Swindon

1951: The new Headlands School building in Headlands Grove was set to be completed within a few days. The builders expected to have used a total of 1,250,000 bricks by the time the last one was laid, and the next tasks on the schedule were interior decoration and the installation of general fittings. Tenders in the region of £25,000 for new furniture and equipment had been submitted to the County Council, and It was hoped that the school would be ready for its first pupils by August of 1952.

1961: A month’s free trial was being offered by local choir Swindon Orpheus to teachers arriving in Swindon for the new term. Conductor and secretary Ewart Hill said he wanted to welcome teachers with an interest in the arts outside the school environment, and they would be able to attend a month’s rehearsals with no obligation to join.

1971: Christine Green, 26, of Gooch Street, Swindon, won a beauty contest at the Butlin’s holiday camp at Barry Island. Miss Green a technical assistant in a draughtsman’s office, was now through to the final stages of a national holiday camp beauty contest and in with a chance of winning £1,000.

The world

1797: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, second wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and author, in 1818, of Frankenstein, was born in London.

1860: The first tram service in Britain opened, at Birkenhead on Merseyside.

1871: Lord Rutherford, pioneer of subatomic physics, was born in Spring Grove, New Zealand. In the 1920s he was the first to split the atom.

1881: The first stereo system was patented by Clement Ader of Germany, for a telephonic broadcasting service.

1901: Scotsman Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner.

1937: Joe Louis defeated Welshman Tommy Farr in an epic fight in New York to retain the world heavyweight boxing title.

1939: The great evacuation of children from British cities began. With the Second World War four days away, thousands of youngsters were moved to the country to avoid anticipated German bombing.

1963: The ‘Hotline’ between the US president and the Soviet premier was established to reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear war. A group of London Metropolitan University students gathered outside Downing Street to express their distress at the UKBA’s decision to strip it of its right to admit foreigners.

1993: France’s Eiffel Tower receives its 150,000,000th visitor.

Birthdays Elizabeth Ashley, actress, 78; Sue MacGregor, broadcaster, 76; Robert Crumb, cartoonist, 74; Timothy Bottoms, actor, 66; Mark Strong, actor, 54; Cameron Diaz, actress, 45; Andy Roddick, tennis player, 35.