On this day: Grand National declared void | Robert Walpole Britain’s first PM

1721: Robert Walpole became Britain’s first prime minister, an office he held until 12 February, 1742.

1913: Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette, was found guilty of inciting supporters to place explosives at the London residence of David Lloyd George. She was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. The Home Secretary banned all future public meetings of suffragettes.

1921: Coal rationing was imposed in Britain.

1930: Ras Tafari became Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). He ruled for 44 years.

1933: Two British aeroplanes became the first to fly over Mount Everest.

1941: Hungarian premier Count Paul Teleki committed suicide rather than ally his country with Germany.

1941: British troops evacuated Libyan port of Benghazi.

1949: Armistice with Israel was concluded by Arab nations.

1978: The first regular BBC radio broadcasts of proceedings in Parliament began.

1982: Commons held emergency Saturday session on Falklands crisis as United Nations Security Council voted 10-1 for resolution demanding withdrawal of Argentine forces, who took island of South Georgia the same day.

1987: Moors murderer Myra Hindley finally confessed to 1964 killings of two other children with Ian Brady. Brady and Hindley took part in the abduction, sexual abuse, torture and murder of five children between July 1963 and October 1965.

1991: UN Security Council voted 12-1 to accept ceasefire resolution requiring Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction and authorising peacekeeping troops to be deployed in the region.

1993: Grand National was declared void for the first time in its history after two false starts when the starting tape failed to rise properly.

1995: High Court in Edinburgh banned BBC from screening a Panorama interview with John Major in Scotland in the run-up to the local elections after protests from the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats.

2000: Microsoft was ruled to have violated US anti-trust laws by keeping “an oppressive thumb” on its competitors.

2010: Apple sold more than 300,000 of its latest product, the iPad tablet computer, on its launch day in the US.

BIRTHDAYS

Alec Baldwin, actor, 55; Tony Benn, MP 1950-60 and 1963-2001, and Cabinet minister, 88; Doris Day, singer, actress and animal welfare activist, 89; Dame Jane Goodall DBE, scientific director, Gombe Wildlife Research Institute, 79; Helmut Kohl, German chancellor 1982-98, 83; Leona Lewis, singer-songwriter, 28; Jonathan Lynn, director, actor and co-writer of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, 70; Bobby McGregor MBE, Olympic swimmer, architect, 69; Eddie Murphy, actor and comedian, 52; Andy Robinson OBE, rugby coach, 49; John Virgo, snooker player and broadcaster, 67.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1367 King Henry IV; 1783 Washington Irving, author; 1866 JB Hertzog, South African nationalist prime minister; 1893 Leslie Howard, actor; 1924 Marlon Brando, actor; 1926 Virgil Grissom, astronaut.

Deaths: 1862 Sir James Clark Ross, Arctic explorer; 1897 Johannes Brahms, composer and pianist; 1901 Richard D’Oyly Carte, promoter of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas; 1950 Kurt Weill, composer; 1991 Graham Greene, novelist; 1999 Lionel Bart, composer and lyricist.