NOW & THEN
5 AUGUST
1388: Battle of Otterburn in which James, Earl of Douglas, was killed and Henry Percy (Hotspur), son of the Earl of Northumberland, was captured.
1600: The Gowrie Conspiracy, an unsuccessful attempt by Alexander, Lord Ruthven, and the Earl of Gowrie to seize King James at Gowrie House in Perth.
1704: The Act of Security was approved. It allowed the Estates of Scotland to choose a successor to Queen Anne other than the one elected by the English parliament if Scottish conditions were not met, and precipitated an English demand for an Act of Union.
1850: Australia Government Act granted representative governments to South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria, which was separated from New South Wales.
1852: The re-erection of the Crystal Palace began at Sydenham, south London.
1858: First Transatlantic telegraph cable was completed. Laid by USS Niagara and HMS Agamemnon, it was opened by Queen Victoria and President James Buchanan exchanging greetings. But its current was so weak that transmission of 90 words took 67 minutes and its insulation failed three weeks later.
1891: First travellers’ cheque was cashed, for $50, on American Express, at the Hotel Hauffe, Leipzig.
1901: Britain’s first cinema opened in the Mowhawk’s Hall, Upper Street, Islington.
1926: Houdini, escape artist, survived one-and-a-half hours in a bronze coffin in a hotel swimming pool in Los Angeles.
1939: British Transatlantic airmail service was inaugurated.
1955: European Monetary Agreement was signed.
1963: United States, Britain and Soviet Union signed treaty outlawing nuclear tests in atmosphere, in space and under water.
1973: Two men identified as Black September guerrillas attacked travellers at Athens Airport with grenades and machine-guns, leaving three dead and 55 wounded.
1974: Ex-president Richard Nixon admitted his complicity in the Watergate affair.
1986: Princess Anne rode her first winner as an amateur jockey, Gulfland, at Redcar.
1991: Iraq admitted to United Nations inspection team that it carried out germ warfare research for four years, but claimed it abandoned research shortly after 1990 invasion of Kuwait.2003: A car bomb exploded in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta outside the Marriott Hotel killing 12 and injuring 150.
2010: The Copiapó mining accident occurred, trapping 33 Chilean miners approximately 2,300ft below the ground.
2011: A US helicopter crashed in eastern Afghanistan killing 31 US special forces and seven Afghan commandos.
2012: Scottish tennis star Andy Murray won a gold medal after an emphatic victory over Roger Federer in the Olympic men’s singles final at Wimbledon. Later in the day, Murray took a silver medal in the mixed doubles.
BIRTHDAYS
Barbara Flynn, British actress, 71; Jan Francis, British actress, 72; Rodney Pattisson MBE, British yachtsman, 76; John Whitaker MBE, British showjumper, 64; Janet Mcteer OBE, British actress, 58; Louis Walsh, TV talent show judge, 67; Mark Strong, British actor, 56; Kara Tointon, actress, 36; Antony Cotton, actor, 44; Wayne Bridge, former England international footballer, 39; Ray Clemence MBE, former England international goalkeeper, 71; David Healy MBE, Nothern Irish football manager and former player, 40
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1662 James Anderson, Scottish lawyer and historian; 1681 Vitus Bering, Danish explorer; 1850 Guy de Maupassant, French novelist; 1862 Joseph Merrick, the “Elephant Man”; 1928 Carla Lane, TV scriptwriter; 1930 Professor Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on the Moon, 20 July, 1969; 1968 Colin Mcrae, rally driver.
Deaths:1754
James Gibbs, Aberdeen-born architect; 1778 Robert Mackay (Rob Donn), Gaelic poet of Sutherland; 1848 Friedrich Engels, co-author of The Communist Manifesto; 1962 Marilyn Monroe, American film actress; 1984 Richard Burton, actor; 2000 Sir Alec Guinness, actor; 2014 Chapman Pincher, British investigative journalist; 2015 George Cole OBE, actor.