SWINDON...

1947: Through faults in the electrical systems two Swindon Corporation buses caught fire on Saturday within 15 minutes of each other. Damage was slight in both cases and no one was hurt. Swindon National Fire Service extinguished the blaze.

1957: Mr FH Archer of Sycamore Grove, Swindon, has been awarded the Corporation perpetual shield for the best decorative garden in the Pinehurst neighbourhood for the second successive year.

1977: The landlord of the King and Queen pub in Highworth was expecting a visit from a one-time regular – who lives in the USA. In the 1960s Red Gordon was stationed at Fairford with the United States Air Force and the King and Queen was his local.

2013: A teenager who helps care for her mother was planning an abseil to raise money for charity. Seventeen-year-old Vicky Rowe would abseil down the 44m Eclipse Tower in Bristol at the end of the month to raise money for the Swindon and District branch of the MS Society.

THE WORLD...

1612: The trials of the Pendle witches began at Lancaster Assizes.

1868: French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovered helium.

1958: Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel Lolita was published in the United States.

1977: Steve Biko was arrested at a police roadblock under the Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967 in King William’s Town, South Africa. He would later die of the injuries sustained during this arrest bringing attention to South Africa’s apartheid policies.

BORN...

1920: Shelley Winters, American actress 
1925: Brian Aldiss, English author
1933: Roman Polanski, Polish film director
1936: Robert Redford, film actor and director
1952: Patrick Swayze, American actor
1969: Edward Norton, American actor
1969: Christian Slater, American actor
1972: Victoria Coren, English broadcaster and poker player

DIED...

1850: Honoré de Balzac, French author and playwright
2004: Elmer Bernstein, American composer and conductor
2012: Scott McKenzie, American singer-songwriter