On this day: Aneurin Bevan resigned as minister

On this day in 1951, Aneurin Bevan resigned over the Attlee governments plan to introduce health charges. Picture: Getty

1662: The Royal Society was constituted by Royal Charter from Charles II.

1796: France’s Napoleon Bonaparte defeated Piedmont army at Mondovi.

1822: Turkish fleet captured island of Chios off Greece and massacred Christian inhabitants or sold them as slaves.

1838: The Sirius, built by R Menzies & Sons, Leith, carrying 90 passengers, reached New York to become the first to cross the Atlantic entirely under steam. A fuel shortage forced the burning of spars and furniture to complete the voyage. Brunel’s steamship, Great Western, arrived a day later.

1884: A major earthquake hit Colchester and East Anglia, damaging 1,200 buildings and killing four people.

1915: Germany first used poison gas on Western Front at Ypres.

1918: The Penny Post was abolished.

1926: Persia, Turkey and Afghanistan signed treaty of mutual security.

1931: Treaty of friendship between Egypt and Iraq – first pact between Egypt and an Arab state.

1943: The printing of British £1,000 notes was discontinued.

1945: Allied forces took Bologna in Italy.

1947: A photo-finish camera was used for the first time at Epsom.

1951: Aneurin Bevan resigned as minister of labour over plan by Clement Attlee’s government to introduce health charges.

1956: China appointed Dalai Lama chairman of committee to prepare Tibet for regional autonomy within Chinese People’s Republic.

1967: Martial law was declared in Greece after the army effected a coup.

1969: Sailor Robin Knox-Johnston arrived at Falmouth to complete the first non-stop solo circumnavigation, in 312 days.

1972: John Fairfax and Sylvia Cook, in the 35-foot Britannia II, arrived in Australia, to become the first to row across the Pacific, having left San Francisco on 26 April, 1971.

1988: Israeli warplanes blasted Palestinian guerrilla bases south of Beirut, Lebanon.

1989: Archaeologists said they had unearthed a 2,000-year-old mummy in a gold-covered coffin in the Egyptian oasis Fayoum. She was wrapped in linen and had a child beside her.

1990: American hostage Robert Polhill released by pro-Iranian Shia group in Beirut.

1994: Cabinet minister Michael Portillo pledged that Scotland’s water services would not be privatised.

1997: Chilean troops stormed the Japanese ambassador’s house in Lima and freed 72 hostages who had been held for 126 days by a Marxist rebel group. All 14 guerrillas died in the assault.

2000: The Big Number Change took place in the UK.

2004: Two fuel trains collided in Ryongchon, North Korea, killing 150 people.

2005: Japan’s prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, apologised for Japan’s war record.

2008: The United States Air Force retired the remaining F-117 Nighthawk aircraft in service.

2009: As he unveiled his Budget, Chancellor Alistair Darling claimed the UK would have to borrow a record £175 billion as he admitted the economy faced its worst year since the Second World War.

BIRTHDAYS

Jack Nicholson, actor, director and producer, 77; Glen Campbell, American country singer, 78; Paul Carrack, musician (Ace, Squeeze), 63; George Cole OBE, actor (Minder), 89; Carol Drinkwater, actress, 66; Peter Frampton, rock guitarist and singer, 64; Amber Heard, actress and model, 28; Lloyd Honeyghan, boxer, 54; Ronald Hynd, choreographer, 83; Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope, MP 1983-2005, 68; Kaká, footballer, 32; Mike Miller, Scottish golfer, 63; Gary Rhodes OBE, chef, 54; Jancis Robinson OBE, wine writer and broadcaster, 64; Michelle Ryan, actress, 30; Ryan Stiles, actor and comedian, 55; Sean Lock, comedian, 51.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1707 Henry Fielding, novelist; 1724 Immanuel Kant, philosopher; 1766 Mme de Staël, novelist; 1870 Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), Russian revolutionary leader; 1888

J Arthur Rank, film magnate; 1891 Sergei Prokofiev, composer; 1899 Vladimir Nabokov, novelist and poet; 1904 Robert Oppenheimer, physicist who developed atomic bomb; 1916 Lord (Yehudi) Menuhin, violinist, conductor and humanitarian; 1922 Charlie Mingus, jazz musician; 1923 Bettie Page, model and pin-up.

Deaths: 1592 Bartolomeo Ammenati, sculptor and architect of Florence; 1778 James Hargreaves, inventor of the spinning jenny; 1833 Richard Trevithick, steam engine pioneer; 1869 Rev Patrick Bell, of Carmyllie, Angus, inventor of the reaping machine; 1892 Edouard Lao, composer; 1933 Sir Frederick Henry Royce, car manufacturer; 1994 Richard Nixon, 37th US president 1969-1974; 2005 Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, sculptor.