SWINDON

1952: People living in Albion Street and Cambria Bridge Road, Swindon, were not waiting for the Town Council to announce plans for the coronation celebrations. The neighbours made plans for their own special day, with every family contributing sixpence a week to fund a huge coronation tea with tables in the street, sports for children, fancy dress parade competition and dancing for the evening.

1952: Swindon Borough Council had accepted an allocation of 100 Schindler-Goher houses for its house building programme at Penhill. The total number allocated to the Corporation was 546. The additional 100 were a type of construction devised by the Swiss architect G Schindler. They had been successfully built in many European countries, but Swindon was to be among the first of the local authorities to accept them for normal building programmes.

1962: The question of a demonstration for Swindon in protest against Dr Beeching’s cuts was discussed by Swindon’s British Railways Working Committee, but it was decided to accept an invitation to attend a meeting of the Joint Consultative Committee of Works Committees where the matter would be discussed nationally.

1962: A combine harvester was damaged after it had caught fire at Forest Hill Farm, Marlborough, owned by R C Sherwood and Co. The Marlborough unit of the Wiltshire Fire Brigade put the fire out. The fire started when the engine overheated and chaff around it began to burn.

1972: Swindon heavyweight boxer Eddie Nielson showed his loyal fans some of his ring craft and power in Swindon’s first open air boxing exhibition, held in the gardens of the County Ground Hotel. He was never extended and the consecutive runs against three opponents showed the strength that had made him an outstanding prospect.

1972: Members of the Swindon Model Aero Club visited Woodley Common for the Devon rally, where the Torbay Trophy was the big attraction. Tony Rogers flew his own designed A2 glider to take the Swindon club to the top by winning the event with a convincing 13 minutes 36 seconds.

THE WORLD

1797: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, second wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and author, in 1818, of Frankenstein, was born in London.

1860: The first tram service in Britain opened, at Birkenhead on Merseyside.

1871: Lord Rutherford, pioneer of subatomic physics, was born in Spring Grove, New Zealand. In the 1920s he was the first to split the atom.

1881: The first stereo system was patented by Clement Ader of Germany, for a telephonic broadcasting service.

1901: Scotsman Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner.

1937: Joe Louis defeated Welshman Tommy Farr in an epic fight in New York to retain the world heavyweight boxing title.

1939: The great evacuation of children from British cities began. With the Second World War four days away, thousands of youngsters were moved to the country to avoid anticipated German bombing.

1963: The ‘Hotline’ between the US president and the Soviet premier was established to reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear war.

1993: France’s Eiffel Tower receiveD it’s 150,000,000 millionth visitor.

2017: A man arrested outside Buckingham Palace with a 4ft-long samurai sword appeared in court accused of planning a terror attack.

BIRTHDAYS

Elizabeth Ashley, actress, 79; Sue MacGregor, broadcaster, 77; Robert Crumb, cartoonist, 75; Timothy Bottoms, actor, 67; Mark Strong, actor, 55; Cameron Diaz, actress, 46; Andy Roddick, tennis player, 36.