Swindon

1951: Popular Upper Stratton police officer Constable J Hastings was presented with a writing set by members of the British Legion’s Stratton St Margaret branch. Members held a collection to mark the officer’s departure for a new posting at Shrewton. The presentation was made by Captain G Griffiths, who was performing his first official duty as the new president of the branch.

1961: Patricia Dunbar, an 18-year-old WRAF telephone operator at RAF Lyneham, stepped in to comfort the injured following a road accident and won praise from the police and other rescue workers. She helped to care for nine people after a van overturned on the Swindon-Wootton Bassett road. One admiring police officer said: “She did not leave until the last casualty was evacuated, and I saw her sitting on the side of the road cradling one of the injured men in her arms without any regard for the civilian clothing she was wearing.”

1971: Swindon police warned the public to be on the lookout for criminals suspected of trying to steal as much money as possible ahead of the festive season. In the Parks area, officers were investigating four house break-ins, including one in which every coin in the gas and electricity meters was taken.

The world

1648: The Treaty of Westphalia was signed, ending the Thirty Years’ War.

1851: William Lassell discovered the moons Umbriel and Ariel orbiting Uranus.

1857: The first football club, Sheffield FC, was formed by a group of Harrow old boys meeting in Sheffield.

1882: Actress Dame Sybil Thorndike was born in Gainsborough, Lincs.

1917: Bolshevik Red Guards began takeover of buildings in Russia, among the first events associated with the October Revolution.

1924: A letter purporting to be from Grigori Zinoviev, of the USSR, calling for Socialists to start a revolution was leaked to the British press on the eve of a General Election. The letter, later denounced as a forgery, helped give the Tories a huge victory.

1929: “Black Thursday” stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange.

1931: Al Capone’s gangster career ended when he was sentenced to 11 years for tax evasion. He was released in 1939 and died in 1947.

1945: The United Nations Charter came into force.

1947: Famed animator Walt Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming Disney employees he believes to be Communists.

1948: Franz Lehar, Hungarian composer of operettas including The Merry Widow, died in Vienna aged 78.

1964: Northern Rhodesia became the Republic of Zambia.

1969: Richard Burton bought his wife, Elizabeth Taylor, pictured, a 69.42 carat diamond, costing more than a million dollars.

1989: US television preacher Jim Bakker was given a 45-year jail sentence and fined 500,000 US dollars for swindling his followers of millions of dollars.

2016: The mass exodus of refugees and migrants from the Jungle camp in Calais was under way, with buses dispersing hundreds of its residents across France.

BIRTHDAYS

Bill Wyman, ex-Rolling Stone bassist, 81; Kevin Kline, actor, 69; Sarah Greene, TV presenter, 59; Jonathan Davies, rugby commentator, 55; Caprice, model, 46; Dervla Kirwan, actress, 46; Wayne Rooney, footballer, 32.