1755: Dr Samuel Johnson's dictionary was published, containing 40,000 words.

1793: £5 notes were first issued by the Bank of England.

1797: British navy crews mutinied at Spithead, near Portsmouth, over poor pay and conditions.

1891: Thomas Edison publicly demonstrated his "kinetoscope" moving picture machine in New York.

1912: The Titanic struck an iceberg and sank with the loss of 1,513 passengers and crew on her maiden voyage. There were 732 survivors.

1925: James Barrie donated the copyright fee of his story Peter Pan to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children.

1945: The Battle of Berlin began.

1955: The first McDonald's hamburger store opened in California.

1966: Time magazine voted London "the city of the decade"

1989: Britain's worst football disaster happened at Hillsborough, Sheffield, when 95 fans were crushed to death during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Free Iraqis drew up a 13-point plan to rebuild their country from the rubble of war and decades of totalitarian rule.