NOW & THEN
0 On this day in 1944, Erwin Rommel, German commander known as the ‘Desert Fox’, died by self-administered poison 1981: Citizens’ Band radio became legal in Britain.
1986: Britain’s first artificial heart transplant operation was performed at Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire.
1997: Typhoon Linda killed more than 200 people in southern Vietnam.
1990: Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Television forced merger with rival British Satellite Broadcasting.
2005: David Blunkett resigned from the Cabinet, for the second time in a year, over his business dealings.
2008: Lewis Hamilton became the youngest world champion in Formula One history after a nailbiting Brazilian Grand Prix. Hamilton took the title by one point from Felipe Massa.
2014: Sixty people were killed and 110 injured by a suicide bombing in Lahore, Pakistan. 1619: Patent granted to Nathaniel Udwart of Edinburgh for a monopoly in the manufacture of soap.
1785: First unsinkable lifeboat patented by Lionel Lukin, a London coachbuilder.
1871: All prisoners in Britain were photographed, thereby starting the “Rogues’ Gallery”.
1896: The first motor insurance policies were issued in Britain. They excluded damage caused by frightened horses.
1899: The Boers began the siege of Ladysmith in Natal.
1903: First edition of the Daily Mirror published.
1914: Great Britain annexed Cyprus.
1917: Balfour Declaration written by British Foreign Secretary AJ Balfour to Zionist leader Lord Rothschild declared support for the idea of a Jewish national home in Palestine provided safeguards were established to protect the rights of “existing non-jewish communities”.
1924: The Sunday Express became the first British newspaper to print a crossword puzzle.
1930: Tafare Makkonen was crowned Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia.
1936: First high-definition television broadcast from Alexandra Palace, London by the BBC.
1944: Erwin Rommel, German military commander known as the “Desert Fox”, died by selfadministered poison.
1947: The USA defeated Britain 11-1 in the Ryder Cup at Portland Golf Club, Oregon.
1949: The Netherlands recognised Indonesia as a soveriegn state.
1953: Pakistan became an Islamic republic.
1954: Comedy series Hancock’s Half Hour began on BBC radio.
1959: £22 million M1 between London and Birmingham opened in Luton by minister of transport Ernest Marples.
1960: In Tanzania, Mary Leakey and her team discovered the first fossils of Homo Habilis, thought to be one of the earliest species to make stone tools, which lived between 1.4 and 2.3 million years ago.
1960: The Lady Chatterley trial ended with publisher Penguin Books cleared of obscenity.
1964: King Faisal succeeded his brother to the throne of Saudi Arabia.
1967: Winifred “Winnie” Ewing won Hamilton by-election for the Scottish National Party. kd lang, singer, 57; Samantha Womack, singer and actress (exeastenders), 46; Brian Poole, lead singer of the Tremeloes, 77; Paul Johnson CBE, author and columnist, 90; Said Aouita, Olympic champion athlete and world record breaker, 59; Stefanie Powers, actress, 76; Ken Rosewall MBE, tennis player, 84; David Schwimmer, actor 52; Bruce Welch OBE, guitarist (The Shadows) 77; Alan Jones MBE, racing driver, 72; Dave Pegg, musician (Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull), 71; Dave Stockton, golfer and US Ryder Cup captain, 77; Queen Sofia of Spain, 80; John Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Preston Candover, president of Sainsbury’s, 91. Births: 1734 Daniel Boone, US frontiersman; 1755 Marie Antoinette, queen consort of Louis XVI of France; 1906 Luchino Visconti, film, theatre and opera director; 1913 Burt Lancaster, film actor; 1944 Keith Emerson, rock musician.
Deaths: 1874 Thomas Anderson, Scottish chemist; 1950 George Bernard Shaw, author and dramatist; 1961 James Thurber, cartoonist and writer; 2000 Baroness Ryder of Warsaw (Sue Ryder), charity worker; 2014 Acker Bilk MBE, jazz clarinetist and vocalist.