SWINDON...

1947: The Military College of Science at Shrivenham entertained some 700 guests at a garden party. The guests were met by the Commandant Major General Shepherd DSO.

1955: Steps to increase technical and commercial training in Swindon were approved by Swindon Education Committee. Secondary school pupils would be able to sit, before leaving school, for The College quality exams for commercial, engineering and building courses.

1975: The Coate Water tragedy in which thousands of fish died prompted a Swindon pets club to petition the Government, through Swindon MP David Stoddart. The Clarence Junior School Pets Club was to ask for tighter controls on the sale and use of poisons and the discharge of waste into rivers and streams.

2013: A teenager was leaving Swindon to head for the bright lights of Broadway in pursuit of her dream. Kerrie Scarff won a place at the New York Film Academy. The 19-year-old from Old Town was awarded a scholarship to attend the prestigious academy. She was only one of two UK students to be offered a place and the first ever from Swindon.

THE WORLD...

1461: Edward IV was crowned King of England.

1519: Charles V was elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

1838: Coronation of Queen Victoria.

1859: The first conformation dog show was held in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

1882: The Anglo-French Convention of 1882 marked the territorial boundaries between Guinea and Sierra Leone.

1895: El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua formed the Greater Republic of Central America.

1914: Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, and his wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo by Bosnia Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip.

1919: The Treaty of Versailles was signed in Paris, bringing fighting to an end between Germany and the Allies of the First World War.

1922: The Irish Civil War began with the shelling of the Four Courts in Dublin by Free State forces.

1973: Elections were held for the Northern Ireland Assembly, which would lead to power-sharing between Unionists and Nationalists in the Province for the first time.

2001: Slobodan Miloševiæ was deported to ICTY to stand trial.

BORN...

1476: Pope Paul IV (d. 1559)
1491: Henry VIII of England (d. 1547)
1926: Mel Brooks, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1966: John Cusack, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
1966: Mary Stuart Masterson, American actress, director, and producer
1948: Kathy Bates, American actress, singer, and director

DIED...

767: Pope Paul I (b. 700)
1914: Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg (b. 1868)
1962: Mickey Cochrane, American baseball player and manager (b. 1903)
2001: Joan Sims, English actress (b. 1930)