SWINDON

1952: Members of Swindon Rotary Club were taken on a guided tour of the Austrian Tyrol without having to leave their seats. The speaker at their weekly luncheon was fellow member Mr DP Storey, who had recently returned from a holiday there. He revealed that the area where he stayed, not far from Innsbruck, had no shortage of inns which were cheap, clean and good. The only drawback was a slight language difficulty.

1952: Many Adver readers got in touch to call for more public seating to be provided by the Borough of Swindon and the various nearby rural councils. Suggested sites included the corner of County Road and Manchester Road and the crossroads at Stratton. The readers said more seats were needed to give weary walkers rest as they went about their business or simply took refreshing strolls.

1962: Swindon’s first assistant museum curator, Miss Morna MacGregor, announced that she would be leaving the town - but not museum work - on August 18. On September 7 she was to marry Mr Derek Simpson, a Devizes museum worker she met while studying at Edinburgh University, and then moved to Leicester. Miss MacGregor, 24, who held a degree in prehistoric archaeology, said she planned to work at the museum there while her husband lectured at the university.

1962: A group of 30 apprentices from Vickers-Armstrong’s engineering works in South Marston were preparing for a European trip combining education and pleasure. They were to visit Germany and Holland, and the company said a busy itinerary had been drawn up, with plenty of excursions to colleges and industrial plants.

1972: More than 30 Danish summer school students toured the Wyvern Theatre. They were members of DATS, the Danish amateur theatre organisation, and were spending a week at Nuneham College in Oxford while studying British theatre. The trip to the Wyvern, which had opened the previous year, was conducted by Wyvern PR officer Mary Horan.

1972: The Palace cinema in Gorse Hill was to close almost completely to the public apart from late Saturday horror film screenings and Saturday morning matinees for children. For the rest of the week it was to be a members-only Tatler club, showing erotic films. The management said the change was a response to public demand for the Tatler’s programme.

THE WORLD

10BC: Roman Emperor Claudius I was born in Lyons.

1714: Queen Anne, the last Stuart sovereign, died aged 49, to be succeeded by George I under the Act of Settlement of 1701.

1778: The first savings bank opened, in Hamburg.

1798: The Battle of the Nile when Nelson beat the French fleet at Aboukir Bay.

1831: New London Bridge was opened by King William IV. It was sold to an American in 1968 and rebuilt in Arizona.

1834: Slavery was abolished in all British dominions.

1873: The Clay Street Hill Railroad, San Francisco’s cable-powered street car system, began running.

1903: Martha Jane Cannary, better known as frontierswoman Calamity Jane, died near Deadwood, Dakota. Her final request was to be buried next to Wild Bill Hickok.

1932: The first Mars bar, made in Slough, went on sale.

1945: Family Favourites record request programme began on the BBC.

2012: Golden girl rowers Helen Glover and Heather Stanning claimed Team GB’s first gold medal of London 2012.

BIRTHDAYS

Professor Laurie Taylor, sociologist, 82; Robert Cray, blues musician, 65; Chuck D, rapper, 58; Coolio, rapper/actor, 55; Mark Wright, former footballer and manager, 55; Sam Mendes, film and theatre director, 53; David James, former footballer, 48; Nwankwo Kanu, former footballer, 42.