Wednesday 4th January 1967

Britain’s Donald Campbell, who broke eight world speed records in the 1950s and 1960s, tragically died at the age of 55 after his jet-powered Bluebird leapt into the air, somersaulted and plunged into Coniston Water in the Lake District in Cumbria. Although he did not establish as many speed records (13) as his father, Sir Malcolm Campbell, he remains the only person to set both land- and water-speed records in the same year (1964).