SWINDON

1952: Swindon’s deputy head post master, Mr J W P Crose, told members of the Swindon Conservative Association Trade Union Council that about 100 years previously The Bell Hotel in High Street was the earliest Swindon Post Office. He said that in those days, when Old Town was virtually Swindon, the mail was left at the hotel and delivered by the barman.

1952: Wren Janet Taylor of Graham Street, Swindon, was chosen to represent the Navy in the Inter-service Sports at Aldershot. She was one of 10 Wrens chosen from the whole service. She won the 100 and 220 yards, and the long jump, helping to win the cup for her ship the HMS Condor. Wren Taylor was a former Commonweal Grammar School pupil.

1962: The runaway couple from Swindon, David Groves, 20, and Carol Anne Adams, 16, have returned home to try and persuade their parents to let them marry in a church. David and Carol had gone to Scotland intending to get married, after believing that their parents were trying to split them up. David lives at Oxford Road, Stratton St Margaret, and Carol at Devon Street, Swindon. Mrs Adams said she was disgusted by the whole affair.

1962: Phillips Bros, the Swindon shoe shop, had a box of shoes on display in front of the shop in Regent Street, as part of their sale stock. There were some right shoes and some left shoes but no pairs. Whoever stole the 20 shoes from the box discovered this too and returned most of them, leaving them at the back of the shop.

1972: Prince Charles was staying in Wiltshire as part of his services as a Naval officer. He was on a two-day course for sub lieutenants at HMS Royal Arthur, the shore establishment at Corsham. Royal Arthur’s petty officers met Prince Charles and had informal discussions. Prince Philip also went to Royal Arthur as a training officer in 1947.

1972: Purton Cricket Club members formed a Guard of Honour at Christ Church, Swindon, when one of their members, Mr Michael Crouch of Midhurst, Paven Close, Purton, married Miss Susan Williams of Lansdown Road, Swindon. Instead of swords the cricketers used their cricket bats for the newly wed couple to pass through as they left the church.

THE WORLD

1100: William II of England was killed by an arrow in the New Forest, allegedly mistaken for a deer.

1784: The first specially built Royal Mail coach ran from Bristol to London.

1788: Thomas Gainsborough, English painter, died.

1865: Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was published, but was quickly withdrawn because of bad printing. Only 21 copies of the first edition survived, making it one of the rarest 19th century books.

1876: James Butler, or Wild Bill Hickok, Marshal of the West, was shot dead by Jack McCall while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota. He was holding two black aces, two black eights and the jack of diamonds - known to this day as “the dead man’s hand”.

1894: Death duties were introduced in Britain.

1921: Enrico Caruso, the great Italian tenor, died aged 48 from peritonitis.

1969: The US Mariner unmanned spacecraft beamed the first pictures of Mars back to Earth.

1973: More than 40 people died when fire swept through the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.

1980: Right-wing terrorists exploded a bomb at Bologna railway station in Italy, killing 84.

1990: Iraq invaded Kuwait and took control after eight hours. The Kuwaiti royal family fled to Saudi Arabia, and a puppet government was installed.

2015: Tributes poured in for “national treasure” Cilla Black after the entertainer died at her home in the south of Spain.

2017: A landmark study raised the prospect of Britain pioneering the use of human embryo gene editing to eradicate inherited diseases.

BIRTHDAYS

Isabel Allende, novelist, 76; Rose Tremain, author, 75; Joanna Cassidy, actress, 74; Sammy McIlroy, former footballer and manager, 64; Edward Furlong, actor, 41; Donna Air, TV presenter, 39.