On this day

September 27th

1672 - London: The Royal African Company is granted a charter with a monopoly on the slave trade from Morocco to the Cape of Good Hope.

1895 - USA: The so-called Irish National Convention was held in Chicago, where physical force was discussed as a means of achieving freedom for Ireland from Great Britain.

1916 - Greece: King Constantine declares war on Bulgaria.

1919 - London: A national rail strike begins. Prime minister David Lloyd George calls it an "anarchist conspiracy."

1925 - Finland: Norwegian Charles Hoff sets a world pole vault record of 4.25 metres.

1934 - London: Britain, France and Italy, reaffirm their support for an independent Austria.

1937 - Palestine: More than 100 Arabs are arrested following the murder of two British officials the previous day.

1939 - London: The War budget raises income tax to its highest ever figure of 7/6d in the pound.

1946 - London: The government announces that cupro-nickel will replace silver in British coins from 1947.

1951 - Iran: Iranian troops seize control of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company's refinery at Abadan.

1956 - Cyprus: A "toffee tin bomb" planted in an army restroom wounds seven newly arrived British Soldiers.

1960 - London: Europe's first moving pavement or "Travelator" opens at Bank Tube Station.

1962 - Yemen: Rebels assassinate Iman Ahmed after only a week on the throne and establish a Free Yemen Republic.

1963 - Washington: Joseph M. Valachi reveals the names of the key figures in organised crime to a Senate Committee.

1964 - UK: Britain's supersonic tactical strike plane the TSR-2 has its maiden flight.

1968 - London: 13 members of the cast of "Hair" face the audience naked the day after play censorship is abolished.

1979 - Mozambique; Zimbabwe-Rhodesian troops launch a cross- border raid.

1980 - UK: Boxer Alan Minter loses his world middleweight title, to Marvin Hagler of the US in the third round.

1981 - London: Denis Healey keeps his job as Labour deputy leader beating off the challenge of left-winger Tony Benn by a majority of less than 1%.

1985 - UK: A high speed train travels from Newcastle to London in a record 2 hours 19 and a half minutes.

1989 - UK: David Owen admits that his party, the Social Democrats is no longer a national force.

1994 - India: Pnuemonic plague hits the westrn Indian city of Surat.

1996 - Jerusalem: Israeli soldiers open fire on Muslim worshippers at the al-Aqsa shrine and the Dome of the Rock, killing three people and wounding another 50.

1998 - Germany: After 16 years in power German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democrat Party is beaten by the left-wing Social Democrats.

2007 - USA: The Dawn spacecraft is launched by NASA on a mission to explore mainbelt asteroids VESTA and CERES.

2009 - Venezuela: The American TV comedy series "Family Guy" is outlawed by authorities due to an episode promoting the legalisation of marijuana.

2010 - USA: Los Angeles sees all-time record high temperatures of 113F.

September 28th

1778 - USA: A battle fought between American Forces and pro-British Indians near the Pennsylvanian town of Wyalusing, is won by the Americans under Colonel Thomas Hartley.

1906 - Cuba: US War Secretary William Taft intervenes to fill the Cuban power vacuum left by the resignation of President Palma, declaring himself provisional governor.

1909 - London: The House of Commons confirms that nine suffragettes being held in prison in Birmingham have been force fed.

1911 - North Africa: Italy declares war on Turkey for possession of Tripolitania.

1924 - USA: Three US Army aeroplanes land safely in Seattle, Washington after a 27,000 mile round-the-world flight.

1927 - Lithuania: The government claims the Polish town of Vilna as capital of Lithuania.

1928 - Germany: The state of Prussia lifts its ban on Adolf Hitler speaking in public.

1933 - London: Anti-Nazi uproar breaks out at the Shaftesbury Theatre, due to an appearance by German Actor Werner Kraus.

1936 - Spain: General Franco is appointed head of the rebel forces.

1949 - Moscow: The USSR rescinds its mutual assistance treaty with Yugoslavia.

1951 - New York: Britain appeals for UN intervention in the Iran oil dispute.

1953 - UK: Motor Company Ford unveils its new Anglia and Prefect models.

1956 - Moscow: The USSR and Japan agree a formula to end their state of war and restore full diplomatic relations.

1961 - Damascus: Syrian troops revolt against alleged Egyptian domination of the United Arab Republic.

1964 - UK: A survey reveals Radio Caroline has more listeners than BBC radio.

1966 - South Vietnam: The US accidentally bombs a friendly villiage killing 28 people.

1969 - Belfast: Royal Engineers supported by the Royal Ulster Constabulary build a six-feet barbed wire peace wall between the Protestant stronghold near the Shankhill Road and the Catholic area of the Falls Road.

1973 - Vienna: The Poet W.H. Auden dies aged 66.

1975 - UK: Ten Territorial Army soldiers drown in an accident during an exercise on the River Trent.

1976 - New York: Muhammad Ali defeats Ken Norton to retain his world heavyweight boxing title.

1983 - Moscow: Russia rejects President Ronald Regan's proposal to limit medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe.

1985 - London: Youths go on the rampage in Brixton after a black woman, Cherry Groce, is shot during a police raid.

1986 - USA: Londoner Lloyd Honeyghan defeats Don Curry to become world welterweight boxing champion.

1992 - Germany: After protests from Britain, Bonn calls off celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the V-2 rocket.

1998 - London: The Marylebone Cricket Club, votes to abolish a 211-year ban on female membership.

2008 - Berlin: Haile Gebreslassie of Ethiopia, sets a new world marathon record of 2 hours, 3 minutes, 58 seconds.

2010 - USA: American film director Arthur Penn, director of "Bonnie and Clyde", "Badlands" and "Little Big Man", dies in New York from congestive heart failure aged 88.

September 29th

1902 - Paris: French novelist Emile Zola, dies at his home, after being suffocated by fumes from a blocked chimney, aged 62.

1908 - Switzerland: An International Conference on Workers Protection, bans night shifts for children under 14.

1913 - Ireland: Ulster Unionists set up a provisional government on the same day that a bill giving Home Rule to Ireland becomes law.

1916 - UK: Medical scientists announce the discovery of the procedure by which internal organs can be photographed. The X-ray.

1925 - UK: The Labour Party conference rejects a proposal for a link up with the British Communist Party.

1927 - USA: A tornado quickly sweeps through St Louis, killing 69 people and injuring around another 600.

1930 - London: George Bernard Shaw declines the offer of a peerage.

1933 - Leipzig: Dutchman Marinus van der Lubbe, admits in court to setting fire to the Berlin Reichstag.

1934 - Poland: Conscription is introduced for men and women.

1939 - Warsaw: Polish troops evacuate, as the city surrenders to the Wehrmacht.

1940 - New York: The Movie "Strike Up The Band" starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, has it's premiere.

1947 - UK: To cut fuel costs, it is announced that the Midlands will have no power for one day a week.

1950 - Korea: US troops reach the 38th parallel.

1958 - London: The CEGB announces it's sixth nuclear power station will be built at Sizewell in Suffolk.

1961 - London: The Electricians Union is expelled from the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party.

1965 - UK: Aston Martin unveils its first new four-seater car, the DB6.

1968 - Nigeria: 55 Nigerian troops die when a Red Cross DC-4 crashes.

1971 - London: Chelsea beat Jeunesse Hautcharage 13-0 in the European Cup Winners Cup second round, a European record of 21-0 on aggregate.

1975 - Nepal: Mountaineer Mike Burke, a member of the British team which climbed Everest a week before, dies while attempting a second climb.

1979 - Ireland: Pope John Paul II arrives on the first papal visit to Ireland.

1984 - Ireland: A massive IRA arms haul is seized aboard an Irish trawler off the south west coast.

1986 - Washington: The House of Representatives overrides Ronald Reagan's veto of sanctions against South Africa.

1988 - USA: The space shuttle "Discovery" goes into orbit, putting the US back into the space race.

1991 - Baghdad: UN inspectors investing Iraq's nuclear weapons programme are allowed to leave after being besieged in a car park for a week.

1995 - Los Angeles: The final summing up begins in the O.J Simpson trial. The Jury has heard testimonies from 126 witnesses and seen 857 exhibits.

2004 - Yemen: Rahim al-Nashiri and Jamal Mohammed found guilty of organising the October 12 2000 bombing of the "USS Cole" are sentenced to death by a court in Yemen.

2007 - New Jersey: Robert Levy, the mayor of Atlantic City disappears after being found to have embellished his Vietnam War Record.

2008 - Brazil: Brazil's government is named as the worst illegal logger of the Amazon Rain Forest.

September 30th

1901 - France: Registration becomes compulsory for cars capable of speeds of more than 20mph.

1910 - Constantinople: Turkey signs a military convention with Rumania.

1922 - London: A telephone toll exchange system is inaugurated in the capital.

1927 - New York: Baseball Player Babe Ruth hits his record 60th home run of the season.

1929 - Germany: The first rocket-powered aeroplane invented by Fritz von Opel makes it's maiden flight.

1930 - New York: Franklin D. Roosevelt wins the Democratic nomination for re-election as governor.

1935 - USA: George Gershwin's opera "Porgy and Bess" has its premiere in Boston.

1942 - Egypt: The Eighth Army seize key positions near El Alamein in a dawn raid.

1944 - France: Calais falls to Canadian Troops.

1949 - Belgrade: Poland and Hungary announce they are renouncing their friendship pacts with Yugoslavia.

1952 - UK: Bevanites win six out of seven constituency seats on Labour's NEC, ousting Hugh Dalton and Herbert Morrison.

1960 - New York: 15 new African nations are admitted to the UN.

1961 - Damascus: Syria declares independence from the UAR and orders the deportation of 27,000 Egyptians.

1963 - USA: 189 Negros are arrested during a civil rights protest in Alabama.

1965 - UK: EMI records begins selling LP records through 3,000 grocery stores for 12/6d.

1968 - UK: The Labour Party Conference votes to urge the repeal of the Governments wage restraints.

1971 - Belfast: The official IRA condemns a pub bombing by the Provisionals in which two people were killed.

1978 - Rhodesia: 300 people are reported killed in the bloodiest month so far in the guerrilla war.

1980 - Israel: The shekel replaces the pound as Israel's unit of currency.

1987 - London: Former MP Keith Best is jailed for four months for share-cheating.

1988 - USSR: Mikhail Gorbachev retires President Andrei Gromyko, Russia's former Foreign Minister.

1990 - Moscow: The USSR re-opens diplomatic relations with Israel, which were broken in 1967.

1992 - London: The Royal Mint introduces a new, smaller 10-pence coin.

1995 - UK: The British Publishing Industry waves goodbye to minimum retail book prices, after a legislation change, because of European law banning anti-competitive price-fixing.

2007 - Mexico City: Indian player Viswanathan Anand becomes world chess champion.

2009 - Indonesia: A 7.6 magnitude earthquake strikes western Indonesia killing 75 people, and leaving many injured.

2010 - USA: American actor Tony Curtis, star of "Spartacus, Some Like It Hot, and The Defiant Ones, dies at his home in Henderson in Nevada from a cardiac arrest aged 85.

October 1st

1906 - UK: In it's trials the battleship "Dreadnought" reaches a record speed of 21.5 knots.

1908 - Detroit: The Model T Ford goes on sale for the first time; it is the first motor car with left-hand drive.

1912 - Balkans: Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia mobilise for war with Turkey.

1921 - Washington: A US agenda for talks on the role of the four powers in the Pacific is accepted by the UK, France, and Japan.

1923 - London: The Broadcasting Committee recommends, a ten shillings wireless licence, with 7/6d going to the BBC.

1925 - New York: Woolworth Heiress Mrs James Donahue is robbed of $750,000 in jewels while in her hotel bathroom.

1927 - Moscow: The USSR signs a non-aggression pact with Persia.

1928 - UK: "Elastoplast" sticking plasters are first manufactured in Hull.

1930 - UK: 14 miners are killed after an explosion at Grove Colliery near Walsall.

1933 - Germany: The German Post Office establishes the first "telex" operation between Berlin and Hamburg.

1936 - London: The BBC begins regular television broadcasts from Alexandria Palace.

1939 - UK: 250,000 more conscripts are called up.

1940 - Helsinki: Finland signs a military and economic treaty with Germany.

1947 - USA: Screen goddess Rita Hayworth files for divorce from actor and director Orson Welles.

1952 - Korea: 52 Chinese prisoners of war are killed, and 140 are wounded when US guards open fire in an attempt to end a demonstration in a POW compound on Cheju Island off south-west Korea.

1956 - London: The Suez Canal User's Association is formally inaugurated with 15 nations as members.

1962 - Indonesia: The UN takes control of west New Guinea from Holland.

1969 - France: Concorde 001 breaks the sound barrier for the first time.

1970 - Cairo: 46 people die as thousands of mourners mob President Abdel Nasser's funeral cortege.

1974 - London: Britain's first McDonald's hamburger restaurant opens in south London.

1978 - Washington: Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko meets President Jimmy Carter to discuss strategic arms limitations.

1984 - London: Johnson Matthey Bankers, with £150 million loan losses is bought by the Bank of England.

1985 - Tunisia: Around 50 people are reported killed after an Israeli air strike on PLO offices near Tunis.

1988 - USSR: Mikhail Gorbachev is appointed President.

1995 - Tahiti: France carries out the second of its nuclear bomb tests.

1996 - New Jersey: A federal grand jury in Newark indicts suspected Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski for the murder of Thomas J. Mosser.

1998 - New York: The UN security council condemns Serb massacres of ethic Albanians in Kosovo, and threaten to launch NATO air strikes in retaliation.

2006 - UK: New laws against age discrimination in the workplace - officially titled Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006, come into force.

2008 - USA: AFRICOM - a new US armed forces unified combatant command for Africa is created.

2009 - Africa: Paleontologist's announce the discovery of an Ardipithecus Ramidus fossil skeleton deeming it to be the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor.

October 2nd

1901 - UK: Britain's first submarine the 63 foot "Holland 1 is launched at Barrow.

1903 - London: Parts of a ancient Roman wall are discovered during demolition of Newgate prison.

1908 - India: Hundred of people are reported killed after severe flooding in Hyderabad.

1909 - China: The first entirely Chinese built railway from Peking to Kalgan opens.

1916 - London: Queen Mary opens the women's extensions at the London School of Medicine.

1919 - Paris: French MP's ratify the Versailles Peace Treaty.

1924 - USSR: Leon Trotsky arrives to command the Red Army in Georgia as renewed fighting breaks out.

1926 - UK: A French airliner bursts into flames over Kent, resulting in the deaths of seven passengers.

1931 - Glasgow: 49 arrests are made after two nights of riots in protest over the government's emergency measures.

1941 - Leningrad: The Soviet Army launch a counter-attack as the winter's first snow begins to fall.

1945 - Germany: Eisenhower relives Patton of his command after his comments he made to the press on uprooting Nazis.

1948 - Moscow: The USSR drops it demand for a ban on atomic weapons.

1951 - UK: Manny Shinwell is ousted from Labour's national executive committee by Barbara Castle.

1957 - UK: Vauxhall introduces its new "Cresta" and "Velox" cars.

1960 - Reykjavik: Iceland and Britain begin talks to settle their fishing dispute.

1966 - New York: Jim Clark wins the US Grand Prix.

1971 - Belgium: A British airliner crashes, with the loss of all 63 passengers and crew.

1972 - Japan: Led Zeppelin play the first of two sell-out gigs at the Budokan Hall in Tokyo.

1977 - Austria: Niki Lauda wins the F1 world Championship Title.

1979 - Brighton: The Labour Party Conference votes for mandatory re-selection of Labour MP's.

1983 - Sweden: Abba's Agnetha Faltskog is taken to hospital suffering concussion after a car accident in Skane, Sweden.

1988 - Pakistan: 300 people are killed in ethnic clashes in Karachi and Islamabad.

1990 - UK: Police seize two suspected IRA "Hit-men" at Stonehenge.

1992 - Brazil: A riot in a Sao Paulo prison leaves 111 inmates dead.

2007 - Iraq: PM Gordon Brown makes his first visit to Iraq, and announces the withdrawal of 1,000 troops.

2009 - USA: Thousands of people attend a rally in Washington, calling for improved civil rights in the country.

October 3rd

1906 - Liverpool: The biggest TUC conference opens with 490 delegates representing 1.5 million union members.

1912 - Balkans: Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia issue an Ultimatum to Turkey.

1916 - London: Doctors receive help providing diagnostic tests and drugs to combat an increase in syphilis.

1918 - Berlin: Prince Maximilian of Baden is appointed Imperial Chancellor in succession to Georg von Hertling.

1928 - Spain: 43 sailors are killed when the French Submarine "Ondine" collides with a Greek steamer off the Spanish coast.

1929 - Belgrade: The informal term Yugoslavia is declared the official name of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.

1936 - Spain: A cabinet reshuffle brings anarchists into the government for the first time, with four becoming ministers.

1938 - London: Duff Cooper resigns as First Lord of the Admiralty over Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler.

1939 - London: Neville Chamberlain announces the set-up of a new Whitehall department to handle censorship and control of news.

1941 - New York: John Huston's classic "The Maltese Falcon" with Humphrey Bogart, has it's premiere.

1942 - Washington: President Roosevelt orders a freeze on wages, rents, and farm prices.

1952 - London: The government announces the end of tea rationing.

1957 - UK: 1,000 parish councillors ask the government to stop British Rail closing branch lines.

1960 - Nice: Actress Brigette Bardot leaves hospital after recovering from a suicide attempt.

1963 - Honduras: A coup overthrows President Ramon Morales.

1965 - Washington: President Lyndon Johnson announces all refugees from Castro's Cuba are welcome to come to the US.

1967 - Hanoi: North Vietnam rejects a US offer of peace talks.

1971 - South Vietnam: Nguyen Van Thieu wins another four-year term as president.

1975 - Belfast: Ulster Secretary Merlyn Rees, bans the Ulster Volunteer Force.

1976 - Rhodesia: Black leader Bishop Abel Muzorewa returns to a tumultuous welcome after 15 months in exile.

1980 - UK: The Housing Act comes into force, allowing council tenants to buy their homes.

1985 - London: Sir Robert Haslam is appointed to succeed Ian MacGregor as NCB chairman.

1987 - Scotland: SAS troops storm Peterhead jail to free a prison officer held hostage by inmates.

1993 - Mogadishu: 12 US soldiers are killed and 78 are wounded in a failed attempt to capture leaders of Somali warlord Mohammed Aidid's militia.

1995 - Los Angeles: The trial of O.J Simpson which had lasted nine months, comes to a swift conclusion when the jury of ten women and two men return a verdict of "Not Guilty."

1997 - Paris: Princess Diana's bodyguard Trevor Rees Jones is released from hospital, experts she he cannot recall the events leading up to the crash, but say his memory may return.

2008 - Sweden: Remains of a Viking-era stave church, with the skeletal remains of a woman are uncovered near the cemetery of the Lannas church in Odensbaken outside Orebro, in central Sweden.

2009 - UK: Archaeologist's discover a similar prehistoric site near Stonehenge, dubbed as "Bluehenge" named after the hue of the stones.

2010 - USA: Tiger Woods drops out of golfs Top 50 for the first time in nearly 15 years.

October 4th

1910: Portugal: King Manuel flees to Gibraltar aboard the royal yacht "Amelia" after being deposed in a well-planned revolution.

1921 - Berlin: Owing to the fall of the mark, the government puts a 100% surcharge on all imports.

1922 - Dublin: The Irish government offers amnesty to all who lay down their arms and surrender seized property.

1923 - Scotland: Five men are rescued from a flooded mine at Redding, near Falkirk, after being trapped for ten days.

1933 - Geneva: Britain and Italy launch an attack on Nazism during a League of nations session.

1937 - Washington: Judge Hugo Black joins the Supreme Court despite his former membership of the Ku Klux Klan.

1941 - Norway: The Germans warn the Norwegian people that they will face starvation if anti-Nazi unrest continues.

1942 - El Alamein: Irwin Rommel is reported to be in full retreat; 9,000 Axis prisoners are captured, and 300 tanks are destroyed.

1943 - Corsica: The island falls to the French Resistance, becoming the first department of France to be liberated.

1948 - London: Winston Churchill's first volume of the history of the Second World War "The Gathering Storm" is published.

1950 - London: Three generations of the Bowler Family attend a celebration to mark the centenary of the bowler hat.

1957 - Russia: Russia launches its man-made satellite Sputnik 1.

1965 - New York: Pope Paul VI becomes the first Pope to visit the western hemisphere as he arrives to address the UN.

1966 - London: The government invokes a price and wage freeze under the new Prices and Incomes Act.

1967 - Nigeria: Federal troops capture Enugu, the capital of Biafra.

1970 - USA: Rock singer Janis Joplin is found dead at the Landmark Hotel in Hollywood from an heroin overdose.

1976 - UK: The world's fastest diesel rail services begin as British Rail introduces its HS-125 trains.

1978 - USA: Emily and William Harris are jailed for ten years for the Kidnapping of Patty Hearst.

1984 - UK: Norman Willis is elected to succeed Len Murray as TUC general secretary.

1986 - Nicaragua: US Air Force pilot Eugene Hasenfus is captured after his cargo plane is shot down.

1988 - Belgrade: Workers besiege parliament demanding the government's resignation.

1993 - Strasbourg: Rumania becomes a member of the Council of Europe.

1995 - Tokyo: Japan's public TV channel announces that Shoko Asahara, leader of the Aum Supreme Truth Cult, has confessed to carrying out the Tokyo gas attack.

1997 - Cyprus: Around 700 crew and passengers are rescued after the cruise ship Romantica catches fire off the coast of Cyprus.

2007 - Russia: Russia celebrates the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1.

2009 - Taiwan: A 6.3 Earthquake hits Taiwan during the middle of the night.

2010: Isle of Man: After suffering a series of strokes the much-loved comedian/actor/songwriter Sir Norman Wisdom passes away at Abbotswood nursing home on the Isle of Man aged 95.

October 5th

1906 - Russia: An estimated 1,000 political prisoners a day are reported to being sent to exile in Siberia.

1907 - London: The first UK public display of an airship takes place as a dirigible circles St. Paul's Cathedral.

1908 - Balkans: Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria declares his country independent of the Ottoman Empire.

1916 - USA: President Woodrow Wilson announces the US is prepared to fight for a "just cause."

1917 - Lima: The Peruvian parliament votes to break off diplomatic relations with Germany.

1920 - Hamburg: The world's largest liner, the Bismarck, is destroyed by fire.

1926 - UK: 250,000 striking miners return to work.

1927 - Blackpool: The Labour Party conference votes to nationalise the mines.

1933 - London: Health minister Sir Hilton Young announces a £95 million slum clearance scheme, seeing over a million people rehoused and 210,000 slum dwellings demolished.

1934 - Spain: An uprising begins in Catalonia.

1939 - Riga: Latvia signs a mutual aid pact with the USSR.

1941 - Yugoslavia: Soviet bombers aid partisan insurgents led by Josip Broz Tito.

1944 - Berlin: Josef Goebbels announces food rations will be cut.

1945 - Tokyo: Baron Kijuro Shidehara is appointed Japan's new premier.

1949 - New York: The UN flag is hoisted over the new UN building.

1954 - USA: Marilyn Monroe sues Joe DiMaggio for divorce, citing conflicting career demands.

1960 - South Africa: The country's whites vote for a republic.

1966 - Spain: General Franco bans all traffic to and from Gibraltar.

1967 - London: The British Lawn Tennis Association proposes to abolish the distinction between amateurs and professionals.

1969 - UK: The first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus is transmitted by the BBC.

1972 - Somalia: Tanzania and Uganda sign a peace pact to end their border war.

1974 - UK: Five people are killed and 65 are injured in IRA bomb attacks in two Guildford pubs.

1975 - Austria: Niki Lauda becomes F1 motor racing world champion.

1977 - Dublin: The former head of the IRA Seamus Costello is murdered.

1983 - London: Trade and Industry Secretary Cecil Parkinson admits having had a relationship with his secretary Sarah Keys.

1984 - UK: Police and customs men seize £7.2 million worth of drugs in Europe's biggest haul of cannabis.

1987 - London: A court quashes share cheat Tory MP Keith Best's four-month jail term.

1994 - Wirral: Britain's oldest man 109 year-old William Proctor dies.

2004 - USA: Gordon Cooper, aeronautical engineer and pilot of the final Mercury spaceflight in 1963, dies from heart failure at his home in Ventura, California aged 77.

2006 - Afghanistan: NATO expands its security mission to the whole of Afghanistan, taking command of more than 13,000 US troops in the east of the country.

2011 - London: Scottish folk musician and founder member of the band "Pentangle" Herbert "Bert" Jansch dies after a long battle with lung cancer at a hospice in Hampstead, aged 67.

October 6th

1902 - South Africa: A 2,000 mile railway between Cape Town and Beira in Mozambique is completed.

1909 - Switzerland: US aeronaut E.W. Mix wins the Gordon Bennett International Balloon Race.

1913 - China: Yuan Shi-kai is elected president of the republic.

1918 - UK: 430 people die when two liners, one a US troop ship collide off the Scottish coast.

1921 - Brussels: A conference of 16 countries meet to discuss famine aid for Russia.

1927 - New York: The stock exchange begins trading in foreign shares.

1932 - Oxford: John Turner, 17 is the first Briton to be treated with an "iron lung" at the Wingfield Morris Hospital.

1938 - Palestine: 60 Arabs are killed after a 6 hour gun-battle with British Troops.

1939 - Berlin: Adolf Hitler reassures Holland and Belgium of his friendship.

1942 - London: 16 year-old galley boy John Conroy wins the British Empire Medal for bravery on Russian convoys.

1943 - Rome: The Germans begin looting the city's art treasures ahead of the Allied advance.

1950 - Lebanon: The world's longest pipeline is completed running 1,068 miles from the US oil fields in the Gulf to Sidon.

1951 - Singapore: Sir Henry Gurney, High Commissioner for Malaya, is killed in a Communist ambush.

1953 - British Guiana: Britain orders troops and warships to the colony to forestall a feared Communist coup attempt.

1957 - Warsaw: Students riot against the government for the third day running.

1963 - London: A crowd of around 1,000 people hurl eggs and apples at Nazi leader Colin Jordan after his wedding.

1968 - USA: Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill, and John Surtees finish 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the US Grand Prix.

1976 - Bangkok: The army seizes power after violent clashes between police and students.

1978 - France: The Ayatollah Khomeini is granted asylum by france after being expelled from Iraq.

1981 - Belfast: John DeLorean begins a libel action after the government denies it is investigating his car firm.

1982 - London: Sid Weighell resigns as general secretary of the NUR in a row over his alleged misuse of the rail unions vote.

1988 - Chile: The military dictator General Augusto Pinochet, is defeated in the election, and his cabinet resigns.

1990 - USA: Porn Actress Jynx Maze is born in Long Beach, California.

1992 - Spain: Stalwart British TV and Film Actor Denholm Elliot dies at his home in Santa Eularia des Riu on Ibiza from Aids- related tuberculosis, aged 70.

2006 - USA: NASA releases close-ups of Mars taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, revealing its hidden oceanic past.

2009 - Philippines: Typhoon Parma makes landfall at Luzon.

2011 - London: The Bank of England injects a further £75 billion into the British economy through quantitative easing.