What happened this week in history

1703 - The the southern part of Great Britain was hit by the greatest storm ever recorded. Winds gusted at up to 120mph and 9,000 people died.

1732 - The original Covent Garden Theatre Royal opened. It was later renamed the Royal Opera House.

1783 - William Pit the Younger became Prime Minister, at the age of 24.

1787 - Delaware became the first state of America.

1869 - American outlaw Jesse James committed his first confirmed bank robbery, in Gallatin, Missouri.

1907 - At London’s National Sporting Club, Eugene Corri became the first referee to officiate from inside a boxing ring.

1911 - China outlawed pigtails.

1916 - Lloyd George became Prime Minister of a coalition government.

1917 - The United States declared war on Austria-Hungary.

1936 - Australian cricketer Jack Fingleton became the first player to score centuries in four consecutive test innings.

1941 - The Japanese attacked the American fleet in Pearl Harbour.

1945 - Microwave ovens were patented.

1955 - Clement Atlee resigned as leader of the Labour Party, at the age of 72.

1961 - London County Council approved the construction of a 300ft tower block in Hammersmith. It was to be Britain’s tallest block of flats.

1962 - Bill Wyman auditioned for The Rolling Stones at The World’s End in Chelsea.

1968 - Richard Dodd returned a library book his great-grandfather had borrowed in 1823.

1982 - Charles Brooks Jr became the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.

1995 - The Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.

1998 - Ffion Alvarez Philips became the youngest passport holder in Britain, at the age of 66 hours.