On this day

1169 - 'The First Conquerors' landed in Ireland. They were Normans from Wales enlisted by Dermot MacMurrough to recover his kingdom of Leinster.

1430 - Burgundian troops captured Joan of Arc and delivered her to the English.

1701 - At London's Execution Dock, British privateer Captain Kidd was hanged for piracy and murder. Commissioned by the British crown in 1695 to apprehend pirates in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, Kidd apparently turned to piracy himself in 1697.

1956 - The first large-scale nuclear power station was opened at Calder Hall, Cumbria. It was decommissioned after producing electricity for almost 50 years.

1809 - Dartmoor Prison was opened to accommodate French prisoners of war. From 1850 it becomes a prison for convicts.

1930 - Amy Johnson landed at Darwin, Australia and became the first woman to fly from England to Australia.

1941 - World War II: The German battleship Bismarck sank the Royal Navy's largest warship HMS Hood off Greenland with the loss of more than 1,400 lives. The boat exploded when a German shell hit the Hood's ammunition store.

1976 - British Airways and Air France Concordes arrived at Dulles International Airport, Washington D.C. having made their first commercial crossing of the North Atlantic.

1768 - Captain James Cook sailed on his first voyage of discovery, on which he explored the Society Islands and charted the coasts of New Zealand and West Australia.

1895 - At the end of a sensational trial, Irish writer Oscar Wilde was convicted of gross indecency in his relations with the son of the Marquess of Queensberry. He was sentenced to two years hard labour.

1967 - Celtic became the first British football club to win the European Cup beating Inter Milan 2-1 in Lisbon.

1994 - The Camelot consortium won the contract to run Britain's first national lottery, starting in November.

1670 - Charles II and Louis XIV signed a secret treaty in Dover, ending hostilities between England and France.

1798 - Income Tax was introduced into Britain - a 10% tax on all incomes over £200 a year.

1868 - In the last public execution in England, Irish terrorist Michael Barrett was hanged outside Newgate Prison for causing an explosion in London which left 13 dead.

1969 - Beatle John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono staged a public 'bed in' for world peace - staying in bed for a week in a hotel in Montreal.

1989 - The BBC broadcast the 10,000th episode of the daily radio serial The Archers.

Birthdays

Stevie nicks-62..Fleetwood Mac singer.
Michael Portillo-57..Former Tory minister.
Lenny Kravitz-46..American musican.

1657 - Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell refused parliament's offer of the title King of England.

1679 - Britain passed the Habeas Corpus Act which made it illegal to hold anyone in prison without a trial.

1919 - Oil was struck at Britain's first on-shore oilfield of three wells, at Hardstoft, near Tibshelf in Derbyshire.

1936 - Britain's 80,733 tonne liner Queen Mary left Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York with more than 1800 passengers.

1941 - World War II: Royal Naval ships Dorsetshire, King George V and Rodney attacked and sank the German battleship Bismarck in the Atlantic after it had been damaged by torpedoes dropped by British aircraft from HMS Ark Royal.

Just been watching about the 70th anniversary of the Dunkirk Evacuation on the News and thought this prehaps belongs here.


In 1940 'Operation Dynamo' took place, it was the evacuation of British and Allied
soldiers from Dunkirk by a flotilla of 'little ships' coordinated by the Royal Naval and with the RAF giving protection.

Between May 26th and the 4th of June a total of 338,226 soldiers were rescued.

Churchill called it a "miracle of deliverance" as it had been expected that only
20-30,000 would be rescued. It also gave rise to the phrase "Dunkirk spirit"

Many French troops remained behind to hold the perimeter and were captured along with those who were not lucky enough to be evacuated.

Heres a couple of links which are well worth checking out (or use Google)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8707657.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk_evacuation

Birthdays

Paul Gascoingne-43
Joseph Fiennes-40
Jamie Oliver-35

1907-Bubonic plague breaks out in San Francisco,California.

1975-The Dibble's Bridge coach crash near Grassington,North Yorks,kills 32-the highest ever death toll in a road accident in the UK.

2006-The may 2006 Java earthquake strikes at 5.53am local time,killing more than 6,600 people.

1842 - Britain's first public library opened, in Frederick Street, Salford.

1907 - The first Isle of Man TT (Tourist Trophy) motor cycle races were held.

1908 - Ian Fleming, English author (James Bond novels) was born.

1982 - Falklands War: British troops re-captured Port Darwin and Goose Green, taking almost 1500 Argentine prisoners.

1990 - The Maiden arrived in Southampton, completing the Whitbread around-the-world yacht race. The first ever all-woman crew was skippered by Tracy Edwards.