A look back at events in history on May 14 with Mike Badham

AD964: Wicked Pope John XII died at 27, after nine years of episcopal debauchery. Female pilgrims who visited him were violated, and he plotted against the emperor, too. Priests who annoyed him were likely to end up as eunuchs.

1080: Walcher, the Bishop of Durham was murdered. King William (the Conqueror) was not amused: he came up north and ravaged the area.

1264: Simon de Montfort and the barons defeated Henry III at the Battle of Lewes.

1277: Pope John XXI died. A skilled physician, he was working in his quarters on his best-seller about ailments when the roof fell in. Mediaeval building standards were not always up to much. Buildings often used to fall down in those days.

1607: The first English settlement in the New World was set up in Jonestown, Virginia.

1686: Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was born in Danzig. His claim to fame: he invented the mercury thermometer and fixed standards of temperature.

1729: Portrait painter Thomas Gainsborough was baptised at the age of two. He made lots of cash from doing portraits of the upper crust in Bath and London. He was a founder-member of the Royal Academy. 1771: Robert Owen was born. He set up a factory with decent working conditions, and thus became the first Investor in People.

1796: Edward Jenner did the first vaccination against smallpox. He got the idea after he heard that milkmaids never got smallpox because they caught cowpox first and became immune. So Jenner pioneered the method of infecting patients with cowpox, called "vaccination" after the Latin for cow - vacca.

1798: The Schweppes company was formed. Schweppe, a Swiss scientist injected CO2 gas into water - and the rest is history.

1878: Vaseline became a trademark for petroleum jelly. A by-product of the Pennsylvania oilfields, it was refined, bottled and sold by Robert Chesebrough, a British-born chemist.

1897: Jazz musician Sidney Bechet was born. He spent his later years in France, where he was idolised by fans,

1928: Eric Morecambe was born John Eric Bartholomew in Morecambe. He teamed up with his cousin to form the Morecambe and Wise comedy duo.

1938: England beat Germany 6-3 at football. Hooray.

1940: The Germans bombed Rotterdam. Dutch forces laid down their arms. Next day, German forces occupied their capital.

1942: It became fashionable for British women to go without stockings. And because of wartime shortages, men's suits were not allowed to have turn-ups.

1948: With the British Mandate in Palestine ending, Chaim Weitzman and David Ben-Gurion set up the provisional government of Israel.

1987: Film star Rita Hayworth died of Alzheimer's Disease at 68. Born Margarita Cansino of Latin and Irish parentage, her lovers included Orson Welles and Aly Khan.

1991: Winnie Mandela was sentenced to six years' jail for her part in the murder of Stompie Moeketzie. She was freed pending appeal. Last week it emerged that she was getting a cabinet post in the ANC Government.

1993: Newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst died at 85. Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane was based on his life.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.