On This Day - 7th May

1812 - Robert Browning born
1833 - Johannes Brahms born
1840 - Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky born
1885 - Gabby Hayes born
1901 - Gary Cooper born
1919 - Eva Peron born

1922 - Darren McGavin born
1931 - Teresa Brewer born
1933 - Johnny Unitas born
1945 - Germany signs an unconditional surrender bringing to an end six years of war in Europe, according to reports from France.
1950 - Tim Russert born
1956 - The Health Minister, RH Turton, rejects calls for a government campaign against smoking, saying no ill-effects have actually been proven.
1965 - White voters in the African colony of Rhodesia overwhelmingly back Prime Minister Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front which is demanding independence from the UK.
1976 - Italy's worst ever earthquake kills more than 550 people and left 80,000 homeless.

2001 - Thousands of people turn out to greet Pope John Paul II on his historic visit to Syria. Also the government says it will press ahead with the slaughter of more than 1,000 cattle on two farms near Exmoor, even though there is no sign of foot-and-mouth disease.
2011 - Golfing legend Seve Ballesteros dies aged 54

On This Day - 6th May

1835 - Gordon Bennett founds the New York Herald
1840 - The worlds first postage stamp, the Penny Black, is issued
1856 - Robert E. Peary born
1856 - Sigmund Freud born
1868 - Gaston Leroux born
1895 - Rudolph Valentino born
1915 - Orson Welles born
1931 - Willie Mays born
1945 - Bob Seger born
1953 - Tony Blair born

1954 - Roger Bannister, a 25-year-old British medical student, becomes the first man to run a mile in less than four minutes.
1955 - Tom Bergeron born
1960 - Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones marry at Westminster Abbey

1961 - George Clooney born
1966 - Ian Brady and his lover Myra Hindley have been sentenced to life imprisonment for the so-called Moors murders at Chester Assizes.
1976 - A powerful quake in north-east Italy leaving at least 60 people dead and many more buried under rubble.
1988 - Graeme Hick, Worcestershire's 21-year-old prodigy, scores 405 not out in a county championship match, the highest innings in England this century.
1994 - The Queen and France's President Francois Mitterrand formally open the Channel Tunnel during two elaborate ceremonies in France and Britain.
1997 - The Chancellor, Gordon Brown, gives the Bank of England independence from political control.
2001 - A bomb linked to the Real IRA explodes at a north London postal sorting office, the second such attack in three weeks.

On This Day - 5th May

1818 - Karl Marx born
1821 - Napoleon Bonaparte dies
1913 - Tyrone Power born
1915 - Alice Faye born
1926 - Ann B. Davis born
1927 - Pat Carroll born
1942 - Tammy Wynette born
1955 - Dr Jonas Salk, the world-famous American virologist currently on a trip to the UK, has witnessed a ceremonial polio vaccination in London.

1961 - Commander Alan Shepard has been recovered from his space capsule in the Atlantic after becoming the first American in space.
1967 - The first ever all-British satellite 'Ariel 3' is successfully launched into orbit from the United States.

1973 - Tina Yothers born
1980 - The siege of the Iranian embassy in London has ended after a dramatic raid by SAS commandos. Five Iranian gunmen were killed and one was arrested. Nineteen hostages were set free but one died and two were injured in the cross-fire.
1981 - Hunger striker Bobby Sands has died in prison 66 days after first refusing to eat. Also Danielle Fishel and Craig David born

2001 - Britain's tourist industry hopes the bank holiday weekend and good weather will attract visitors to areas previously closed due to foot-and-mouth disease.
2005 - Tony Blair wins a historic third term in government for Labour but with a drastically reduced majority.
2011 - The last known combat veteran of the First World War dies at the age of 110. British-born Claude Stanley Choules, who was known as "Chuckles" by his comrades, joined the Royal Navy aged just 14 and witnessed the scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow in 1919.

On This Day - 4th May

1919 - Heloise born
1929 - Audrey Hepburn born
1941 - George F. Will born
1953 - The Duke of Edinburgh is awarded his pilot's "wings" during a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
1956 - Pia Zadora born
1966 - Harold Wilson's government agrees to increase doctors' and dentists' salaries by up to 30% after fears thousands of GPs would leave the Health Service for private practice
1972 - Mike Dirnt born
1979 - The Conservative Party has won the general election making Margaret Thatcher Britain's first ever woman prime minister. Also Lance Bass born

1982 - The British ship HMS Sheffield is hit by an Argentine missile fired from a fighter bomber.Twenty men died and a further 24 were injured in the sinking of the the first British warship to be lost in 37 years.
2000 - The London Mayoral contest ends in victory for Ken Livingstone, the independent candidate and maverick MP expelled from the Labour Party.

On This Day - 3rd May

1469 - Niccolo Machiavelli born
1898 - Golda Meir born
1903 - Bing Crosby born
1919 - Pete Seeger born
1921 - Sugar Ray Robinson born
1926 - The General stike starts
1933 - James Brown born
1937 - Frankie Valli born
1947 - Doug Henning born

1951 - The King inaugurates the Festival of Britain at a service in St Paul's Cathedral and later attends a concert at the new Royal Festival Hall on London's south bank.
. Also Christopher Cross born
1968 - Britain's first heart transplant was successfully carried out today by a team of 18 doctors and nurses at the National Heart Hospital in Marylebone, London.

1985 - Greg Raposo born
1986 - A lethal bomb explodes on an Air Lanka passenger jet at Colombo's airport leaving 21 dead and 41 injured. The finger of blame points to the Tamil Tigers.
1990 - Members of the new parliament of the Soviet republic of Latvia have met to discuss independence from Moscow.
2000 - The London Stock Exchange and Germany's Deutsche Boerse confirm they are to merge, creating the world's second largest stock market.
2013 - Keith Rule died aged 64

On This Day - 2nd May

1892 - Baron Von Richthofen born
1903 - Dr. Benjamin Spock born
1924 - Theodore Bikel born
1925 - Roscoe Lee Browne born
1936 - Engelbert Humperdinck born
1945 - Bianca Jagger born
1946 - Lesley Gore born

1952 - The world's first ever jet airliner begins its maiden flight from London to Johannesburg. Crowds cheered as the BOAC Comet G-ALYP took off from London airport at 1512 local time carrying 36 passengers.
1969 - About 200 students calling for educational reforms at Columbia University give up their sit-in after a supreme court judge issues a warrant for their arrest.
1972 - Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson born
1975 - David Beckham born

1982 - Argentina's only cruiser, the General Belgrano, has been sunk by a British nuclear submarine in the South Atlantic.
1997 - The Labour Party wins the general election by a landslide, leaving the Conservative Party in tatters after 18 years in power.

2001 - A federal jury in the USA indicts the former chairmen of the world's two largest auction houses, Sotheby's and Christies, on charges of overcharging its customers.
2011 - US President Barack Obama announces that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has been killed in an American-led operation in Pakistan.

On This Day - 1st May

1851 - The Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace opens
1904 - Composer Antonin Dvorak dies
1909 - Kate Smith born
1916 - Glenn Ford born
1918 - Jack Paar born
1924 - Terry Southern born
1939 - Judy Collins born
1945 - At 2230 local time a newsreader announced that reports from the Fuhrer's headquarters said Adolf Hitler had "fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany". Also Rita Coolidge born

1961 - Cuba's prime minister, Dr Fidel Castro, has proclaimed Cuba a socialist nation and abolished elections.
1967 - Tim McGraw born
1973 - More than a million workers join a one-day strike in protest at the government's pay restraint policy and price rises.
1982 - British planes have carried out raids on two airstrips near Port Stanley, the capital of the Falkland Islands which are currently occupied by Argentinian forces.


1994 - The Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna is killed in a crash at the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, near Bologna in Italy. He was just 34-years-old.
2000 - Hundreds of anti-capitalist demonstrators fight running battles with police - the Cenotaph and statue of Winston Churchill are defaced with graffiti
2011 - Former European heavyweight boxing champion Sir Henry Cooper, dies two days before his 77th birthday.