TIMES PAST

1274: Robert the Bruce, above, King of Scotland who defeated the English at Bannockburn, was born at Turnberry.

1690: William of Orange defeated the deposed Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland.

1754: Shakespearean censor Thomas Bowdler was born. Though he loved the Bard’s works, he considered some to be vulgar and “unfit to be read by a gentleman in the company of ladies”. His solution was to cut lumps wholesale – and from this came the verb “to bowdlerise”.

1776: Explorer Captain James Cook set sail from Plymouth on his third voyage of discovery, in search of a passage around the the northern coast of America from the Pacific side.

1949: The first film made specially for British television, A Dinner Date With Death, was shot at Marylebone Studios between July 11 and 14.

1950: Puppets Andy Pandy, Teddy and Looby Loo first appeared on BBC Television. The episodes were repeated for more than 25 years, until the film began to wear out.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: A £2 billion project to confine radioactive debris at the nuclear reactor that exploded in Chernobyl in 1986 was unveiled.