Swindon

1951: The first complete, self-contained school to be built in Swindon since the war, Lethbridge Road School, was opened with the sound of children’s voices echoing through the one-storey building. It was built to house two classrooms. It was originally intended as a separate nursery school but since the war the number of children increased so it had to become an extension of the infants school.

1961: Shaw Methodist Church near Swindon, installed its own television set with an aerial set outside and a wire going through a leaded window to the Youth Club Room. The youth club members made use of the TV at their twice weekly meetings and the church itself, opened all day for devotion, was used by some older members to watch TV.

1971: Hambro Live Assurance, the fastest growing company of its kind, has taken the office block above Bon Marche in The Parade, Swindon as its administration headquarters. The 48.000 sq ft office space has been empty for three and a half years since being built.

The world 1066: William the Conqueror landed in Pevensey, Sussex.

1399: The first British monarch to abdicate, Richard II, was replaced by Bolingbroke to whom he had surrendered without a fight. Bolingbroke ascended as Henry IV.

1758: Horatio Nelson, hero of Trafalgar and Britain’s greatest sailor, was born at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk.

1829: London’s first official police force was mobilised and its men nicknamed ‘’Bobbies’’ or ‘’Peelers’’ after Sir Robert Peel, the Home Secretary who founded it.

1899: Sir Billy Butlin, holiday camp pioneer, was born.

1930: George Bernard Shaw turned down a peerage.

1938: The Munich Pact, an agreement between Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy, was signed, under which the Sudetenland was surrendered to Nazi Germany.

1941: A Nazi death squad murdered 30,000 Russian Jews in Kiev.

1952: British and world water-speed record holder John Cobb was killed on Loch Ness when his vessel Crusader disintegrated after hitting waves at 240mph.

1983: A Chorus Line broke the record as the longest-running Broadway show with its 3,389th performance since July 25, 1975.

Birthdays Jerry Lee Lewis, singer, 82; Ian McShane, actor, 75; Lech Walesa, former Polish president, 74; Patricia Hodge, actress, 71; Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, former MP and athlete, 61; Mark Nicholas, broadcaster and former cricketer, 60; Brett Anderson, singer, 50; Luke and Matt Goss, singers (Bros), 49; Emily Lloyd, actress, 47; Mackenzie Crook, actor, 46.