ON THIS DAY
1066: William the Conqueror landed in Pevensey, Sussex. 1399: The first British monarch to abdicate, Richard II, was replaced by Bolingbroke to whom he had surrendered without a fight. Bolingbroke ascended as Henry IV. 1758: Horatio Nelson, hero of Trafalgar and Britain’s greatest sailor, was born at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk. 1829: London’s first official police force was mobilised and its men nicknamed “Bobbies” or “Peelers” after Sir Robert Peel, the Home Secretary who founded it. 1899: Sir Billy Butlin, holiday camp pioneer, was born. 1930: George Bernard Shaw turned down a peerage. 1938: The Munich Pact, an agreement between Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy, was signed, under which the Sudetenland was surrendered to Nazi Germany. 1941: A Nazi death squad murdered 30,000 Russian Jews in Kiev. 1952: British and world water-speed record holder John Cobb was killed on Loch Ness when his vessel Crusader disintegrated after hitting waves at 240mph. 1983: A Chorus Line broke the record as the longest-running Broadway show with its 3,389th performance since July 25, 1975. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Final preparations were made to crash a European spacecraft on to a comet, bringing a dramatic end to the £1bn Rosetta mission. BIRTHDAYS: Jerry Lee Lewis, singer, 82; Ian McShane, actor, 75; Lech Walesa, former Polish president, 74; Patricia Hodge, actress, 71; Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, former MP and athlete, 61; Mark Nicholas, broadcaster and former cricketer, 60; Brett Anderson, singer, 50; Luke and Matt Goss, singers (Bros), 49; Emily Lloyd, actress, 47; Mackenzie Crook, actor, 46.