SWINDON

1951: Colonel Lewickie, formerly a member of the Polish International Horse Jumping team, assisted in instructing the Vale of the White Horse Pony Club members at a rally held at Purton House, Purton.

1951: A recording star from the Midland Regional BBC Studio visited Lechlade to record an interview with Mr David Buchanan, artist and musical instrument maker. Mr Buchanan’s studio, shared with his sister Lillian, was formerly used a a bakery. He also talked about the violin he made in the Western Desert during the war.

1961: Seventeen members of the Swindon branch of the Electrical Trades Union, who were not taken back by the Pressed Steel Company in Stratton St Margaret after the strike, received victimisation pay from the Union. Many said that when they had gone for other jobs and when they said their previous employment was with Pressed Steel they were often refused the job.

1961: Women’s Voluntary Services members in Swindon responded to the call by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency to provide 20,000 layettes for refugee mothers living in camps on the Israel border. The Swindon WVS topped their target figure providing parcels of new garments or garments made up from second hand clothing.

1971: The Evening Advertiser team scored 37 points beating the HTV residents team who scored only 19 points, to secure a place in the semi finals of the News Quiz. The Paper Round team were made up of reporter David Flintham, advertising representative Neil Goswell and tele-typesetter Alf Futcher.

1971: The British-built Cocorde 002, grounded for more than a month, took off from its base at Fairford, with the British Aircraft Corporation’s deputy chief test pilot, John Cochrane, at the controls, for a supersonic flight over the Bay of Biscay.

THE WORLD

79AD: Vesuvius erupted, destroying the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and killing 2,000 people. Paradoxically, the eruption destroyed Pompeii but also preserved it for the rest of time.

1572: The St Bartholomew’s Day massacre took place in Paris when thousands of French Huguenots were killed by order of the Catholic French court.

1724: Painter George Stubbs was born in Liverpool.

1814: British troops under General Ross invaded Washington and set fire to the White House and the Capital. Both were rebuilt and enlarged.

1875: Matthew Webb, British merchant navy captain, became the first person to swim the English Channel, doing the breaststroke from Dover to Cap Gris Nez in 21 hours, 45 minutes.

1891: The motion picture camera was patented by Thomas Edison.

1916: Eight people died when Zeppelins raided the outskirts of London.

1965: The 450,000-year-old body of a man was found in a Hungarian limestone quarry.

2006: The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefined the term “planet” such that Pluto was then considered a dwaf planet.

2008: Gordon Brown promised that the London Games would be “the best Olympics Ever” as the official handover to Mayor Boris Johnson took place in Beijing.

2014: A 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck Napa, California, in the northern San Francisco Bay area;, it was the largest earthquake to strike northern California since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

2016: Backpacker Mia Ayliffe-Chung, 21, from Wirksworth in Derbyshire, was stabbed to death at a backpackers’ hostel in Australia by an attacker shouting ‘’Allahu Akbar’’.

BIRTHDAYS Antonia (AS) Byatt, writer, 81; Jean-Michel Jarre, composer, 69; Sam Torrance, golfer, 64; Stephen Fry, actor/writer/presenter, 60; Steve Guttenberg, actor, 59; Jared Harris, actor, 56; Chad Michael Murray, actor, 36; Rupert Grint, actor, 29.