1876: The first recognisable words were transmitted by telephone over 100ft of wire. Speaking to his assistant, inventor Alexander Graham Bell said: "Mrs Watson, come here, I want you."

1886: Cruft's Dog Show came to London, organised by Charles Cruft, general manager of a dog biscuit firm.

1906: The Bakerloo Line on the London Underground was opened.

1910: The first film made in Hollywood was released: DW Griffith's In Old California.

1914: The Rokeby Venus by Velasquez, in London's National Gallery, was slashed by a suffragette.

1961: Bradshaws Monthly Railway Guide was published for the last time. It had been in existence since 1839.

1969: James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to murdering American civil rights leader Martin Luther King and was sentenced to 99 years in jail.

1981: Death of Sir Maurice Oldfield, British intelligence chief considered to be the model for Ian Fleming's

M' in the Bond novels.

1988: The Prince of Wales narrowly escaped death in an avalanche at Klosters in the Swiss Alps.

1990: Observer journalist Farzad Bazoft was sentenced to death by an Iraqi military court for espionage. Daphne Parish, a British nurse accused of helping him, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

1994: Fred West was charged with the murder of eight women after they were dug up in the garden of his Gloucester home.