1307: William Tell is reputed to have shot the apple off his son's head on this day.

1558: Mary I, "Bloody Mary", died and was succeeded by Elizabeth I.

1796: Catherine the Great of Russia died of a stroke, aged 67.

1882: The Royal Astronomer witnessed an Unidentified Flying Object from the Greenwich Royal Observatory.

1887: Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (Monty), who led the Eighth Army to victory in North Africa in the Second World War, was born in London.

1955: Anglesey became the first authority in Britain to introduce fluoride into its water supply.

1959: Two Scottish airports, Prestwick and Renfrew, became the first to offer duty-free goods in Britain.

1970: The Sun pictured its first Page Three girl, Stephanie Rahn.

1988: Franz Kafka's manuscript of his classic novel, The Trial (1925), was sold at Sotheby's in London for £1 million, a world record for a modern literary text. Kafka had died in poverty in 1924.

LAST YEAR: The head of the Child Support Agency quit as figures showed single parents were waiting an average of five months for maintenance.