This Day in History - 22nd May

1455In the Wars of the Roses, Richard of York and the Nevilles attacked the court at St Albans, capturing Henry VI and killing Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset.

1623British Forces made a treaty with the 'Potomac River tribes' proposing a toast to perpetual friendship. The Indian chief and 200 men then dropped dead from poisoned wine.

1807Most of the town of Chudleigh in Devon was destroyed by a fire that started in the bakery. After the fire, only the church and seven houses were left standing.

1816A mob in Littleport, Cambridgeshire, rioted over high unemployment and rising grain costs. The rioting spread to Ely (6 miles away) the next day.

1840Britain ended the practice of sending convicts to the penal colony of Australia.

1859The birth of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, novelist who created the detective Sherlock Holmes.

1897The official opening of the Blackwall Tunnel under the River Thames in London.

1907Laurence Olivier, English actor was born.

1923Stanley Baldwin formed a Conservative ministry, with Neville Chamberlain as Chancellor of Exchequer.

1927The world’s first ‘open plan’ zoo, Whipsnade, opened in Bedfordshire.

1930The birth of Kenny Ball, English jazz musician, best known as the lead trumpet player in Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen.

1970Under pressure from the Home Secretary James Callaghan, the Cricket Council reversed a decision to allow South African cricketers to tour England.

1981Peter Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper, was sentenced to life imprisonment after the judge described him as 'an unusually dangerous man'. He was found guilty of killing 13 women and the attempted murder of 7 others.

2013British Army soldier, Fusilier Lee Rigby was attacked and killed near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich. Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, British and of Nigerian descent, ran the off duty soldier down with a car, then used knives and a cleaver to hack him to death. The two men made no attempt to flee, encouraged people to take pictures of them and their victim and told passers-by that they had killed a soldier to avenge the killing of Muslims by the British armed forces. 

2017 Twenty two people were killed and more than 200 injured when a shrapnel-laden homemade bomb was detonated as people were leaving Manchester Arena following a concert by the American singer Ariana Grande. The youngest victim, Saffie Roussos, was just eight years old. It was the deadliest terror attack on British soil since the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005.