IT HAPPENED TODAY
1556: Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, was condemned as a heretic under Catholic Queen Mary I and burned at the stake in Oxford.
1685: Composer Johann Sebastian Bach (above) was born in Germany. He sired 20 children and composed 300 cantatas, two oratorios, the St John and St Matthew Passions and Mass in B minor.
1918: The last major German offensive of the First World War began on the Somme.
1933: The first Nazi concentration camp was completed in Germany. It served as a prototype for the others that followed including Auschwitz.
1940: The film Rebecca based on the book by Daphne du Maurier, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine
(below), premiered in LA .
1960: The Sharpeville massacre took place in the Transvaal, South Africa, when police fired on a demonstration against Pass Laws, killing 69 people.
1985: Riot police shot dead 17 black people at South Africa’s Langa township on the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre.
1993: The IRA claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks in Warrington which killed two children.
1995: Police raided the Tokyo headquarters of the Aum Shinrikyo religious sect after Sarin nerve gas was released on five trains in the Tokyo underground system.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The number of over-70s holding a driving licence exceeded five million for the first time, figures showed.
BIRTHDAYS: Michael Heseltine, politican, 86; Gary Oldman, actor, 61; Matthew Broderick, actor, 57; Rosie O’Donnell (above), actress, 57; Matthew Maynard, former cricketer, 53; Adrian Chiles, presenter, 52; Mark Williams, snooker player, 44; Ronaldinho, footballer, 39.