ON THIS DAY
1437: James I, King of Scotland, was assassinated by a group of dissident nobles led by Sir Robert Graham.
1595: Robert Southwell, English poet and Jesuit martyr, was executed at Tyburn.
1613: Michael Romanov was elected Tsar of Russia, founding the house of Romanov which ruled until the revolution in March 1917.
1849: Britain annexed the Punjab at the end of the Second Sikh War.
1858: The first electric burglar alarm as installed by Edwin T Holmes of Boston, Massachusetts.
1910: Sir Douglas Bader, Second World War fighter pilot, was born. Despite losing both legs, he continued to fly, and is regarded as a hero of the Battle of Britain.
1952: Identity cards were abolished in Britain. 1965: American Black Muslim leader Malcolm X was shot dead while addressing a meeting in New York.
1988: The grave of Boadicea, the warrior queen who fought the Romans almost 2,000 years ago, was located by archaeologists under Platform 8 at King’s Cross railway station.