on this day in March

1978  Vladimir Remek, a Czechoslovakian, became the first person in space who was not an American or Russian citizen

1970  Southern Rhodesia declared itself a republic

1999  Dusty Springfield died

1861  Serfdom was abolished in Russia

1877  Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake was first performed

1936  The Spitfire made its maiden flight

1827  Alessandro Volta, after whom the volt is named, died

1902  An army order gave British soldiers the right to wear spectacles on or off duty

1836  After 12 days the Siege of the Alamo ended

1999  Stanley Kubrick died

1969  The London Underground's Victoria Line opened

1963  Round the Horne was first broadcast

1946  Bananas went on sale at Covent Garden market for the first time since 1939

1910  The Baroness de Laroche became the first woman to receive a pilot's licence

1956  Archbishop Makarios was deported from Cyprus

1831  The French Foreign Legion was founded

1956  Peter Twiss became the first man to fly at more than 1000mph  

1914  The Rokeby Venus by Velasquez was vandalised by the suffragette Mary Richardson

1810  Napoleon and Marie-Louise of Austria were married by proxy in Vienna

1935  The 30mph speed limit for built-up areas was introduced

1987  The first toad tunnel was opened to enable toads to cross the A4155 Henley to March low road and reach their breeding ponds

1781  Sir William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus

1952  Television was first transmitted in Scotland

1949  Clothes rationing ended in the UK

1989  The Reverend Marcus Morris, founder of the Eagle comic, died

1872  The first English FA cup final took place

1978  The oil-tanker Amoco Cadiz ran aground of  the coast of Brittany

1649  Oliver Cromwell declared England a Commonwealth

1965  Aleksei Leonov took the first walk in space

1928  The actor Patrick McGoohan was born

1834  The Tolpuddle March tyrs were convicted and sentenced to transportation

1616  Sir Walter Raleigh was released from the Tower of London where he had been held prisoner for 13 years

1987  Towser - a tortoiseshell cat employed by the Glenturret Distillery - died having killed an estimated 28,899 mice in her lifetime

1991  Clarence Leo Fender, inventor of the solid-bodied electric guitar, died

1963  Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay closed

1952  Vivien Leigh won a second Oscar, for best actress in 'A Streetcar Named Desire'

1982  Lieutenant Colonel Jean Blackwood became the first woman to command a British Army unit.

1942  The BBC broadcast its first daily morse code news to the French Resistance

2000  After two years NaTCH Engineering's mail re-direction from Wickham Market to Framlingham ended

1928  Children's Saturday matinees began at the Empire cinema, Willesden - it cost 3d (just over 1p) to get in

1958  Elvis Presley joined the US Army

1975  King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was assassinated by his nephew

1807  Slave trading became illegal in Britain

1655  Christiaan Huygens discovered Titan, one of Saturn's "moons"

1973  Susan Shaw became the first woman to set foot on the floor of the London Stock Exchange

1964  Radio Caroline, the UK's first pirate radio station, began broadcasting from a ship moored off the East Anglian coast

1912  Both boats sunk in the University Boat Race

1801  Heinrich Olbers discovered the asteroid Pallas

1960  The New York Roxy cinema, originally seating over 6,000 making it one of the largest cinemas ever built, closed after 33 years

1840  The dandy Beau Brummell died in a French lunatic asylum

1889  The Eiffel Tower was completed