On this day
1066: Edward the Confessor, England’s most pious King, died.
1787: John Burke, genealogist and founder of Burke’s Peerage, was born in Tipperary, Ireland.
1884: Gilbert and Sullivan’s Princess Ida was premiered at the Savoy Theatre. 1896: German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen gave the first demonstration of X-rays.
1919: The Nazi Party was founded by Anton Drexler in Munich.
1941: Amy Johnson, English aviator and first woman to fly solo from England to Australia in 1930, drowned in a mysterious accident over the Thames estuary.
1948: Mrs Dale first opened her radio diary. She was noted for always being “rather worried” about her doctor husband, Jim.
1971: One-day international cricket was born when 46,000 spectators watched
England play Australia at Melbourne. The scheduled Test match had been aborted due to rain.
1981: The hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, who killed 13 women over four years, ended when lorry-driver Peter Sutcliffe was charged with murder.
1991: Thirteen people died as 100mph winds battered the British Isles and power cuts crippled the country.