SWINDON...

1957: An appeal for the postponement of H Bomb testing was sent to the Prime Minister and Soviet Embassy by the Penhill Section of the Swindon Constituency Labour Party. They also called upon the constituency’s executive to call a special meeting to support their action.

1977: The Lord Mayor of Salzgitter, Swindon’s German twin town, was due to arrive in Swindon. Mayor Willi Blune was accompanied by a party of five councillors and the town official Oberrat Berger. The visit started with a reception at the Civic Offices.

2013: Red and white were the colours of choice as Swindon celebrated St George’s Day with a parade through the town centre and a much-anticipated charity concert in the council chamber. A 20ft-high figure of England’s patron saint proudly paraded through the town centre to commemorate the Feast of St George.

 

THE WORLD...

1500: Navigator Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovered Brazil and claimed it on behalf of Portugal.

1838: The British packet steamer Sirius became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic to New York from England.

1884: A major earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter Scale hit Colchester and parts of East Anglia.

1915: Germany first used poison gas at Ypres as a chemical weapon.

1930: The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States signed the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding.

1943: The printing of British £1,000 notes was discontinued.

1969: Yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston sailed into Falmouth to complete his 312-day, non-stop, round-the-world voyage.

1989: Archaeologists unearthed a 2,000-year-old mummy in a gold-covered coffin in the Egyptian oasis, Fayoum. She was wrapped in linen and dried flowers and had a child beside her.

2005: Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologised for Japan's war record.

2013: A memorial service marks the 20th anniversary of the death of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.

 

BORN...

1870: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), Russian revolutionary leader

1899: Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-American author

1923: Bettie Page, American model and actress

1925: George Cole, English actor

1937: Jack Nicholson, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter

1960: Gary Rhodes, English chef

1963: Sean Lock, English comedian and actor

 

DIED...

1933: Frederick Henry Royce, co-founder of Rolls-Royce car company

1994: Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States

2005: Norman Bird, English actor