1684 Puppet shows performed and shopping stalls were set up on the Thames in London during a deep freeze.

1799 Prime Minister William Pitt (the Younger) introduced income tax at two shillings in the pound to raise funds for the Napoleonic Wars.

1898 Gracie Fields (Grace Stansfield) was born in Rochdale. She became one of Britain's most popular entertainers and was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1979.

1902 New York State introduced a bill to outlaw flirting in public.

1914 Striptease artiste Gypsy Rose Lee was born in Seattle. She became Queen of Burlesque in the 1930s and her autobiography, Gypsy, became a hit musical.

1927 Greta Garbo and John Gilbert - real-life lovers - shocked cinemagoers in New York by their uninhibited kissing the silent film Flesh And The Devil.

1951 Life After Tomorrow, the first film to receive an X rating in Britain, opened in London.

1957 Anthony Eden resigned as Prime Minister in the wake of the Suez crisis.

1972 The liner Oueen Elizabeth, after being removed to Hong Kong to serve as a floating marine university, sank after catching fire.

1982 The London department store Swan & Edgar closed. It is now Tower Records.

1997 Yachtsman Tony Bullimore was found alive, five days after his boat capsized in the freezing wastes of the Southern Ocean, 2,200km off the coast of Australia.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The Government refused again to compensate English cricketing authorities if they pulled out of the national team's World Cup matches in Zimbabwe.