1812: Wellington was forced to abandon his siege of Burgos after repeated assaults failed with heavy casualties.

1857: In separate incidents during the Indian Mutiny, Lieutenant Rennie, 90th Regiment, and Sergeant Mahoney, 1st Madras Fusiliers, won the Victoria Cross.

1916: For ten days, Captain White, Yorkshire Regiment, commanded a redoubt on the Western Front. His stirling defence against repeated German attacks earned him the Victoria Cross.

1917: Three successive attacks on a German strongpoint by a company of the British Columbia Regiment failed, with heavy casualties, including all the officers. Company Sergeant-Major Hanna gathered the survivors and organised a successful fourth assault, leading the way through the barbed wire and machine-gun fire. He received the Victoria Cross.

1918: Lieutenant Honey, the only surviving officer, took command of a company of the Manitoba Regiment and led it in a series of successful attacks at Bourlon Wood in France. He twice went ahead alone to eliminate troublesome machine-gun nests, and finally fell mortally wounded.

Elsewhere on the front, Lance-Corporal Lewis, Northamptonshire Regiment, who had previously distinguished himself in the destruction of a machine-gun post, also fell mortally wounded leading from the front in an attack on another formidable German position.

Both Honey and Lewis were awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

1940: German aircraft raided various targets in the south. During the night, London and Liverpool were the main targets.

Lieutenant Patton of the Royal Canadian Engineers towed an unexploded bomb out of an aircraft factory in Weybridge and deposited it safely in an existing bomb crater, where it later exploded. He was awarded the George Cross.

Lieutenant Commander Ryan and Chief Petty Officer Ellingworth, a two-man Royal Navy ordnance disposal team who had dealt with numerous unexploded weapons, were both killed whilst trying to defuse a mine hanging from its caught-up parachute. Both received the George Cross posthumously.

And Mr Miles, an air raid warden in Ilford, was posthumously awarded the George Cross having sacrificed his life trying to clear an area around an unexploded bomb which went off and killed him.

1944: After 88 hours of action holding the northern end of Arnhem Bridge, and with all ammunition exhausted, the last few remaining paratroopers of 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, and its attached specialists, commanded now by Major Gough of the Airlanding Reconnaissance Unit since Lieutenant Colonel Frost had been wounded, either surrendered or dispersed to evade capture. The first German troops were finally able to cross the bridge at midday, although it was littered with destroyed vehicles. The bridge was renamed after the war "The John Frost Bridge" by the Dutch authorities.

Sufficient supplies had reached the Guards Armoured Division to permit the advance from Nijmegen to resume. The Irish Guards once more took the lead, but had to halt at Elst, where the terrain became suicidal for tanks, to await adequate infantry support. Major General Sosabowski's 1st Polish Parachute Brigade, repeatedly delayed by bad weather, was finally dropped on the southern bank of the Lower Rhine at Driel, opposite 1st Airborne Division's position, suffering severe casualties from German fighters and ground defences in the process. Sosabowski began planning a crossing of the Rhine to reach 1st Airborne.