On this day: Woolworths went into administration

1789: First national Thanksgiving Day in United States.

1857: First Australian parliament opened in Melbourne.

1912: Ten people died as a severe south-westerly gale hit the west of Scotland. Troon suffered the worst flooding in its history, with four feet of water covering all streets in the vicinity of the Cross.

1914: HMS Bulwark blew up in Sheerness Harbour, Kent, killing 700.

1922: Howard Carter and the Earl of Carnarvon became the first men to see inside the tomb of Tutankhamen, near Luxor, in Egypt since it was sealed 3,000 years before.

1940: Half a million Jews in Warsaw, Poland, were ordered to live within a walled ghetto.

1942: Soviet forces counter-attacked at Stalingrad, ending the Second World War siege and forcing the Germans to retreat.

1949: India adopted constitution as federal republic within the British Commonwealth.

1966: The world’s first major tidal power station was opened at St Malo, France.

1970: A Bolivian painter, disguised as a priest, tried to kill Pope Paul in Manila, in the Philippines, but the pontiff escaped injury.

1972: Race Relations Act came into force in Britain. Employers could no longer discriminate on grounds of colour.

1978: Muslim religious leaders and politicians seeking to topple Shah of Iran called general strike that virtually paralysed Iran.

1981: Shirley Williams became the first MP elected under SDP banner when she won the Crosby by-election.

1983: Gold bars worth £25m stolen from Heathrow Airport.

1987: Typhoon in Philippines killed 270 people and damaged or destroyed 14,000 homes.

1992: The Queen agreed to pay income tax on her personal fortune, council tax on Balmoral and Sandringham and contribute more to the Royal Family budget.

2007: Gordon Brown, the prime minister, faced sleaze claims after the Labour Party’s general secretary, Peter Watt, was forced to resign over secret donations given to the party by property developer David Abrahams, using other people’s names.

2008: Woolworths, the high street retailer which had been trading since 1909, went into administration.

2008: Gunmen carried out a series of co-ordinated attacks across the Indian city of Mumbai, killing almost 200 people and injuring around 300.

BIRTHDAYS

Tina Turner, singer and actress, 75; Garcelle Beauvais, actress, 48; Natasha Bedingfield, singer, 33; Hilary Benn, Labour politician, 61; Paul Burnett, disc jockey, 71; Matt Frei, broadcaster, 51; Grey Ruthven, 2nd Earl of Gowrie, chairman, Arts Council of England 1994-8, 75; John McVie, guitarist, 69; Trevor Morgan, actor, 28; Tammy Lynn Michaels, actress, 40; Peter Wheeler, rugby player, 66; Rita Ora, singer, 24; Peter Facinelli, actor and producer, 41; Danny Welbeck, footballer, 24; Rich Little, impressionist, 76; Tamsin Egerton, actress and model, 26; Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook, 31; Olivia Cole, 72; Jean Terrell, singer (The Supremes), 70.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1607 John Harvard, London-born founder of Harvard University; 1657 William Derham, clergyman and philosopher who produced earliest accurate estimate of speed of sound; 1731 William Cowper, poet; 1810 William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, engineer and industrialist who built world’s first house powered by hydroelectricity; 1898 Karl Ziegler, Nobel Prize-winning chemist; 1905 Emlyn Williams, playwright and actor; 1910 Cyril Cusack, actor; 1922 Charles Schulz, cartoonist (Peanuts); 1924 Pat Phoenix, actress; 1933 Robert Goulet, actor and singer; 1937 Boris Yegorov, physician and cosmonaut; 1940 Davey Graham, guitarist.

Deaths: 1639 John Spottiswoode, Archbishop of St Andrews, Primate of All Scotland and historian of Scotland; 1703 Henry Winstanley, lighthouse builder; 1717 Daniel Purcell, composer; 1836 John MacAdam, Scottish road-making engineer and inventor of the road surface bearing his name; 1918 Charlie McLeod, Australian Test cricketer; 1940 Harold Harmsworth, first Viscount Rothermere; 1956 Tommy Dorsey, trombonist and bandleader; 1980 Rachel Roberts, actress; 1981 Max Euwe, world chess champion; 1982 Robert Coote, actor; 1982 Dan Tobin, actor; 1996 Michael Bentine, comedian; 1996 Dame Joan Hammond, operatic soprano; 2004 Philippe de Broca, film director.