ON THIS DAY
1298: The English used longbows for the first time, when they defeated the Scots at the Battle of Falkirk.
1376: The mass abduction of children from the town of Hamelin by the Pied Piper supposedly took place, according to a legend.
1478: Philip the Handsome of Spain was born. After his death his wife kept his corpse and continued to sleep with it beside her bed for three years. Her name was Joanna the Mad.
1812: The Battle of Salamanca took place in west Spain in which the Duke of Wellington was victorious over the French in the Peninsula War.
1932: Florenz Ziegfeld, the US impresario famed for his girls and staircases in his Follies shows, died.
1933: Wiley Post, one-eyed pioneer aviator, became the first to fly solo round the world.
1934: Movie-loving gangster John Dillinger – Public Enemy Number One – was shot dead by federal agents outside the Biograph Cinema in Chicago.
1946: After a failed wheat harvest, bread was rationed in Britain.
1986: MPs voted to abolish the cane in state schools.
2005: Jean Charles de Menezes was killed by police as the hunt began for the bombers responsible for the 7/7 London bombings.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR:
Athlete Sir Roger Bannister, famous for becoming the first man to run a mile in under four minutes, was honoured with a memorial at Westminster Abbey.
BIRTHDAYS:
Terence Stamp, actor, 84; George Clinton, funk musician, 81; Don Henley, rock singer, 75; Willem Dafoe, actor, 67; Bonnie Langford, dancer/actor/ singer, 58; David Spade, actor, 58; Rhys Ifans, actor, 55; Prince George of Cambridge, 9.