On this day
1660: England’s Long Parliament was dissolved after sitting for 20 years.
1802: The United States Military Academy at West Point was established. 1872: The first English FA Cup Final took place. Wanderers, a team formed by university and ex-public school players, beat the Royal Engineers 1-0 at The Oval in London.
1888: The first recorded sale of a manufactured motor car was to Emile Roger of Paris, who bought a petroldriven Benz.
1900: Sir Arthur Evans uncovered the ancient city of Knossos, Crete.
1926: The first liquid-fuelled rocket was demonstrated in the USA, by Dr Robert H Goddard.
1935: Hitler (pictured) renounced the Versailles Treaty and reintroduced conscription.
1947: Almost 600,000 acres of farming land were submerged by floodwater on the Fens as the River Ouse overflowed and a million sheep died. Storm damage came to more than £20 million.
1971: Boxer Henry Cooper announced his retirement after losing his title to Joe Bugner.
1980: Alan Minter out-pointed Vito Antuofermo of the US to win boxing’s world middleweight title.
1988: A Loyalist gunman opened fire indiscriminately and hurled grenades into a crowd of mourners at an IRA funeral for three people killed by the SAS in Gibraltar 10 days before.
1998: Beef exports from Northern Ireland were to resume after a three-year ban stemming from the BSE crisis.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: A Lego brick could survive in the ocean for as many as 1,300 years, a new study found.