SWINDON...

1945: Youths were blamed for damaging mail destined to be sent to Swindon soldiers, sailors and airmen serving overseas after fireworks were put in pillar-boxes. Fireworks had just gone on sale for VE Day but not all were used for celebrations.

1955: Swindon coal merchants had virtually no stocks but they had expected a delivery for railwaymen to arrive at Old Town station imminently. Merchants had not received any since a rail strike began and had hired their own lorries to Warwickshire and Staffordshire to collect their own.

1975: The last play in the Joliffe Studio Theatre season at the Wyvern Theatre was switched due to casting difficulties with the planned production of Genet’s The Maids. It was switched to The Golden Pathway Annual instead.

THE WORLD...

1654: Queen Christina abdicates the Swedish throne and is succeeded by her cousin Charles X Gustav. She abdicated because she wanted to become a Catholic (which is forbidden in the strictly Protestant Sweden) and did not want to marry to produce an heir to the throne.

1683: The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world’s first university museum.

1844: The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in London.

1944: Second World War: the Battle of Normandy begins. D-Day, code named Operation Overlord, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France.

1968: Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Robert F. Kennedy, Democratic Party senator from New York and brother of 35th President John F. Kennedy, dies from gunshot wounds inflicted on June 5.

1981: Bihar train disaster: a passenger train travelling between Mansi and Saharsa, India, jumps the tracks at a bridge crossing the Bagmati river. The government places the official death toll at 268 plus another 300 missing; however, it is generally believed that the actual death toll is closer to 1,000.

BORN...

1599: Diego Velázquez – Spanish painter.

1606: Pierre Corneille – French playwright.

1799: Alexander Pushkin – Russian author and poet.

1875: Thomas Mann – German author and critic, Nobel Prize laureate.

1898: Ninette de Valois – Irish-English dancer, choreographer, and director.

1932: Billie Whitelaw – English actress.

1947: David Blunkett – English politician.

1952: Harvey Fierstein – American actor and playwright.

1959: Josie Lawrence, English comedian and actress.

DIED...

1832: Jeremy Bentham, English jurist and philosopher.

1941: Louis Chevrolet – Swiss-American race car driver and businessman, founder of Chevrolet and Frontenac Motor Corporation.

1961: Carl Jung – Swiss psychiatrist.

1976: J Paul Getty – American businessman, founded the Getty Oil Company.

1979: Jack Haley – American actor and singer.

2013: Esther Williams – American swimmer and actress