NATIONAL DAY OF GREECE

1306: Robert Bruce was crowned King of Scots at Scone.

1609: English navigator Henry Hudson set off on his third (and final) attempt to find the North West Passage to the spice islands of the east.

1807: Parliament abolished the slave trade.

1815: Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia formed an alliance to fight Napoleon.

1843: The Rotherhithe Tunnel under the Thames was formally opened.

1925: King George of Greece was deposed and the country proclaimed a republic.

1949: Laurence Olivier's Hamlet won five Oscars, at the same time becoming the first British film to win an Academy award.

1957: Six nations signed the Treaty of Rome to create the Common Market.

1969: Pakistan's President Ayub Khan resigned as the army, under General Yahya Khan, took control of the country.

1974: Fifty army officers were killed after a failed coup attempt against Idi Amin.

1980: Robert Runcie was enthroned as the 102nd Archbishop of Canterbury.

1989: The Oxford and Cambridge boat race crews both had women coxes for the first time. Oxford won.

1992: The humorous magazine, Punch, was to close because of falling sales while Pakistan beat England to win cricket's World Cup.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The new chief of Consignia announced a fresh round of postal job cuts which will bring the total to 15,000 - with the threat of more redundancies to come.

BIRTHDAYS: Aretha Franklin, soul singer, 61; Paul Michael Glaser, actor, 61; Richard O'Brien, actor/writer (Rocky Horror Show), 61; Frank Oz, film director, 59; Sir Elton John, singer/songwriter, 56; Stephen Dorrell, politician, 51; Sarah Jessica Parker, actress, 38; Cathy Dennis, singer and songwriter, 34; Melanie Blatt, pop singer, 28.