1606: Sir Everard Digby, Thomas Winter, John Grant and Thomas Bates werehung, drawn and quartered for their part in Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot.

1649: Charles I, convicted of treason, was beheaded on a scaffold outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall.

1858 The Halle Orchestra was founded by Charles Halle in Manchester.

1889: Beautiful 17-year-old Baroness Marie Vetsera and her lover, Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf, were found dead at the royal hunting lodge of Mayerling, near Vienna. It remains a mystery whether it was a double suicide or murder.

1933: Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.

1948: Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic in New Delhi.

1951: Actress Elizabeth Taylor (pictured) divorced her first husband, hotel chain heir Nicky Hilton.

1961: The contraceptive pill went on sale in Britain - but was not available on the NHS until December.

1965: Big Ben was silenced for the funeral procession of Sir Winston Churchill.

1982: Stanley Holloway, actor, comedian and singer, died aged 91.

1997: An underground anti-road protest came to an end after six days as the last demonstrator, known as Swampy, emerged from a tunnel underneath the proposed A30 extension route in Devon

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Government ministers were facing pressure to give a detailed explanation of why they lifted a Whitehall ban on accountancy firm Arthur Andersen, which audited collapsed US energy giant Enron.

BIRTHDAYS:

JOHN Profumo, former Conservative War Minister, pictured, 88; Gene Hackman, actor, 73; Vanessa Redgrave, actress, 66; Boris Spassky, chess master, 66; Dick Cheney, US Vice President, 62; Phil Collins, rock singer, 52; Brett Butler, actress, 45; Christian Bale, actor, 29.