Burns night and Feast of Conversion of St Paul

1327 Edward III acceded to the English throne.

1533 Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn (wife number two of six) were married secretly by the Bishop of Lichfield.

1540 Edmund Campion, scholar and Jesuit martyr, was born in London, son of a tradesman.

1759 Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet, who used the Scottish dialect in his poems and many songs, including To A Mouse, was born in Alloway, Ayrshire.

1857 Lord Lonsdale (Henry Cecil Lowther), president of the National Sporting Club, who gave boxing its rules and Lonsdale Belts to its champions, was born in London.

1874 W Somerset Maugham, master of the short story, was born in Paris.

1924 The first Winter Olympics began at Chamonix, France.

1938 The aurora borealis (northern lights) were seen as far south as London's West End and throughout western Europe. It was due to intense sunspot activity.

1947 Al Capone, Chicago gang boss in the Prohibition era, died of a brain haemorrhage, aged 48.

1981 The Gang of Four (Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers) broke away from the Labour Party to set up the Social Democrats.

1990 A Boeing 707 jet crashed in fog on Long Island, killing 73 people including the pilot. More than 80 passengers survived.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie attended Manchester Cathedral for the funeral of policeman Stephen Oake who was stabbed during an anti-terrorist raid in the city the previous week.