814 Death of Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor.

1547 Henry VIII died at Richmond, in a room reeking of the stench from his leg ulcers.

1596 Sir Francis Drake died at sea off Panama.

1807 London's Pall Mall was the first street in any city in the world to be lit by gaslight.

1829 Body-snatcher William Burke was hanged in front of a huge crowd.

1908 The London Playhouse Theatre opened.

1932 The Japanese occupied Shanghai, start of a full-scale invasion of China.

1935 Iceland became the first country to legalise abortion.

1953 Derek Bentley, 19, was hanged at Wandsworth Prison, despite public protests. Bentley and Christopher Craig, 16, had been found guilty of murdering a policeman, but Craig escaped the gallows because of his age.

1986 US space shuttle Challenger exploded 72 seconds after take-off, killing seven astronauts.

1993 The IRA bomed Harrods for the third time in 20 years. Four people were injured.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: A blueprint for overhauling the child protection system in England was published in the long-awaited report into the torture and killing of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie.