1745: The Jacobites, under the Young Pretender, occupied Edinburgh.

1787: Delegates, under the chairmanship of George Washington, approved the Constitution of the United States of America.

1827: Wides in cricket were first scored in the Sussex v Kent game at Brighton.

1908: Lt Thomas Selfridge of the US Army Signal Corps was killed in a crash with Orville Wright in Fort Meyer, Virginia, becoming the first aeroplane fatality.

1931: Long-playing records (33rpm) were demonstrated in New York by RCA-Victor, but the venture failed because of the high price of the players, and the first real microgroove records did not appear until 1948.

1944: The British airborne invasion of Arnhem and Eindhoven in the Netherlands began as part of Operation Market Garden. The objective was to secure a bridge over the Rhine as part of an Allied invasion of Germany.

LAST YEAR: Jaguar signalled the end of an era by ending production at its Coventry factory with the loss of 1,150 jobs.