On this day

1912: William Booth, English social reformer, evangelist and founder of the Salvation Army, died aged 83.

1924: British sprinter Eric Liddell, above, refused to run in the heat of the 100m at the Paris Olympics because it fell on a Sunday and was against his religious convictions.

1956: Calder Hall, in Cumbria, the world’s first large-scale atomic power station, began generating.

1968: Russia sent tanks into Czechoslovakia.

1989: The Thames pleasure cruiser Marchioness was hit by a dredger and 51 young people attending a party on the boat were killed.

1989: George Adamson, British naturalist and conservationist, best known for his work with his wife Joy and the lioness Elsa, was murdered by bandits in a game park in Kenya.

2009: Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was allowed to return to Tripoli on compassionate grounds as he had been diagnosed with cancer. He was serving a life sentence for the murder of 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: More than two thirds of Britain’s biggest businesses admitted staff lacked training to deal with the growing threat of cyber attacks.

BIRTHDAYS:

Sylvester McCoy, actor, 75; Robert Plant, rock singer, 70; Steve McMahon, former footballer, 57; Joe Pasquale, comedian, 57; Scott Quinnell, former rugby player, 46; Jamie Cullum, above, singer, 39; Andrew Garfield, actor, 35.