THIS DAY

1534: The Act of Supremacy was passed, making the King head of the English Church.

1640: The Long Parliament assembled. It was eventually dissolved in March 1660.

1868: Republican Ulysses S Grant was elected president of the United States for the first of his two terms in office.

1941: Roy Plomley conceived the idea for Desert Island Discs as he got ready for bed. He put his suggestion to the BBC, and the first programme was broadcast in January 1942.

1942: Montgomery’s Eighth Army broke through Rommel’s front line in Africa.

1949: The BBC bought Shepherds Bush Studios in west London from the Rank Organisation.

1975: The Queen opened the North Sea pipeline, the first to be built underwater, bringing 400,000 barrels ashore each day at Grangemouth Refinery on the Firth of Forth. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: WhatsApp users were up in arms after the messaging service went down across the globe for 45 minutes.

Roy Plomley first had the idea for the radio programme Desert Island Discs this day in 1941