ON THIS day

■■1520: Montezuma II, last Aztec ruler, was killed in Mexico City during the Spanish conquest of Mexico under Cortez.

■■1800: The Glasgow Police Act, the first such Act in Britain, was finally passed through the persistence of Glasgow city authorities. This allowed the formation of the City of Glasgow Police.

■■1837: A British Act of Parliament abolished punishment by pillory.

■■1859: The great tightrope walker Blondin crossed Niagara Falls from the US to Canada in just eight minutes. The rope was stretched 1,100ft and suspended 160ft above the Falls.

■■1894: London’s Tower Bridge was officially opened to traffic by the Prince of Wales.

■■1934: Hitler’s rival Ernst Rohm and hundreds of influential Nazis were murdered by the SS in what was dubbed “The Night of the Long Knives”.

■■1936: Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind was published.

■■1940: German forces occupied the Channel Islands.

■■1960: Norman Bates was unleashed on to an unsuspecting world when Hitchcock’s classic chiller Psycho was premiered in New York.

■■1974: Mikhail Baryshnikov, Sovietborn ballet dancer, defected while on tour in Canada with the Bolshoi Ballet.

■■ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Activists in Istanbul reported that Turkish authorities had banned a pride march for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex rights for the fifth year.

■■BIRTHDAYS: Vincent D’Onofrio, actor, 61; Rupert Graves, actor, 57; Gary Pallister, former footballer, 55; Mike Tyson, retired boxer, 54; James Martin, TV chef, 48; Ralf Schumacher, former racing driver, 45; Cheryl Cole, singer, 37; Michael Phelps, former Olympic swimmer, 35.

Let us know your community events

Write to What’s On, South Wales Echo, Six Park Street, Cardiff CF10 1XR or email ecletters@walesonline.co.uk including your name, address and daytime contact number. Don’t forget to tell us where and when your event is taking place and what it’s all about.