ON THIS DAY
1839: Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were betrothed. She proposed to him and confided to her diary: “It was a nervous thing to do, but Albert could not propose to the Queen of England. He would never presume to take such a liberty.” 1881: Novelist PG Wodehouse – later Sir – creator of Jeeves and Wooster, was born in Guildford, Surrey.
1917: Mata Hari, legendary Dutch spy who danced in the nude, was executed by a firing squad in Paris.
1940: A 500lb bomb hit Broadcasting House, London, killing seven people. Bruce Belfrage was reading the news at the time and paused for only a second before continuing.
1976: Two men from the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) were jailed for 35 years in connection with the murders of members of the Miami Showband.
1987: The worst hurricane in Britain since records began hit during the night, devastating southern England and causing at least 17 deaths. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Experts in Mexico said they had detected more than 2,000 pre-Hispanic ruins or clusters of artefacts along the proposed route of the president’s controversial “Maya Train” project on the Yucatan peninsula.