On this day: Trader Nick Leeson loses Â£500m in unauthorised deals

Barings Bank crashed after trader Nick Leeson, centre, lost more than Â£500 million in unauthorised dealing in 1995. Picture: AFP/Getty Images

1531: Earthquake in Portugal killed tens of thousands of people and flattened much of Lisbon and other cities.

1672: Naturalisation granted to Philip van der Straten, a Fleming who set up a factory in Kelso to begin the Border woollen industry.

1797: £1 notes first issued by the Bank of England.

1815: Napoleon escaped from exile on the island of Elba and returned to France.

1839: The first official Grand National steeplechase, run at Aintree, Liverpool. The race was won by Jem Mason on Lottery.

1871: Preliminary Peace of Versailles was signed between France and Germany.

1935: Radar – radio detection and ranging – was first demonstrated in Daventry by Robert Watson-Watt.

1936: The Volkswagen car factory was opened in Saxony by Adolf Hitler.

1936: Military coup in Japan replaced Koki Hirota as premier.

1952: Winston Churchill announced that Britain had produced its own atomic bomb.

1968: Israel’s foreign minister Abba Eban announced that Israel had agreed to what he called “a form of negotiation” with Arabs.

1977: Uganda’s president Idi Amin said his country was ready to meet any threat from US naval task force standing off East African coast.

1987: SDP political novice Rosie Barnes captured Greenwich, held by Labour for 50 years, with majority of 2,141.

1989: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini met Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze for talks centring on Islam.

1989: Burke’s Peerage stated that King Arthur’s Round Table had been found near Stirling, on the banks of the Carron river.

1990: Nicaragua’s 14-party opposition coalition led by Violeta Barrios de Chamorro scored stunning upset victory over Daniel Ortega’s Sandinistas.

1990: The Welsh town of Towyn, population 2,000, was evacuated with 20 minutes to spare before high tide caused devastation.

1991: United States aircraft mistakenly killed nine British soldiers on 41st day of Operation Desert Storm. Allied tanks moved into Kuwait City as Iraqis fled with up to 5,000 Kuwaiti hostages.

1992: Dublin Supreme Court ruled that 14-year-old Irish schoolgirl who became pregnant after being raped, could travel to London for an abortion, reversing High Court ban.

1993: Five people were killed by a car bomb in underground car park at World Trade Centre in New York.

1995: Barings Bank crashed after one of its Far East traders, Nick Leeson, lost more than £500 million in unauthorised dealing on the Tokyo stock exchange.

2010: Scottish rugby legend Ian McGeechan was knighted.

2014: Michael Adebolajo was given a whole-life term and Michael Adebowale was jailed for a minimum of 45 years for murdering Fusilier Lee Rigby. Fusilier Rigby was murdered as he returned to his barracks in London in May 2013. He died of multiple cut and stab wounds.

ANNIVERSARIES:

Births: 1802 Victor Hugo, poet and novelist; 1846 William Cody, American frontiersman and showman, known as Buffalo Bill; 1916 Jackie Gleason, comic film actor; 1932 Johnny Cash, singer and songwriter; 1931 Ally McLeod, football manager.

Deaths: 1723 Thomas d’Urfey, satirist and songwriter; 1898 Frederick Tennyson, poet; 1903 Richard Gatling, inventor of revolving battery gun that bears his name; 1950 Sir Harry Lauder, music hall singer and comedian; Max Faulkner, golfer; 2009 Wendy Richard MBE, actress (EastEnders).