in Paris (now celebrated as France's national day).
1850 1st public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration by Florida physician John Gorrie.
1867 Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel demonstrated dynamite for the first time, at a quarry in Redhill, Surrey.
1903 It became known that the government would reject proposals to introduce driving tests, vehicle inspections and penalties for drunken drivers.
1939 The government announced that all infants and nursing mothers would get fresh milk free or at no more than two pence a pint.
1940 World War II: Britain tackled the threat of a German invasion by forming the Home Guard - a part-time volunteer army, generally comprising men too old for national service.
1962 The Beatles played their first gig in Wales when they appeared at The Regent Dansette Theatre in Rhyl.
1964 The Rolling Stones score their first #1 hit in the UK with their cover of Bobby Womack's "It's All Over Now."
1969 The movie Easy Rider, which opens with the heavy metal thunder of "Born To Be Wild," opens in theaters. The film stars Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper as motorcycle-riding free spirits. The soundtrack sells over 500,000 copies.
1977 The BBC lifts their ban on The Sex Pistols, who appear on Top Of The Pops in a video clip performing their song "Pretty Vacant," which has become a surprise hit in the UK.
1983 Mario Bros. is first released by Nintendo in Japan as an arcade game about an Italian-American plumber.
1988 At the height of "Elvis is Alive" mania, Nashville radio station WYHY offers a million dollars to anyone who shows up at the studios with the King.
1997 Convicted murderer and former London gangster Reggie Kray married Roberta Jones at Maidstone Prison in Kent.
2019 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Novak Đoković wins longest ever Wimbledon final over Roger Federer 7-6, 1-6, 7-6, 4-6, 13-12 in 4 hours, 57 minutes; his 16th Grand Slam title.
2019 English Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins a record 6th British Formula 1 Grand Prix at Silverstone.
2019 Cricket World Cup, Lord's: England beats New Zealand on count back after scores tied at 241 after 50 overs and 15 in Super Over.
971 According to the legend of St. Swithin, if it rains today, it will be the start of forty days of rain. St Swithin was bishop of Winchester Cathedral and asked to be buried outside it so that he would be exposed to ‘the feet of passers-by and the drops falling from above’. When St Swithun is reburied inside Winchester Cathedral (against his wishes) a terrible storm proceeds to rain for 40 days and nights
1381 John Ball, a leader in the Peasants' Revolt, was hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of King Richard II.
1685 Charles II's illegitimate son (the Duke of Monmouth) was executed for rebelling against James II. His head was then put back on his shoulders so that his portrait could be painted.
1815 French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered to Captain Maitland aboard the English ship Bellerophon, at Rochefort, after his earlier defeat at the Battle of Waterloo before being sent into exile on the island of St Helena.
1815 1st flat horse race held at English race track Cheltenham on Nottingham Hill.
1857 200 British men, women and children were chopped up by local butchers and thrown down a well at Cawnpore, as the Indian Mutiny continued.
1869 Margarine is patented by Hippolye Méga-Mouriès for use by French Navy.
1912 National Insurance payments began in Britain.
1948 Alcoholics Anonymous, in existence in the USA since 1935, was founded in London.
1953 Murderer John Christie, responsible for the deaths of at least six women in his home at 10, Rillington Place, London, was hanged.
1965 "Mariner IV" sends back 1st pictures of Mars.
1974 TV news reporter Christine Chubbuck shoots herself live on WXLT-TV, Florida, first person to commit suicide in a live broadcast.
1978 Bob Dylan performs at the biggest open-air concert in history for a solo artist, playing for over 200,000 at "The Picnic at Blackbushe" at Blackbushe Airport in Hampshire, England.
1987 Boy George barred from British TV show, he may be a bad influence.
1988 "Die Hard" starring Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman is released in the US.
1994 Jack Walker’s Blackburn Rovers confirmed themselves as the big-spenders of the Premier League when they broke the British transfer record by paying Norwich £5 million for Chris Sutton – and then paying him a reputed £12,000 a week wages.
2000 Two men caught on camera for dangerous driving escaped prosecution in a landmark case, as it had violated their human rights.
2016 As he's done since 1972, Alice Cooper announces he's running for president, this time with the campaign slogan "A Troubled Man for Troubled Times." His platform includes "Adding Lemmy to Mount Rushmore" and "Getting Brian Johnson back in AC/DC." He loses to Donald Trump, but gains more exposure for his song "Elected."
2018 FIFA World Cup Final, Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow, Russia: Former captain Didier Deschamps becomes only the 3rd man to win the event as a player and coach as France beats Croatia, 4-2.
Comments
1767 Pitcairn Island was discovered by Midshipman Robert Pitcairn on an expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret. The islands are best known as home of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers, an event retold in numerous books and films. Pitcairn measures about 2 miles across and is the least populated jurisdiction in the world with only 48 inhabitants, from four main families of Bounty descendents.
1871 Jesse James robs a bank of $45,000 in Corydon, Iowa.
1920 The first RAF air display took place at Hendon, near London.
1928 A policeman's helmet and a bunch of roses were among the pictures shown on John Logie Baird's first colour television test transmission at Baird Studios, in London.
1938 LNER locomotive No.4468 'Mallard' achieved the world speed record for steam traction. A maximum speed 126 mph was reached between Grantham and Peterborough. Mallard was in service until 1963, when she was retired, having covered almost one and a half million miles.
1940 World War II: British warships attacked three battleships of the French fleet - Dunkerque, Provence and Bretagne. Fearing that the French ships would fall into Nazi hands, the British Force attempted to coerce the French battleship squadron to join the British cause, surrender their ships in British ports or scuttle their ships. The French Navy refused, as complying with the demand would have violated the Armistice signed with Germany. The British warships opened fire and 1200 French sailors perished, 977 on the Bretagne alone.
1952 The SS United States set sail on her maiden voyage to Southampton. During the voyage, the ship took the coveted Blue Riband away from the RMS Queen Mary, until that date the fastest passenger liner to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
1954 The end of food rationing in Britain - almost 9 years after the end of World War II. Smithfield Meat Market in London opened at midnight instead of 6am to cope with the demand for beef.
1959 British Open Men's Golf, Muirfield: 23 year old South African Gary Player wins the first of his 9 major titles.
1967 "News at 10" premieres on British TV.
1969 Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones is found dead in his swimming pool in England. The death is ruled accidental, although Jones, 27, has high levels of alcohol in his blood.
1971 Jim Morrison of The Doors is found dead in a bathtub at age 27. No autopsy is performed, and while drugs are suspected, the official cause is listed as "heart attack induced by respiratory problems."
1973 At the Hammersmith Odeon in London, David Bowie appears as Ziggy Stardust for the last time, explaining: "Not only is this the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do." Many take this to mean Bowie was retiring from music altogether, though Bowie just means he is retiring Stardust. This show is later made into a movie directed by D.A. Pennebaker called Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars.
1976 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Sweden's Björn Borg beats Ilie Năstase of Romania 6-4, 6-2, 9-7 for the first of 5 straight Wimbledon titles.
1982 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Martina Navratilova beats Chris Evert 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 for the first of 6-straight Wimbledon singles titles.
1984 Derek Underwood (Kent's left arm spin bowler) scored his first cricket century, after 22 years of playing in first-class cricket.
1985 "Back to the Future" starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd is released.
1996 It was announced that the Stone of Scone, the symbol of Scottish nationalism, stolen by Edward I of England in 1296, was to be returned to Scotland from Westminster Abbey where it has been used in the coronation of 30 British monarchs.
1996 Cliff Richard leads the Wimbledon Centre Court crowd in singing during a rain delay. His backing singers are former tennis stars Virginia Wade, Martina Navratilova, Hana Mandlíková, Pam Shriver, Liz Smylie, Gigi Fernández and Conchita Martinez.
2004 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Maria Sharapova becomes first Russian player to win Wimbledon beating defending champion Serena Williams 6-1, 6-4.
2011 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Novak Đoković of Serbia beats Spaniard Rafael Nadal 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3 for his first Wimbledon title.
2012 Antonio Esfandiari wins a record $18.3 million after winning the 2012 World Series of Poker $1,000,000 Buy-In.
One of the more controversial football transfers. Sol Campbell moves on a Bosman free transfer from Tottenham to near neighbours Arsenal, leaving Spurs fans just a tad upset.
The defender won a double in his first season. An FA Cup followed in his second and then came an unbeaten season as the rock of the Invincibles, before another FA Cup in 2005 and a Champions League final goal in 2006.
Who could argue that he’d made the wrong decision? Sol Campbell won the title at White Hart Lane - something he’d have dreamed of doing for years. Only he did it with Tottenham’s bitter rivals, before partying with Thierry Henry and co on the patch of grass he used to call his own.
Football On This Day – 3rd July 2018.
At last England won a World Cup penalty shoot-out! After defeats against West Germany in 1990, Argentina in 1998 and Portugal in 2006 they got the better of Colombia in the Spartak Stadium in Moscow. It was England 1 Colombia 1 at the end of extra time in the Round of Last 16 match and ominously it was Jordan Henderson who became the first player to fail to score from the penalty spot. But then Uribe and Bacca missed for Colombia before Eric Dier slotted home the final penalty to give England a 4-3 victory. Surely England would now go on to win the World Cup...
That they're gonna throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realized what you gotta do
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do about you now.
Wonder Ball !
1776 The American Congress voted for independence from Britain.
1829 Britain's first regular scheduled bus service began running, between Marylebone Road and the Bank of England, in London.
1838 Huskar Colliery Mining Disaster in Silkstone England: mining pit floods drown 26 children, leads to 1842 'Mines and Collieries Act' bans women and children working underground.
1840 The Cunard Shipping Line began its first Atlantic crossing when the paddle steamer Britannia sailed from Liverpool en route to Halifax. The voyage took 14 days.
1862 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known under his pseudonym Lewis Carroll, told Alice Liddell a story as they were rowing on the Isis through Oxford, that, three years later, would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels.
1865 First edition of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll is published.
1879 In the Anglo-Zulu War, the Zululand capital of Ulundi was captured by British troops and burnt to the ground, thus, ending the war.
1884 Statue of Liberty presented to US in Paris.
1892 Western Samoa changes the International Date Line, so that year there were 367 days in this country, with two occurrences of Monday, July 4.
1903 Dorothy Levitt became the first English woman in the world to compete in a 'motor-race'.
1910 "Fight of the Century": Jack Johnson beats James J. Jeffries by TKO in 15 in Reno, Nevada to retain his world heavyweight boxing title.
1947 The 'Indian Independence Bill' was presented before the House of Commons, proposing the partition of the Provinces of British India into two sovereign countries – India and Pakistan.
1954 FIFA World Cup Final, Wankdorf Stadium, Bern, Switzerland: Helmut Rahn scores twice as West Germany beat Hungary, 3-2.
1969 British tennis player Ann Jones won the Wimbledon women's singles title, beating American Billie Jean King in the final.
1977 Manchester United manager Tommy Docherty was sacked by the club's directors after it became known that he was having an affair with Mary Brown, the wife of the club physio.
1981 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: John McEnroe ends Björn Borg's streak of 5 straight Wimbledon titles with a famous 4-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-4 victory.
1990 Footballer Paul Gascoigne's booking, (that would have excluded him from the World Cup Final, had England got there), resulted in the famous on pitch crying scenes from Gascoigne.
1993 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Pete Sampras beats fellow American Jim Courier 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 6-3 for his first of 7 Wimbledon titles.
1995 John Major emerged as the winner in an unprecedented parliamentary election for leadership of the ruling Conservative Party.
1996 Prince Charles, Prince of Wales delivered his terms for a divorce from Diana, Princess of Wales - an offer of £15m reportedly backed by the Queen.
1999 Victoria Adams, better known as Posh Spice of The Spice Girls, marries David Beckham. The couple draw lots of press coverage and become known as "Posh and Becks."
2001 In a world record fee for a goalkeeper, Juventus signed Parma's Gianluigi Buffon in a £32.5m deal.
2003 Barry White, age 58, dies two months after suffering a severe stroke while awaiting a kidney transplant.
2004 UEFA European Championship Final, Estádio da Luz, Lisbon, Portugal: In a huge upset Greece beats host nation Portugal, 1-0.
2010 After attending a gay pride parade in London, George Michael crashes his Range Rover into a Snappy Snaps photo store in Hampstead, England. Convicted of driving under the influence of cannabis, he goes to prison on September 21 and serves four weeks.
2014 Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson (who went on to become director of communications for Prime Minister David Cameron) was sentenced to 18 months in prison after he was found guilty of conspiracy to hack phones.
1295 Scotland and France formed an alliance, the so-called 'Auld Alliance', against their common enemy - England.
1687 Isaac Newton published his 'Principia', stating Newton's laws of motion, Newton's law of gravitation, and a derivation of Kepler's laws of the motion of the planets. The Principia is regarded as one of the most important works in the history of science.
1817 The first gold coin sovereigns were issued in Britain.
1841 Thomas Cook, a Baptist cabinet maker, founded the first travel agency. The first official 'Cook's Tour' involved almost 600 teetotallers taking the train from Leicester to Loughborough to attend a temperance meeting.
1865 The Locomotives and Highways Act in Britain introduced a speed limit for road vehicles of 4 mph in rural areas and 2 mph in urban areas.
1937 Spam, the luncheon meat is first introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation.
1942 Future 'James Bond' author, Ian Fleming graduates from a training school for spies in Canada.
1945 Churchill lost the General Election after leading Britain throughout World War II. Attlee’s Labour Party won 393 seats to the Tories’ 213.
1948 Britain's National Health Service came into operation when Aneurin Bevan, the health secretary, launched the NHS at Park Hospital in Davyhulme. It was the climax of a hugely ambitious plan to bring good healthcare to all. Doctors immediately announced the setting-up of a fighting fund to oppose the legislation, fearing a loss of earnings.
1948 The birth of Aneira Reece at Amman Valley Hospital in Carmarthenshire. She was the first baby born to be born under the National Health Service, just after the clocks chimed midnight. She was named Aneira, after the founding father of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan.
1954 The BBC broadcast its first daily television news programme.
1954 Elvis Presley records his debut single, a cover of Arthur Cruddup's "That's All Right, Mama".
1968 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Rod Laver beats Tony Roche 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 to earn first ever prize money (£2,000) offered at Wimbledon.
1969 The Rolling Stones gave a free concert in Hyde Park, London, two days after the death of guitarist Brian Jones. It was attended by 250,000 people.
1973 Test cricket debut of English umpire Harold "Dickie" Bird v NZ at Leeds.
1975 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Arthur Ashe becomes first African-American to win Wimbledon, beats countryman Jimmy Connors 6-1, 6-1, 5-7, 6-4.
1975 At Knebworth Festival in England, Pink Floyd debut their album "Wish You Were Here" with pyrotechnics and an exploding plane which flies into the stage
1980 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Björn Borg beats John McEnroe 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-7, 8-6 for his 5th straight Wimbledon crown with famous 22-minute, 34-point, fourth-set tiebreak.
1982 A draw against hosts Spain in the World Cup second group stage saw England eliminated despite an unbeaten record. It was Ron Greenwood’s last match as England manager and the last England appearances for Kevin Keegan and Trevor Booking who both came on as late substitutes for their only appearances in the World Cup finals.
1987 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Pat Cash of Australia scores his only Grand Slam singles success 7-6, 6-2, 7-5 over Ivan Lendl. Celebrating a title at The Championships changed when Pat Cash pioneered the Champions Climb. This is the moment the Australian changed tradition forever.
1994 Amazon.com founded in Bellevue, Washington by Jeff Bezos.
1996 The birth of Dolly, possibly the world's most famous sheep. She was cloned by scientists in Edinburgh in what was hailed as one of the most significant breakthroughs of the decade. The cell used as the donor for the cloning was taken from a mammary gland, so she was named after Dolly Parton because the scientist thought the country star was the person most synonymous with mammary glands.
2003 SARS is declared "contained" by the WHO. The SARS virus, known technically as SARS-CoV (coronavirus) first appeared in China in 2002,the disease spread to 29 countries before it was stopped.
2012 The Shard, Europe's tallest building to date and 'a gleaming feat of glass and gravity-defying engineering', was officially unveiled in London. It stands at 309.6 metres tall, cost £1.5bn and was 12 years in the making.
2012 Police apologised after a terror alert closed the M6 Toll for more than four hours. Armed officers, troops, firefighters and bomb disposal experts responded after a coach passenger saw smoke coming from another passenger's bag. Police later confirmed that the device was an electronic cigarette which gives off a visible vapour.
2014 The Tour de France cycle race made its first visit to the north of England. Day 1 started in Leeds and took in the town of Skipton. The day's stage continued through the Yorkshire Dales National Park and Ripon, before ending the day in Harrogate.
2019 Former governor of Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio Cabral says he paid a $2 million bribe to secure votes for his city to be granted 2016 Olympics.
1189 Richard the Lionheart is crowned King of England, upon the death of King Henry II. In English law the phrase 'time immemorial' means a time before legal history and beyond legal memory. In 1275, by the first Statute of Westminster, the time of memory was limited to the reign of Richard I, beginning on 6th July 1189.
1483 England's King Richard III was crowned. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty.
1535 Sir Thomas More was beheaded on London's Tower Hill for refusing to accept Henry VIII as head of the church. He lifted his beard from the axe, on the basis that it had committed no offences against the king!
1553 Mary I acceded to the throne, becoming the first queen to rule England in her own right.
1557 King Philip II of Spain, consort of Queen Mary I set out from Dover to war with France,which eventually results in the loss of the City of Calais,the last English possession on the continent and Mary I never seeing her husband again.
1685 James II defeated the Duke of Monmouth, claimant to the throne, at the Battle of Sedgemoor, Westonzoyland in Somerset. Sedgemoor was the last major battle to be fought on English soil.
1798 US law makes aliens "liable to be apprehended, restrained, ... & removed as alien enemies".
1886 Horlick's of Wisconsin offers 1st malted milk to public.
1892 Britain's first non-white MP was elected when Dadabhai Naoraji won the Central Finsbury seat.
1907 The opening of Brooklands - the world's first purpose-built motor racing circuit.
1907 Tom Reece takes 5 weeks to compile the highest recorded billiards break in a match (499,135) in London, his 'cradle' cannon method is soon banned.
1919 The first airship to cross the Atlantic, the British-built R34, arrived in New York.
1924 The first photo was sent experimentally across Atlantic by radio, from the US to England.
1934 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: British home favourite Fred Perry beats Australian Jack Crawford 6-3, 6-0, 7-5 for the first of 3 straight Wimbledon titles.
1952 After nearly a century of service, trams made their final appearance in London.
1957 Future Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney were introduced to each other when Lennon's band, the Quarrymen, performed at the St. Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton, Merseyside.
1964 The Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night was premiered in London, with royal attendance.
1968 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Billie Jean King beats Judy Tegart 9-7, 7-5 to earn first ever prize money (£750) offered to women at Wimbledon.
1972 David Bowie performs "Starman" on Top Of The Pops, causing an uproar among the conservative British audience by singing with his arm flirtatiously draped around the shoulder of guitarist Mick Ronson – a move that makes him as a household name overnight.
1978 Eleven people died and seventeen were injured in a blaze on the Penzance to Paddington sleeper train.
1978 Three bags of horse manure were hurled from the public gallery in the House of Commons during a debate on Scottish Home Rule. Yana Mintoff, daughter of the Prime Minister of Malta, was later arrested and fined.
1988 An explosion aboard the North Sea oil rig Piper Alpha, off the coast of Aberdeen, resulted in the loss of 167 lives. It is the world's deadliest ever oil rig accident.
1994 "Forrest Gump", starring Tom Hanks is released.
2000 West Ham United FC pays a record £1.8 million for the late Bobby Moore's collection of memorabilia; 79 items including his 1966 World Cup winner's medal.
2002 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Serena Williams beats older sister Venus 7-6, 6-3 for her first Wimbledon singles title.
2003 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Roger Federer beats Australian Mark Philippoussis 7-6, 6-2, 7-6 for his first Grand Slam title.
2005 The International Olympic Committee announced that the 2012 Olympic Games would be held in London.
2008 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Rafael Nadal of Spain ends Roger Federer's 5 year reign at Wimbledon 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7.
2014 From 4:30am cash could no longer be used on any of London's 24,500 buses, in a move that Transport for London (TfL) said would save £24m a year. A prepaid or concessionary ticket, Oyster card or a contactless payment card would be needed to travel.
2016 South African athlete Oscar Pistorius is sentenced to 6 years in jail for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013.
2016 Chilcot Report, UK's Iraqi War Inquiry released; concludes Tony Blair overstated case for war.
1307 England's King Edward I, conqueror of Wales and 'Hammer of the Scots' died on the Solway Burgh Marshes on the way to Scotland to fight Robert the Bruce. He was succeeded by Edward II.
1456 A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death.
1550 Traditional date Chocolate thought to have been introduced to Europe.
1865 Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt are executed for their role in the conspiracy to assassinate US President Abraham Lincoln.
1919 The birth of the actor John Pertwee, best known for his role in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who, in which he played the third incarnation of the Doctor from 1970 to 1974. He was also the title character in the series Worzel Gummidge.
1927 Christopher Stone became the first 'disc jockey' on British radio when he presented his 'Record Round-up' from Savoy Hill.
1928 Sliced bread sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company, Missouri, using a machine invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder. Described as the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped. This led to the popular idiom "greatest thing since sliced bread".
1930 The death of Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, best known for his detective fiction featuring the character Sherlock Holmes. He was a pupil at Stonyhurst College and he named Sherlock Holmes' nemesis, Moriarty, after a fellow pupil.
1940 Ringo Starr, English drummer with the Beatles, was born.
1955 Dixon Of Dock Green began on BBC TV with Jack Warner as George Dixon. The programme ran for 367 episodes over 21 years.
1956 "Hancock's Half Hour" premieres as a TV show starring Tony Hancock and Sid James.
1967 England's round-the-world yachtsman Sir Francis Chichester was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. For the ceremony, the Queen used a sword that had originally belonged to Sir Francis Drake.
1968 The Yardbirds disband immediately after a gig in Luton, England. Jimmy Page begins forming what will become Led Zeppelin.
1974 FIFA World Cup Final, Olympiastadion, Munich, Germany: Striker Gerd Müller scores 43rd minute winner as West Germany beat the Netherlands, 2-1.
1978 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Martina Navratilova wins her first Grand Slam singles title beating Chris Evert 2-6, 6-4, 7-5.
1981 England cricket captain Ian Botham resigned after no wins in 12 matches under his reign and a pair in the 2nd Test v Australia at Lord's.
1982 Ipswich Town manager Bobby Robson was appointed manager of England replacing Ron Greenwood.
1984 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Martina Navratilova beats Chris Evert 7-6, 6-2 for her 26th Grand Slam title.
1985 German tennis player Boris Becker, an unseeded 17 year old became the youngest player to win the men's singles championship at Wimbledon.
1990 Exactly 8 years after being appointed England manager Bobby Robson took charge of England for the last time. Hosts Italy beat England 2-1 in the World Cup 3rd/4th place match which saw Peter Shilton make his record 125th and final appearance for his country.
2004 Fred Dibnah, Bolton born steeplejack, steam enthusiast and later TV presenter, went to Buckingham Palace to receive an MBE from the Queen. He initially planned to drive his beloved traction engine into the palace grounds, but was refused, as the Royal Parks Agency feared that its weight would damage the surface of The Mall.
2005 A series of bomb attacks on London's transport network killed 52 people and injured 700 others. It was the largest and deadliest terrorist attack in London's history.
2009 After a private ceremony at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, Michael Jackson's public funeral is held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
2010 Marksmen searched empty buildings, woods and fields in and around the town of Rothbury in Northumberland in the hunt for suspected gunman Raoul Moat, wanted over the shooting of three people the previous weekend. The manhunt lasted almost seven days, and was the largest in modern British history. After a standoff with the police, Moat shot himself on 10th July.
2013 Andy Murray won his first Wimbledon title and ended Britain's 77-year wait for a men's champion with a victory over world number one Novak Djokovic. The Scot won 6-4, 7-5 and 6-4.
2014 A precious hoard of Roman and Late Iron Age coins were discovered in a cave in Dovedale, Derbyshire, where it had lain undisturbed for more than 2,000 years. Experts said that it was the first time that coins from the two separate civilisations had been found buried together.
2014 Five pupils from Nottingham's Djanogly City Academy staged an unsuccessful 'Great Escape' breakout from school, by trying to tunnel under a 12ft high security fence with cutlery. (Pupils had been banned from leaving the school at lunchtime to ensure that they stayed safe and to improve attendance).
1884 The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) was founded in London.
1889 John L. Sullivan successfully defends last officially sanctioned, bare-knuckle world heavyweight prizefighting championship; Jake Kilrain's trainer throws in towel after 75 x 1-minute rounds near Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
1918 National Savings stamps were introduced in Britain.
1941 Twenty B-17s flew on their first mission with the RAF over Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
1947 New Mexico's Roswell Daily Record reports an alien aircraft has crashed near a local ranch with the headline "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer In Roswell Region."
1961 For the first time since 1941, Britain provided both women finalists for the Wimbledon Ladies' singles title - Christine Truman and Angela Mortimer
1965 Ronald Biggs, who was serving a 30-year prison sentence for his part in the Great Train Robbery, escaped from Wandsworth prison.
1967 The death of Vivien Leigh, English film actress whose films included Gone With The Wind.
1969 Singer/actress Marianne Faithfull, girlfriend of Mick Jagger, attempts suicide with barbiturates while on the set of the film Ned Kelly (also starring Mick). She is dropped from the cast of the movie, eventually recovers, and when awaking from her coma, tells friends that "wild horses couldn't drag me away." The Rolling Stones song "Wild Horses" is built around that phrase.
1985 Britain lifted its trade ban with Argentina after the Falklands crisis ended.
1986 British Steel made a profit for the first time in 17 years.
1988 A London double-decker bus parked in Battersea, was put on sale for £40,000. It had been converted into a luxury home to overcome rising property prices in the capital.
1990 FIFA World Cup Final, Stadio Olimpico, Rome, Italy: 85th minute penalty by Andreas Brehme gives West Germany, 1-0 win over Argentina.
1996 British girl group the Spice Girls release their debut single "Wannabe" in the UK.
2014 FIFA World Cup: Germany defeat Brazil by a record 7-1 in the semi-finals to make it to the final; Miroslav Klose of Germany breaks the World Cup goal scoring record with 16 goals.
1540 England's King Henry VIII had his six-month marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, annulled.
1553 The Duke of Northumberland announced to Lady Jane Grey that Edward VI had died and that she was queen of England. The proclamation was made the next day, but her reign lasted for only nine days. Her successor was Mary I.
1877 The first Wimbledon Lawn Tennis championship was held at its original site at Worple Road. The men's singles title was won by Spencer Gore - beating fellow British player W.C. Marshall in three sets.
1917 The loss, at Scapa Flow, of the British battleship Vanguard. It was one of the most tragic accidents in the history of the Royal Navy and was caused by an internal explosion of cordite. All but two of the 845 men on board at the time were killed. The bodies that could be recovered now lie in Lyness Royal Naval Cemetery, Hoy and the wreck itself is afforded statutory protection as a designated war grave under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.
1938 In anticipation of World War II, 35 million gas masks were issued to Britain's civilian population.
1947 Princess Elizabeth (the Queen) and Philip Mountbatten announced their engagement.
1955 Bill Haley & His Comets' "Rock Around The Clock" becomes the first Rock song to hit #1 on the Billboard Pop chart, where it stays for eight weeks. The song was originally released as a the B-side of "Thirteen Women," but became a massive hit after it appeared in the film Blackboard Jungle.
1977 Elvis Costello quits his job at cosmetics factory to pursue a music career.
1981 Nintendo releases arcade game Donkey Kong in Japan.
1982 Queen Elizabeth II woke to find an intruder (Michael Fagan) sitting at the end of her bed, raising further concerns about poor Palace security.
1984 A massive fire, caused by a lightning strike, devastated large parts of York Minster causing an estimated £1m damage.
1989 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Boris Becker of Germany beats Sweden's Stefan Edberg 6-0, 7-6, 6-4 for his 3rd and last Wimbledon title.
1999 Scotland celebrated one of its most significant political events for centuries; the formal opening of the new Scottish Parliament by the Queen. There was public uproar over the cost and delays. The final cost was £414 million (10 times over budget) and it was three years late.
2001 "The Office" mockumentary created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, starring Ricky Gervais and Martin Freeman premieres on BBC Two in the UK.
2006 FIFA World Cup Final, Olympiastadion, Berlin, Germany: Italy beats France, 5-3 on penalties; 1-1 after extra time.
2014 The Times Higher Education magazine's annual exam howlers competition came up with these and many others. (1) All cars will be be fitted with Catholic converters (2) Hitler's role in the Second World War is often overlooked (3) The hole in the ozone layer is caused by arseholes (4) Stalin was extremely surprised when he was taken from behind by Hitler.
Arsenal appointed their youngest manager with 34-year-old Terry Neill replacing Bertie Mee. The former Arsenal captain had managed Hull and Tottenham before arriving back at Highbury.
Football On This Day – 9th July 2006.
If ever there was to be a prize for the most famous footballing foul I've got a feeling that one that occurred on 9th July 2006 would probably top the list. The foul was committed towards the end of extra time when the score was 1-1 at the World Cup final between Italy and France at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. The protagonists were the two goalscorers - France's Zinedine Zidane and Italy's Marco Materazzi. A shirt tug and exchange of words was followed by Materazzi ending up on the floor having been headbutted to the chest by Zidane. Zidane was red-carded. The speculation after the match centred on what was said between the two....it seems that an insulting comment about a family member led to the headbutt. As to the World Cup - Italy beat France 5-3 on penalties to become world champions, Zidane won the player of the tournament award but never played for France again.
138 The death of the Roman Emperor Hadrian who ordered the building of a wall across northern England to keep out the 'barbarian Scottish tribes'.
1040 Lady Godiva rode naked on horseback through the streets of Coventry to force her husband, the Earl of Mercia, to lower taxes.
1212 The most severe of several early fires of London began in Southwark and burned most of the city to the ground including Southwark Cathedral.
1460 In England's Wars of the Roses, the Yorkists (commanded by Richard Neville, the 16th Earl of Warwick) defeated the Lancastrians and captured Henry VI at the Battle of Northampton.
1553 Lady Jane Grey, the 9 days Queen, took the throne of England until 19th July when she was succeeded by Mary I. She was later charged with high treason and executed in November of the same year.
1645 Battle at Langport, Somerset: Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army beats Royalists.
1940 World War II: The first in a long series of German bombing raids against Great Britain, as the Battle of Britain, which lasted three and a half months, began.
1947 The Government announced that Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II) would get extra clothing coupons for her wedding dress.
1954 Gordon Richards rode his last mount, at Sandown; the 21,834th of his almost 34-year racing career.
1958 Britain's first parking meters were installed, in Mayfair, London.
1960 UEFA European Championship Final, Parc des Princes, Paris, France: Viktor Ponedelnik scores in extra time as Soviet Union beat Yugoslavia, 2-1.
1967 Bobbie Gentry records "Ode to Billie Joe" - single goes on to win 4 Grammys.
1969 The funeral is held for The Rolling Stones founding member Brian Jones, who was found dead in his swimming pool on July 3rd. His bandmates Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman attend, but Mick Jagger and Keith Richards do not.
1973 John Paul Getty III, grandson of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, is kidnapped in Rome by Italian gangsters wanting a ransom.
1975 Test Cricket debut of Graham Gooch, v Australia, out for a pair.
1985 Tina Turner stars opposite Mel Gibson in the post-apocalyptic action flick Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Turner sings two hit songs for the movie: "One Of The Living" and "We Don't Need Another Hero."
1985 The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior was blown up in Auckland harbour, New Zealand. French foreign intelligence agents blew up the boat to prevent it interfering with French nuclear tests in the South Pacific.
1997 More than 100,000 people packed Hyde Park in London for a countryside rally to protest against Government proposals to ban fox hunting.
2000 Coldplay release their debut album "Parachutes".
2000 Figures released by the government showed that one in four British homes were using the Internet.
2011 The last ever edition of the News Of The World. The newspaper was launched in 1843 and its closure came after a string of new allegations about the paper's extent of phone hacking and corrupt payments made to police officers.
2016 UEFA European Championship, Stade de France, Saint-Denis: Eder scores in extra time as Portugal upset France, 1-0.
2016 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Scotsman Andy Murray beats Canadian Milos Raonic 6-4, 7-6, 7-6 for his 2nd Wimbledon and 3rd Grand Slam title.
2018 The final 4 boys and their coach are rescued from Tham Luang Nang Non cave, Thailand after being trapped there for 18 days by monsoon flooding.
2018 Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo joins Italian champions Juventus in a deal worth £99.2m, becoming one of the four most expensive players of all time.
Back on this day in 1978 the footballing talking point was centred on Tottenham Hotspur. In those days a 'foreign' player in the English game was Welsh, Scottish or Irish so when Spurs - who had just won promotion from the Second Division - signed two players from the Argentine squad that had just won the World Cup it became front-page news. Ossie Ardiles was part of the winning Argentine team while Ricky Villa had played in a couple of matches as a sub prior to the final. Both players became firm favourites at White Hart Lane and after they arrived the trickle of foreign players into the English game slowly became a flood and things would never be the same again.
Football On This Day – 10th July 1989.
Transfers that see players move between local rivals are often controversial ones - on this page alone Nick Barmby's move from Everton to Liverpool and Sol Campbell's transfer from Spurs to Arsenal have been shown as not being too popular. North of the border it was once almost unheard of for players to have played for both the great Old Firm rivals - Rangers and Celtic. But in Glasgow it went a lot deeper than just footballing rivalry - religion was involved. In simplistic terms Rangers was the Protestant club while Celtic were the Catholic one but inevitably it went deeper than that. Rangers were the native Scots club and Celtic the Irish-Scots club. Anyway, Mo Johnston was a Celtic player from 1984 to 1987 when he joined Nantes. When his contract with the French club ended in 1989 he was widely expected to rejoin Celtic but on 10th July 1989 it was announced that he had joined Rangers. Rangers had signed a former Celtic player who was a Catholic. Ok the reality was that he wasn't the first ex-Celtic player to be signed by Rangers nor was he the first Catholic to play for them but it was a transfer that hit the front pages and united many Celtic and Rangers fans in widespread protests. He had a successful spell at Ibrox before moving to Everton in 1991.
1274 Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland was born. His body is buried in Dunfermline Abbey,while it is believed his heart was interred in Melrose Abbey.
1656 Ann Austin and Mary Fisher became the first Quakers to arrive in America and were promptly arrested. Five weeks later they were deported back to England.
1776 Captain Cook sailed from Plymouth in the Resolution accompanied by the Discovery on his last expedition. He was killed in Hawaii in a fight with Hawaiians in 1779.
1848 London's Waterloo Station was officially opened. With over 91 million passenger entries and exits between April 2010 and March 2011, it is Britain's busiest railway station.
1859 A Tale Of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, was published.
1859 Big Ben, in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament, tolled for the first time. In September it cracked under the hammer, a mere two months after it officially went into service. According to the foundry's manager, a hammer more than twice the maximum weight specified had been used and for three years Big Ben was taken out of commission.
1884 Old Trafford (Manchester) became England's 2nd official Test Match cricket ground (after the Kennington Oval in London).
1900 Charlotte Cooper beats Hélène Prévost to become the 1st female Olympic tennis champion and the 1st individual female Olympic champion in any sport.
1930 Australian cricketer Don Bradman scored a world record 309 runs in one day in a Test match against England, held at Headingley. The 21 year old is 105 at lunch, 220 at tea, and 309 at stumps.
1950 Puppets Andy Pandy, Teddy and Looby Loo first appeared on BBC TV. The episodes were repeated for more than 25 years, until the film wore out.
1960 "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee is first published by J. B. Lippincott & Co.
1966 England started their 1966 World Cup campaign with a disappointing 0-0 draw with Uruguay at Wembley. In that match England fielded nine of the players who would later play in the World Cup final. Jimmy Greaves and Manchester United's John Connelly were the two players who didn't make the final, being replaced by the goalscorers in the final, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters.
1969 David Bowie releases the single "Space Oddity" 9 days before Apollo 11 lands on the moon.
1982 FIFA World Cup Final, Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid, Spain: Italy beats West Germany, 3-1 in front of 90,000.
1989 Laurence Olivier, English actor and director died.
1991 Labour MP Terry Fields was sentenced to 60 days in prison for refusing to pay his poll tax.
2010 FIFA World Cup Final, Soccer City, Johannesburg, South Africa: Andrés Iniesta scores an extra time winner as Spain beats the Netherlands, 1-0 for first World Cup title.
2013 Greenpeace protesters climbed to the summit of London's Shard, the tallest building in western Europe at 1,016 ft and then unfurled a blue flag with 'Save the Arctic' written on it.
2018 England are beaten 2-1 in extra time by Croatia in the semi-final of the world cup held in Russia.
2019 Last models of Volkswagen's Beetle car are produced in Pueblo, Mexico, ending production worldwide after 80 years.
1543 England's Henry VIII married Catherine Parr, his sixth and last wife, at Hampton Court Palace. Catherine was the fourth commoner Henry had taken as his consort, and she outlived him. She was also the most-married English queen, having a total of four husbands.
1690 William of Orange defeated the deposed Catholic, King James II, at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland.
1730 The birth of Josiah Wedgwood, English potter, founder of the Wedgwood company and credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery.
1794 British admiral Horatio Nelson lost his right eye at the siege of Calvi, in Corsica.
1861 Wild Bill Hickok reputed to have shot and killed David McCanles, possibly his first kill. Hickok later acquitted after found he acted in self defense.
1910 Charles Rolls, aged 32, pioneering pilot and co-founder of Rolls-Royce,was killed when he crashed his biplane in a flying competition in the Southbourne district of Bournemouth. He was the first Briton to be killed in a flying accident.
1932 Yorkshire cricketer Hedley Verity took 10 wickets for 10 runs in a county championship match against Nottinghamshire at Headingley, Leeds.
1947 The birth of Gareth Edwards, former Welsh rugby union footballer and described by the BBC as 'arguably the greatest player ever to don a Welsh jersey'.
1962 The Rolling Stones performed their first ever concert, at the Marquee Club in London.
1969 Tony Jacklin became the first British golfer since 1951 to win the Open Championship.
1974 The manager of Liverpool football club, Bill Shankly announced his retirement.
1984 Robert Maxwell bought the Mirror Group newspapers.
1989 Judy Leden became the first woman to cross the English Channel by hang glider. She was launched from a hot air balloon 13,500 ft above Dover and completed the flight in less than 30 minutes.
1998 FIFA World Cup Final, Stade de France, Saint-Denis: Zinedine Zidane scores twice as France wins first World Cup beating Brazil, 3-0.
2013 Journalist and broadcaster Alan Whicker died at the age of 87 after suffering from bronchial pneumonia. His TV career stretched nearly six decades and he was best known for his documentary series, Whicker's World, which ran from 1959 to 1988 on both the BBC and ITV.
1568 Dean of St. Paul's London, Alexander Nowell perfects a way to bottle beer.
1713 A treaty signed between Great Britain and Spain at Utrecht ceded Gibraltar to Britain in perpetuity.
1837 Queen Victoria became the first sovereign to move into Buckingham Palace.
1911 The night of the 1911 census. A suffragette hid in a broom cupboard in the House of Commons so that she could record The House of Commons as her address, ‘thus making my claim to the same right as men’.
1919 The British airship R34 landed in Norfolk, completing the first airship return journey across the Atlantic in a time of 182 hours.
1923 The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles. It originally reads "Hollywoodland" but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949.
1939 Frank Sinatra makes his recording debut.
1943 The Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history, involving some 6,000 tanks, 2,000,000 troops, and 4,000 aircraft, ended in defeat for Germany.
1955 Nightclub hostess Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be hanged in Britain - executed at Holloway Prison for the murder of her lover David Blakely.
1967 In the heat of the mountain stage of the Tour de France, British cyclist Tony Simpson, 29, collapsed and died.
1978 BBC bans Sex Pistols "No One is Innocent".
1983 The House of Commons voted 361-245 against the restoration of the death penalty.
1985 Two simultaneous 'Live Aid' concerts, one in London (Wembley Stadium) and one in Philadelphia, raised over £50 million for famine victims in Africa. Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially opened Live Aid. The 16-hour 'super concert' was globally linked by satellite to more than a billion viewers in 110 nations.
1987 Kylie Minogue releases her debut single "Locomotion".
1991 Bryan Adams went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with Everything I Do I Do It For You from the film Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves. It stayed at No.1 for a record breaking 16 weeks, and was also a No.1 in the US and 16 other countries.
2012 Financially troubled Scottish football club, Rangers, is voted into the third division.
2014 FIFA World Cup Final, Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Mario Götze scores an extra time winner as Germany beat Argentina, 1-0.
2016 Theresa May, the former Home Secretary, became Prime Minister after David Cameron resigned (24th June) following a referendum that voted in favour of leaving the European Union.
2018 Chelsea FC sacks high profile manager Antonio Conte despite winning 2016-17 EPL and 2018 FA Cup, replaced by ex-Napoli boss Maurizio Sarri.
1766 The official opening of the 137 mile long Grand Union Canal (Britain's longest canal) that links London to Birmingham.
1789 Bastille Day - the French Revolution begins with the storming of the Bastille Prison in Paris (now celebrated as France's national day).
1850 1st public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration by Florida physician John Gorrie.
1867 Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel demonstrated dynamite for the first time, at a quarry in Redhill, Surrey.
1903 It became known that the government would reject proposals to introduce driving tests, vehicle inspections and penalties for drunken drivers.
1939 The government announced that all infants and nursing mothers would get fresh milk free or at no more than two pence a pint.
1940 World War II: Britain tackled the threat of a German invasion by forming the Home Guard - a part-time volunteer army, generally comprising men too old for national service.
1962 The Beatles played their first gig in Wales when they appeared at The Regent Dansette Theatre in Rhyl.
1964 The Rolling Stones score their first #1 hit in the UK with their cover of Bobby Womack's "It's All Over Now."
1969 The movie Easy Rider, which opens with the heavy metal thunder of "Born To Be Wild," opens in theaters. The film stars Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper as motorcycle-riding free spirits. The soundtrack sells over 500,000 copies.
1977 The BBC lifts their ban on The Sex Pistols, who appear on Top Of The Pops in a video clip performing their song "Pretty Vacant," which has become a surprise hit in the UK.
1983 Mario Bros. is first released by Nintendo in Japan as an arcade game about an Italian-American plumber.
1988 At the height of "Elvis is Alive" mania, Nashville radio station WYHY offers a million dollars to anyone who shows up at the studios with the King.
1997 Convicted murderer and former London gangster Reggie Kray married Roberta Jones at Maidstone Prison in Kent.
2019 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Novak Đoković wins longest ever Wimbledon final over Roger Federer 7-6, 1-6, 7-6, 4-6, 13-12 in 4 hours, 57 minutes; his 16th Grand Slam title.
2019 English Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins a record 6th British Formula 1 Grand Prix at Silverstone.
2019 Cricket World Cup, Lord's: England beats New Zealand on count back after scores tied at 241 after 50 overs and 15 in Super Over.
971 According to the legend of St. Swithin, if it rains today, it will be the start of forty days of rain. St Swithin was bishop of Winchester Cathedral and asked to be buried outside it so that he would be exposed to ‘the feet of passers-by and the drops falling from above’. When St Swithun is reburied inside Winchester Cathedral (against his wishes) a terrible storm proceeds to rain for 40 days and nights
1381 John Ball, a leader in the Peasants' Revolt, was hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of King Richard II.
1685 Charles II's illegitimate son (the Duke of Monmouth) was executed for rebelling against James II. His head was then put back on his shoulders so that his portrait could be painted.
1815 French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered to Captain Maitland aboard the English ship Bellerophon, at Rochefort, after his earlier defeat at the Battle of Waterloo before being sent into exile on the island of St Helena.
1815 1st flat horse race held at English race track Cheltenham on Nottingham Hill.
1857 200 British men, women and children were chopped up by local butchers and thrown down a well at Cawnpore, as the Indian Mutiny continued.
1869 Margarine is patented by Hippolye Méga-Mouriès for use by French Navy.
1912 National Insurance payments began in Britain.
1948 Alcoholics Anonymous, in existence in the USA since 1935, was founded in London.
1953 Murderer John Christie, responsible for the deaths of at least six women in his home at 10, Rillington Place, London, was hanged.
1965 "Mariner IV" sends back 1st pictures of Mars.
1972
1974 TV news reporter Christine Chubbuck shoots herself live on WXLT-TV, Florida, first person to commit suicide in a live broadcast.
1978 Bob Dylan performs at the biggest open-air concert in history for a solo artist, playing for over 200,000 at "The Picnic at Blackbushe" at Blackbushe Airport in Hampshire, England.
1987 Boy George barred from British TV show, he may be a bad influence.
1988 "Die Hard" starring Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman is released in the US.
1994 Jack Walker’s Blackburn Rovers confirmed themselves as the big-spenders of the Premier League when they broke the British transfer record by paying Norwich £5 million for Chris Sutton – and then paying him a reputed £12,000 a week wages.
2000 Two men caught on camera for dangerous driving escaped prosecution in a landmark case, as it had violated their human rights.
2016 As he's done since 1972, Alice Cooper announces he's running for president, this time with the campaign slogan "A Troubled Man for Troubled Times." His platform includes "Adding Lemmy to Mount Rushmore" and "Getting Brian Johnson back in AC/DC." He loses to Donald Trump, but gains more exposure for his song "Elected."
2018 FIFA World Cup Final, Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow, Russia: Former captain Didier Deschamps becomes only the 3rd man to win the event as a player and coach as France beats Croatia, 4-2.