On This Day In History - 18th May

[Waks]

1972: Duke too ill for tea with the Queen
The Duke of Windsor was not well enough to attend tea with the Queen when she came to visit his home in Paris this afternoon. He was said to be "dreadfully disappointed" after doctors told him he was not to come downstairs because of ill health.
They made their decision just hours before the Queen, with Prince Philip and Prince Charles, was due to see her uncle for the first time in five years - and the first time in his own home.
The Queen did spend 15 minutes talking alone with her "Uncle David" in his first floor sitting room after the Duchess of Windsor hosted tea in the downstairs drawing room.

1991: Sharman becomes first Briton in space
Britain's first astronaut, 27-year-old Helen Sharman from Sheffield, has blasted into orbit. The Soviet Soyuz TM-12 space capsule made a textbook launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the Soviet republic of Kazakhstan at 1350 BST carrying Miss Sharman and fellow cosmonauts Anatoly Artebartsky and Sergei Krikalyov. Her parents and sister watched from a viewing stand one kilometre away and saw their daughter smile and wave to the onboard camera.
She carries with her a photograph of the Queen, a butterfly brooch given to her by her father and a "space passport" in case her spacecraft is forced to land outside the Soviet Union.