On This Day - 5th February

1900 - Adlai E. Stevenson born
1914 - William Burroughs born
1919 - Red Buttons born
1928 - Andrew Greeley born
1934 - Henry "Hank" Aaron born
1935 - Alex Harvey born
1940 - H.R. Giger born
1942 - Roger Staubach born
1948 - Barbara Hershey and Christopher Guest born
1953 - The rationing of confectionery ends after 10 years, with schoolchildren first in the queue for unlimited sweets and chocolate.
1962 - Jennifer Jason Leigh born
1968 - Another trawler from Hull sinks off the coast of Iceland, with all hands on board - the third in three weeks.
1974 - The 19-year-old daughter of the millionaire American publisher, Randolph Hearst, is kidnapped from her home in California
1982 - Pioneering budget airliner Laker Airways collapses owing £270 million to banks and other creditors.
1989 - Jeremy Sumpter born
1994 - A mortar bomb explodes in the main market square in Sarajevo killing 68 and wounding 200 people
1996 - Two British supermarket chains will be stocking genetically modified tomato puree from today - the first GM food to be sold in this country.

On This Day - 4th February

1902 - Charles Lindbergh born
1906 - Clyde W. Tombaugh born
1913 - Rosa Parks born
1918 - Ida Lupino born
1921 - Betty Friedan born
1945 - David Brenner born
1947 - Dan Quayle born
1948 - Alice Cooper born
1959 - Lawrence Taylor born
1968 - Another 96 Indians and Pakistanis from Kenya arrive in Britain, the latest in a growing exodus of Kenyan Asians fleeing discrimination
1973 - International inspection teams in Vietnam have been sent into the countryside to monitor the truce agreed last Saturday in Paris and Oscar De La Hoya born
1974 - Eleven people are killed in a bomb blast on a bus travelling to an army base in North Yorkshire
1975 - Natalie Imbruglia born
1988 - Thousands of seamen at major British ports are continuing to strike even though their union has called an end to the action
1998 - An earthquake in northern Afghanistan leaves thousands dead, injured or homeless

On This Day - 3rd February

1874 - Gertrude Stein born
1894 - Norman Rockwell born
1907 - James Michener born
1918 - Joey Bishop born
1926 - Shelley Berman born
1940 - Fran Tarkenton born
1947 - Dave Davies born
1950 - Morgan Fairchild born
1959 - Buddy Holly, 22, Jiles P Richardson - known as the Big Bopper - 28, and Ritchie Valens, 17, died in a crash shortly after take-off from Clear Lake, Iowa at 0100 local time
1960 - Harold Macmillan outrages South African politicians with a speech warning of the "wind of change" in Africa
1966 - The Soviet Union makes the first controlled landing of a space probe (Luna 9)on the Moon, but refuses to release the pictures it sends back
1978 - Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat arrives in Washington DC to discuss the Middle East peace process with US President Jimmy Carter
1986 - The Pope meets Mother Teresa in Calcutta and visits her home for the sick and dying
1988 - Nurses across the UK take part in a day of industrial action to secure more money for themselves and the NHS
1998 - A Nato aircraft kills 20 people at an Italian ski resort by severing their cable car line
2010 - Actress Maria Schneider dies of cancer aged 58
2010 - Former Manchester City forward Neil Young dies aged 66 from cancer. Young scored the winning goal for City in the 1969 FA Cup final.

On This Day - 2nd February

1848 - Mexico cedes New Mexico, Texas and California to the USA
1882 - James Joyce born
1905 - Ayn Rand born
1906 - Gale Gordon born
1923 - James Dickey born
1934 - Les Dawson born
1937 - Tom Smothers born
1940 - David Jason born
1942 - Graham Nash born
1943 - The half-starved remnants of the German 6th Army give themselves up after five months of bloody fighting for Stalingrad ends in defeat
1947 - Farrah Fawcett born
1954 - Christie Brinkley born
1962 - Michael T. Weiss born
1972 - Angry demonstrators burn the British Embassy in Dublin to the ground in protest at the shooting dead of 13 people in Londonderry on Sunday
1977 - Shakira born
1979 - Sex Pistols' bassist Sid Vicious dies of a heroin overdose in New York
1987 - Reports from Lebanon say Church of England envoy Terry Waite has been kidnapped by an Islamic militia group in Beruit. He was eventually release in November 1991
1990 - The President of South Africa lifts the 30-year ban on leading anti-apartheid group the African National Congress

On This Day - 1st February

1895 - John Ford born
1901 - Clark Gable born
1902 - Langston Hughes born
1904 - S.J. Perelman born
1931 - Boris Yeltsin born
1937 - Don Everly and Garrett Morris born
1938 - Sherman Hemsley born
1942 - Quisling appointed prime minister of Norway
1948 - Rick James born
1952 - A new method for tracking down users of unlicensed television sets is unveiled in the UK using detector vans
1953 - Hundreds killed across Britain and Holland in violent storm and floods
1965 - Brandon Lee and Sherilyn Fenn born
1968 - Lisa Marie Presley and Pauly Shore born
1979 - Religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini makes a triumphant return to Iran after 14years in exile
1984 - Lee Thompson Young and the halfpenny coin removed from circulation in Britain
1994 - There are angry clashes in the House of Commons over the sale of the last major British car manufacturer Rover
2003 - Seven astronauts die as Space Shuttle Columbia breaks up on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere leaving Nasa and the world in a state of shock and disbelief.

On This Day - 31st January

1872 - Zane Grey born
1915 - Thomas Merton and Garry Moore born
1919 - - Jackie Robinson born
1921 - Mario Lanza born
1923 - Carol Channing and Norman Mailer born
1929 - Jean Simmons born
1931 - Ernie Banks born
1937 - Suzanne Pleshette born
1941 - Richard Gephardt born
1944 - Charlie Musselwhite born
1947 - Nolan Ryan born
1953 - A car ferry sinks in the Irish Sea in one of the worst gales of the winter, claiming the lives of up to 130 passengers and crew.
1959 - Kelly Lynch born
1961 - A chimpanzee sent into space in a United States rocket is recovered alive and well from the sea near Florida
1968 - The American command in Vietnam reports over 5,000 people dead after two days' intensive fighting.
1971 - Minnie Driver born
1981 - Justin Timberlake born
1983 - Mandatory seat belts introduced into Britain
1996 - A lorry carrying heavy explosives crashes into a bank in Colombo (Sri Lanka) killing more than 50 people.
2000 - Family GP Dr Harold Shipman is jailed for life for murdering 15 of his patients, making him Britain's most prolific convicted serial killer.
2005 - The death of Robert McCartney, killed by IRA supporters, leads to a major backlash in the Nationalist community of Northern Ireland and abroad.

On This Day - 30th January

1835 - An assassination attempt on US President Andrew Jackson fails and Jackson kills the assassin
1882 - Franklin D. Roosevelt born
1922 - Dick Martin born
1925 - Dorothy Malone born
1930 - Gene Hackman born
1933 - Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany and Louis Rukeyser born
1934 - Tammy Grimes born
1937 - Boris Spassky and Vanessa Redgrave born
1941 - Dick Cheney born
1942 - Marty Balin born
1947 - Steve Marriott born
1951 - Phil Collins born
1952 - Truce talks aimed at ending fighting in the Korean War are deadlocked.
1958 - Brett Butler born
1965 - Thousands of people pay their last respects to Britain's greatest wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill who is buried after a full state funeral
1972 - 13 Killed by British Army when they open fire on a demonstration in the Bogside district of Londonderry, in what was to become known as Bloody Sunday.
1974 - Christian Bale born
1991 - Iraqi troops seize control of a town inside the Saudi Arabian border after a fierce battle in which both sides suffered casualties
2003 - British-born 'shoe bomber' Richard Reid is sentenced to life in jail for trying to bomb an American Airlines flight carrying 197 people