30BC: At the age of 38, Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, committed suicide with the bite of an asp.

1797: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, second wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and author, in 1818, of Frankenstein, was born in London.

1860: The first tram service in Britain opened, at Birkenhead on Merseyside.

1871: Lord Rutherford, pioneer of subatomic physics, was born in Spring Grove, New Zealand. In the 1920s he was the first to split the atom.

1881: The first stereo system was patented by Clement Ader of Germany, for a telephonic broadcasting service.

1901: Scotsman Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner.

1937: Joe Louis defeated Welshman Tommy Farr in an epic fight in New York to retain the world heavyweight boxing title.

1939: The great evacuation of children from British cities began. With the Second World War four days away, thousands of youngsters were moved to the country to avoid anticipated German bombing.

1941: The siege of Leningrad by German forces began.

1963: The 'Hotline' between the US President and the Soviet Premier was established to reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear war.