1387: Henry V was born in Monmouth Castle. "Bluff" Prince Hal became a ruthless king who fought two bloody campaigns which came to a climax at Agincourt. Shortly afterwards, in 1422, he died unheroically of dysentery.

1620: The 101 Pilgrim Fathers set sail from Plymouth in the Mayflower, captained by Myles Standish.

1847: The United Shakespeare Company bought the house in which Shakespeare was born at Stratford-upon-Avon for £3,000, the first building in Britain to be thus preserved.

1908: The American car firms Buick and Oldsmobile merged to form General Motors.

1945: John McCormack, lyrical Irish tenor, died in Dublin. "I have hung up my harp, all my songs are sung," he wrote just before he died.

1946: Have A Go began on the Light Programme, with Wilfred Pickles and his wife as Mabel at the Table. Pickles started each programme by saying, "How do, Ow are yer?" The show ran for more than 20 years.

1963: Malaysia became independent and a mob celebrated by burning down the British embassy.

1968: The "two-tier" postal system was introduced in Britain.

1989: The Doncaster St Leger was abandoned when officials declared the course unsafe.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Gunmen in Iraq kidnapped British civilian worker Kenneth Bigley and two American colleagues from their house in Baghdad.