1083: The smallest ever Queen of England, Matilda, the wife of William the Conqueror, died. She was 4ft 2ins tall.

1941: Roy Plomley had the idea for Desert Island Discs while he was standing in his pyjamas about to go to bed. He immediately sat down and wrote to the BBC and the first programme was broadcast on January 21, 1942.

1903: Panama was declared independent. Formerly a part of Colombia, it is the 107th largest country in the world and the 115th largest in population.

1957: Wired from snout to tail with electronic sensors, a Russian dog named Laika became the first living creature to be shot into orbit. Soviet scientists were able to observe the biological effects of space travel for ten days.

1890: The world's largest glacier was mapped by Helmut Merten.

1942: General Bernard Montgomery broke through Rommel's front line at El Alamein while the Bosnian capital of Bihacs fell to Tito's partisans.