On This Day... (From Your Local Guardian)

On This Day...

5:23am Saturday 31st May 2008 in

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31st May

1669 - Samuel Pepys gives up writing his diary, as his eyesight was failing.

1851 - Big Ben first starts recording time.

1976 - The Who play the loudest concert in history and gain a place in the Guinness Book of Records, after hitting 120 decibels.

1999 - Cheese rolling is re-established at Cooper's Hill in Gloucestershire. The event passes off without incident after organisers introduced new regulations. It had been cancelled the previous year after 27 injuries in 1997.

2000 - Two bin men are swallowed by an apartment block's rubbish chute system in Japan. They are sucked at 60mph through curved pipes 23 inches wide.

2005 - A widow whose husband died of lung cancer loses her landmark court battle against a cigarette giant. The judge rejects her claim that her husband, who smoked 60 cigarettes a day and died of lung cancer aged 48, was unaware of the risks when he started smoking.