1943: "Gone With The Wind" actor Leslie Howard was killed when German planes attacked a civilian transport plane en route from Lisbon to London. Mysteriously, the bodies and wreckage were never found.

Howard once wrote that in Hollywood "an intellectual is someone who can read street signs without moving his lips."

1835: Phineas T Barnum staged his first circus tour.

1592: Reformed pickpocket Sir John Popham became Lord Chief Justice to Queen Elizabeth 1. The Queen once asked Sir John what had passed in one session where he was the Speaker of the House of Commons. The cheeky chappy replied: "Seven weeks!"

1953: The first televised coronation made Princess Elizabeth Queen of Great Britain and the Commonwealth.

1840: Novelist Thomas Hardy, who penned the classic Far From the Madding Crowd, was born in Dorset.

1916: A sixteen and a half year old boy became the youngest ever person to receive the Victoria Cross. Cornwell died after being wounded in action at the Battle of Jutland. He had stayed at his post by the forward gun on HMS Chester and continued to attack the enemy while his fellows fell dead and dying around him.

The Naval order stated that "so long as there is one man able to crawl a gun must be kept firing." Before his death Cornwell was asked how the battle had gone. He said: "Oh we carried on all right."