So That Was 2010

The first winter solstice lunar eclipse for 400 years made the moon glow a vivid red on 21st December.

Events to look back on
Haiti was shattered by an earthquake on 12th January which killed at least 230,000 and left millions homeless.
America hand power back to the Iraqi government.
North Korea continue to provoke South Korea.
After a blast on a BP leased oil rig on 20th April, 11 workers were left dead and over 170,000,000 gallons of crude oil were pumped into the Gulf of Mexico.
Trapped nearly a half-mile underground after a mine collapsed on 5th August, 33 Chilean miners were eventually freed one-by-one after 69 days.
The general election in the UK leads to the first coalition government in post war Britain with David Cameron named as the new PM.
The previously unheard of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland left a million holiday-makers stranded and thousands of flights grounded when it erupted in April.
The British government controversially announced in late November that it would pledge £7 billion to Ireland as part of a bailout deal for the debt-struck nation.
Pope Benedict XVI meets the Queen and Prime Minister David Cameron during the first papal visit to Britain in 28 years.
The royal weddings of Price William and Kate Middleton as well as that of Zara Philips and Mike Tindall are announced for 2011.

Sporting Highlights
Golf - Europe beat the USA in the Ryder Cup
Cricket - England retain the Ashes with a match to spare in Australia and win the Twenty20 World Cup
Tennis - Isner and Mahut’s epic Wimbledon match breaks all tennis records
F1 - Sebastian Vettel becomes youngest F1 champ
Skeleton Bob - Amy Williams takes skeleton gold to bring back Britain's first individual Winter Olympic gold medal for 30 years
Racing - A.P. McCoy rides into the history books by finally winning the Grand National and the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.
Football - Spain beat the Netherlands in South Africa to win the World Cup.

Deaths
Alexander McQueen (CBE), Alex Higgins, Gary Coleman, Lynn Redgrave (OBE), Dennis Hopper, Tony Curtis, Claire Rayner (OBE), Norman Wisdom (OBE), Bernard Matthews (CVO, CBE), Leslie Nielsen

On This Day - 31st December

1869 - Henri Matisse born
1880 - George C. Marshall born
1908 - Simon Wiesenthal born
1930 - Odetta born
1937 - Anthony Hopkins born
1941 - Sarah Miles born
1943 - Ben Kingsley and John Denver born
1945 - Barbara Carrera born
1948 - Donna Summer born
1951 - The British Prime Minister sets off on his trip to America aboard the Queen Mary after more than 24 hours delay.
1959 - Val Kilmer born
1964 - Donald Campbell breaks the world water speed record, the only man to break both land and water speed records in the same year.
1972 - Joe McIntyre born
1987 - People who displayed heroism during the Zeebrugge ferry disaster are recognised in the New Year's Honours List.
1999 - Boris Yeltsin has resigned as Russian president and says Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will take over immediately. Also Britain gears up to join a global party with a spectacular array of revelries to welcome in the third millennium.

On This Day - 30th December

1865 - Rudyard Kipling born
1914 - Bert Parks born
1920 - Jack Lord born
1928 - Bo Diddley born
1934 - Russ Tamblyn born
1935 - Sandy Koufax born
1937 - Noel Paul Stookey born
1939 - Del Shannon born
1942 - Michael Nesmith born
1945 - Davy Jones born
1946 - Patti Smith born
1957 - Matt Lauer born
1958 - Thousands die in the bloodiest fighting in Cuba's history as rebels led by Fidel Castro threaten to overthrow the military regime of President Batista.
1959 - Tracey Ullman born
1971 - Some of the approximately 60,000 Iranian men, women and children expelled from Iraq in the past few days try to make their way home.
1975 - Tiger Woods born
1977 - Laila Ali born
1986 - More than 200 canary birds are to be phased out of Britain's mining pits and replaced by hand-held gas detectors.
1994 - Two women are shot dead and at least five others injured after a gunman opens fire at two neighbouring abortion clinics in Boston.
2002 - Singer Diana Ross is stopped by the police for drinking and driving after her car is seen swerving across a road.

On This Day - 29th December

1800 - Charles Goodyear born
1808 - Andrew Johnson born
1845 - Texas becomes the 28th state of the US
1936 - Mary Tyler Moore born
1938 - Jon Voight born
1946 - Marianne Faithfull born
1947 - Ted Danson born
1954 - Ed Autry born
1966 - Bryan "Dexter" Holland born
1972 - Jude Law born
1975 - Radical new legislation introducing a woman's right to equal pay and status comes into force in the UK.
1984 - Rajiv Gandhi claims a massive victory for his assassinated mother's Congress Party in the Indian general election.
1986 - Lord Stockton, the former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, dies aged 92.
1998 - Six people have died after mountainous seas smashed into yachts taking part in the prestigious Sydney to Hobart race.
2000 - A blanket of snow descends on the country as Arctic conditions disrupt travel.

On This Day - 28th December

1846 - Iowa becomes the 29th state of the US
1856 - Woodrow Wilson born
1905 - Earl "Fatha" Hines born
1905 - Cliff Arquette born
1908 - Lew Ayres born
1911 - Sam Levenson born
1918 - British Women vote for the first time in a General Election
1921 - Johnny Otis born
1933 - Nichelle Nichols born
1934 - Maggie Smith born
1940 - Don Francisco born
1946 - Edgar Winter born
1954 - Denzel Washington born
1957 - One of Britain's largest abattoirs closes down after foot-and-mouth disease is found in cattle waiting to be slaughtered.
1979 - Passengers retrace a fatal journey on the 100th anniversary of a train plunging from the Tay Bridge into icy waters.
1993 - British customs officials seize £70m of Colombian cocaine thought to be linked to the Mafia.
1980 - A shake-up of broadcasting franchises paves the way for breakfast television.
2003 - The British Government announces plans to tighten airline security by allowing armed guards on some British flights to the USA.

On This Day - 27th December

1822 - Louis Pasteur born
1879 - Sydney Greenstreet born
1901 - Marlene Dietrich born
1906 - Oscar Levant born
1939 - John Amos born
1943 - Cokie Roberts born
1948 - Gérard Depardieu born
1960 - The French move a step closer to developing a compact nuclear bomb after a third test in the Sahara desert.
1965 - Four men are dead and nine are still missing after Britain's first North Sea drilling rig 'Sea Gem' capsizes.
1975 - Heather O'Rourke born
1977 - Thousands of people flock to UK cinemas to watch the long-awaited blockbuster, Star Wars.
1985 - At least 16 people are killed and more than 100 injured during twin terrorist attacks in Rome and Vienna.
1997 - A leading protestant paramilitary, Billy Wright, is shot dead at the maximum security Maze prison in Northern Ireland.
2004 - Ukraine's "orange revolutionaries" celebrate as opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko is declared winner of the presidential election.

On This Day - 26th December

1791 - Charles Babbage born
1891 - Henry Miller born
1893 - Mao Tse-tung born
1914 - Richard Widmark born
1921 - Steve Allen born
1927 - Alan King born
1940 - Phil Spector born
1945 - John Walsh born
1947 - Carlton Fisk born
1954 - Ozzie Smith born
1963 - Lars Ulrich born
1970 - British Olympic medallist Lillian Board MBE has died after losing her battle against a virulent form of cancer.
1979 - A group of Patriotic Front guerrillas receive a joyous welcome as they arrive back in Rhodesia to help monitor the ceasefire.
1988 - Crash investigators uncover wreckage which may hold the key to the Lockerbie air disaster.
1990 - Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said the death sentence on writer Salman Rushdie for alleged blasphemy will remain in force.
2004 - An 8.9 magnitude earthquake under the sea near Aceh, north Indonesia, at 0759 local time (0059 GMT) generated the biggest tsunami the world has seen for at least 40 years. The tsunami killed more than 200,000 people in 13 countries. At least 128,000 people died in Indonesia alone.

On This Day - 25th December

1642 - Sir Isaac Newton born
1821 - Clara Barton born
1893 - Robert Ripley born
1899 - Humphrey Bogart born
1907 - Cab Calloway born
1918 - Anwar Sadat born
1924 - Rod Serling born
1925 - Carlos Castaneda born
1932 - King George V makes the first ever Christmas day royal broadcast
1945 - Gary Sandy born
1946 - Jimmy Buffett born
1948 - Barbara Mandrell born
1949 - Sissy Spacek and Ron Foos born
1952 - British and Commonwealth listeners hear the Queen's first Christmas broadcast since her accession to the throne.
1954 - Annie Lennox born
1958 - Rickey Henderson born
1971 - Dido born
1974 - The Australian city of Darwin is wrecked by a powerful cyclone (Tracey) that leaves thousands of people homeless.
1977 - Charlie Chaplin, the comic genius of silent films, dies at his home in Switzerland at the age of 88.
1989 - Deposed Romanian president Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena are shot after being found guilty of crimes against the state.
1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union for almost seven years, steps down from office.
2003 - Scientists fail to make contact with British-built Mars probe Beagle 2, which should have landed on the Red Planet earlier today.

On This Day - 24th December

1809 - Kit Carson born
1880 - Johnny Gruelle born
1905 - Howard Hughes born
1922 - Ava Gardner born
1929 - Mary Higgins Clark born
1962 - More than 1,000 men taken prisoner at the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba return to the United States in time for Christmas.
1968 - The Apollo 8 spacecraft and its crew of three astronauts (Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders) become the first manned space mission to orbit the Moon.
1971 - Ricky Martin born
1974 - Former UK minister John Stonehouse has been found in Australia after apparently faking his own death.
1979 - The first European-built rocket, Ariane 1, successfully blasts off into space.
1988 - Three North Sea oil fields are shut down after a giant floating storage vessel, the Medora, broke free of its moorings in gale-force winds.
1997 - The son of an unnamed Cabinet minister (later identified as Jack Straw) is arrested on suspicion of selling drugs.

On This Day - 23rd December

1862 - Connie Mack born
1867 - Madame C.J. Walker born
1873 - Author William Makepeace Thackeray dies
1918 - Jose Greco born
1943 - Harry Shearer (Spinal Tap, The Simpsons) born
1948 - Susan Lucci born
1956 - The United Nations Emergency Force takes over in Egypt after British and French forces withdraw from Port Said and Port Fuad ending the Suez Crisis.
1964 - Dr Richard Beeching who instigated major and controversial changes to the rail network will quit, says the government. Also Eddie Vedder born
1971 - Corey Haim born
1972 - Ten thousand people are feared dead after a two-hour earthquake rips through the Nicaraguan capital, Managua.
1986 - The Soviet Union's most prominent dissident, Andrei Sakharov, has returned to Moscow after almost seven years of internal exile.
1992 - The BBC investigates a leak which led to the Queen's Christmas speech being published in a national newspaper.

On This Day - 22nd December

1912 - Lady Bird Johnson born
1917 - Gene Rayburn born
1922 - Barbara Billingsley born
1943 - Beatrix Potter dies
1945 - Diane Sawyer born
1948 - Steve Garvey born
1949 - Robin and Maurice Gibb born
1972 - The Chilean Air Force finds 14 survivors two months after their plane crashed in the Andes.
1974 - Terrorists bomb the home of the Conservative leader and former Prime Minister Edward Heath.
1989 - Berlin's most famous landmark, the Brandenburg Gate, opens for the first time in nearly 30 years.
1997 - An independent inquiry into the BSE "disaster" and the devastation it wreaked on British farming is announced.
2000 - The American superstar marries British film maker Guy Ritchie at an exclusive ceremony in a Scottish castle hours after their son is christened.
2003 - Guerrillas in Colombia release the Briton Mark Henderson and four Israelis who were kidnapped in September.

On This Day - 21st December

1844 - The worlds first cooperative society if formed in Rochdale
1879 - Joseph Stalin born
1922 - Paul Winchell born
1926 - Joe Paterno born
1935 - Phil Donahue born
1937 - Jane Fonda born
1940 - Frank Zappa born
1948 - Samuel L. Jackson born
1954 - Chris Evert born
1955 - Jane Kaczmarek born
1957 - Ray Romano born
1958 - General Charles de Gaulle is elected President of France with an overwhelming majority.
1959 - Florence Griffith Joyner born
1962 - President Kennedy and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan agree the UK will buy nuclear missiles from the US to form a multilateral Nato nuclear force.
1965 - Andy Dick born
1966 - Kiefer Sutherland born
1969 - Jack Noseworthy born
1977 - The TUC General Council narrowly votes to reject firemen's demands for a public campaign against a 10% limit on wage increases.
1988 - A Pan Am jumbo jet with 259 passengers crashes on to the town of Lockerbie near the Scottish borders after a bomb explodes onboard. All passengers onboard are killed as well as an additional 11 on the ground.
2001 - Police storm a cargo ship in the English Channel after an intelligence tip-off.

On This Day - 20th December

1830 - Belguim gains independence
1835 - The Republic of Texas is proclaimed
1868 - Harvey Firestone born
1898 - Irene Dunne born
1915 - The Allies evacuate Galipoli
1922 - George Roy Hill born
1924 - Hitler is released from prison
1945 - Peter Criss born
1946 - Uri Geller born
1955 - The United Nations General Assembly elects Yugoslavia to the hotly-contested temporary seat on the Security Council.
1957 - Billy Bragg born
1973 - The Spanish Prime Minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, is killed in a car bomb attack in Madrid.
1979 - It is announced that more than five million council house tenants in Britain are to be given the right to buy their home.
1981 - Mousehole lifeboat lost at see with crew
1989 - President George Bush orders the invasion of Panama but US troops fail to capture dictator Manuel Noriega.
1995 - The Queen has urged the Prince and Princess of Wales to seek "an early divorce".

On This Day - 19th December

1902 - Ralph Richardson born
1920 - David Susskind born
1933 - Cicely Tyson born
1934 - Al Kaline born
1944 - Tim Reid, Alvin Lee born and Louis Leakey born
1946 - Robert Urich born
1956 - At least six people die and several others are injured in road accidents in thick fog.
1963 - Jennifer Beals born
1965 - Jessica Steen born
1971 - Amy Locane and 1971 Tyson Beckford born
1972 - Ugandan leader General Idi Amin gives British workers an ultimatum to accept reduced pay or be expelled. Also Alyssa Milano born
1979 - Kristanna Loken born
1984 - It is announced that the British colony of Hong Kong is to be returned to China in 1997 after an historic agreement is signed.
1997 - Conservative party leader William Hague marries his fiancée Ffion Jenkins at ceremony in Westminster.
2003 - Libya makes a surprise announcement that it will destroy its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

On This Day - 18th December

1865 - The 13th amendment abolishing slavery is passed in the US
1886 - Ty Cobb born
1916 - Betty Grable born
1916 - Douglas Fraser born
1917 - Ossie Davis born
1943 - Keith Richards born
1946 - Steven Spielberg born
1950 - The Christmas edition of the Radio Times returns after an industrial dispute in time for the festive season and Leonard Maltin born
1963 - Brad Pitt born
1970 - Rob Van Dam and Earl "DMX" Simmons born
1974 - The Government says it will pay £42,000 compensation to relatives of the 13 men killed in the Bloody Sunday riots in Londonderry nearly three years ago.
1978 - Katie Holmes born
1980 - Christina Aguilera born
1985 - Two Australians are facing the death penalty after their appeal against a conviction for smuggling heroin was rejected by a Malaysian court.
1989 - The Labour Party abandons its policy on trade union closed shops in line with European legislation.
1997 - Scottish Secretary Donald Dewer unveils a blueprint for Scotland's new parliament.

On This Day - 17th December

1894 - Arthur Fiedler born
1903 - The first aircraft flight by the Wright Brothers
1929 - William Safire born
1930 - Bob Guccione born
1942 - Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden condemns the persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe.
1944 - Germany launches Ardennes Offensive (Battle of the Bulge). German tanks, aircraft and paratroops cross the Luxembourg and Belgian borders in massive counter-offensive.
1953 - Bill Pullman born
1958 - Mike Mills born
1968 - An 11-year-old girl Mary Bell, is sentenced to life in detention at Newcastle Assizes for killing two small boys.
1975 - Milla Jovovich born
1976 - Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates reject Opec's recommended 15% oil price increase and choose to impose a lower price rise.
1979 - Ryan Key born
1983 - Three police officers and three members of the public are killed and many others injured after a car bomb attack near Harrods.
1996 - Six Red Cross workers are shot dead as they sleep in a hospital in Chechnya.
2003 - Former school caretaker Ian Huntley is convicted of the murders of 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

On This Day - 16th December

1770 - Ludwig van Beethoven born
1775 - Jane Austen born
1866 - Wassily Kandinsky born
1899 - Noel Coward born
1901 - Margaret Mead born
1916 - Rasputin is murdered
1917 - Arthur C. Clarke born
1939 - Liv Ullmann born
1941 - Lesley Stahl born
1943 - Steven Bochco born
1946 - Benny Andersson born
1949 - Billy Gibbons born
1955 - Her Majesty inaugurates "The Queen's Building", part of the new central terminal area built to accommodate increasing numbers of air passengers at London Airport (now Heathrow).
1962 - William "Refrigerator" Perry born
1963 - Benjamin Bratt born
1969 - MPs vote by a big majority for the permanent abolition of the death penalty for murder.
1971 - Michael McCary born
1977 - The Queen unveils the new underground link from central London to Heathrow - the first from a capital city to its major airport.
1984 - Mikhail Gorbachev, the man widely tipped as the next leader of the Soviet Union, holds five hours of talks with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
2001 - Thousands of countryside campaigners are on the streets of Edinburgh in the largest demonstration of its kind ever witnessed in Scotland.

On This Day - 15th December

1892 - J. Paul Getty born
1911 - Stan Kenton born
1918 - Jeff Chandler born
1928 - Friedensreich Hundertwasser born
1933 - Tim Conway born
1942 - Dave Clark born
1943 - Jazz pianist Fats Waller dies
1949 - Don Johnson born
1958 - British stars of the big screen take part in a fund-raising football match for the family of America actor Bonar Colleano, killed in a car crash earlier this year.
1961 - Nick Beggs born
1974 - British drivers are asked to adhere to reduced speed limits from midnight tonight as the government tries to save fuel.
1982 - Scenes of jubilation as the gates isolating the people of Gibraltar from Spain are to opened for the first time in 13 years.
1993 - The British and Irish prime ministers John Major and Albert Reynolds sign the historic Joint Declaration for Peace on the steps of Downing street.
1994 - Former 800m Commonwealth gold-medallist Diane Modahl is found guilty of taking a banned drug - but is cleared a year later on appeal.
2004 - The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, resigns after an email implicates him in using his position to grant favours to his ex-lover.
2010 - Blake Edwards, film director and husband of Julie Andrews dies aged 88.

On This Day - 14th December

1503 - Nostradamus born
1819 - Alabama becomes the 22nd State of the US
1861 - Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort dies
1911 - Spike Jones born
1914 - Morey Amsterdam born
1919 - Shirley Jackson born
1922 - Don Hewitt born
1932 - Charlie Rich born
1935 - Lee Remick born
1946 - Patty Duke born
1955 - The Labour party elects Hugh Gaitskell as its new leader to succeed Clement Attlee.
1959 - Archbishop Makarios is elected the first president of the future Cyprus Republic.
1962 - The unmanned spacecraft, Mariner 2, makes the first ever fly-by of the planet Venus and sends back radio signals over tens of millions of miles of space.
1972 - Apollo 17, the last manned space mission to the Moon, returns to Earth, bringing an end to America's programme of lunar exploration.
1979 - Michael Owen born
1984 - Miners' leader Arthur Scargill is found guilty of obstruction during a picket at a Yorkshire coal works earlier this year.
1995 - Leaders of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia sign the Dayton Accord in Paris to end more than three years of bitter conflict.
2003 - The ousted President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, is under arrest after being found by US soldiers hiding in a cellar.

On This Day - 13th December

1911 - Kenneth Patchen born
1913 - Archie Moore born
1925 - Dick Van Dyke born
1927 - Christopher Plummer born
1941 - John Davidson born
1948 - Ted Nugent born
1958 - The search for a small bushy-tailed monkey fired into space in the nose cone of a Jupiter rocket is called off. The squirrel monkey named Gordo survived a 300-mile journey into space and then travelled more than 1,500 miles in the rocket until it dropped in the South Atlantic.
1967 - Jamie Foxx born
1972 - More than 300 British victims of the Thalidomide drug are offered a compensation deal said to be worth £11.85m.
1973 - Christie Clark born
1975 - Tom DeLonge born
1981 - Military rulers in Poland declare a state of emergency after imposing martial law and placing leaders of the Solidarity trade union under arrest.
1995 - Hundreds of black and white youths take to the streets of Brixton, in south London attacking police, ransacking shops and burning cars after the death of a black man in police custody.
2001 - A group of gunmen break through tight security to attack the parliament building in the Indian capital, New Delhi.

On This Day - 12th December

1889 - Aurthor Robert Browning dies
1893 - Edward G. Robinson born
1915 - Frank Sinatra born
1918 - Joe Williams born
1923 - Bob Barker born
1923 - Bob Dorough born
1938 - Connie Francis born
1941 - Dionne Warwick born
1946 - Emerson Fittipaldi born
1952 - Cathy Rigby born
1957 - Sheila E. born
1962 - Tracy Austin born
1967 - Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones has a nine-month jail sentence overturned at the Court of Appeal in London.
1969 - Simultaneous bomb explosions in Milan and Rome leave at least 27 people dead and 100 injured.
1970 - Mädchen Amick and Jennifer Connelly born
1974 - Rey Mysterio born
1975 - A six-day siege ends peacefully in London after four IRA gunmen free their two hostages and give themselves up to police and Mayim Bialik born
1988 - Up to 35 people die and 100 others are injured after three trains are involved in a collision during morning rush hour at Clapham Junction, south London.
1992 - Princess Anne becomes Mrs Timothy Laurence after a small family wedding in Scotland.

On This Day - 11th December

1816 - Indiana becomes the 19th State of the US
1882 - Fiorello La Guardia born
1901 - Marconi transmits the first transatlantic wireless message
1913 - Carlo Ponti born
1931 - Rit Moreno born
1936 - Edward VIII abdictates
1941 - Germany and Italy announce they are at war with the United States. America immediately responds by declaring war on the two Axis powers.
1942 - Donna Mills born
1943 - John Kerry born
1944 - Brenda Lee born
1949 - Teri Garr born
1954 - Jermaine Jackson born
1975 - An Icelandic gunboat opens fire on unarmed British fishery support vessels in the North Atlantic Sea.
1979 - The Zimbabwe-Rhodesian Parliament votes itself out of office and hands power back to the British until democratic elections can take place.Also Rider Strong born
1986 - A Church of England Bishop joins Roman Catholic authorities in criticising the "Play Safe" slogan on sexual relationships as showing a disregard for morals.
1994 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin orders tanks and troops into the rebel region of Chechnya.
2001 - Up to 30,000 Post Office workers are told they could lose their jobs over the next 18 months.
2005 - A series of massive explosions lead to an enormous fire at Buncefield, one of Britain's largest oil depots sending thick black smoke drifting up to 40 miles away.

On This Day - 10th December

1817 - Mississippi becomes the 20th State of the US
1830 - South American revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar dies.
1830 - Emily Dickinson born
1901 - The first Nobel prizes were awarded
1902 - The Sawan Dam is completed
1911 - Chet Huntley born
1914 - Dorothy Lamour born
1952 - Susan Dey born
1960 - Kenneth Branagh born
1961 - Albert Luthuli, leader of the banned African National Congress, appeals for racial equality in South Africa after accepting the Nobel peace prize for 1960 in Oslo, Norway.
1979 - Stuntman Eddie Kidd accomplishes a "death-defying" motorcycle leap, crossing an 80ft gap over a 50ft sheer drop above a viaduct, on a 400cc motorcycle.
1981 - It is announced that a mysterious epidemic, discovered in homosexual men, is causing increasing concern in the United States.
1988 - 25,000 people die and a further 500,000 are left homeless after the devastating earthquake ripped through Armenia.
1990 - The first of the hostages held in the Gulf for four-and-a-half months arrive in Britain after their release by Saddam Hussein.
2003 - The Court of Appeal overturns the conviction of Angela Cannings, jailed for life for the murder of her two baby sons.

On This Day - 9th December

1608 - 17th century english poet John Milton born
1868 - William Gladstone becomes British Prime Minister
1898 - Emmett Kelly born
1902 - Margaret Hamilton born
1909 - Douglas Fairbanks born
1916 - Kirk Douglas born
1922 - Redd Foxx born
1925 - Dina Merrill born
1928 - Dick Van Patten born
1930 - Buck Henry born
1934 - Judy Dench born
1941 - Beau Bridges born
1942 - Dick Butkus born
1952 - Sunshine returns to London following four days of dense fog in which transport was brought to a standstill.
1953 - John Malkovich born
1957 - Donny Osmond born
1968 - Kurt Angle born
1969 - Jakob Dylan born
1970 - David Kersh born
1972 - Tre Cool born
1973 - Tripartite talks on Northern Ireland end in the signing of the 'Sunnigdale Agreement' to set up a Council of Ireland.
1974 - Emjay born
1987 - The England cricket tour to Pakistan is under threat of being called off following a row between Mike Gatting and the umpire Shakoor Rana.
1992 - US troops arrive in Somalia in a bid to aid thousands of starving locals.
1993 - Astronauts put Hubble back in action
1996 - Horrett Campbell, 33, who attacked three children and four women with a machete at an infant school teddy bears' picnic is found guilty of seven counts of attempted murder.

On This Day - 8th December

1542 - Mary Queen of Scots born
1865 - Jean Sibelius born
1886 - Diego Rivera born
1894 - James Thurber born
1911 - Lee J. Cobb born
1916 - Richard Fleischer born
1925 - Sammy Davis born
1930 - Maximilian Schell born
1933 - Flip Wilson born
1936 - David Carradine born
1939 - James Galway born
1943 - Jim Morrison born
1947 - Gregg Allman born
1953 - Kim Basinger born
1964 - Teri Hatcher born
1965 - The Race Relations Act comes into force in the UK, making racial discrimination unlawful in public places.
1966 - Sinead O'Connor born
1980 - John Lennon is shot dead by Mark Chapman outside the musician's apartment in the Dakota Building, on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
1983 - The House of Lords votes in favour of allowing cameras to broadcast live discussions from its chamber.
1987 - Leaders of the world's two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States of America sign the first ever treaty to reduce the size of their ground-based nuclear arsenals.
1995 - Head teacher Philip Lawrence is stabbed to death outside his west London school whilst protecting a pupil who was being assaulted.
2003 - A court in Athens convicts 15 key members of Greece's most infamous left-wing terrorist group known as November 17.

On This Day - 7th December

1910 - Louis Prima born
1915 - Eli Wallach born
1916 - Lloyd George becomes British Prime Minister
1923 - Ted Knight born
1932 - Ellen Burstyn born
1941 - Japan has launches a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, declaring war on Britain and the United States. Within two hours, six battleships had been sunk, another 112 vessels sunk or damaged, and 164 aircraft destroyed.
1942 - Harry Chapin born
1947 - Johnny Bench born
1949 - Tom Waits born
1955 - Clement Attlee resigns as leader of the opposition Labour Party, following months of speculation.
1956 - Larry Bird born
1958 - Edd Hall born
1966 - C. Thomas Howell born
1967 - Tino Martinez born
1979 - Cabinet minister Lord Soames is named transitional governor of Rhodesia to oversee its progress into legal independence.
1983 - Chief chimney-toppler Fred Dibnah is halted in his work after a ginger tomcat got to his latest assignment first.
1993 - Dozens of people are injured at the end of a 20-year battle to save a 250-year-old chestnut tree in east London.
2001 - Taleban surrender Kandahar

On This Day - 6th December

1833 - John Singleton Mosby born
1870 - William S. Hart born
1886 - Joyce Kilmer born
1887 - Lynn Fontanne born
1896 - Ira Gershwin born
1906 - Agnes Moorehead born
1920 - Dave Brubeck born
1924 - Wally Cox born
1926 - Artist Claude Monet dies
1936 - David Ossman born
1953 - Tom Hulce born
1955 - Steven Wright born
1956 - Peter Buck born
1957 - Andrew Cuomo born
1962 - Choking fog spreads across Britain
1969 - Andrew J. Howard born
1975 - Three armed IRA men on the run from police burst into a flat in central London and take two people hostage.
1978 - Spaniards turn out in force to cast a vote for democracy and end almost 40 years of dictatorial rule.
1983 - Swedish journalist, Lars Ljungberg, underwent the first heart and lung transplant operation to be performed in Britain.
1992 - A mob of Hindu militants tear down a mosque and attack other Muslim targets in the north Indian town of Ayodhya, in one of India's worst outbreaks of inter-communal violence.
1994 - The Queen gives the go ahead for oil drilling to take place in the grounds of Windsor Castle.
2005 - David Cameron is elected the new Conservative leader by a margin of more than two to one over David Davis.

On This Day - 5th December

1782 - 8th President of the USA and one time American Ambassidor to the UK, Martin Van Buren born
1839 - George Armstrong Custer born
1901 - Walt Disney born
1902 - Strom Thurmond born
1905 - Sir Henry Campbell-Banner becomes the British Prime Minister
1906 - Otto Preminger born
1922 - The Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) is proclaimed
1932 - Little Richard born
1933 - Prohibition in the US ends
1947 - Jim Messina born
1950 - Chinese troops have enter the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, as United Nations forces are pushed steadily back towards South Korea.
1951 - Morgan Brittany born
1965 - John Rzeznik born
1967 - Gary Allan born
1977 - President Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt breaks all relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria and South Yemen.
1989 - Margaret Thatcher survives the first challenge to the leadership of the Conservative Party by beating backbencher Sir Anthony Meyer in a ballot at Westminster.
1991 - Administrators are called in to try and salvage the Maxwell business empire, which is at least £1bn in debt.
1995 - Sri Lankan troops drive the Tamil Tiger guerrillas out of their heartland capital of Jaffna after a 49-day operation.

On This Day - 4th December

1872 - The Mary Celeste (not Marie) is found abandoned
1892 - Francisco Franco born
1944 - Dennis Wilson born
1949 - Jeff Bridges born
1961 - The Health Minister, Enoch Powell, announces that women who wish to have oral contraception will be able to get it on the National Health Service.
1963 - Jozef Sabovcik born
1964 - Marisa Tomei born
1970 - Jay-Z born
1971 - 15 people, including a 13-year-old boy and a woman, are killed and 17 injured after a bomb explodes in a crowded pub in Belfast.
1973 - Tyra Banks born
1976 - Benjamin Britten, considered to be Britain's leading composer, dies aged 63.
1981 - Lila McCann born
1983 - SAS soldiers involved in undercover operations in Northern Ireland shoot dead two IRA gunmen and injured a third man who escaped.
1991 - Terry Anderson, the last and longest-held US hostage in Lebanon, is freed after six and a half years.
2003 - The US President, George W Bush, withdraws a punitive tax on imported steel to avoid a damaging trade war between the United States and Europe.

On This Day - 3rd December

1818 - Illinois becomes the 21st State of the US
1857 - Joseph Conrad born
1930 - Andy Williams born
1930 - Jean-Luc Godard born
1948 - Ozzy Osbourne born
1960 - Julianne Moore and Daryl Hannah born
1965 - An all-white jury in the southern US state of Alabama convicts three Ku Klux Klansmen over the murder of white civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo.
1968 - Brendan Fraser born
1971 - Border battles between India and Pakistan erupt into full-scale war.
1972 - Bucky Lasek born
1973 - Holly Marie Combs born
1980 - Anna Chlumsky born
1981 - Brian Bonsall born
1984 - Thousands of people die from the effects of toxic gases which leaked from theAmerican-owned Union Carbide Pesticide Plant near the central Indian city of Bhopal.
1989 - The leaders of the two world superpowers, the USA and the USSR, declare an end to the Cold War after two days of storm-lashed talks at the Malta summit.
1988 - Health minister Edwina Currie provokes outrage by saying most of Britain's egg production is infected with the salmonella bacteria.
1992 - Two IRA bombs explode in the centre of Manchester injuring 65 people.

On This Day - 2nd December

1814 - The Marquis de Sade dies
1859 - Georges Seurat born
1863 - Charles Ringling born
1923 - Maria Callas born
1946 - Gianni Versace born
1948 - Cathy Lee Crosby born
1952 - Michael McDonald born
1954 - US President Dwight D Eisenhower announces the signing of a pact of mutual security with the Nationalist Chinese Government.
1968 - Lucy Liu born
1973 - Monica Seles born
1977 - Security police in South Africa are exonerated of any blame in the death of black consciousness leader Steve Biko who died while in detention. In addition the United States Senate censures Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy for conduct unbecoming to a senator.
1978 - Nelly Furtado born
1980 - Ric Felix born
1981 - Britney Spears born
1988 - Thousands of people die in the most devastating cyclone to strike Bangladesh in almost 20 years, the UN reports.
1995 - Former futures trader Nick Leeson is jailed for six-and-a-half years for his part in the collapse of Britain's oldest merchant bank.

On This Day - 1st December

1897 - Cyril Ritchard born
1913 - Mary Martin born
1919 - Nancy Astor becomes the first female MP
1935 - Woody Allen born
1936 - Lou Raw
1939 - Lee Trevino born
1940 - Richard Pryor born
1942 - The coalition British Government has unveils plans for a welfare state offering care to all from the cradle to the grave.
1943 - Allied leaders of Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union have ended a landmark conference held in Tehran, the capital of Iran.
1944 - John Densmore born
1945 - Bette Midler born
1955 - Rosa Parks is arrested by police in Montgomery, Alabama, after refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white person.
1965 - The Labour Government puts forward a plan to improve production in farming and decrease Britain's reliance on imports of beef.
1970 - Julie Condra born
1973 - David Ben-Gurion, a founder of the Israeli state and its first prime minister, dies aged 87.
1977 - Brad Delson born
1986 - Guinness shares plunge by £300m after the government ordered an inquiry into the affairs of the company.
1990 - Construction workers drill through the final wall of rock to join the two halves of the Channel Tunnel and link Britain to France.

On This Day - 30th November

1667 - Author of Gullivers Travels Jonathan Swift born
1835 - Mark Twain born
1874 - Winston Churchill born
1900 - Poet and playwrite Oscar Wilde dies
1912 - Gordon Parks born
1923 - Efrem Zimbalist born
1924 - Shirley Chisholm born
1926 - Richard Crenna born
1929 - Dick Clark born
1930 - G. Gordon Liddy born
1936 - Abbie Hoffman born
1937 - Robert Guillaume born
1947 - David Mamet born
1952 - Mandy Patinkin born
1953 - Shuggie Otis born
1954 - The Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, celebrates his 80th birthday in a day of ceremonies and tributes to his remarkable career.
1955 - Billy Idol born
1962 - Bo Jackson born
1965 - Ben Stiller born
1968 - The Trade Descriptions Act comes into effect.
1978 - Clay Aiken born
1982 - A letter bomb explodes inside 10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister's London residence.
1994 - Almost 1,000 people are forced to abandon the luxury cruise ship 'The Achille Lauro' in the Indian Ocean after it caught fire.
1995 - The people of Northern Ireland give a rapturous welcome to President Bill Clinton, the first serving US president to visit their country.
1999 - The Government announces that the beef-on-the-bone ban will be lifted next month.

On This Day - 29th November

1832 - Louisa May Alcott born
1895 - Busby Berkeley born
1898 - C.S. Lewis born
1908 - Adam Clayton Powell born
1918 - Madeline L'Engle born
1927 - Vin Scully born
1932 - Diane Ladd born
1933 - John Mayall born
1939 - Peter Bergman born
1940 - Chuck Mangione born
1949 - Garry Shandling born
1955 - Howie Mandel born
1956 - The government issues further details of its plans for rationing petrol from next month and Jeff Fahey born
1960 - Cathy Moriarty born
1961 - Kim Delaney born
1963 - A Canadian jet has crashes within minutes of take-off, killing all 118 people on board.
1968 - Jon Knight born
1975 - Former motor racing champion and father of Damon, Graham Hill killed in air crash
1985 - A young family of four are killed in an explosion in a block of flats in Glasgow.
1993 - The Conservative government comes under attack in the Commons over the revelations it has had secret contacts with the IRA.
1999 - Northern Ireland moves a step closer to ending 25 years of direct rule from London after the election of a Northern Ireland Assembly.

On This Day - 28th November

1894 - Brooks Atkinson born
1929 - Berry Gordy born
1943 - Randy Newman born
1946 - Joe Dante born
1949 - Paul Shaffer and Alexander Godunov born
1950 - Ed Harris born
1959 - Judd Nelson born
1965 - Jon Stewart born
1967 - All horse racing in Britain is cancelled indefinitely to help prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease and Anna Nicole Smith born
1988 - Scarlett Pomers born
1990 - Margaret Thatcher formally tenders her resignation to the Queen early this morning after leaving Downing Street for the last time.
1994 - Norway votes to reject membership of the European Union in a referendum, for the second time in its history.
1999 - Eleven people are injured in a sword attack at a church in south London.
2010 - Naked Gun and Airplane actor Leslie Nielsen dies age 84.

On This Day - 27th November

1909 - James Agee born
1940 - Bruce Lee born
1941 - Eddie Rabbit born
1942 - Jimi Hendrix born
1956 - Rick Rockwell born
1957 - Caroline Kennedy born
1961 - The Royal Air Force has begins airlifting to drop food supplies to flood victims in Somalia.
1964 - Robin Givens born
1967 - French President, Charles de Gaulle says he will veto Britain's application to join the Common Market for a second time.
1970 - Brooke Langton born
1975 - Guinness Book of Records co-founder and editor Ross McWhirter has been shot dead outside his North London home.
1976 - Jaleel White born
1990 - John Major becomes leader of Tory party and Prime Minister
2000 - A schoolboy Damilola Taylor dies after being stabbed in the leg by a gang of hooded attackers in Peckham, south London.

On This Day - 26th November

1912 - Eric Sevareid born
1912 - Eugene Ionesco born
1922 - Charles Schulz born
1933 - Robert Goulet born
1938 - Rich Little born
1939 - Tina Turner born
1953 - Peers back the Conservative Government's proposals for the introduction of commercial television - despite fierce opposition from some rebels.
1968 - The new Race Relations Act comes into force, making it illegal to refuse housing, employment or public services to people because of their ethnic background.
1972 - Eight armed men protesting against the imprisonment of IRA member Sean MacStiofain try to rescue him from a Dublin hospital.
1983 - An armed gang carries out Britain's largest ever robbery at London's Heathrow Airport. Over £25m worth of gold bullion bound for the Far East was stolen from the Brinks Mat warehouse.
1992 - It is announced that a British monarch is to pay income tax for the first time since the 1930s.

On This Day -25th November

1846 - Carry Nation born
1870 - Solanus Casey born
1914 - Joe DiMaggio born
1920 - Ricardo Montalban born
1923 - The first transatlantic wireless broadcast is mde
1924 - Paul Desmond born
1947 - John Larroquette born
1960 - John F. Kennedy Jnr and Amy Grant born
1963 - The funeral of the assassinated President, John F Kennedy, takes place in Washington DC.
1971 - Christina Applegate born
1973 - The Greek Government is toppled by the country's armed forces after weeks of unrest.
1976 - Donovan McNabb born
1981 - Barbara and Jenna Bush born
1991 - The man who was jailed for life in 1987 for killing a police officer is cleared of the crime. Winston Silcott was convicted in 1985 of the murder of PC Keith Blakelock during the Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham, north London.
1998 - The government of Turkey collapses after losing a no-confidence motion over corruption allegations.

On This Day - 24th November

1784 - The 12th President of the U.S. and opponent of slavery Zachary Taylor is born.
1853 - Bat Masterson born
1868 - Scott Joplin born
1888 - Dale Carnegie born
1925 - William F. Buckley born
1945 - Quisling is executed
1963 - Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of assassinating John F Kennedy, is himself shot dead in a Dallas police station.
1974 - Police charge six men in connection with the Birmingham pub bombings three days ago. Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Hill, Robert Hunter, Noel McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker were accused of the murder of the youngest victim of the attacks.
1978 - Katherine Heigl born
1985 - The hijacking of an EgyptAir passenger jet to Malta ends in violence and further bloodshed after the plane was stormed by Egyptian commandoes. Two crew members and 59 of the 90 passengers were killed.
1989 - The entire leadership of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia resigns to make way for democratic changes.
1991 - Freddie Mercury dies aged 45, just one day after he publicly announced he was HIV positive.
1998 - The government unveils its plans to abolish the rights of 700 hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.
2005 - Round-the-clock drinking in England and Wales is now a reality after new licensing laws came in force at midnight.

On This Day - 23rd November

1804 - Franklin Pierce born
1859 - Billy the Kid born
1887 - Boris Karloff born
1888 - Harpo Marx born
1910 - Dr Crippen is hanged
1925 - Johnny Mandel born
1954 - Bruce Hornsby born
1960 - Phil Wrend born
1963 - Fifty-five year old Lyndon Baines Johnson begins his new job as US president.
He was sworn in yesterday just two hours after an assassin shot President John F Kennedy in the head.
1967 - Salli Richardson born
1978 - Birmingham nightclub 'Pollyanna's' is ordered to open its doors to black and Chinese people after a year long investigation into racism.
1984 - Almost 1,000 passengers are trapped in smoke-filled tunnels for three hours after a fire at London's busiest underground station, Oxford Circus.
1996 - A hijacked passenger jet crashes into the Indian Ocean after running out of fuel. Out of the 175 passengers and crew on board at least 100 people were killed when Flight ET961 broke up during an emergency landing 1,640 feet (500 metres) from a holiday beach on the Comoro Islands.
2002 - The Miss World contest is moved to London from Nigeria after riots by Muslim youths opposed to the show left more than 100 people dead and 500 injured in the city of Kaduna.

On This Day - 22nd November

1890 - Charles de Gaulle born
1899 - Hoagy Carmichael born
1900 - Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame dies
1913 - Benjamin Britten born
1921 - Rodney Dangerfield born
1932 - Robert Vaughn born
1943 - Billie Jean King born
1958 - Jamie Lee Curtis born
1961 - Mariel Hemingway born
1963 - The President of the United States has been assassinated by a gunman in Dallas, Texas. John F Kennedy was hit in the head and throat when three shots were fired at his open-topped car.
1971 - Five teenagers and their female instructor die in one of Scotland's worst mountaineering accidents.
1979 - Scott Robinson born
1984 - Scarlett Johansson born
1990 - It is announced that Margaret Thatcher is to stand down as prime minister after her Cabinet refused to back her in a second round of leadership elections.
1995 - Rosemary West is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 10 young women and girls.
1997 - Michael Hutchence, the Australian rock star and front man of INXS, the country's most successful band, is found dead in an hotel room in Sydney aged 37.
2003 - England win the Rugby World Cup, beating Australia 20-17 in the final.
2005 - Angela Merkel, leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU), is sworn in as Germany's first woman chancellor at a ceremony in the country's parliament.

On This Day - 21st November

1694 - French writer and philospher Voltaire born.
1785 - William Beaumont born
1898 - Rene Magritte born
1920 - Stan Musial born
1922 - Ramsey MacDonald becomes leader of the Labour Party
1927 - Joseph Campanella born
1938 - Marlo Thomas born
1941 - Juliet Mills born
1944 - Harold Ramis born
1945 - Goldie Hawn born
1965 - Björk born
1966 - Troy Aikman born
1967 - The number of animals slaughtered in the latest epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease reaches a record high of 134,000.
1969 - Ken Griffey born
1974 - Bombs devastate two central Birmingham pubs, killing 19 people and injuring over 180.
1985 - The Geneva summit ends in optimism but with no agreement on the "Star Wars" space defence system.
1979 - A mob in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, burns the US Embassy to the ground, killing a US marine.
1995 - A peace settlement for war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina is brokered in the United States.

On This Day - 20th November

1908 - Alistair Cooke born
1925 - Robert F. Kennedy born
1926 - Kaye Ballard born
1927 - Estelle Parsons born
1932 - Richard Dawson born
1939 - Dick Smothers born
1943 - Veronica Hamel born
1945 - Twenty of Germany's Nazi leaders go on trial in the German city of Nuremberg charged with war crimes.
1946 - Duane Allman born
1951 - More than 1,000 families of British servicemen begin moving out of the Suez Canal Zone town of Ismailia.
1956 - Bo Derek born
1965 - Mike Diamond born
1975 - General Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain with an authoritarian hand for 39 years, dies at the age of 82.
1978 - MP Jeremy Thorpe is accused in court of plotting to kill his former homosexual lover and dispose of the body.
1986 - Police have begin a search for more victims of the Moors murderers, after receiving new information from Myra Hindley.
1990 - The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, fails to win outright victory in her battle against former Defence Minister Michael Heseltine for the leadership of the Conservative Party.
1992 - A fierce fire rages through Windsor Castle in Berkshire, threatening one of the world's greatest collections of art.
1995 - Diana, Princess of Wales, speakes openly for the first time about her separation from the Prince of Wales in a frank interview for the BBC's Panorama programme.
2003 - 32 people are killed and more than 400 injured in twin bomb attacks in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

On This Day - 19th November

1828 - Composer Franz Schubert dies
1905 - Tommy Dorsey born
1917 - Indira Gandhi born
1933 - Larry King born
1936 - Dick Cavett born
1938 - Ted Turner born
1942 - Calvin Klein born
1961 - Meg Ryan born
1962 - Jodie Foster born
1967 - The Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, defends his decision to devalue the pound saying it will tackle the "root cause" of Britain's economic problems.
1969 - A second crew of astronauts lands on the Moon with the Apollo 12 mission to the Ocean of Storms.
1977 - The president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, begins his trip to Israel, the first Arab leader ever to visit the Jewish state and Kerri Strug born.
1985 - The first meeting in six years between the world's superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union), begins in Switzerland.
1992 - Doctors treating Hillsborough victim Tony Bland are told by High Court in London, they can disconnect feeding tubes keeping him alive.
1994 - An estimated jackpot of £7m is up for grabs in Britain's first ever National Lottery draw.

On This Day - 18th November

1836 - William Gilbert born
1899 - Eugene Ormandy born
1908 - Imogene Coca born
1923 - The first American in space Alan B Shepard born
1939 - Brenda Vaccaro born
1942 - Linda Evans born
1960 - Elizabeth Perkins born
1962 - Kirk Lee Hammett born
1967 - A ban on the movement of farm animals is imposed across the whole of England and Wales in an attempt to curb the spread of the foot-and-mouth epidemic.
1968 - Owen Wilson born
1978 - The bodies of 914 people, including 276 children, are found in Guyana in South America, following the mass suicide of members of the People's Temple Christian Church.
1987 - 31 people die after a fire at King's Cross station in central London.
1989 - More than 50,000 people take to the streets of Sofia in Bulgaria demanding political reform.
1991 - Church envoy Terry Waite is freed by the Islamic extremists who kidnapped him in Beirut in 1987.
2000 - The film world celebrates the celebrity wedding of the year in New York, as Hollywood leading man Michael Douglas married Welsh actress Catherine Zeta Jones.
2003 - The United States President, George Bush, arrives in Britain for the first full state visit by an American president amid some of the tightest security London has ever seen.

On This Day - 17th November

1869 - The Suez Canal opens
1901 - Lee Strasberg born
1917 - Sculpter Auguste Rodin dies
1925 - Rock Hudson born
1938 - Gordon Lightfoot born
1942 - Martin Scorsese born
1943 - Lauren Hutton born
1944 - Lorne Michaels, Danny DeVito and Tom Sever born
1953 - Twenty Italian sailors die following a collision between two boats in the English Channel.
1960 - RuPaul born
1966 - Daisy Fuentes born
1977 - Laura Wilkinson born
1980 - Isaac Hanson born
1986 - The head of the Renault car company, Georges Besse, is assassinated in Paris.
1989 - Riot police in Prague, Czechoslovakia arrest hundreds of people taking part in a protest march.
1997 - 68 people are killed after an attack on a group of foreign tourists visiting a temple in Luxor, southern Egypt.
2003 - An ex-soldier who served in the Gulf War is found guilty of at least one of the Washington sniper killings in October last year.

On This Day - 16th November

1908 - Burgess Meredith born
1916 - Daws Butler born
1922 - Andrew Bonar Law becomes Prime Minister and Shigeru Miyamoto born
1960 - British TV personality Gilbert Harding, who achieved fame through his outspoken and often rude behaviour, dies of a heart attack.
1964 - Dwight Gooden born
1967 - Lisa Bonet born
1976 - Seven men who took part in an £8m 'Bank of America' robbery receive jail terms totalling nearly 100 years.
1977 - Oksana Baiul born
1979 - The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, names Sir Anthony Blunt, a former security service officer and personal adviser on art to the Queen as the "fourth man" in the Cambridge spy ring and Trevor Penick born
1983 - 50 English football supporters are arrested in Luxembourg after a night of violence.
1995 - The Queen Mother has her right hip replaced in an operation in London.
2010 - The engagement of Prince William and Catherine Middleton is announced by Clarence House.

On This Day - 15th November

1887 - Georgia O'Keeffe born
1919 - Judge Joseph Wapner born
1928 - Bill "C.W. McCall" Fries born
1929 - Ed Asner born
1932 - Petula Clark born
1940 - The German Luftwaffe bombs Coventry in a massive raid which lasted more than 10 hours and left much of the city devastated. Also Sam Waterston born
1945 - Frida Lyngstad born
1951 - Anti-government rebels ambush and kill 11 people in an attack on a rubber plantation in Malaya.
1977 - Princess Anne gives birth to a boy (Peter Mark Andrew Phillips), the first royal baby to be born a commoner for more than 500 years.
1983 - John Le Mesurier and Yom Horn Die
1985 - Britain and the Republic of Ireland sign a deal giving Dublin a role in Northern Ireland for the first time in more than 60 years - unionists accuse Mrs Thatcher or treachery.
1998 - Britain and America have pulled back from the brink of war with Iraq after an offer to let UN weapons inspectors back into the country.

On This Day - 14th November

1765 - Robert Fulton born
1840 - Claude Monet born
1889 - Jawaharlal Nehru born
1900 - Aaron Copland born
1904 - Dick Powell born
1909 - Senator Joseph McCarthy born
1910 - Rosemary DeCamp born
1919 - Veronica Lake born
1921 - Brian Keith born
1929 - McLean Stevenson born
1935 - King Hussein of Jordan born
1948 - Prince Charles born
1954 - Condoleezza Rice and Yanni born
1973 - The wedding of the Queen's only daughter, Princess Anne to lieutenant Mark Phillips, takes place at Westminster Abbey. Also Six men and two women are convicted of exploding two IRA car bombs in London in March this year.
1975 - Travis Barker born
1977 - Firefighters claim widespread support for their first national strike, over a 30% pay demand.
1991 - Two Libyan intelligence officers are accused of masterminding the Lockerbie bombing.
2000 - Convoys of lorries and tractors converge on the capitals of England and Scotland to mark the 60-day deadline for government action to cut fuel tax.
2010 - Paul and Rachel Chandler are released in Somalia 13 months after being kindnapped by pirates. Sebastian Vettel became Formula One's youngest ever world champion after winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix aged 23 years and 106 days.

On This Day - 13th November

1850 - Robert Louis Stevenson born
1856 - Louis Brandeis born
1871 - Henry Stanley finds Dr Livingstone
1911 - Andrew Bonar Law becomes leader of the Tory Party
1915 - Nathaniel Benchley born
1920 - The first session of the League of Nations is convened
1922 - Oskar Werner born
1938 - Jean Seberg born
1945 - Charles de Gaulle elected president of France
1954 - Chris Noth born
1955 - Whoopi Goldberg born
1969 - Britain's first live quintuplets born this century are said to be making satisfactory progress at Queen Charlotte's maternity hospital in London.
1971 - The American space probe, Mariner 9, becomes the first spacecraft to orbit another planet, swinging into its planned trajectory around Mars without a hitch.
1979 - The Times newspaper is published for the first time in nearly a year.
1981 - Rachel Bilson born
1985 - Nevado del Ruiz erupts in Colombia killing 23,000 people
1995 - An 18-year-old student is placed on a life-support machine after taking an ecstasy tablet at her 18th birthday party.
2010 - Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is freed by the country's military rulers after being under house arrest for seven years.