This Day in History - 23rd May

878The Saxon King Alfred defeated the Danes at Edington, Wiltshire. As part of the peace agreement, the Danish King, Guthrum, accepted Christianity and was baptized as a Christian.

1169'The First Conquerors' landed in Ireland. They were Normans from Wales enlisted by Dermot MacMurrough to recover his kingdom of Leinster.

1430Burgundian troops captured Joan of Arc and delivered her to the English.

1533To the annoyance of the Pope, the English Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declared Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon to be void and his marriage to Anne Boleyn, to be legal. The result was a break with the church in Rome despite Henry’s title as ‘Protector of the Faith’.

1701At London's Execution Dock, English privateer Captain Kidd was hanged for piracy and murder. Commissioned by the British crown in 1695 to apprehend pirates in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, Kidd apparently turned to piracy himself in 1697.

1706In the Battle of Ramillies (Belgium) John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defeated a French army under the command of Marshal Villeroi.

1795Sir Charles Barry, the English architect who designed the Houses of Parliament, was born.

1797A cartoon by Gilray was published which gave the Bank of England its nickname, 'The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.'

1868 The death of the architect James Pigott Pritchett. One of his most famous works was the design of Huddersfield Railway Station. The station frontage was described by John Betjeman as the most splendid in England. The Grade I listed building dominates St George's Square and has a classical-style facade consisting of six columns in width and two in depth

1918The birth of Denis Compton CBE, English cricketer and footballer He played in 78 Test matches, spent the whole of his cricket career with Middlesex and most of his football career at Arsenal F.C.

1921The birth of Humphrey Lyttelton, English jazz musician and broadcaster.

1933Joan Collins, English actress was born.

1956The first large-scale nuclear power station was opened at Calder Hall, Cumbria. It was decommissioned after producing electricity for almost 50 years.

1966The British government declared a state of emergency a week after the nation's seamen strike began.

1984Sixteen people died and dozens more were injured in an underground explosion whilst visiting a water treatment plant in the village of Abbeystead, near Lancaster.

1995Twelve members of a Royal British Legion tour party on a day trip were killed when their coach plunged down an embankment on the M4 near the Severn Bridge.

2014Stuart Hall, the 84 year old former TV presenter, was told that he will now not be eilgible for release until December 2015 as he was sentenced for further child sex assaults. Hall was sentenced to 15 months in jail in June 2013 for sexually abusing girls, including one aged 9 years old.

2014Judges ruled that the remains of Richard III should be given a dignified reburial in Leicester, as the Justice Secretary attacked his distant relatives for wasting public money by challenging to have him interred elsewhere. Richard III's body was buried in the now demolished Franciscan Friary in Leicester and was discovered in September 2012 under what had become a car park.