NOW & THEN

12 JULY

1191: Richard the Lionheart and the Crusaders defeated the Saracens in Palestine.

1290: Jews were expelled from England by King Edward I.

1543: England’s King Henry VIII married Catherine Parr, his sixth and last wife. She outlived him and wed again after his death.

1570: The Earl of Lennox was appointed Regent of Scotland.

1698: A small fleet of five ships set sail from Leith, bound for Panama, carrying Scotland’s hopes of founding a new empire. The project was abandoned seven months after arrival.

1771: Captain Cook’s ship Endeavour docked at Dover after returning from his first voyage of discovery.

1785: French balloonist Jean Pierre Blanchard and his American co-pilot John Jefferies became the first to fly a balloon across the English Channel.

1794: Nelson lost the sight of his right eye in an attempt to reduce the French garrison at Calvi.

1799: Political associations were banned in Britain.

1817: The first flower show was held in County Cork.

1843: Mormon leader Joseph Smith announced that God allowed polygamy.

1862: The Medal of Honor was approved by the US senate.

1878: An epidemic of fever broke out in New Orleans, leading to 4,500 deaths.

1902: Australia’s parliament gave women the vote.

1918: The Japanese battleship Kawachi exploded in the Bay of Yokohama, killing 500 on board.

1920: President Woodrow Wilson opened Panama Canal.

1941: British-soviet mutual aid pact was signed.

1946: Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia premiered at Glyndebourne.

1948: Six RAF De Havilland Vampires of Number 54 Squadron landed in Labrador to become the first jet-powered aircraft to fly across the Atlantic.

1962: The Rolling Stones gave their first live performance at the Marquee Club, London.

1970: Blues-rock singer Janis Joplin made her public debut in Kentucky.

1977: United States president Jimmy Carter went on record as favouring development of neutron bomb, which would kill people but not destroy buildings

1982: Britain announced the release of 593 Argentine prisoners who had been captured during the Falklands conflict.

1985: Doctors discovered a cancerous growth in the colon of US president Ronald Reagan.

1990: Boris Yeltsin resigned from Communist Party during the 28th meeting of the party Congress.

1993: Four journalists working for western news agencies were murdered in Somalia.

1996: Buckingham Palace said that the Prince and Princess of Wales had agreed terms for a divorce under which Diana would lose the title HRH.

1999: The new Scottish Parliament met for the first time in its temporary home on The Mound, in Edinburgh.

2010: Police and Orangemen came under attack as a Twelfth of July parade was escorted through a notorious flashpoint.