On this day

1648: The Treaty of Westphalia was signed, ending the Thirty Years’ War.

1857: The first football club, Sheffield FC, was formed by a group of Harrow old boys meeting in Sheffield. 1882: Actress Dame Sybil Thorndike was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire.

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. Hewas released in 1939 and died in 1947. 1945: The United Nations Charter came into force.

1948: Franz Lehar, Hungarian composer of operettas including The Merry Widow, died in Vienna aged 78. 1964: Northern Rhodesia became the Republic of Zambia.

1969: Richard Burton bought his wife, Elizabeth Taylor, a 69.42 carat diamond, costing more than a million dollars.

1989: US television preacher Jim Bakker was given a 45-year jail sentence and fined $500,000 for swindling his followers out of millions of dollars.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Clock and watchmakers were celebrating a £2.8million investment of National Lottery funding to ensure timepieces continue to be cherished in Britain for years to come.