1603: Elizabeth I died aged 69, after nearly 45 years as Queen.

1834: Artist and poet William Morris was born in London.

1877: The University Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge ended in a dead heat. On the same date in 1951, the race was called off when the Oxford boat sank. It was re-run two days later, when Cambridge won by 12 lengths.

1887 Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, US silent film comedian, was born. In 1921 he was involved in a sex scandal that ruined his career.

1911: Denmark abolished capital punishment.

1946: Alastair Cooke read his first Letter From America on BBC Radio.

1953: Death of Queen Mary, widow of George V.

1958: Elvis Presley, then 23, signed up for the US Army in Memphis, Tennessee.

1965: David Steel, aged 26, won Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles for the Liberals to become Britain's youngest MP.

1976: President Isabel Peron of Argentina was deposed in a bloodless military coup.

1986: More than eight people were killed as hurricane force winds swept across Britain.

1993: Ezer Weizman was elected President of Israel, while South African leader FW de Klerk said his country built six atomic bombs but destroyed them after 1989.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Britain and the US were planning to destroy Afghanistan's poppy fields as a way of preventing heroin from hitting Britain's streets.

BIRTHDAYS: Curtis Hanson, film director, 58; Patrick Malahide, actor, 58; Archie Gemmill, coach and former footballer, 56; Alan Sugar, businessman, 56; Nick Lowe, musician, 54; Tommy Hilfiger, fashion designer, 52; Peter Powell, disc jockey, 52; Kelly LeBrock, actress, 43; Lara Flynn Boyle, actress, 33.