776 BC: The first Olympic Games opened in Olympia.

1759: Work started on the Royal Navy's 104-gun battleship HMS Victory at Chatham, Kent, built from the wood of 2,200 oak trees.

1888: Crime novelist Raymond Chandler - creator of Philip Marlowe - was born in Chicago.

1891: Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, was born.

1904: The first ice-cream cone was made by Charles Menches in Missouri.

1940: The Local Defence Volunteers were renamed the Home Guard by Winston Churchill.

1949: Brian Close became the youngest Test cricketer when he played against New Zealand at Old Trafford. He was 18 years 149 days old.

1955: Donald Campbell broke the world water speed record on Ullswater when he reached 202.32mph in Bluebird.

1986: Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson in Westminster Abbey, and was made Duke of York following a 600-year-old tradition for the monarch's second son.

LAST YEAR: Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon paid a surprise visit to the grieving widow of Government scientist David Kelly.