SWINDON...

1947: Firefighters were called to Radnor Street after reports of a strong burning smell. After arriving, the firefighters could find no fire, but did find a pastry board that had been left smouldering next to a live electric iron.

1955: Methodist church were to be built in the newly developed areas of Swindon and district, it was announced at a quarterly meeting of the Bath Road Circuit at Cricklade when the forthcoming amalgamation of the three Swindon methodist circuits was discussed.

1975: Pupils at two more Swindon schools – Seven Fields and Lawns – were set to possibly be sent home because of the cleaners’ dispute, a union official warned.

2013: Bull terrier-type dogs in Swindon Council’s care were facing being destroyed to stem costs associated with the soaring numbers being dumped on the streets.

THE WORLD...

1851: Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper.

1883: The first regularly scheduled Orient Express departs Paris.

1915: Denmark amends its constitution to allow women's suffrage.

1917: World War I: Conscription begins in the United States as Army registration day.

1956: Elvis Presley introduces his new single, Hound Dog, on The Milton Berle Show, 1963: The British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, resigns in a sex scandal known as the Profumo affair.

1975: The Suez Canal opens for the first time since the Six-Day War.

1989: The Tank Man halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

BORN...

1723: Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher (d. 1790).

1884: Ivy Compton-Burnett, English author (d. 1969).

1946: Freddie Stone, American singer, guitarist, and pastor (Sly and the Family Stone).

1947: David Hare, English playwright and director 1971: Susan Lynch, pictured, Irish actress.

1971: Mark Wahlberg, American actor, and rapper

DIED...

1625: Orlando Gibbons, English organist and composer (b. 1583).

1900: Stephen Crane, American author (b. 1871).

1993: Conway Twitty, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1933)

2004: Ronald Reagan, American actor and politician, 40th President of the USA.