IT HAPPENED TODAY
1534:
The Act of Supremacy was passed, making the monarch head of the English Church.
1640:
The Long Parliament assembled. It was dissolved in March 1660.
1868:
Republican Ulysses S Grant was elected president of the USA for the first of his two terms in office.
1941:
Roy Plomley ( came up with the idea for Desert Island Discs as he got ready for bed. He put his suggestion to the BBC and the first programme was broadcast in January 1942.
1942:
Montgomery’s ( Eighth Army broke through Rommel’s front line in Africa.
1949:
The BBC bought Shepherds Bush Studios in west London from the Rank Organisation.
1975:
The Queen opened the North Sea pipeline, the first to be built underwater, bringing 400,000 barrels ashore each day at Grangemouth Refinery on the Firth of Forth.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR:
New figures showed a quarter of a million UK babies have been born as a result of IVF.
BIRTHDAYS:
Baron (Kenneth) Baker of Dorking, former Cabinet minister, 83; Lulu, ( singer, 69; Larry Holmes, former boxer, 68; Roseanne Barr, comedy actress, 65; Kate Capshaw, actress, 64; Adam Ant (Stuart Goddard), singer, 63; Ian Wright, TV personality and former footballer, 54; Dwight Yorke, former footballer, 46.