ON THIS DAY
1066: William the Conqueror landed in Pevensey, Sussex.
1399: The first British monarch to abdicate, Richard II, was replaced by Bolingbroke to whom he had surrendered without a fight. Bolingbroke ascended as Henry IV.
1758: Horatio Nelson, hero of Trafalgar and Britain’s greatest sailor, was born at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk.
1829: London’s first official police force was mobilised and its men nicknamed “Bobbies” or “Peelers” after Sir Robert Peel, the Home Secretary who founded it.
1899: Sir Billy Butlin, holiday camp pioneer, was born.
1930: George Bernard Shaw turned down a peerage.
1938: The Munich Pact, an agreement between Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy, was signed, under which the Sudetenland was surrendered to Nazi Germany.
1941: A Nazi death squad murdered 30,000 Russian Jews in Kiev.
1952: British and world waterspeed record holder John Cobb was killed on Loch Ness when his vessel Crusader disintegrated
after hitting waves at 240mph.
1983: A Chorus Line broke the record as the longest-running Broadway show with its 3,389th performance since July 25, 1975.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The Duchess of Cambridge celebrated becoming joint president of The Scout Association in true Scoutstyle - by toasting marshmallows around a campfire.
BIRTHDAYS: Jerry Lee Lewis, singer, 86; Ian McShane, actor, 79;
Lech Walesa, former Polish president, 78; Patricia Hodge, actress, 75; Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, former MP and athlete, 65; Mark Nicholas, broadcaster and former cricketer, 64; Brett Anderson, singer, 54; Luke and Matt Goss, singers (Bros), 53; Emily Lloyd, actress, 51; Mackenzie Crook, actor, 50.