1688: Sir William D'Avenant died in London. Thought by many to be the illegitimate son of William Shakespeare, he wrote the words for the first English opera, The Siege of Rhodes. Sadly, after a romantic encounter with a negress, his nose dropped off.

1739: Highwayman Dick Turpin was hanged in York. Although a romantic hero in fiction, he was a brutal ruffian in real life, and went in for rustling, burglary, murder and rape. When things got too hot, he fled to York, but was later unmasked and condemned to death.

1770: The poet William Wordsworth was born in Cumbria. After Cambridge, he settled in the Lake District with his sister Dorothy.

1827: Chemist John Walker of Stockton-on-Tees launched his new product, the match. He got the idea by accident while seeking a flammable material for flint-lock guns. While scraping a blob of dried chemicals off his mixing-stick, it suddenly caught fire.

1832: A certain farmer Thompson sold his wife in Carlisle market, after leading her there on the end of a rope. He knocked her down for one pound and a dog.

1853: Queen Victoria was given chloroform while giving birth to her eighth child, Prince Leopold.

1924: The aquarium was opened in London Zoo, Regent's Park.

1941: The British Government raised income tax to an unprecedented 50 per cent to pay for the war.

1945: Japan's biggest warship, the Yamamoto, was sunk by the Americans in the Pacific.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.