NOW & THEN

0 On this day in 1967 Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth II liner was launched by the Queen on Clydebank

1977: Vietnam was admitted to United Nations.

1990: Acid rain in Britain was said to be the worst in Europe. The Lake District had the worst levels, in some areas having doubled since 1979. The Department of the Environment said there was no cause for alarm.

1991: The Archbishop of Canterbury blamed social deprivation for riots on Tyneside, and criticised the government’s education policy.

2001: MSPS voted by a majority of 50 to ban fox-hunting, harecoursing and badger-baiting in Scotland.

2008: Harry Potter author JK Rowling donated £1 million to the Labour Party, motivated by Labour’s record on child poverty.

2008: A suicide bomb attack at the Islamabad Marriott hotel left 54 dead and 266 injured. 1187: Saladin began the siege of Jerusalem.

1440: Eton College was founded.

1519: Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, leading a Spanish expedition, set off on the first successful circumnavigation of the globe, but he was killed en route.

1664: Maryland passed the first anti-amalgamation law to ban intermarriage between English women and black men.

1746: Prince Charles Edward Stuart sailed to safety in France, aboard the French ship L’heureux.

1850: The slave trade was abolished in Washington, but slavery itself was allowed to continue.

1909: King Edward VII signed the South Africa Act, which created the Union of South Africa from the British colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Orange River Colony and Transvaal.

1917: The first RSPCA animal clinic was opened in Liverpool.

1932: Mahatma Gandhi began a fast in prison to protest against the treatment of India’s “untouchables”. Four days later, his demand that they be given representation were met.

1939: Joe Louis knocked out Bob Pastor in the 11th round at Briggs Stadium, Detroit, in his eighth defence of the world heavyweight boxing title.

1946: The first Cannes film festival opened.

1954: The First National People’s Congress adopted the Chinese constitution.

1962: Mississippi governor Ross Bennett, defying a court order, refused to let a black student enrol at state university. Ten days later, civil rights activist James Meredith, accompanied by 750 federal marshals, enrolled. Two died in riots.

1963: United States president John F Kennedy went before the UN General Assembly and proposed a joint Us-soviet expedition to the Moon.

1967: The Queen launched the new Cunard liner, Queen Elizabeth II, on Clydebank.

1972: Police found cannabis growing on Paul and Linda Mccartney’s farm.

1973: More than 30,000 people packed into the Astrodome at Houston, Texas, to see a “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. She trounced him. Gary Cole, US actor, 62; Caroline Flint, Labour MP, 57; John Harle, British saxophonist and composer, 62; Kristen Johnston, actress, 51; Henrik Larsson MBE, Swedish footballer, 47; Professor Peter Radford, British Olympic athlete, 79; José Rivero, Spanish golfer, 63; Juan Pablo Montoya, racing driver, 43; George RR Martin, novelist, 70; Julian Draxler, footballer, 25; Feliciano Lopez, tennis player, 37 Births: Sir James Dewar, (born Kincardine-on-forth) inventor of the vacuum flask; 1885 Jelly Roll Morton, jazz pianist and composer; 1902 Florence Margaret (“Stevie Smith”), poet; 1914 Kenneth More, actor; 1923 Jimmy Perry, actor and scriptwriter (Dad’s Army, Hi-dehi etc); .

Deaths: 1863 Jacob Grimm, philologist and collector of folk tales with his young brother Wilhelm; 1944 Guy Gibson, VC, (leader of Dambusters attack on Eder and Mohne dams); 1957 Jean Sibelius, composer; 1991 Tom Anderson, Shetland traditional fiddler; 2005 Simon Wiesenthal KBE, Nazi hunter; 2016 Curtis Hanson, American film director; 2017 Sir Teddy Taylor, MP 1980-2005.