AD54: Roman Emperor Claudius I died after eating poisoned mushrooms as a result of a plot inspired by his wife, the Empress Agrippina.

1066: The Anglo Saxon King, Edward (the Confessor), died. He was revered as a saint before his death and was canonised in 1161.

1852: Lillie Langtry, British actress and mistress of Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales, was born in Jersey.

1884: Greenwich was adopted as the universal time meridian of longitude from which standard times throughout the world are calculated.

1905: Legendary English actor Sir Henry Irving died in Bradford - during his farewell tour.

1924: Ramsay MacDonald made the first election broadcast on the BBC on behalf of the Labour Party.

1944: Athens was liberated by the Allies.

1972: The bank rate was abolished, to be called instead the minimum lending rate.

1984: John Lowe achieved the first televised 501 score in nine darts in a major event in the quarter finals of the World Match Play championship in Slough.

1988: The Queen sued The Sun newspaper for breach of copyright after it printed one of her private photographs.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Investigative journalist Michael Crick handed over to Westminster's standards watchdog a dossier of evidence alleging that Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith wrongly employed his wife as a secretary.