THIS WEEK IN HISTORY

AUGUST 31, 1908: At the age of 60, and after a career spanning 43 years, WG Grace retired from first-class cricket. He scored 54,896 runs, took 2,879 wickets and held 871 catches.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: First class airline-style pods in A&E departments, gardens between wards and starfishshaped hubs were among the innovative proposals which could help inform the design of new hospitals. SEPTEMBER 1, 1971: The British penny and the threepenny piece coins ceased to be legal tender.

SEPTEMBER 2, 1945: The formal Japanese surrender to the Allies was signed on board the American battleship USS Missouri.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) named a new lifeboat in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh.

SEPTEMBER 3, 1962: The TransCanada highway, 4,800 miles from St John’s Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia, was opened.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Four million doses of the Pfizer jab were to be sent from the UK to Australia as part of a Covid-19 vaccine deal.

SEPTEMBER 4, 1939: The British liner Athenia was sunk by a German U-boat, the first sinking of its kind, off the coast of Ireland.

SEPTEMBER 5, 1963: Christine Keeler, one of the girls at the centre of the Profumo scandal, was arrested and charged with perjury.