On this day

1533 - Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's new queen, was crowned.

1831 - The magnetic North Pole was located by Sir James Clark Ross on his Arctic exploration expedition with Admiral Parry.

1935 - Britain introduced the compulsory wearing of 'L' plates for learner drivers.

1938 - The Bren gun was issued to the armed forces service. The name was derived from Brno, the Czech town where it was first made, and Enfield, where it was made in Britain.

1946 - Television licences were issued in Britain for the first time. They cost £2.

1968 - Britain and Iceland signed a formal end to the 'Cod War' over fishing rights in the North Sea.

Birthdays.

Tony Hadley-50
Tim Rice-Oxley-34
Zachary Quinto-33

1840 - Thomas Hardy, English novelist and poet was born.

1924 - England spoke to Australia by wireless, the first time that a wireless conversation had been held between 2 countries or over so great a distance. The transmissions, by the Amalgamated Wireless Co. were between Poldhu in Cornwall and Vaucluse in Sydney.

1953 - The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place in Westminster Abbey, London. It was the first British coronation to be televised and was a cold, wet day.

1988 - The Australian High Court rejected Britain's bid to ban further publication of the 'Spycatcher' memoirs of former British secret agent Peter Wright.

1997 - Dr. Stephen Martin & David Mitchell became the first Britons to reach the North Pole without backup. Their starting point was the Russian Siberian coast & in 92 days they covered 1,200 miles.

Birthdays.

Deneice Williams-59
Suzi Quatro-60
Curtis Mayfield-68
Tony Curtis-85

1726 - Birth of James Hutton, Scottish physician and geologist who wrote Theory of the Earth in 1785, which became the basis of modern geology.

1937 - The Duke of Windsor, (the abdicated King Edward VIII), married American divorcee Mrs Wallis Simpson, privately in a château near Tours, France.

1978 - The Guiness Book of Records entered the record books as the most-stolen book from British libraries.

1981 - Shergar won the Epsom Derby by a record 10 lengths.

1805 - The first official Trooping The Colour took place at Horse Guards Parade in London.

1940 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made his famous "We shall fight on the beaches ... we shall never surrender" speech to the House of Commons.

1962 - The Beatles signed a recording contract with EMI Parlophone.

1977 - Five British plane-spotters imprisoned in Greece for alleged spying were released after 10 weeks in jail.

1999 - A man who had all his fingers severed in a horrific accident at work became the first person to have all his fingers re-attached. Two teams of doctors along with nurses and theatre technicians performed the delicate micro-surgical procedure in a marathon 18-hour operation at Withington Hospital, Manchester.

1584-Sir Walter Raleigh establishes the first English colony on Roanoke Island,Old Virginia(now North Carolina)

1913-Suffragette Emily Davison runs out in front of King George Vs horse at the Epsom Derby,She is trampled and dies a few days later.

1940-World War Two's Dunkirk evacuation ends with 300,000 troops rescued.

Birthdays

Noah Wyle-39
Russel Brand-35
Angelina Jolie-35

1944 - World War II: A cafe in the French town of Benouville was the first place to be liberated from German occupation when British paratroopers seized control of a vital canal bridge in advance of the main Allied D-Day landings in Normandy the following morning on June 6th.

1964 - Blue Streak became Britain's first rocket, taking her into the space age. The 69 ft rocket was launched at Woomera, Australia and was a simplified civilian version that had been designed for research and satellite launching purposes. Blue Streak had originally been planned as Britain’s first nuclear weapon carrier but was scrapped due to costs.

1840 - The first postage stamps, the ‘Penny Black’ and two-penny ‘blues’, which were the brainchild of Roland Hill, officially went on sale in Britain.

1954 - Roger Bannister, a 25 year old British medical student, became the first man to run a mile in less than four minute (at the Iffley Road Sports Ground, Oxford). His time was 3 minute 59.4 seconds.

1966 - At Chester Crown Court, 'Moors murderers' Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were found guilty of torturing and killing several children before burying their bodies on the moors north of Manchester.

1994 - The Queen and France's President Francois Mitterrand formally opened the Channel Tunnel during two elaborate ceremonies in France and Britain.