The services opened with the motorway in 1962 and have undergone many developments over time, largely due to the evolution of the motorway, which at the time of its opening ran from Birmingham to Strensham but now runs to Exeter some 100 miles southwards.
The first section of the Olympics Road Network, in which segregated lanes are reserved for athletes and officials, was due to open on the motorway on Monday, which Olympic bosses expect to be one of the busiest days for athlete arrivals.
There were fears the repair work on the damaged flyover near junction two may not be completed in time for the Games Lanes to open, but the motorway reopened on Friday.
Watford Gap was chosen as one of four pilot sites, though by 1958 the Ministry had decided only this and Newport Pagnell services would open with the motorway.
Fifty years ago today, Harold Macmillan opened the new Preston bypass – Britain's first motorway.
Construction of a motorway from the west to the Adriatic coast at Pescara opened the region to the rest of Italy.
So, Wetherspoons has opened a motorway services pub, the Hope and Champion, on the M40 at Beaconsfield, the first of its kind in the UK, though alcohol has long been served at motorway stop-offs in France, for example.
It may also have an impact on tourism – the long, flat roads with glimpses of the Somerset hills across the Severn estuary are a magnet for cyclists – and there is concern that a motorway would open the door to more development.
Following a deadly incident that occurred in late April 1995 on the recently opened motorway, Croatia reclaimed all of the RS Ks territory in western Slavonia during Operation Flash, taking full control of the territory by 4 May, three days after the battle began.
The accused are said to have loaded illegal immigrants into refrigerated lorries, which are less likely to be opened, at motorway stations, having first held them in a disused clinic in Angoulême, southwest France.
