1912: William Booth, English social reformer, evangelist and founder of the Salvation Army, died aged 83.

1913: Adolphe Pegond baled out from a Bleriot airplane above France and landed safely 700 feet below, becoming the first to parachute from a plane.

1924: British sprinter Eric Liddell refused to run in the heat of the 100m at the Paris Olympics because it fell on a Sunday and was against his religious convictions. He had been tipped as the likely winner.

1940: Leon Trotsky, exiled Bolshevik leader who found asylum in Mexico, died after being struck several blows on the head with an ice pick wielded by Ramon Mercader, an agent for Stalin.

1956: Calder Hall in Cumbria, the world's first large-scale atomic power station, began generating.

1968: Russia sent tanks into Czechoslovakia.

1977: The Voyager I spacecraft was launched on its journey via Jupiter and Saturn to become the first man-made object to leave the Solar System.

1989: The Thames pleasure cruiser Marchioness was hit by a dredger and 51 young people attending a party on board were killed.

1989: George Adamson, British naturalist and conservationist best known for his work with his wife Joy and the lioness Elsa, was murdered by bandits in a game park in Kenya.

LAST YEAR: The FBI said a bomb used in an attack on the UN in Baghdad was made from old munitions from Saddam Hussein's era.