753BC: Traditional date for the founding of Rome.

1509: Henry VII died and his second son acceded to the throne as Henry VIII.

1816: Charlotte Bronte, eldest of the three Bronte Sisters and author of Jane Eyre, was born in Thornton, Yorkshire.

1836: The Texans defeated the Mexicans at the Battle of San Juanita.

1873: The Canadian North-West Mounted Police (Mounties) were established.

1910: Novelist Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) died in Reading, Connecticut, aged 74.

1918: Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, scourge of World War One British fliers, was shot down in his red Fokker tri-plane and died.

1945: Ivor Novello's Perchance To Dream opened at the London Hippodrome with his now classic song We'll Gather Lilacs. The show ran to 1,022 performances.

1946: Death of British economist John Maynard Keynes.

1983: One pound coins went into circulation in Britain, replacing paper notes in England and Wales but not in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Thousands of Britons abandoned plans to travel to Hong Kong and China as the deadly Sars virus continued to spread.