1538 - Pope Paul II excommunicated King Henry VIII after he had declared himself supreme head of the English church.
1849 - William Coke bought the first ever bowler hat from Thomas and William Bowler at Lock’s of St James’s.
1885 - The last official bare-knuckle British heavyweight championship fight took place.
1892 - Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Nutcracker’ was performed for the first time, by the Russian Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg.
1892 - The first issue of Vogue was published.
1903 - Oliver Wright made the first successful controlled flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
1967 - Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared while swimming near Portsea, Victoria, and was presumed drowned.
1969 - Fifty million TV viewers saw singer Tiny Tim marry Miss Vicky, on the Tonight Show.
1977 - David Ackroyd purchased the one millionth copy of ‘Mull of Kintyre’. He became the first record buyer in the world to receive a gold disc for his efforts.
1982 - The Who played the last concert of their farewell tour - though they made a comeback for ‘Quadrophenia’ in 1996.
1983 - Provisional IRA members detonated a car bomb at the Harrods Store in London. Three police officers and three civilians were killed.
1986 - Davina Thompson became the world’s first recipient of a heart, lung and liver transplant, at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge.
1989 - The first episode of television series The Simpsons, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”, aired in the United States.
1992 - Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating announced new citizens would no longer swear an oath to the Queen but to Australia.
1999 - Claire Barwick from West Sussex became Britain’s first quiz show millionaire when she won £1m on Chris Evan’s radio show.
1999 - The Spice Girls became the first band to appear at Madame Tussauds since The Beatles were immortalized in 1964.