On this day in...

1851 - The window tax was abolished in Britain.

1917 - The cost of war was set at £7m a day.

1987 - Jeffrey Archer was awarded a record-breaking £500,000 in damages , against the Daily Star following allegations about his involvement with a prostitute.

1988 - Spanish cyclist Pedro Delgado won the Tour de France.

1997 - Andrew Cunanan, the man suspected of murdering Gianni Versace and four others , was found shot dead on a house boat in Miami Beach, having apparently committed suicide.

1998 - a nursery in Kent banned Three Blind Mice and Goosey Goosey Gander on the grounds that they were cruel.

2005 - Lance Armstrong retired from cycling, having made history by taking his seventh consecutive Tour de France victory.