TODAY: THURDAY, JUNE 29, 2017

ON THIS DAY

26 YEARS AGO (1991)

We reported how rich Tory housing minister Sir George Young provoked outrage when he reputedly joked the homeless “were the people you step over when you come out of the opera”.

57 YEARS AGO (1960)

The BBC opened its new Television Centre in West London, housing seven studios. It shut in 2013 and is being converted into a hotel and flats.

31 YEARS AGO (1986)

Daredevil entrepreneur Richard Branson broke the record for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic in his 72ft powerboat, the Virgin Atlantic Challenger II. Branson averaged a speed of 50 knots and his time of three days, eight hours and 31 minutes, knocked more than two hours off the record, set in 1952.