On this day: Public withdraw Northern Rock savings

1665: Great bubonic plague broke out in London.

1745: Prince Charles Edward Stuart entered Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh.

1787: Thirty-nine delegates, under the chairmanship of George Washington, approved the constitution of the USA.

1871: The seven-mile Mont Cenis railway tunnel opened in Switzerland.

1900: Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed as a federal union of six states.

1908: Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge of the United States Army Signal Corps was killed in a crash with Orville Wright in Fort Meyer, Virginia, to become the first aeroplane fatality.

1931: Long-playing records were first introduced, with a demonstration held at the Savoy Plaza Hotel in New York City.

1939: The USSR invaded Poland.

1949: Fire destroyed Noronic, largest passenger steamer on Great Lakes, at Toronto pier, killing more than 130 people.

1961: More than 800 arrested at Ban the Bomb demonstration in London, including Canon Collins, John Osborne, George Melly and Vanessa Redgrave.

1964: US disclosed development of two weapons systems capable of intercepting and destroying armed satellites circling the Earth.

1970: Open warfare erupted in Jordan between King Hussein’s army and Palestinian guerrillas.

1978: Egypt’s president Anwar Sadat and Israel’s prime minister Menachem Begin concluded meeting at Camp David in United States with signing of framework for Middle East peace.

1981: Twelve divers began work to recover 431 gold ingots, valued at £40 million, from HMS Edinburgh, which sank in Barents Sea in 1942.

1990: Britain ordered the expulsion of two Iraqi military attaches and six support staff in solidarity with EEC countries whose embassies in Kuwait were ransacked by Iraqi troops.

2001: Wall Street suffered its biggest one-day fall – 750 points – amid fears the 9/11 attacks could cause a global recession.

2007: The government took the unprecedented step of guaranteeing all deposits in Northern Rock after four days of turmoil in which savers withdrew £2 billion from the bank.

2008: Lloyds TSB agreed a £12 billion takeover deal of Halifax Bank of Scotland after HBOS suffered a run on its shares.

BIRTHDAYS

Desmond Lynam OBE, television presenter, 73; Sir Stirling Moss OBE, racing driver, 86; Ken Doherty, 1997 world snooker champion, 46; Anastacia, pop singer, 47; Sir Donald Cruickshank, chairman, London Stock Exchange (2000-3), 73; Keith Flint, musician (Prodigy), 46; Damon Hill OBE, world champion racing driver, 55; Ryo Ishikawa, Japanese golfer, 24; Dame Tessa Jowell DBE, Labour MP, 68; Rita Rudner, actress, 62; Asa, Nigerian-French singer-songwriter, 33; Catherine Tyldesley, actress (Coronation Street), 32; Michael French, actor; Bryan Singer, film director, producer and screenwriter, 50; Ravichandran Ashwin, Test cricketer, 29.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1271 Wenceslaus II, king of Bohemia and Poland; 1552 Pope Paul V; 1748 Robert Wainwright, composer; 1878 Vincenzo Tommasini, composer; 1890 Lubov Tchernicheva, ballerina; 1897 Sir Isaac Wolfson, philanthropist, founder of Wolfson Foundation; 1900 John Willard Marriott, entrepreneur, founder of Marriott Hotels; 1901 Sir Francis Chichester, yachtsman and aviator; 1909 General Sir Kenneth Thomas Darling, Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Northern Europe 1967 to 1969; 1916 Mary Stewart (Lady Stewart), novelist; 1918 Chaim Herzog, prime minister of Israel 1983 to 1993; 1920 Dinah Sheridan, actress; 1923 Hank Williams, country music singer-songwriter; 1928 Roddy McDowall, actor and director; 1931 Anne Bancroft, actress; 1934 Maureen “Little Mo” Connolly, multi-Grand Slam winning tennis player; 1935 Ken Kesey, novelist; 1939 Michael Morley, racehorse trainer; 1948 John Ritter, actor an comedian; 1968 Tito Vilanova, football manager.

Deaths: 1771 Tobias George Smollett, novelist; 1869 John Elder, Glasgow-born marine engineer and shipbuilder; 1873 Alexander Berry, Scottish surgeon, merchant and explorer; 1877 William Talbot, photography pioneer; 1984 Richard Basehart, actor; 1985 Laura Ashley, fashion designer; 1986 Pat Phoenix, actress; 1996 Spiro Agnew, US politician; 1996 Jessie Hill, singer; 1997 Red Skelton, radio and TV entertainer; 1999 Frankie Vaughan, singer; 2000 Paula Yates, TV presenter and writer; 2005 Alfred Reed, composer; 2013 Marvin Rainwater, country and rockabilly singer-songwriter.