National day of Liberia

1745: The first recorded women's cricket match took place at Gosden Common near Guildford, with neighbouring village Hambledon against Bramley.

1788: New York became the 11th state of the United States.

1856: George Bernard Shaw, playwright, was born in Dublin. A failed novelist, he was 36 when his first play, Widower's Houses, was performed.

1875: Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist, was born. He was the founder of analytical psychology and first proposed the idea of extrovert and introvert character types.

1895 Robert Graves, English poet, novelist and critic, was born. He wrote I Claudius in 1934 and more than 100 other books.

1908: The Federal Bureau of Investigation was established in Washington, DC.

1945: Clement Attlee's Labour post-war government came to power with a huge majority. He said: "Labour can deliver the goods."

1952: King Farouk of Egypt abdicated after a coup led by General Neguib. On the same date in 1956, President Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal just a month after taking power.

1952: Eva Peron (Evita), Argentina's First Lady, died of cancer aged 33.

LAST YEAR: Thousands of sun-seekers faced a day of jams, delays and travel nightmares as the first weekend of the summer getaway got off to a gloomy start.