On this day

1857: The first football club, Sheffield FC, was formed by a group of Harrow old boys meeting in the city. 1924: A letter purporting to be from Grigori Zinoviev of the USSR calling for socialists to start a revolution was leaked to the British press on the eve of a general election. The letter, later denounced as a forgery, helped give the Tories a huge victory. 1931: Al Capone’s gangster career ended when he was sentenced to 11 years for tax evasion. He was released in 1939. 1945: The United Nations Charter came into force. 1964: Northern Rhodesia became the Republic of Zambia. 1989: US television preacher Jim Bakker was given a 45-year jail sentence and fined $500,000 US for swindling his followers of millions of dollars.