This Day in History - 14th May

1080William Walcher, the Bishop of Durham and Earl of Northumberland, was murdered. As revenge, William the Conqueror ravaged the area and took the opportunity to invade Scotland and build the castle at Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

1727Thomas Gainsborough, English painter and founder of the English School of portrait and landscape painting, was born.

1779The classic English horse race The Oaks was first run at the Epsom Racecourse in southern England.

1796Edward Jenner became the first English physician to carry out a successful vaccination; on an eight year old boy against smallpox. His pioneering work laid the foundation for modern immunology techniques.

1847HMS Driver completed the first circumnavigation of the world by a steamship when it arrived back at Spithead on the Hampshire coast.

1856The trial of William Palmer, doctor and poisoner, began at the Old Bailey. Palmer’s victims were poisoned with strychnine. They included creditors, at least four of his 14 illegitimate children, his mother-in-law, his wife who had brought him a large dowry, and other relations. Palmer was found guilty and executed in his native Staffordshire.

1889The children's charity the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, was launched in London. Liverpool businessman Thomas Agnew had visited the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and was so impressed that he returned to England determined to provide similar help. In 1895 Queen Victoria became its first Royal Patron but it did not change its title to 'Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children' or similar, as the acronym NSPCC was already well established.

1894Blackpool Tower first opened to the public who paid a 6d (six pence) entrance fee, six pence more for a ride in the lifts to the top, and a further six pence for the circus.

1929Yorkshire and England cricketer Wilfred Rhodes took his 4000th first-class wicket during a performance of 9 for 39 at Leyton. He is the only player in history to have reached that plateau. He was also the first Englishman to complete the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in Test matches.

1951Trains ran on the Talyllyn Railway in Wales for the first time since preservation, making it the first railway in the world to be operated by volunteers.

1957The lifting of restrictions on fuel consumption imposed during the Suez crisis.

1965The field at Runnymede, the site of the signing of the Magna Carta, was dedicated by the Queen as a memorial to the late John F Kennedy, US President.

1967 The consecration of Liverpool's Roman Catholic Cathedral. The architect, Frederick Gibberd, winner of a worldwide design competition was sued soon after its opening for £1.3 million on five counts, the two most serious being leaks in the aluminium roof and defects in the mosaic tiles, which had begun to come away from the concrete ribs.

2013 The London offices of BP and Shell were raided by European regulators investigating allegations they had 'colluded' to rig oil prices for more than a decade.

2014Google added coast-to-coast public transport information for the whole of Great Britain to its Google Maps app. The data included departure times and routes for buses, ferries, trains and trams in England, Scotland and Wales.