On this DAY

1556: Thomas Cranmer, first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, was condemned as a heretic under Queen Mary I and burned at the stake in Oxford.

1861: Albert Chevalier, composer and singer of cockney songs, including My Old Dutch and Knocked ‘Em In The Old Kent Road, was born in London.

1918: The last major German offensive of the First World War began on the Somme.

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.

1991: The poll tax was ditched as Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine unveiled a new property tax to replace it.

1993: The IRA claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks in Warrington which killed a four-year-old child.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Paul Hollywood said that his then-new Great British Bake Off co-star Prue Leith reminded him of his mother-in-law.