On this day: Emmeline Pankhurst found guilty
1721: Robert Walpole became Britain’s first prime minister, an office he held until 1742.
1882: Jesse James, American outlaw and robber, was murdered, shot in the back while adjusting a picture on his cabin wall. The killer was his cousin, Robert Ford.
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Hide Ad1913: 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.
1947: Bupa, the private medical company, was founded.
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Hide Ad1948: United States allocated $5.33bn in foreign aid to 16 European nations.
1949: Armistice with Israel was concluded by Arab nations.
1978: The first regular BBC radio broadcasts of proceedings in Parliament began.
1982: Dick Saunders, 48, became the oldest winner of the Grand National, riding Grittar.
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.
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Hide Ad1987: 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
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.
1993: The American and Russian presidents, Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, began their first summit meeting, in Vancouver.
2000: Microsoft was ruled to have violated US anti-trust laws by keeping “an oppressive thumb” on its competitors.
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Hide Ad2007: A French TGV train on the LGV Est high speed line set an official new world speed record.
2008: ATA Airlines, once one of the teb largest US passenger airlines and largest charter airline, filed for bankruptcy for the second time in five years and ceased all operations.
2010: Apple sold more than 300,000 of its latest product, the iPad tablet computer, on its launch day in the US.
2013: More than 50 people died in floods resulting from record-breaking rainfall in La Plata and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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Hide Ad2014: The UK government announced plans for cigarettes to be sold in plain, non-branded packaging; The US space agency (Nasa) suspended its ties with Russia in protest over the crisis in Ukraine, though it would continue to co-operate in the operation of the International Space Station.
BIRTHDAYS
Leona Lewis, singer-songwriter, 30; Alec Baldwin, actor, 57; Doris Day, singer, actress, 93; William Gaunt, actor, 78; Dame Jane Goodall DBE, scientific director, Gombe Wildlife Research Institute, 81; Helmut Kohl, German chancellor 1982-98, 85; Jonathan Lynn, director, actor and co-writer of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, 72; Bobby McGregor MBE, Olympic swimmer, architect, 71; Eddie Murphy, actor and comedian, 54; David Hyde Pierce, actor, 56; Charles Peattie, cartoonist, 57; Andy Robinson OBE, rugby coach, 51; Richard Thompson OBE, musician (Fairport Convention), 66.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1367 King Henry IV; 1783 Washington Irving, author of Rip Van Winkle; 1866 JB Hertzog, South African nationalist prime minister; 1893 Leslie Howard, film actor; 1898 Henry Luce, publisher; 1924 Marlon Brando, film actor; 1926 Andrew Keir, actor; 1926 Virgil Grissom, astronaut; 1926 Timothy Bateson, British actor; 1936 Jimmy McGriff, jazz organist; Tony Benn, MP 1950-60 and 1963-2001, and Cabinet minister.
Deaths: 1682 Bartolome Murillo, artist; 1862 Sir James Clark Ross, Arctic explorer; 1882 Jesse James, American outlaw and robber (murdered); 1897 Johannes Brahms, composer and pianist; 1901 Richard D’Oyly Carte, theatrical impresario, promoter of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas; 1949 Basil Harwood, composer; 1950 Kurt Weill, composer; 1982 Warren Oates, actor; 1986 Sir Peter Pears, tenor; 1991 Graham Greene, novelist; 1999 Lionel Bart, composer and lyricist; 2009 Eva Evdokimova, prima ballerina.