NOW & THEN
7 AUGUST
1711: Ascot became ‘Royal’ with the attendance of Queen Anne at the races.
1840: Parliament passed an act prohibiting the employment of climbing boys as chimney sweeps.
1858: Ottawa, the choice of Queen Victoria, was made the capital of Canada.
1888: The revolving door was patented by Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia.
1891: The telephoto lens was patented by a Frenchman, A Duboscq.
1925: British Summer Time became permanent feature with the passing of the Daylight Saving Act.
1926: The first British motor racing Grand Prix was held, at Brooklands over 287 miles.
1927: The Peace Bridge – linking Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada, with Niagara Falls in New York, United States – was dedicated.
1941: Soviet planes carried out their first bombing raids against Berlin.
1942: Guadalcanal, in the southern Solomon Islands, was assaulted by US Marines in one of the most costly Pacific campaigns of the Second World War. It was finally won the following January.
1958: The Litter Act came into force in Britain.
1959: Chinese invaded Northeast Frontier province of India.
1971: Three US Apollo 15 astronauts made safe splashdown in Pacific Ocean after their Moon visit.
1988: First issue published of Scotland on Sunday, sister paper of The Scotsman.
1989: A four-mile wide slick of orange algae appeared off the Cornish coast after a heatwave and bathers were warned that it could irritate the skin.
1990: At 12:34 and 56 seconds on this day, 7.8.90, the sequence of numbers ran from 1 to 0. It occurs once each century.
1990: United States announced it would send troops to Saudi Arabia to defend it against threatened invasion by Iraq.
1991: A report showed a 63 per cent rise in heterosexual Aids cases in the United Kingdom.
1992: Britain called for UN action to end concentration camp atrocities in Serbia.
1993: More than 4,300 people visited Buckingham Palace on the first day it was open to the public.
1995: Britain’s Jonathan Edwards broke his own world triple jump record twice, becoming the first man to clear 18 metres, when he won gold at the world athletics championships in Gothenburg.
1997: Tony Blair ordered an inquiry into the Labour Party in Paisley after the suicide of MP Gordon Mcmaster.
1998: The US embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya killed approximately 212 people.
2011: A survey by the Road Users’ Alliance revealed that Britain had one of the poorest motorway networks in Europe.
2011: Seven people were shot dead following a family dispute in Akron, in the US state of Ohio.
2012: Sir Chris Hoy took gold in the men’s keirin final at the London Games, making him the most successful British Olympian ever.