SWINDON

1951: Swindon artist JM Cockell had only been painting for two years but already had three London exhibitions to his name. The latest was the newly-opened Salon of Watercolours exhibition at Kensington Art Gallery. One of the pictures he submitted, called Over the Wiltshire Downs, was described as a warm study in gold and russet.

1961: The first meeting of Prince’s Farm Girls’ Club in Park South was held in the Prince’s Farm Common Room. The club was founded by 12-year-old Patricia Jones, of Carstairs Avenue, and 13-year-old Hazel Pickett, of Trentham Close. The two had decided two months earlier to ask locally whether such a club would be popular, and collected 420 signatures from girls and their parents.

1971: Edith Wallis, the medium invited to probe the mysteries of Avebury’s ancient stone circles, said the main stones may at one time have supported a roof. Miss Wallis had been asked to visit the site by the Swindon branch of the Churches’ Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies. She described feeling a number of vibrations when she touched the stones.

The world

1645: The Battle of Naseby took place in Northamptonshire during the Civil War. Cromwell’s Parliamentarians (Roundheads) defeated the Royalists (Cavaliers) under Prince Rupert, defending King Charles I.

1789: Whiskey distilled from maize was first produced - by a clergyman, the Rev Elijah Craig. He called the liquor bourbon because he lived in Bourbon County, Kentucky.

1839: The first Henley Regatta on the Thames took place.

1840: The first reduced-rate railway excursion was introduced when Newcastle & Carlisle Railway ran a works family outing from Newcastle to Carlisle.

1873: King Priam’s treasure of 8,700 priceless pieces was discovered in Turkey by German/American Heinrich Schliemann. In disinterring it, he destroyed what was left of Troy.

1919: Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten-Brown took off from Newfoundland on the first non-stop transatlantic flight to Galway, Ireland, in a Vickers Vimy.

1940: German troops entered Paris and the Swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower. Eight days later the armistice was signed and the Vichy government was set up.

1964: Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to Robben Island, seven miles off Cape Town, sparking international protests.

1970: Bobby Charlton played his 106th and last football match for England in the World Cup in Mexico. His first was on April 19, 1958, against Scotland.

1982: Argentinian troops on the Falkland Islands surrendered when General Mario Benjamin Menendez agreed to an armistice.

BIRTHDAYS Mike Yarwood, entertainer, 76; Donald Trump, United States president, 71; Sir Antony Sher, actor/writer, 68; Paul Boateng, former British High Commissioner to South Africa, 66; Will Patton, actor, 63; Paul O’Grady, comedian, 62; Boy George, singer, 56; Yasmine Bleeth, actress, 49; Steffi Graf, former tennis player, 48.