On this day

1931 - American gangster Al Capone was sentenced to 11 years in Alcatraz for income tax evasion. It was the only charge they could bring against him.

1956 - Calder Hall was opened. It was Britain’s first nuclear power station.

1959 - The South African De Beers diamond firm announced that synthetic industrial diamonds had been produced.

1981 - In a desperate bid for Rolling Stones tickets, a couple in Maryland USA, shot one man dead and injured another.

1999 - The Millennium Wheel was finally lifted into position on the bank of the River Thames - after a week-long operation.

2003 - Chancellor Gordon Brown’s wife Sarah gave birth to a baby John Brown, less than two years after their first baby, Jennifer, died at just ten days old.