1568: Mary Queen of Scots sailed from Port Mary across Solway Firth to begin her exile in England

1762: Captain Peabody led the first permanent British settlers from Massachusetts to New Brunswick

1811: In southern Spain, Marshal Soult attacked the British, Portuguese and Spanish army commanded by Sir William Beresford at Albuera. Beresford was a genius for organisation and training, but less talented as a field commander, and the battle proved a most bloody contest - a British infantry brigade being wiped out by Polish lancers who caught it by surprise in mist - only being won eventually by the discipline of the British infantry.

1901: During a skirmish with Boers, a soldier from the Australian Mounted Infantry had his horse shot from under him. Lieutenant Bell came to his aid, and tried to pull the man up beside him. However, Bell's pony could not cope with the pair of them and fell. Lieutenant Bell therefore remained behind on foot, giving covering fire until the other man had managed to get clear. Bell was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1915: At Festubert in France, Company Sergeant Major Barter of the Royal Welch Fusiliers led eight volunteers in a grenade assault on German trenches. The nine of them succeeded in capturing several hundred yards of trench and took over 100 prisoners. Perhaps more importantly, they discovered and destroyed firing circuits for potentially devastating German demolition mines dug into the front line. Barter received the Victoria Cross.

1943: 19 aircraft of 617 Squadron, specially formed from some of the most experienced crews in Bomber Command, took off in the evening for Operation Chastise - an attempt to attack the Ruhr dams using Barnes Wallis' novel "bouncing bomb" - codenamed Upkeep. The delivery of the weapon, designed to skip over defensive anti-torpedo nets in the reservoirs and come to rest against the dam walls, required precision low flying over water at only sixty feet at night. Of the 19 Lancasters, five crashed or were shot down en route to the target at low level. A sixth was badly damaged and had to return home, as did another aircraft which was unable to find a dam in misty weather. However, five crews led by Wing Commander Gibson successfully breached the Mohne Dam, in the face of significant anti-aircraft fire. Gibson, his own bomb already used, then led three other crews to the Eder Dam, which was also breached. Three more aircraft bombed the Sorpe and Schwelme Dams, but were unable to breach them. On the way home, a further three Lancasters were lost; a total of 8 out of 19, with 53 aircrew killed and three captured. Gibson was awarded the Victoria Cross. The two dams breached contained between them 370 million tons of water, and were important suppliers of water and hydro-electric power for the German industrial heartland. The long-term effects of the destruction and disruption caused by the huge floods have perhaps been exaggerated on occasion, but the raid was nevertheless recognised as a very significant achievement, despite the high losses.

1944: At Monte Cassino, troops from the 2nd Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, after successfully taking a German position, faced a counter-attack supported by a pair of German tanks. Their own tank support was too distant to help at first, and they had not had time to dig in properly. Fusilier Jefferson went forward on his own with a PIAT light anti-tank weapon. Running through heavy machine-gun fire, he attacked a German tank at point-blank range and destroyed it. He then advanced on the second tank, which promptly withdrew. Due to his efforts, the German attack was stalled until British tanks arrived to protect the Fusiliers. Jefferson received the Victoria Cross.

1945: In the Royal Navy's last major surface and torpedo action of the Second World War, five destroyers - HM Ships Saumarez, Venus, Vigilant, Virago and Verulam - conducted a text-book night attack on the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro, escorted by the destroyer Kamikaze. Radar allowed the 26th Destroyer Flotilla to detect the Japanese ships and manoeuvre to ambush them. Closing in to very close range, the five much smaller destroyers all scored torpedo hits on the cruiser, as well as raking her with gunfire. As Haguro sank, Kamikaze took advantage of the confusion to escape.

1957: Great Britain exploded its first hydrogen bomb as part of a series of tests in the Pacific.
The test was carried out at high altitude over Christmas Island to minimise nuclear fall-out. The bomb was dropped by a four-engined jet, Valiant of No 49 Squadron RAF Bomber Command, normally based at RAF Wittering, Northants.

1968: Donald E. Ballard, Corpsman US Navy, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in Quang Tri Province, Vietnam.

Ballard was a corpsman with Company M, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division. He had just finished evacuating two Marines with heatstroke when his unit was surprised by a Viet Cong ambush.

Immediately racing to the aid of a casualty, Ballard applied a field dressing and was directing four Marines in the removal of the wounded man when an enemy soldier tossed a grenade into the group.

With a warning shout of, "Grenade!" Ballard vaulted over the stretcher and pulled the grenade under his body. The grenade did not go off. Nevertheless, he received the Medal of Honor for his act of courage. Ballard was only the second man whose valour was rewarded despite the fact that the deadly missile did not actually explode

1982: In the Falklands, better weather enabled Sea Harriers to sortie and confirmed that a ship in Fox Bay is the merchantman the Buen Suceso not the hospital ship Buen Paraiso. Two Sea Harriers attacked using cannon only for fear that bombs would hit the adjacent civilian settlement. The ship received many hits and fire broke out in the engine room; unable to be repaired she was put beyond use. There were no casualties on either side