On This Day - 28th May

1888 - Jim Thorpe born
1906 - Playright Henrik Ibsen dies
1908 - Ian Fleming born
1931 - Carroll Baker born
1937 - Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister
1944 - Gladys Knight born
1944 - Rudolph Giuliani born
1945 - John Fogerty born

1951 - Her Royal Highness, Princess Elizabeth, formally opens the Exhibition of Industrial Power in Glasgow
1959 - Two monkeys, 'Able and Baker' have become the first living creatures to survive a space flight.
1967 - Sir Francis Chichester has arrived in Plymouth tonight in his yacht, Gypsy Moth IV, after completing his epic single-handed voyage around the world. Also Glen Rice born

1968 - Kylie Minogue born
1974 - Northern Ireland's first power-sharing assembly collapses after its leader Brian Faulkner steps down faced with rising opposition.
1979 - Jesse Bradford born
1998 - Pakistan explodes five underground nuclear devices in response to India's recent nuclear tests.

On This Day - 27th May

1837 - Wild Bill Hickok born
1840 - Violinst Niccolo Paganini dies
1878 - Isadora Duncan born
1894 - Dashiell Hammett born
1911 - Hubert H. Humphrey and Vincent Price born
1912 - Sam Snead born
1922 - Christopher Lee born
1923 - Henry Kissinger born
1936 - Louis Gossett born
1955 - Anthony Eden's Conservatives win the general election with a clear majority, ending a five-year political stalemate.

1963 - Jomo Kenyatta is certain to become prime minister after his party, Kenya African Nation Union, won the country's first general election.
1964 - Jawaharlal Nehru, founder of modern India and its current prime minister, dies suddenly at the age of 74.
1964 - Adam Carolla born
1965 - Todd Bridges born
1969 - Jeremy Mayfield born
1970 - Joseph Fiennes born
1971 - Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes born
1975 - Andre 3000 born
1980 - The jury at the inquest of Blair Peach, the London teacher who died in a demonstration last year, returns a verdict of misadventure.

1994 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn flies back to his native Russia after 20 years living in exile.
2000 - Scottish farmers who accidentally planted genetically modified seeds say they will fight for compensation.

2011 - Actor Jeff Conaway (Kenickie in the film Grease) dies aged 60 following a drug induced coma.

On This Day - 26th May

1886 - Al Jolson born
1907 - John Wayne born
1908 - Robert Morley born
1913 - Peter Cushing born
1914 - Frankie Manning born
1919 - Jay Silverheels born
1920 - Peggy Lee born
1923 - James Arness born
1939 - Brent Musburger born
1948 - Stevie Nicks born
1949 - Pam Grier, Philip Michael Thomas and Hank Williams born
1950 - Long queues appear at garages this evening and motorists have torn their ration books into confetti after an end to petrol rationing is announced.
1951 - Sally Ride born
1964 - Lenny Kravitz born
1972 - State-owned travel firm Thomas Cook & Son is sold to a consortium of private businesses headed by the Midland Bank.

1981 - The entire Italian coalition cabinet under Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani steps down in the wake of a scandal over freemasonry.
1998 - Emperor Akihito of Japan speaks of his "pain" over the suffering inflicted by his country during World War II, but war veterans feel he does not go far enough.
2000 - The Hezbollah leader is greeted by thousands of supporters during a victory rally to celebrate the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon.

On This Day - 25th May

1803 - Ralph W. Emerson born
1883 - The Brooklyn Bridge is opened
1918 - Claude Akins born
1925 - Jeanne Crain born
1926 - Miles Davis born
1927 - Robert Ludlum born
1929 - Beverly Sills born
1934 - Composer Gustav Holst dies
1936 - Tom T. Hall born
1939 - Ian McKellen born
1943 - Leslie Uggams born
1944 - Frank Oz born
1955 - Connie Sellecca born
1961 - President John F Kennedy says the US will aim to put the first man on the Moon by the end of the decade.
1963 - Leaders of 32 African nations set up the' OAU' organisation that will give them a united voice for the first time in African history. Also Mike Myers born

1967 - Celtic become the first British team to win the European Cup, beating favourites Internazionale Milan 2-1.
1969 - Anne Heche born
1975 - Lauryn Hill born
1979 - The price of milk is to go up by more than 10% to 15p a pint - three times the price it was five years ago.
1982 - Dozens of men are feared dead in the seas around the Falkland Islands after the container ship Atlantic Conveyor and the destroyer HMS Coventry were hit by Argentine missiles.

1994 - The Camelot consortium wins the contract to run Britain's first national lottery starting in November.

On This Day - 24th May

1844 - Samual Morse demonstrates the first telegraph message
1938 - Tommy Chong born
1941 - Bob Dylan born
1943 - Gary Burghoff born
1944 - Patti LaBelle born
1945 - Priscilla Presley born
1955 - Rosanne Cash born
1963 - Joe Dumars born

1968 - The President of France, Charles de Gaulle, issues a 'back me or sack me' ultimatum to striking students and workers.
1975 - A group of 80 reporters and cameramen - including nine Britons - are allowed to fly out of Saigon.
1989 - A jury at the High Court in London awards £600,000 damages to Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, against the satirical magazine Private Eye.
1999 - Lawrence Dallaglio resigns as England's rugby union captain following newspaper allegations over hard drugs.
2001 - 23 people are killed and hundreds are injured at a wedding party in Jerusalem when a building collapses.

On This Day - 23rd May

1883 - Douglas Fairbanks born
1910 - Artie Shaw born
1910 - Scatman Crothers born
1920 - Helen O'Connell born
1928 - Rosemary Clooney born
1933 - Joan Collins born
1934 - Gangsters Bonnie and Clyde killed by police
1952 - Marvin Hagler born
1958 - Drew Carey and Mitch Albom born

1962 - A military court in Paris imposes a life sentence on Raoul Salan, leader of an extremist group violently opposed to Algerian independence.
1966 - The British government declares a state of emergency a week after the nation's seamen strike begins.

1974 - Jewel and Ken Jennings born
1976 - Kelly Monaco born
1977 - More than 100 children and six teachers are taken hostage in a primary school in northern Holland.
1984 - Sixteen people are left dead and dozens more injured in an explosion at the Abbeystead water treatment plant in Lancashire.
1998 - The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, welcomes the resounding "yes" vote in the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland calling it "a day for joy".

On This Day - 22nd May

1813 - Richard Wagner born
1844 - Mary Cassat born
1859 - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle born
1907 - Sir Laurence Olivier born
1934 - Peter Nero born
1938 - Susan Strasberg and Richard Benjamin born
1941 - Paul Winfield born
1959 - Morrissey born
1969 - The Apollo 10 mission sends a manned lunar module within eight miles of the Moon's surface in rehearsal for a summer Moon landing.
1970 - The Cricket Council reverses a decision to allow South African cricketers to tour England, a move welcomed by anti-apartheid activist Peter Hain. Also Naomi Campbell born

1972 - America's President Richard Nixon is given a modest welcome as he arrives in Moscow for talks with Soviet leaders.
1981 - Peter Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper, is sentenced to life imprisonment after the judge describes him as "an unusually dangerous man".

2000 - Lebanese Hezbollah fighters split Israel's southern occupation zone into two as they approach the common border.
2011 - Former model and designer Suzanne Mizzi dies aged 43 from ovarian cancer.