On this day: Fire at Windsor Castle

On this day in 1992 a large fire caused widespread damage to the state apartments at Windsor Castle. Picture: Getty

1616: Cardinal Richelieu appointed minister of state in France.

1780: Britain declared war on Holland.

1892: The union was broken and nine were left dead as 3,000 workers called off a five-month strike at Carnegie Steel Works, Pennsylvania.

1906: Charles Rolls and Henry Royce collaborated to form their car company, Rolls-Royce Ltd.

1917: British tanks took part in their first major battle.

1944: The lights were switched on again in Piccadilly, The Strand and Fleet Street, London, after five years of wartime blackout.

1947: Princess Elizabeth married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten in Westminster Abbey. She was 21. The BBC covered the occasion in 42 different languages.

1951: Snowdonia in Wales was designated a national park.

1970: The 50p coin replaced the ten-shilling note.

1970: Majority in United Nations General Assembly voted to give China a seat, but two-thirds majority required for admission was not met.

1990: Saddam Hussein ordered 250,000 more Iraqi troops into Kuwait.

1992: A fire caused extensive damage to the state apartments at Windsor Castle.

1993: The New Zealand All Blacks beat Scotland 51-15 at Murrayfield, the home team’s biggest ever home defeat.

1995: In a BBC Panorama interview, the Princess of Wales admitted she had had an affair with Major James Hewitt and that she had known of Prince Charles’ affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, saying: “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”

2007: American billionaire Donald Trump’s plan for a £1 billion golf resort with two championship courses, a five-star hotel, 500 private homes and 1,000 holiday homes on 1,400 acres of coastline at Balmedie was thrown out by Aberdeenshire Council’s planning authority.

2008: A $20 million party and fireworks display, which organisers claimed could be seen from space, took place to mark the opening of a new $1.5bn resort in Dubai.

BIRTHDAYS

Bo Derek, actress, producer and model, 58; Joe Walsh, musician (The Eagles), 67; John Disley, Olympic athlete, co-founder of the London Marathon, 86; Veronica Hamel, 71; Margo Stilley, actress, 32; Kimberley Walsh, singer 33; Sean Young, actress, 55; Aneka (born Mary Sandeman), Scottish singer, 60; Mike Vernon, record producer, 70; Joe Biden, US vice-president, 72; Estelle Parsons, actress and TV presenter; Ashley Fink, actress and singer, 28; Connie Talbot, singer, 14; Jeff Tarango, tennis player, 46; Dave Watson, footballer, 53; Jimmy Brown, musician (UB40), 57; Norman Greenbaum, singer-songwriter (Spirit In The Sky), 72.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1761 Pope Pius VIII; 1889 Edwin Hubble, astronomer; 1908 Alistair Cooke, KBE, journalist and broadcaster; 1923 Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize-winning novelist; 1936 David Will, president, Scottish Football Association 1984-9.

Deaths: AD868 St Edmund, Saxon king of East Anglia; 1863 James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin and 12th Earl of Kincardine KT, colonial administrator and diplomat; 1910 Leo Tolstoy, novelist and playwright; 1925 Queen Alexandra of Great Britain; 1940 Harriot Stanton Blatch, writer and women’s rights activist; 1975 General Franco, dictator of Spain for 35 years.