1605    Gunpowder Plot: A conspiracy led by Robert Catesby to blow up the English Houses of Parliament is thwarted when Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the House of Lords.

1913    The United Kingdom's House of Lords rejects the Irish Home Rule Bill.

1992    Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher joins the House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher.

1999    Britain's House of Lords votes to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament.

1999    The House of Lords Act is given Royal Assent, restricting membership of the British House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.

2007    British House of Commons votes to make the upper chamber, the House of Lords, 100% elected.