NOW & THEN
20 OCTOBER
1576: Spanish troops occupied and plundered Maastricht.
1714: Georg Ludwig von Hannover was crowned king George I.
1813: The German kingdom of Westphalia was abolished.
1817: The first Mississippi “showboat” set off from Nashville on its maiden voyage.
1818: The 49th parallel was established by the US and Britain as the boundary between Canada and the United States.
1820: Spain sold part of Florida to USA for $ 5 million.
1822: The first edition of the Sunday Times was published.
1835: HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin on board, left Galapagos, bound for Tahiti.
1899: At the Battle of Talana Hill ( also known as the Battle of Glencoe) during the second Boer War, British forces suffered heavy casualties but succeeeded in driving the Boers from their hilltop position.
1899: The US boat Columbia defeated its UK opponent, Sir Thomas Lipton’s Shamrock, in the America’s Cup.
1910: RMS Olympic, sister ship to the Titanic, was launched from Harland & Wolff in Belfast.
1922: Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy.
1941: The keel of Britain’s largest and last battleship, Vanguard, was laid at Clydebank. She was launched on 30 November, 1944.
1945: Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon warned US that creation of Jewish state could lead to war; Arab League was formed.
1960: DH Lawrence’s novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover ( 1928) took Penguin Books to the dock at the Old Bailey under the Obscene Publications Act. Penguin was found not guilty.
1968: Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of President John F Kennedy, and shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis married on his private island of Skorpios.
1973: The Sydney Opera House was opened by the Queen.
1977: Civilian government in Thailand was ousted in bloodless coup by military junta which had installed it a year earlier.
1988: The Sengstack family of New Jersey sold their company’s outright ownership of the song, Happy Birthday To You.
1988: The government came under pressure to recognise a moral responsibility towards 18,000 investors who lost savings in the collapse of the investment firm Barlow Clowes International.
1994: John Major ’s government was rocked by a second “cash for questions” scandal in which the Northern Ireland minister, Tim Smith, resigned.
1995: The Scottish secretary, Michael Forsyth, announced a plan to encourage crofters to buy thousands of acres of land owned by the Scottish Office.
1997: Elton John’s funeral service tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales, Candle in the Wind 97, was declared the biggest- selling single in music history.
2007: South Africa beat England, the holder, 15- 6 in the World Rugby Cup final in Paris.
2011: Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and his son Moatassem were killed shortly after the Battle of Sirte.