On this day

1707: Charles Wesley, hymn-writer and prolific preacher, was born in Epworth, Lincolnshire.

1737: Antonio Stradivari, violin-maker, died in his nineties at Cremona, Italy. 1865: The United States officially abolished slavery with the ratification of the 13th Amendment.

1912: Newspapers ran headlines of the discovery of Piltdown Man in Sussex. It was claimed to be the fossilised skull and remains of the earliest known European. In 1953 it was proved to be a hoax - the skull was that of an orang-utan combined with the skull of a fully developed, modern man.

1952: Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men, were first seen on BBC TV, along with Little Weed.

1969: The death penalty for murder was formally abolished in Britain.

1970: Divorce became legal in Italy. 2012: The Queen capped her Diamond Jubilee year by becoming the first

Bill and Ben with Little

Weed. It was first shown on BBC Television in the ‘Watch with Mother’ strand in 1952 and ran until 1971. Freda Lingstrom and Maria Bird were the creative force behind the series, Audrey Atterbury pulled the strings and Peter Hawkins provided the voices

monarch to attend the Cabinet in more than two centuries.

2014: Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber who won worldwide notoriety for spending 36 years on the run after escaping prison, died aged 84.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Clarence House announced the Prince of Wales would visit Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in January to carry out a series of official engagements for the first time.