1917: An attack by the 1st Battalion of the Border Regiment near Le Transloy in France was held up by a machine-gun post. Despite having been badly wounded in the eye, Sergeant Mott charged the position head-on and threw himself on the gunner, manhandling him to the ground. He managed to overpower the German and capture both him and the machine-gun. Mott was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1940: The then First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill (uneasy at the slow increase in war production) spoke at Free Trade Hall, Manchester: "each to our station... there is not a week, nor a day, nor and hour to be lost!"

The Plan for the German invasion of Norway and Denmark is given a formal codename "Weserubung"

1941: The Peruvian ambassador to Japan warned his American counterpart, Joseph Grew, that the Japanese planned to destroy the US fleet at the naval base of Pearl Harbor; Grew passed the information on to Washington but to no avail

For the first time in history, senior US & British military staff officers met in secret to hammer out a common strategy in case the United States found itself at war with Germany or Japan (or both) in alliance with Great Britain.

Following the capture of Tobruk two brigades of the 6th Australian Division under Major General Iven Mackay pursued Italian forces westwards and encountered an their rear guard at Derna.

1942: The aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable delivered a cargo of 48 Hawker Hurricane fighters to Java, for onward shipment to Singapore

1944: The Soviet Union announced the end of the German siege of Leningrad

1945: The Red Army liberated the Nazis' biggest concentration camp at Auschwitz in south-western Poland. The capture of Auschwitz cames as the Red Army made important advances on three fronts: in East Prussia to the north, in western Poland as well as Silesia in eastern Germany. Fighting continued around the historic Polish city of Poznan.

Stories of the treatment by the Japanese of American and Filipino soldiers after the surrender of Bataan and Corregidor were disclosed in official reports by the United States Army and Navy

1973: The Paris Peace Accords was signed, ending US participation in the Vietnam War

1980: Rhodesia opposition leader Robert Mugabe returned to his home country after five years in exile.