On this day: Prince William marries Kate Middleton

A million people gathered in London to watch Prince William marry Kate Middleton. Picture: Getty

National day of Japan.

1376: Sir Peter de la Mare took his place as first Speaker in the House of Commons.

1429: Joan of Arc entered Orleans, France, and won victory over English.

1628: Sweden and Denmark signed defence treaty against Duke of Wallenstein, bringing Sweden into the Thirty Years War.

1781: French fleet under Admiral Suffren prevented Britain from seizing Cape of Good Hope.

1842: Corn Law Bill was given Royal assent.

1909: In a revolutionary Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, introduced a “supertax” of sixpence in the pound for anyone earning more than £5,000 a year to pay for old-age pensions and rearmament. He also doubled death duties.

1916: General Henri Philippe Pétain was appointed Chief of the French General Staff.

1918: Germany’s main offensive on Western Front in First World War ended.

1933: Players’ football shirts were first numbered, in the English FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium the numbers running from one to 22.

1935: Glass reflectors, or “cat’s eyes”, invented by Percy Shaw, were first used on British roads.

1945: Allied troops in Germany liberated 32,000 victims of Nazis in concentration camp at Dachau.

1946: Former Japanese leaders were indicted in Tokyo as war criminals.

1947: The first London performance of the musical Oklahoma! was staged.

1965: Australia decided to send troops to South Vietnam.

1973: Israel decided to expand civil rights of its 336,000 Arab citizens to reward Israeli Arab community for loyalty.

1975: United States taskforce evacuated foreigners and Vietnamese by helicopter from Saigon.

1986: The funeral of the Duchess of Windsor took place in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.

1990: Wrecking cranes tore down the section of the Berlin Wall surrounding the Brandenburg Gate, the wall’s most famous section.

1990: Stephen Hendry, aged 21, became the youngest world snooker champion by beating Jimmy White 18-12 in the Embassy Championship.

1992: Rioting began in Los Angeles after the acquittal of four policemen seen beating up a black man, Rodney King, on an amateur video film.

1993: The Queen announced that Buckingham Palace would be open to the public – for an entrance fee.

1995: Tony Blair won a victory in his battle to modernise the Labour Party when it voted to ditch its Clause 4 commitment to nationalisation.

2004: Oldsmobile built its final car, ending 107 years of production.

2009: Gordon Brown’s government suffered a surprise defeat in the Commons on its policy of restricting the right of former Gurkhas to settle in the UK. MPs voted by 267 to 246 in favour of a Liberal Democrat motion that all Gurkhas be offered an equal right of residence.

2011: One million people gathered in London to watch the marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton who became the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge following the ceremony.

2014: Former chancellor Norman Lamont opened Edinburgh’s newest library – the Library of Mistakes – which records a litany of financial disasters, including the Great Depression of the 1930s and the 2008 credit crunch.

BIRTHDAYS

Michelle Pfeiffer, actress, 57; André Agassi, tennis champion, 45; Frank Auerbach, artist, 84; General Sir Peter de la Billière KBE, commander-in-chief of British forces in 1990 Gulf War, 81; Baroness Chalker of Wallasey, 73; Sir Daniel Day-Lewis, Oscar-winning actor, 58; Anita Dobson, actress, 66; Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, historian, 72; Adrian Maguire, jockey and trainer, 44; Johnny Miller, golfer, 68; Lloyd Quinan, Scottish broadcaster and former politician, 58; Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild, financier and philanthropist, 79; Jerry Seinfeld, comedian, 61; Uma Thurman, actress, 45; Professor Heinz Wolff, German-British scientist, broadcaster, 87; David Icke, self-styled prophet, 63.

ANNIVERSARIES

irths: 1667 John Arbuthnot, Kincardineshire-born physician; 1769 Duke of Wellington, soldier and statesman; 1818 Alexander II, Tsar of Russia; 1863 William Randolph Hearst, newspaper proprietor; 1895 Sir Malcolm Sargent, conductor; 1899 Duke Ellington, jazz musician and composer; 1901 Hirohito, Emperor of Japan; 1929 Jeremy Thorpe, leader of the Liberal Party 1967-76; 1931 Lonnie Donegan, skiffle musician and singer.

Deaths: 1937 Wallace Carothers, chemist and developer of nylon; 1980 Sir Alfred Hitchcock, film director; 1988 Andrew Cruickshank, actor; 1999 Elspeth March, actress; 2014 Bob Hoskins, actor.