What happened this day in history - February 20

1547 - Edward VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey.

1811 - Austria declared itself bankrupt.

1935 - Caroline Mikkelsen became the first woman to set foot in Antarctica.

1939 - The British Industries fair exhibited the country’s first washing machine.

1947 - Lord Louis Mountbatten was appointed the last Viceroy of India.

1962 - American astronaut John Glenn orbited the Earth three times in the space capsule Friendship 7.

1985 - The sale of contraceptives became legal in Irish Republic.

1986 - The Soviet Union launched its Mir spacecraft. Remaining in orbit for 15 years, it was occupied for ten of those years.

1989 - An army base at Tern Hill, Shropshire was destroyed by an IRA bomb. There were no casualties, as the base had been evacuated.

1993 - Two 10-year-old boys were charged with the murder of two-year-old James Bulger in Liverpool.