ON THIS DAY

● 1547: Coronation of nine-yearold Edward VI, only son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour.

● 1653: Admiral Robert Blake defeated the Dutch fleet under van Tromp off Portsmouth.

● 1938: Anthony Eden resigned as British Foreign Secretary in protest over prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy towards the Nazis.

● 1947: Lord Louis Mountbatten, uncle of Prince Philip, was appointed the last Viceroy of India - the same day the government announced the British would leave India by June 1948. Lord Mountbatten was killed by the IRA when a bomb detonated on his boat in County Sligo, Ireland, in 1979.

● 1962: Astronaut John Glenn became the first American in orbit when he circled the Earth three times in the Mercury capsule Friendship 7. ● 1978: A judge indicted Isabel Peron,ex-presidentofArgentina, for fraudulent use of £8 million from a state-run charity.

● 1985: Contraceptives were first sold in the Irish Republic.

● ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Then Oxfam GB chief executive Mark Goldring issued an apology to the House of Commons International Development Committee for the actions of the charity’s workers in Haiti.

● BIRTHDAYS: Sidney Poitier, actor, 92; Jimmy Greaves, television football pundit, 79; Mike Leigh, film director, 76;

Ivana Trump, socialite, 70; Gordon Brown, former prime minister and former Fife MP, 68; Phil Neal, former footballer and manager, 68; Patty Hearst, American newspaper heiress, 65; Imogen Stubbs, actress,

58; Ian Brown, rock singer, 56; Cindy Crawford, American model/actress, 53.