On This Day - 4th September

1907 - Composer Edvard Greig dies
1908 - Richard Wright born
1917 - Henry Ford II born
1918 - Paul Harvey born
1930 - Mitzi Gaynor born
1949 - Tom Watson born
1957 - The Wolfenden Report suggests consenting sex between homosexual adults "in private" should no longer be a criminal offence in Britain.
1958 - Dr. Drew Pinsky born
1960 - Damon Wayans born
1964 - The Queen officially opens Europe's longest suspension bridge linking Edinburgh to Perth across the River Forth.
1968 - Mike Piazza born
1970 - Ione Skye born
1973 - Jason David Frank born
1978 - At least two million people are made homeless as the worst floods in living memory hit northern India.
1980 - Dan Miller born
1981 - Beyoncé Knowles born
1985 - The first pictures of the wreck of the Titanic are released 73 years after the liner sank with the loss of 1,500 lives.
1997 - Eight people are killed and over 150 injured in a series of suicide bomb attacks in the centre of Jerusalem.

On This Day - 3rd September

1892 - Keir Hardie Britains first socialist MP takes his seat
1913 - Alan Ladd born
1914 - Kitty Carlisle Hart born
1935 - Eileen Brennan born
1939 - Britain and France declare war on Germany following the invasion of Poland two days ago.
1943 - British troops land on mainland Europe four years to the day after war was declared on Germany and Valerie Perrine born
1954 - The National Trust purchases Fair Isle in northern Scotland famous for its bird sanctuary and knitted sweaters.
1965 - Charlie Sheen born
1976 - The last protesting imates at Hull's top-security prison finally surrender after 67 hours on the rampage.
1984 - At least 1,300 people die and hundreds more are injured as the worst storm in living memory sweeps across the southern Philippines.
1998 - A Swissair plane flying from New York to Geneva crashes in the sea off the coast of Nova Scotia, just over an hour after taking off.
2004 - More than 200 people die after a three-day siege at a Russian school came to a bloody end.
2012 - Actor Michael Clarke Duncan dies aged 54 of natural causes following a heart attack.

On This Day - 2nd September

1910 - Artist Henri Rousseau dies
1945 - Japanese officials sign the act of unconditional surrender, finally bringing to an end six years of world war.
1948 - Christa McAuliffe born
1951 - British designers hold a fashion show of 40 outfits they plan to show at the Venice Biennale arts festival and Mark Harmon born
1952 - Jimmy Connors born
1964 - Keanu Reeves born
1965 - Lennox Lewis born
1968 - Salma Hayek born
1976 - Erin Hershey born
1979 - Police discover the body of a young woman - thought to be the 12th victim of the "Yorkshire Ripper" - in an alleyway near the centre of Bradford.
1984 - A 14-year-old girl and six bikers are killed in a gun battle between rival gangs in a suburb of Sydney, Australia.
1994 - Entertainer and television presenter Roy Castle dies from cancer at his Buckinghamshire home, just two days after his 62nd birthday.

On This Day - 1st September

1875 - Edgar Rice Burroughs born
1897 - The Boston Undergound opens
1912 - Composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor dies
1922 - Vittorio Gassman born
1922 - Yvonne DeCarlo born
1923 - Tokyo devastated by earthquake which claimed the lives of at least 100,000 people and boxer Rocky Marciano born
1933 - Conway Twitty born
1935 - Seiji Ozawa born
1939 - German forces attack Poland across all frontiers and its planes bomb Polish cities, including the capital, Warsaw - Britain and France prepare to declare war.
1939 - Lily Tomlin born
1946 - Barry Gibb born
1950 - Dr. Phil McGraw born
1957 - Gloria Estefan born
1960 - Britain's first betting shops will be allowed to open for business from May 1961, the government announces.
1969 - King Idris of Libya is deposed after a group of officers take power and declare the country a republic.
1976 - The first of 11,500 standpipes are connected in Yorkshire as local reservoirs reach their lowest levels in years.
1983 - The United States accuses the USSR of shooting down a civilian airliner which is missing off Russia's eastern coast.
1997 - The driver of the car in which Princess Diana was fatally injured had been drinking, French investigators reveal.
2003 - The widow of Dr David Kelly tells the Hutton inquiry he ended his life feeling let down by his political masters.

On This Day - 31st August

1870 - Maria Montessori born
1903 - Arthur Godfrey born
1908 - William Saroyan born
1918 - Alan Jay Lerner born
1924 - Buddy Hackett born
1928 - James Coburn born
1932 - Roy Castle born
1935 - Frank Robinson born
1935 - Eldridge Cleaver born
1945 - Itzhak Perlman born
1945 - Van Morrison born
1949 - Richard Gere born
1957 - The Federation of Malaya becomes independent from Britain after a midnight handover ceremony.
1959 - British prime minister Harold Macmillan and American president Dwight Eisenhower give an historic live television broadcast from Downing Street.
1970 - Deborah Gibson born
1972 - Chris Tucker born
1977 - Ian Smith's ruling Rhodesian Front wins an overwhelming victory in the country's general election and WWE wrestler Jeff Hardy born
1979 - Chad Brannon born
1989 - Buckingham Palace confirms that after 16 years of marriage Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips are to live apart.
1994 - The IRA announces a "complete cessation of military operations" after 25 years of bombing and killing.
1997 - Diana, Princess of Wales, is killed after her car crashes in a Paris underpass - the driver and her friend Dodi Fayed are also died.

On This Day - 30th August

1797 - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley born
1898 - Shirley Booth born
1908 - Fred MacMurray born
1918 - Ted Williams born
1930 - Warren Buffett born
1943 - Jean-Claude Killy born
1944 - Frank "Tug" McGraw born
1947 - Peggy Lipton born
1951 - Timothy Bottoms born
1953 - Robert Parrish born
1966 - Michael Michele born
1968 - Senior members of the Royal Family attend the funeral of Princess Marina, the Duchess of Kent.
1972 - Cameron Diaz born
1973 - Lisa Ling born
1974 - Rich Cronin born
1976 - More than 100 police officers are taken to hospital after clashes at the Notting Hill Carnival in west London.
1980 - Striking Polish workers win a sweeping victory in a battle with their Communist rulers for the right to independent trade unions and the right to strike.
1982 - The leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Yasser Arafat leaves his Beirut headquarters after more than a decade and tennis player Andy Roddick born.
2001 - Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic is charged with genocide - the most serious of all war crimes.

On This Day - 29th August

1842 - This the first of the two Opium wars ended up foring China to open up a number of ports to British ships and to cede Hong Kong to the British
1877 - Mormon leader Brigham Young dies
1898 - Preston Sturges born
1915 - Ingrid Bergman born
1917 - Isabel Sanford born
1920 - Charlie "Bird" Parker born
1923 - Richard Attenborough born
1928 - Dick O'Neill born
1936 - John McCain born
1938 - Elliott Gould born
1939 - William Friedkin born
1941 - Robin Leach born
1947 - James Hunt born
1950 - British troops arrive in Korea to bolster the US presence there.
1958 - Michael Jackson born
1965 - Gemini V returns to Earth
1971 - Carla Gugino born
1974 - At least 220 people are arrested following disturbances at a rock festival in Windsor Great Park in Berkshire.
1975 - Dante Basco born
1986 - Britain's oldest twins reach 100 and receive telegrams from the Queen.
1992 - A protest march against right-wing attacks on refugees in Germany ends in violence after demonstrators clash with police.
2005 - Hurricane Katrina lashes New Orleans with high winds and hard rain, cutting power and flooding homes.