1305: Sir William Wallace, leader of the Scots, was captured by the English and later executed.

1891: The first American Express travellers' cheque was cashed.

1901: Britain's first cinema opened in the Mowhawk's Hall, Upper Street, Islington.

1926: Houdini, famous escapologist and magician, survived for 1 hours in a bronze coffin in a hotel swimming pool in Los Angeles.

1958: The nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus completed its historic journey under the North Pole.

1962: Marilyn Monroe died alone in her bedroom from "acute barbiturate poisoning". She was aged 36.

1963: Britain, the United States and the USSR signed a nuclear test ban treaty.

1974: US president Richard Nixon admitted his complicity in the Watergate affair.

1984: Richard Burton, right, Welsh actor who became a Hollywood legend mainly through his marriage to Elizabeth Taylor, died in Geneva, aged 58.

1989: As drought hit southern Britain, Torquay Golf Club employed a diviner to find underground water.

On this day last year: A senior Labour backbencher's demand that Parliament be recalled so that MPs could discuss possible military action against Saddam Hussein pointed up the deep divisions on Labour's back benches over the Iraqi question.

BIRTHDAYS: Professor NEIL Armstrong, first man on the moon, 73; Alan Howard, actor, 66; Jimmy Webb, songwriter, 57; Barbara Flynn, actress, 55; Jan Francis, actress, 52.; John Whitaker, showjumper, 48; Kevin Darley, jockey, 43; Jon Sleightholme, rugby union player, 31.