On this day

1606: Sir Everard Digby, Robert Wintour, John Grant and Thomas Bates were hung, drawn and quartered for their part in Guy Fawkes’ Gunpowder Plot.

1649: Charles I, convicted of treason, was beheaded on a scaffold outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall.

1933: Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany.

1948: Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic in New Delhi.

1961: The contraceptive pill went on sale in Britain - but was not available on the NHS until December.

1965: Big Ben was silenced for the funeral procession of Sir Winston Churchill. 1997: An underground anti-road protest came to an end after six days as the last demonstrator, known as Swampy, emerged from a tunnel underneath the proposed A30 extension route in Devon. 2014: Irish authorities were sure that ‘filler product’ found in contaminated burgers sold in supermarkets came from Poland and was a mixture of beef and horse offcuts, the Food Standards Agency said. 47;