SWINDON...

1947: Swindon Town and Leyton Orient, who have won their last six home games, will be meeting for the first time this season at Osborne Road. This will be the town’s last game in Division 111.

1957: Judges watched closely as members of the Swindon B Team went into action in the British Railways (WR) First Aid Competition Finals. The group proved that they were definitely the team to have around in an emergency, winning the top slot in the contest.

1977: It was an Alice In Wonderland scene at Swindon’s Central Hall where teenagers in black and white hats and costumes moved live pieces across the giant chess board. They were taking part in a sponsored 24-hour chess game in aid of the Young Enterprise Swindon project.

2013: Two professional concert pianists are picking up the gauntlet in a challenge to perform Holst’s Planets suite in an arrangement for four hands on one piano. Paul Turner, artistic director of the Swindon Recital Series of concerts, and Clare Toomer will undertake the daunting task at the Arts Centre in Devizes Road, Old Town.

THE WORLD...

1397: Geoffrey Chaucer tells the Canterbury Tales for the first time at the court of Richard II. Chaucer scholars have also identified this date (in 1387) as the start of the book’s pilgrimage to Canterbury.

1907: The Ellis Island immigration center processes 11,747 people, more than on any other day.

1937: Daffy Duck makes first appearance, in Porky’s Duck Hunt.

1951: The Peak District becomes the United Kingdom's first National Park.

1961: Bay of Pigs Invasion: A group of Cuban exiles financed and trained by the CIA lands at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro.

1984: Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher is killed by gunfire from the Libyan People's Bureau (Embassy) in London.

BORN...

1882: Artur Schnabel, Polish pianist and composer (d. 1951).

1951: Olivia Hussey, Argentinian-English actress.

1955: Pete Shelley, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Buzzcocks).

1957: Nick Hornby, English author and screenwriter, pictured.

1985: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, French tennis player.

DIED...

1892: Alexander Mackenzie, Scottish-Canadian soldier, journalist, and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1822).

1941: Al Bowlly, Mozambican-English singer-songwriter and bandleader (b. 1899).

1987: Cecil Harmsworth King, English publisher (b. 1901).

1987: Dick Shawn, American actor (b. 1923).

1998: Linda McCartney, American singer-songwriter, photographer, and activist (Wings) (b. 1941).

2003: Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova, Russian conjoined twins (b. 1950).