On this day in history: First edition of The Times published, 1785

In 1781, a wealthy London coal merchant called John Walters joined Lloyd's insurance company only to be left bankrupt by series of disasters. Undeterred, he decided to try his hand as a printer. In 1782, he purchased the patent for a new method of printing using parts of words rather than single letters. He developed this technique and two years later he acquired a printing office in Blackfriars.

Walters started by printing books using his new method. Then, on 1st January 1785, he published the first edition of a daily newspaper called The Daily Universal Register, which he also edited. After three years, he changed the name of the newspaper to The Times.

Like many other newspaper proprietors, Walter supplemented his income with payments from the Treasury to print articles favourable to the government. This arrangement may have been more trouble than it was worth when he was found guilty of libel for publishing an attack on the royal dukes written by Thomas Steele, the joint secretary of the Treasury. After serving eighteen months in Newgate, Walter received a pardon from the Prince of Wales, and in 1795 he retired from the active running his printing business.

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On this day in history: First Spanish Republic ended, 1874

In February, 1873 King Amadeo I abdicated from the Spanish throne. Three years earlier, following the revolution against Queen Isabella II, the Spanish parliament, the Cortes Generales, had elected Amadeo, an Italian prince, as King to reign as a constitutional monarch. Political infighting within the Cortes hampered his ability to respond to successive disasters: uprisings in support of the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty, known as Carlists; republican revolts; and even assassination attempts. Amadeo finally gave up and returned to Italy as the Duke of Aosta, after the increasingly radical government forced him to sign a decree to sack a group of artillery officers who had refused to take orders from their new commander.

The day after the abdication, the Cortes voted that Spain become a republic but could not agree on what form it should take, some preferred that Spain become a federation while others wanted a unitary republic. The divisions in Spanish society undermined the republic as they had done with the constitutional monarchy. In January, 1874 the Captain General of Madrid, Manuel Pavía, declared his opposition to the federalism, which resulted in the formation of a unitary government without the federalists and monarchists.

With the Cortes disbanded the fate of the nation rested in the hands of the military forces of the various factions. The republican army managed to reverse the territorial gains made by the Carlists before deciding not to oppose Brigadier Martínez Campos when he declared his support for the Bourbon Prince Alfonso, son of Isabella, on 29th December 1874. Having lost control of their armed forces the government of the first republic collapsed, paving the way for the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy.

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On this day in history: Voyager completed record flight, 1986

In 1980, a former United States Air Force pilot called Dick Rutan met fellow pilot Jeana Yeager (no relation of Chuck Yeager) at an airshow in Chino, California. Romance blossomed between the two, and Yeager became a test pilot at Rutan's aircraft company, which he ran with his aerospace designer brother, Burt. Over lunch one day at the Mojave Inn in 1981, the three of them discussed making an aircraft capable of being the first aircraft to circumnavigate the World without landing or refuelling.

Over the next five year's they refined the initial design that Burt sketched on a napkin to create Voyager. The aircraft had a lightweight fuselage made from carbon fibre, fibreglass and Kevlar. Engines powered propellers at the front and rear, with the front only used to provide the extra power for take-off and the early part of the flight.

At 8.01am local time on 14th December 1986, Dick and Jeanna lifted off from the runway at Edwards' Air Force Base, California, to embark on their record-breaking flight attempt. Despite a tricky take-off, in which Voyager's wing-tips sustained damaged, and course changes necessitated by the weather and a lack of permission to fly in Libyan airspace, over the next five days the pair flew their westward course around the World. Approaching California one of the fuel pumps failed; nevertheless, they successfully landed back at Edwards' on 23rd December, having flown 26,366 miles (42,432 km) in nine days, 3 minutes and 44 seconds.

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