AD41 The mad Roman Emperor Caligula was assassinated.

AD76 The Roman Emperor Hadrian was born. It was on his orders that Hadrian's Wall was built in Britain "to separate the Romans from the Barbarians

1670 William Congreve, English playwright, was born near Leeds.

1848 James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's sawmill in California to spark the great Gold Rush.

1916 Conscription was introduced in Britain.

1922 The first performance of William Walton's Facade, in the Sitwell family drawing room in Carlyle Square, London.

1935 Canned beer went on sale for the first time, made by Krueger brewery of Richmond, Virginia.

1965 Sir Winston Churchill died, aged 90. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, had died on the same date 70 years earlier.

1976 Margaret Thatcher was dubbed The Iron Lady in the Soviet newspaper Red Star, after a speech about the Communist threat.

1986 Staff of The Sun and News of the World newspapers were told they were moving to London's Docklands - the start of a press exodus from Fleet Street.

1997 The Archers celebrated its 12,000th episode. The Radio 4 series drew an average 4.5 million listeners each week.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Security was being reviewed at the British High Commission in Islamabad today after a bomb planted in a mini-bus exploded in a staff car park.

BIRTHDAYS: Ernest Borgnine, actor, 86; Desmond Morris, anthropologist, 75; Bamber Gascoigne, writer and broadcaster, 68; Neil Diamond, singer, 62; Aaron Neville, R&B singer, 62; Michael Des Barres, actor, 55; Adrian Edmondson, comic actor, 46; Jools Holland, musician/TV presenter, 45; Nastassja Kinski, actress, 42; Marco Gabbiadini, footballer, 35; Tatyana Ali, actress and singer, 24.