Strike at Heathrow

THOUSANDS of workers at Heathrow Airport, including security staff and firefighters, are to stage a series of fresh strikes in a long-running dispute over pay and conditions.

Unite said 41 strikes will be held over a 23-day period from April 2 to 23, involving different groups of workers.

The union has accused Heathrow of planning to “fire and rehire” its entire workforce, cutting their pay and conditions.

978: Edward the Martyr, King of England from 975, was murdered at Corfe Castle, Dorset, apparently at the instigation of half-brother Ethelred, who wanted the crown for himself.

1584: Death of Ivan the Terrible, the first ruler of Russia to assume the title of Tsar.

1858: Rudolf Diesel, German engineer who invented the diesel engine, was born in Paris. 1869: Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister at the outbreak of the Second World War, was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham. 1893: First World War poet Wilfred Owen was born in Oswestry, Shropshire. He died in action during the war. 1949: The text of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was made public, two weeks before its signature in Washington DC by 12 countries including Canada, Britain, Iceland and the United States. 1967: The oil tanker Torrey Canyon ran on to rocks near Land’s End, spilling 120,000 gallons of crude oil into the sea.

1975: The Cabinet decided by 16 votes to seven to advise the nation to vote in the forthcoming referendum to keep Britain in the Common Market.

1990: East Germany’s first election since the Nazi takeover of 1933 ended in overwhelming victory for the three-party conservative alliance. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Scientists revealed they’d identified the oldest fossil ever found of a modern bird – a 66.7-million-year-old skull found in a quarry near the Belgian-dutch border.

Neville Chamberlain