What happened this day in history: February 7

1812 - Author Charles Dickens was born, in Portsmouth.

1821- Seal hunter John Davis became the first person ever to set foot on Antarctica. He never returned.

1907 - The ‘Mud March’ took place in London; the first large procession organised by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), with more than 3,000 women taking part.

1924 - Helena Normanton became the first woman barrister to practise at the Old Bailey.

1943 - Americans were restricted to buying three pairs of shoes a year to save leather.

1947 - The Dead Sea Scrolls, dated 150BC to AD68, were found in caves west of the Jordan River.

1971 - A Swiss referendum awarded the vote to women.

1984 - Bruce McCandless II made the first untethered space walk.

1991 - Prime Minister John Major and his senior cabinet ministers escaped an assassination attempt, when the IRA fired mortar shells at 10 Downing Street from a van.