1755: Dr Samuel Johnson's dictionary was published, containing 40,000 words.

1793: £5 notes were first issued by the Bank of England.

1797: British navy crews mutinied at Spithead, near Portsmouth, over poor pay and conditions.

1891: Thomas Edison publicly demonstrated his "kinetoscope" moving picture machine in New York.

1912: The Titanic struck an iceberg and sank with the loss of 1,513 passengers and crew on her maiden voyage. There were 732 survivors.

1925: James Barrie donated the copyright fee of his story Peter Pan to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children.

1945: The Battle of Berlin began.

1955: The first McDonald's hamburger store opened in California.

1966: Time magazine voted London "the city of the decade".

1989: Britain's worst football disaster happened at Hillsborough, Sheffield, when 95 fans were crushed to death during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

On this day last year: An unacceptable level of "avoidable" failures led to 11 breast cancer sufferers being told they had no symptoms, a health service watchdog said.

BIRTHDAYS: Claudia Cardinale, actress, 65; Marty Wilde, 50s rock star, 64; Lord (Jeffrey) Archer, author, 63; Allan Clarke, singer, 61; Marsha Hunt, singer, 54; Dave Edmunds, rock guitarist, 59; Michael Tucci, actor, 53; Emma Thompson, actress, 44; Samantha Fox, model and singer, 37; Ben Clarke, rugby union player, 35; Ed O'Brien, rock guitarist (Radiohead), 35.