On this day in...

1520 - King Henry VIII ordered bowling lanes to be built in Whitehall in London.

1839 - Queen Victoria proposed to Prince Albert.

1917 - Dutch spy Mata Hari was shot in Paris. She had been found guilty of spying for the Germans.

1954 - William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was published in Britain.

1964 - Screaming Lord Such began his political career by standing at a by-election for the Stratford -upon-Avon parliamentary seat, after the departure of Lord Profumo. This was long before the Monster Raving Loony Party days.

1968 - Led Zeppelin played their first gig. They were named after Keith Moon’s phrase for a bad gig, “Going down like a lead zeppelin”.

1980 - James Callaghan resigned as Labour leader.

1993 - Nelson Madela and F W de Clerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize.

1995 - A bridge linking the Isle of Skye to the Scottish mainland was opened.

1998 - The BBC lost the rights to televise Test cricket and most one-day cricket matches.