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 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.

1844: The Rev William Spooner was born in London. Hewas an albino and suffered defective eyesight and it is thought that this caused some of his verbal confusions which were later dubbed “spoonerisms”. 1932: Florenz Ziegfeld, the US impresario famed for his girls and staircases in his Follies shows, died. 1933: One-eyed American pioneer aviator Wiley Post 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. 2013: The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to her first child, Prince George.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: A turning point in the fight against Alzheimer’s was reached with the first trial evidence that disease progression can be held back.