The Chronicle (South Tyneside and Durham)
ON THIS DAY
1556:
Thomas Cranmer, first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, was condemned as a heretic under Catholic Queen Mary I and burned at the stake in Oxford.
1685:
Composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany.
1861:
Albert Chevalier, composer and singer of cockney songs, including My Old Dutch and Knocked ‘Em In The Old Kent Road, was born in London.
1918:
The last major German offensive of the First World War began on the
Somme.
1933:
The first Nazi concentration camp was completed in Germany. It served as a prototype and model for the others that followed including Auschwitz.
1960:
The Sharpeville massacre took place in the Transvaal, South Africa, when police fired on a demonstration against Pass Laws, killing 69 people.
1963:
Alcatraz, the notorious maximum security prison in San Francisco Bay, was closed.
1985:
Riot police shot dead 17 black people at South Africa’s Langa township on the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre.
1991:
The poll tax was ditched as Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine unveiled a new property tax to replace it.
1993:
The IRA claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks in Warrington which killed a four-year-old child.
1995:
Police raided the Tokyo headquarters of the Aum Shinrikyo religious sect after Sarin nerve gas was released on five trains in the Tokyo underground system.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR:
A 104-year-old woman put her Somerset house on the market, after living in it for 102 years.
BIRTHDAYS:
Michael Heseltine, former deputy prime minister, 91; Gary Oldman, actor, 66; Matthew Broderick, actor, 62; Rosie O’donnell, actress, 62; Ieuan Evans, former rugby player, 60; Matthew Maynard, former cricketer, 58; Adrian Chiles, TV presenter, 57; Mark Williams, snooker player, 49; Ronaldinho, footballer, 44.