What happened this week in history
1703 - The the southern part of Great Britain was hit by the greatest storm ever recorded. Winds gusted at up to 120mph and 9,000 people died.
1732 - The original Covent Garden Theatre Royal opened. It was later renamed the Royal Opera House.
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Hide Ad1783 - William Pit the Younger became Prime Minister, at the age of 24.
1787 - Delaware became the first state of America.
1869 - American outlaw Jesse James committed his first confirmed bank robbery, in Gallatin, Missouri.
1907 - At London’s National Sporting Club, Eugene Corri became the first referee to officiate from inside a boxing ring.
1911 - China outlawed pigtails.
1916 - Lloyd George became Prime Minister of a coalition government.
1917 - The United States declared war on Austria-Hungary.
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Hide Ad1936 - Australian cricketer Jack Fingleton became the first player to score centuries in four consecutive test innings.
1941 - The Japanese attacked the American fleet in Pearl Harbour.
1945 - Microwave ovens were patented.
1955 - Clement Atlee resigned as leader of the Labour Party, at the age of 72.
1961 - London County Council approved the construction of a 300ft tower block in Hammersmith. It was to be Britain’s tallest block of flats.
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Hide Ad1962 - Bill Wyman auditioned for The Rolling Stones at The World’s End in Chelsea.
1968 - Richard Dodd returned a library book his great-grandfather had borrowed in 1823.
1982 - Charles Brooks Jr became the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.
1995 - The Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.
1998 - Ffion Alvarez Philips became the youngest passport holder in Britain, at the age of 66 hours.