This Day in History - 23rd June

1683William Penn, the English Quaker, signed a treaty with the Indian chiefs of the Lenni Lenade Tribe in an attempt to ensure peace in his new American colony, Pennsylvania.

1757British troops, commanded by Robert Clive, won the Battle of Plassey in Bengal - laying the foundations of the British Empire in India.

1894Birth of Edward, Duke of Windsor who was King Edward VIII from 20th January to 10th December 1936 before abdicating to marry twice-divorced Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson.

1940The BBC’s Music While You Work programme was first broadcast on radio to brighten up the lives of munitions workers doing boring factory jobs.

1942Germany's latest fighter, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, was captured intact when it mistakenly landed at RAF Pembrey in Wales.

1951Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, missing diplomats, fled to the USSR as Russian spies before the British authorities had the opportunity to arrest them for spying. They 'surfaced' in Moscow in 1956.

1989The Home secretary announced that the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad had been disbanded in the wake of allegations of malpractice.

1994It was announced that the Royal Yacht Britannia would be sold or scrapped. Her final voyage was to Hong Kong (1997) before being decommissioned. 

1997Diana, Princess of Wales apologized for taking her two sons, Princes William and Harry, to see the 15 certificated film The Devil's Own, about an IRA assassin.

2013The RSPB told householders to stop weeding and let the garden grow messy, in its biggest ever campaign to save wildlife by building “homes for nature”.

2014The Queen officially opened the new £2.5bn Terminal 2 building at Heathrow Airport in west London.

2016 The EU Referendum. The UK voted to leave the European Union. (The Union reached its 28 member countries with the accession of Croatia on 1st July 2013.