NOW & THEN
Sir Walter Raleigh brought the first tobacco to England from Virginia.
Oliver Cromwell defeated the royalist forces at the Battle of Gainsborough.
Battle of Killiecrankie. The Bank of England was granted a 12-year charter by an Act of Parliament.
Scottish School of Design founded. It is now the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh.
The Thermidorian Coup took place during the French Revoluion, bringing about the fall and execution of Robespierre.
Opium War between China and Britain began after Chinese authorities seized and burned British cargoes of opium.
Chartist riots broke out in Birmingham
Around 40,000 people were killed when a hurricane struck the Chinese port city of Canton, obliterating the thriving waterfront area and destroying many vessels.
Welsh settlers arrived at Chubut in Argentina.
A telegraph cable, 1,686 miles long, was successfully laid across theatlantic Ocean.
Vincent Van Gogh went to the spot where he had painted Cornfield with Flight of Birds, and shot himself. He died two days later, aged 37. In his lifetime he had sold only four paintings.
The Allies reached the Yser Canal at the Battle of Passchendaele
The first insulin was isolated, providing an effective treatment for diabetes.
Bugs Bunny made his first appearance in A Wild Hare.
The first Battle of El Alamein ended after 27 days.
Gloster Meteor, Britain’s first jet fighter and the Allies’ first operational jet fighter of the Second world War, made its first operational flight.
Korean Armistice was signed at Panmunjom, dividing countries.
Sir Winston Churchill made his last appearance in the House of Commons.
Martin Luther King was jailed in Albany, Georgia.
Irishman Tom Mcclean, of the Parachute Regiment, arrived in County Mayo after rowing solo across the Atlantic for 71 days from St John’s in a 20ft boat.
A Judiciary Committee voted to impeach United States president Richard Nixon.
The World Health Organisation said Aids was the main cause of death for women between 20 and 40 years of age.
Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor began a three-day jail sentence for slapping a policeman.
In Atlanta, Georgia, a pipe bomb exploded at Centennial Olympic Park during the Summer Olympics. One woman was killed, and 111 were injured.
A Sukhoi Su-27 fighter crashed during an air show at Lviv, Ukraine, killing 85 and injuring more than 100 others, the largest air show disaster in history.
One hundred people were killed and 1,500 injured during a crackdown on protesters in Cairo, Egypt.
Liberia closed most of its borders amid fears over the spread of the Ebola virus. Allan Border, cricketer and commentator, 63; Christopher Dean OBE, ice skater, 60; Jo Durie, tennis player, coach and commentator, 58; Bobbie Gentry, singer, 74; Jack Higgins, novelist, 89; Baroness (Shirley) Williams of Crosby, co-founder, Social Democratic Party, 88; Dennis Ralston, retired tennis player, 76
1768 Charlotte Corday, assassin of Jean-paul Marat; 11870 Hilaire Belloc, writer and poet; 1882, Donald Crisp, Scottish actor (How Green Was My Valley); 1882 Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, aircraft designer and manufacturer; 1900 Charles Vidor, film director; 1916 Keenan Wynn, actor.
1844 John Dalton, physicist; 1876 Walter Channing, American physician, first to use anaesthetic during childbirth; 1946 Gertrude Stein, novelist and poet; 1980 Shah of Iran; 1981 William Wyler, film director; 1984 James Mason, film actor; 2000 Peter Keenan, boxer and promoter; 2001 Leon Wilkeson, guitarist (Lynyrd Skynyrd); 2003 Bob Hope, comic actor; 2007 Lucky Grills, Australian actor; 2008 Bob Crampsey, broadcaster and writer; 2017 Sam Shepard, actor.