On This Day - 15th Januray

1906 - Aristotle Onassis born
1909 - Gene Krupa born
1913 - Lloyd Bridges born
1920 - Cardinal John O'Connor born
1929 - Dr. Martin Luther King born
1937 - Margaret O'Brien born
1951 - Charo born
1953 - The East German authorities begin a purge of senior officials, accused of plotting against the state and spying for imperialistic powers
1973 - President Nixon orders a halt to American bombing in North Vietnam - following peace talks in Paris
1982 - The prime minister's son, Mark Thatcher, is on his way home after being missing in the Sahara for six days
1984 - The leftwing rebel, Tony Benn, beats off the competition to win Labour's nomination for the Chesterfield by-election
1987 - A police officer who mistakenly shot and paralysed an innocent woman is cleared of all criminal charges
1997 - The Princess of Wales angers government ministers after calling for an international ban on landmines

On This Day - 14th January

1741 - Benedict Arnold born
1875 - Albert Schweitzer born
1892 - Hal Roach born
1906 - William Bendix born
1919 - Andy Rooney born
1938 - Jack Jones born
1941 - Faye Dunaway born
1968 - LL Cool J born
1969 - Sir Matt Busby retires as manager of Manchester United and Jason Bateman born
1975 - Seventeen year old heiress Lesley Whittle is kidnapped from her home in Shropshire while her mother sleeps
1983 - A man is critically injured in West London during a police ambush aimed at capturing escaped prisoner David Martin
1994 - The Duchess of Kent becomes the first member of the Royal Family to convert to Catholicism for more than 300 years
2002 - The foot-and-mouth crisis that began almost 11 months ago will officially end at midnight, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has said.

On This Day - 13th January

1832 - Horatio Alger born
1884 - Sophie Tucker born
1919 - The first Indian peer takes his seat in the House of Lords
1919 - Robert Stack born
1925 - Gwen Verdon born
1931 - Charles Nelson Reilly born
1941 - James Joyce dies
1943 - Richard Moll born
1961 - Julia Louis-Dreyfus born
1964 - Hindu-Muslim rioting breaks out in the Indian city of Calcutta resulting in the deaths of more than 100 people
1969 - Stephen Hendry born
1972 - An army commander seizes control of Ghana while the prime minister is in London for medical treatment
1977 - Orlando Bloom born
1991 - Around 13 people are killed and at least 140 injured as Soviet troops continue to attack Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania
1993 - American, British and French fighter jets carry out a series of bombing raids over southern Iraq
1997 - Peruvian left-wing guerrillas holding 72 hostages open fire on police outside the Japanese Embassy in Lima
2001 - More than 1,000 people are feared dead after an earthquake strikes the Central American city of San Salvador
2004 - Harold Shipman, the former GP who is believed to have killed more than 200 people, is found dead in his prison cell.

On This Day - 12th January

1628 - Charles Perrault born. French writer who made fairy tales such as Cinderella and Puss in Boots famous.
1876 - Jack London born
1905 - Ritter born
1926 - An anti-tetanus serum is discovered
1926 - Ray Price born
1930 - Glenn Yarborough born
1944 - Joe Frazier born
1951 - Rush Limbaugh born
1954 - Howard Stern born
1955 - Kirstie Alley born
1964 - Jeff Bezos born
1966 - Three visiting members of the British parliament are attacked at a meeting in a hotel in Salisbury, the capital of Rhodesia and Rob Zombie born
1971 - Two bombs explode at the Hertfordshire home of Employment Secretary Robert Carr causing serious damage
1974 - Melanie Jayne Chisholm born
1976 - The most popular novelist in the world, Dame Agatha Christie, dies leaving a rumoured multi-million pound fortune and a final book waiting to be published
1982 - Mark Thatcher is reported missing in the Sahara desert while taking part in an international motor race
1991 - The United States Congress votes to authorise the use of military force against Iraq to end its occupation of Kuwait
2001 - The carers of an eight-year-old girl who died after being tortured and fed scraps of food like a dog are found guilty of her murder. Also the first foreigner to coach the England football team, Sven Goran Eriksson, flies in to start his new job
2003 - Bee Gee Maurice Gibb dies aged 53 following a stomach operation at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami

On This Day - 11th January

1755 - Alexander Hamilton born
1926 - Grant Tinker born
1930 - Rod Taylor born
1934 - Jean Chrétien born
1946 - Naomi Judd born
1952 - Ben Crenshaw born
1962 - At least 2,000 people are feared dead after a huge avalanche in the Peruvian Andes engulfs nine villages and Kim Coles born
1971 - Mary J. Blige born
1972 - Amanda Peet born
1973 - The first graduates from the Open University are awarded their degrees after two years studying from home
1993 - 1993: BA dirty tricks against Virgin cost £3m. British Airways ends one of the most bitter and protracted libel actions in aviation history in a humiliating climb-down
1998 - Islamic extremists are blamed for the deaths of 100 people in two villages in Algeria
2000 - Seven young fishermen are feared drowned off the Scottish coast after the disappearance of their scallop dredger in force nine gales

On This Day - 10th January

1863 - The London Tube, the worlds first undergound, opens
1869 - Grigori Rasputin born
1870 - The Rockefellers found Standard Oil
1904 - Ray Bolger born
1908 - Paul Henreid born
1927 - Johnnie Ray born
1927 - Gisele MacKenzie born
1939 - Sal Mineo born
1945 - Rod Stewart born
1949 - George Foreman born
1953 - Pat Benatar born
1954 - Thirty-five people are missing, feared dead, after a BOAC Comet jet airliner crashes into the Mediterranean
1957 - Harold Macmillan accepts the Queen's invitation to become prime minister following the sudden resignation of Sir Anthony Eden
1979 - The Prime Minister, James Callaghan, flies back into strike-torn Britain denying allegations the country is in chaos
1985 - Eight people die and dozens are injured when an explosion destroys a block of exclusive flats in south-west London
1991 - The United Nations Secretary General leaves for Baghdad in a final diplomatic effort to avoid war against Iraq.
1996 - King Hussein of Jordan makes his first public visit to Israel's largest city 'Tel Aviv' as relations between the two countries warm.

On This Day - 9th January

1898 - Gracie Fields born
1913 - Richard Nixon born
1935 - Bob Denver born
1941 - Susannah York born
1941 - Joan Baez born
1944 - Jimmy Page born
1951 - Crystal Gayle born
1957 - Sir Anthony Eden resigns as prime minister of Britain due to ill health after one year and 279 days in the post
1967 - Dave Matthews born
1972 - Coal miners walk out at midnight in their first national strike for almost 50 years
1978 - A.J. McLean born
1986 - Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine resigns his Cabinet job after a row with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher over the Westland helicopter affair.
1992 - Britain's most senior policewoman Alison Halford is suspended over allegations of misconduct
1997 - The lone yachtsman, Tony Bullimore, feared drowned after his boat capsized in the Southern Ocean five days ago, is found safe and well
2005 - Early indications in the Palestinian presidential elections show former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas set to win