1540: King Henry VIII married Anne of Cleves

1558: Calais, the last major English possession on the continent, was stormed by French troops who waded across the harbour. Hopelessly outnumbered, the weak garrison surrendered the town to the Duc de Guise in return for a free evacuation.

1649: The Rump Parliament voted to put Charles I on trial

1661: The Fifth Monarchists unsuccessfully attempted to seize control of London.

1781: At the Battle of Jersey, the last attempt by France to invade the island was defeated

1858: Private McQuirt, 95th Regiment, won the Victoria Cross during an Indian Mutiny action when he was badly wounded fighting three opponents in hand-to-hand combat. He suffered five sword cuts and a gunshot wound.

1893: Following banditry attacks on police and civilian communities in the Kachin Hills region of Burma, a military expedition was dispatched in December 1892 to restore order. On 6 January 1893, Surgeon Major Lloyd won the Victoria Cross during an assault on a fort. The officer commanding the attack fell badly wounded only ten yards from the enemy walls, whereupon Lloyd and an Indian NCO rushed forward to help him. Lloyd stayed with the wounded man tending his injuries, being shot at the whole time and being hit himself, whilst the NCO went back to bring up a stretcher party. Although they managed to get the wounded officer back to the British positions, he died shortly afterwards.

1900: The British garrison at Ladysmith, including a Royal Navy contingent from HMS Powerful manning heavy guns, succeeded in repulsing a Boer attack on their position at Wagon Hill. At one point the Boers succeeded in taking the hill, but a small force led by Lieutenant Digby-Jones and Trooper Herman Albrecht launched a successful counterattack. Both men were killed during the battle, but were awarded the Victoria Cross, as was Lieutenant Masterson, who had run through a hail of fire to deliver an urgent message asking for fire support before collapsing with bullets in both legs.

Elsewhere that day, the Boers attacked a hill at Caesar's Camp in Natal. Sixteen men of the Manchester Regiment held a position on the hillside against overwhelming odds. Fourteen were killed, but Privates Pitts and Scott held out alone for fifteen hours without water, engaged in a heavy fire fight until reinforcements finally relieved them. They both received the Victoria Cross.

1916: The battleship HMS King Edward VII was sunk by a German mine off Scotland. When she had been launched, the King had asked that she should always be used as a flagship. The operation on which she was lost was the first time that his request had not been honoured.

1929: Adolf Hitler, head of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), appointed Heinrich Himmler to replace Erhard Heiden as head of the 280 strong Schutzstaffel (defense squadron or SS).

1933: US Secretary of State Henry Stimson asked President Herbert Hoover to request legislation from Congress permitting the President to limit or forbid shipment of arms and munitions of war to any foreign state when such shipment would promote or encourage use of force in a conflict or dispute between nations

1937: The US Neutrality Acts of 1935 and 1936 applied to wars between nations and did not extend to civil wars. As a result, the US Congress passed a joint resolution forbidding the export of munitions to both the Nationalist and Republican forces in Spain. Under this act, the Roosevelt administration embargoed arms sales to both sides

1940: The New Zealand 4th Brigade sailed from Auckland for Egypt in six transports escorted by the battleship HMS Ramillies, heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra and New Zealand-manned light cruiser HMS Leander

1941: The heavy cruiser USS Louisville departed Simonstown for New York, having taken on board US$148,342,212.55 in British gold, for deposit in US banks

1942: A Japanese amphibious force landed at Brunei Bay in British Borneo

US President Roosevelt formally submitted a budget request to Congress of US$59 billion for Fiscal Year 1943. Congressmen were stunned at the proposal, but Roosevelt was undeterred. "These figures and similar figures for a multitude of other implements of war will give the Japanese and Nazis a little idea of just what they accomplished."

Roosevelt also announced that America’s land, sea and air forces would be sent to Britain

1943: Parkash Singh, a Havildar with 8th Punjab Regiment, drove his Bren Gun Carrier into heavy Japanese fire in an action in Burma to rescue the crews of two other carriers which had been knocked out. For this, and two similar rescue operations a fortnight later, he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1944: The master plan for an Allied invasion of North West Europe which had been codenamed "Overlord", was being drastically revised after examination by General Montgomery, the ground force commander under General Eisenhower.

The original plan had been prepared by an Anglo-US team led by Lieutenant General Frederick Morgan, the chief of staff to the supreme Allied commander. However because of the lack of landing craft, the assault force to be put ashore in Normandy was put at only three divisions. They would land north of Cean and, after consolidating the beachhead, swing North West to capture the port of Cherbourg.

An airborne division would protect each flank of the landing force and two seaborne divisions would follow as immediate reinforcements, leading to a build-up of 18 divisions.

In Churchill's view, an operation on such a limited scale could only be mounted if German forces in France were held down to 12 mobile divisions and enemy fighter strength was reduced.

On first seeing the plan, Montgomery said that the Germans would have no difficulty in containing such a small landing area, and severe congestion would follow when reinforcements were brought in. He took his objections to Eisenhower, who agreed with him.

In three days this week at St. Paul's School Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, hammered out a plan for five divisions to land on a 50-mile from the river Orne to the Cherbourg peninsula. A third airborne division would join the two already assigned to flank protection. The new plan called for a greatly expanded force of landing craft, so D-Day was delayed for a month, to the end of May

Since all remaining landing craft were recalled to the Mediterranean, Admiral Louis Mountbatten, Commander-in-Chief South East Asia Command (SEAC), canceled Operation Pigstick, a proposed operation on the southern Mayu Peninsula

1945: In the Lingayen Gulf, Japanese suicide plane attacks intensified against the Allied invasion force; kamikazes damaged the battleships USS New Mexico (killing members of an observing British military mission) and California, heavy cruiser USS Louisville, light cruiser USS Columbia and destroyers USS Allen M Sumner, Newcomb (she is also hit by friendly fire), O'Brien and Richard P Leary.

Kamikazes also attacked the minesweeping group, sinking the high speed minesweeper USS Long and damaging the USS Southard and high speed transport USS Brooks.

The destroyer USS Walke, on detached duty covering the minesweeping operations was attacked by four enemy aircraft; one crashed into the ship's bridge, drenching it with burning gasoline and mortally wounding Walke's commanding officer, Commander George F Davis. Davis nevertheless remained at his post, amidst the wreckage, rallying his crew. Carried below only when assured that his ship would survive, he died of his wounds and was subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor

As a consequence of the kamikaze attacks, Task Force 38 (Vice Admiral John S. McCain and grandfather of Senator John S McCain) shifted its focus from Formosa to begin operations against Japanese airfields and shipping in the Luzon area. In South China Sea off northern Luzon, Navy carrier-based planes sank a Japanese army cargo ship and six merchant tankers