On this day
814: Death of Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor.
1547: Henry VIII died at Richmond, in a room reeking of the stench from his leg ulcers.
1807: London’s Pall Mall was the first street in any city in the world to be lit by gaslight.
1829: Body-snatcher William Burke was hanged in front of a huge crowd.
1908: The London Playhouse Theatre opened.
1932: The Japanese occupied Shanghai, start of a full-scale invasion of China. 1935: Iceland became the first country to legalise abortion.
1953: Derek Bentley, 19, was hanged at Wandsworth Prison, despite public protests. Bentley and Christopher Craig, 16, had been found guilty of murdering a policeman, but Craig escaped the gallows because of his age.
1986: US space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after take-off, killing seven astronauts.
1993: The IRA bombed Harrods for the third time in 20 years. Four people were injured.
2014: The routes of high-speed rail links to cities in the north of England were unveiled, in a move Prime Minister David Cameron said would boost Britain’s stagnant economy.