753BC: Traditional date for the founding of Rome.

1509: Henry VII died and his second son acceded to the throne as Henry VIII.

1816: Charlotte Bronte, eldest of the three Bronte sisters and author of Jane Eyre, was born in Thornton, Yorkshire.

1910: Novelist Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) died in Reading, Connecticut, aged 74. Halley's comet appeared in 1835 when he was born and he always said he would die when it appeared again - and he did.

1918: Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, scourge of World War One British fliers, was shot down in his red Fokker tri-plane and died.

1945: Ivor Novello's Perchance To Dream opened at the London Hippodrome with his now classic song We'll Gather Lilacs. The show ran to 1,022 performances.

1946: Death of British economist John Maynard Keynes.

1983: One pound coins went into circulation in Britain, replacing paper notes in England and Wales but not in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

LAST YEAR: Soccer pundit Ron Atkinson quit his job as an ITV Sport commentator over a racist outburst caught on camera.