See historic events for any day of the year by entering the date below. Why not try your birthday?

After spending four days in a lifeboat, seafarers from a torpedoed British merchant ship, the Mentor, are about to be rescued in the Gulf of Mexico in early 1942. Survivors of ships sunk while sailing alone faced the prospect of days or weeks adrift, awaiting a rescue that might never come.
John Gregson collection
Community contributions