On this day

1645: The Battle of Naseby took place in Northamptonshire during the English Civil War. Cromwell’s Parliamentarians (Roundheads) defeated the Royalists (Cavaliers) under Prince Rupert, defending King Charles I.

1789: Whisky distilled from maize was first produced – by a clergyman, the Rev Elijah Craig. He called the liquor bourbon because he lived in Bourbon County, Kentucky.

1839: The first Henley Regatta on the Thames took place.

1840: The first reduced-rate railway trip was introduced when Newcastle and Carlisle Railway ran a works family outing from Newcastle to Carlisle.

1873: King Priam’s treasure of 8,700 priceless pieces was discovered in Turkey by German/American Heinrich Schliemann. In disinterring it, he destroyed what was left of Troy.

1919: Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten-Brown took off from Newfoundland on the first non-stop transatlantic flight to Galway, Ireland.

1940: German troops entered Paris and the swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower. Eight days later the armistice was signed and the Vichy government was set up.

1964: Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to Robben Island, seven miles off Cape Town – sparking international protests.

1970: Bobby Charlton played his 106th and last football match for England in the World Cup in Mexico. His first was on April 19 1958, against Scotland.

1982: Argentinian troops on the Falkland Islands surrendered when General Mario Benjamin Menendez agreed to an armistice.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The world’s biggest container ship, HMM Algeciras – around the same size as four football pitches – arrived in the UK for the first time.