1 JUNE
2001: The King and Queen of Nepal were shot dead by their son, Crown Prince Dipendra, who then shot himself. Ten members of the royal family, including Dipendra’s brother and sister, died in the assassination.
2001: A Hamas suicide bomber kills 21 at a disco in Tel Aviv.
2003: The People’s Republic of China began filling the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam.
2009: An Air France plane carrying 228 people – including five Britons – from Brazil to France vanished over the Atlantic after flying into a storm.
2009: General Motors filed for bankruptcy. It was the fourth largest United States bankruptcy in history.
2011: Fifa president Sepp Blatter won a fourth term in charge after attempts by the English and Scottish Football Associations to delay the election failed.
1679: Battle of Drumclog fought between Covenanters and Royalist troops.
1831: Sir James Clark Ross located the magnetic North Pole.
1841: Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain was founded.
1880: The first telephone callbox for public use, in New Haven, Connecticut, went into service.
1911: Britain’s first electric trolley buses began operating in Bradford and Leeds.
1921: Derby Day was broadcast on radio for first time.
1935: Driving tests in Britain were introduced by Leslie Horebelisha, and L-plates were made compulsory.
1939: The British submarine Thetis sank while on trials in Liverpool Bay, with the loss of 99 lives. It was later raised and put back into service as HMS Thunderbolt.
1946: The first television licences were issued in Britain, at a fee of £2.
1953: Gordon Richards became the first jockey to be knighted; six days later he won the Derby at his 28th attempt.
1957: The first Premium Bond prize winners were drawn by the computer “Ernie” with a first prize of £1,000.
1958: Charles de Gaulle became prime minister of France.
1958: The Clean Air Act came into force.
1966: Bob Dylan was booed by British folk fans for performing on stage with an electric guitar.
1973: Greece’s premier, George Papadopoulos, abolished the monarchy.
1979: Rhodesia became Zimbabwe Rhodesia.
1983: The first prosecution was made of a “video nasty” under the Obscene Publications Act.
1989: Kitty, the oldest recorded cat in Britain, died in Eccleshall, Staffordshire, aged 32. She was mother to 218 kittens.
1990: Two British soldiers were killed in IRA gun attacks in West Germany and Lichfield, Staffordshire.
1990: Russian premier Mikhail Gorbachev and United States president George Bush signed agreement on the reduction of conventional and nuclear forces.
1993: Britain stood alone in opposition as the European Community voted in favour of a maximum 48-hour working week.
1994: Willie Carson, 51, won his fourth Derby at Epsom, on 7-2 favourite Erhaab.