1920: Douglas Elton Ullman wed Gladys Smith in Hollywood. The couple were better known as screen stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford and their marriage was described as "Hollywood's first Royal Wedding."

1930: Constantinople changed its name to Istanbul.

1939: Madrid surrendered to Franco to end the Spanish Civil War.

1945: The last of more than 1,000 V2 bombs dropped on Britain landed at Orpington, Kent.

1964: The pirate station Radio Caroline began transmitting from a ship in the North Sea.

1979: There was a radiation leak alert at Three Mile Island nuclear station, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when the atomic core began to melt down.

1984: Nissan chose Washington, near Sunderland, as the site for its pilot car plant.

1990: Customs officers intercepted a cargo of electrical detonators for nuclear weapons bound for Iraq.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: A second juvenile defendant on trial for the murder of south London schoolboy Damilola Taylor walked free from the Old Bailey.

BIRTHDAYS: Michael Parkinson, journalist and TV personality, 68; Neil Kinnock, EC Commissioner/former Labour Party leader, 61; Mike Newell, film director, 61; Richard Stilgoe, TV presenter, 60; Dianne Wiest, actress, 55; Nasser Hussain, cricketer, 35; Julia Stiles, actress, 22.