NOW & THEN
16 AUGUST
1620: The Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, taking pilgrims to religious freedom in the New World of America.
1745: The first skirmish of the Jacobite uprising took place at Laggan, where two companies of Royal Scots government troops were taken prisoner by Glengarry Highlanders.
1812: During the Angloamerican War, the Siege of Detroit ended when American general William Hull surrendered the town of Detroit, Michigan, after British forces, allied to Native American Indians, used bluff and deception to attain victory despite being hugely outnumbered.
1819: The Peterloo massacre occurred in St Peter’s Fields, Manchester. Cavalry charged into a crowd of demonstrators petitioning for parliamentary reform, resulting in 15 deaths.
11896: George Carmack discovered gold in Bonanza Creek, sparking the Gold Rush in Klondike, Alasaka, as an estimated 100,000 prospectors descended on the region.
1921: Members of the Dail swore allegiance to the Irish Republic at their first meeting held at Dublin House.
1940: Forty-five German aircraft were shot down over Britain.
1949: Tate & Lyle introduced Mr Cube, a friendly sugar cube, to fight its battle against proposals in Labour’s election manifesto to nationalise the sugar industry.
1956: First London conference to discuss Suez Canal was boycotted by Egypt’s President Nasser.
1959: Cyprus became an independent republic.
1960: Britain granted independence to the crown colony of Cyprus.
1961: 250,000 demonstrators gathered as the initial barbed wire fence was taken down and replaced by the first concrete blocks in the building of the Berlin Wall, separating the the two sides of the city.
1962: Pete Best, the original drummer with the Beatles, was fired by Brian Epstein and replaced with Ringo Starr.
1974: Turkish invaders of Cyprus completed division of island into two areas and declared ceasefire.
1990: Nine people were hacked to death at a train station in Soweto, South Africa.
1990: President Saddam Hussein of Iraq offered to end ten years of conflict with Iran, buying peace with one archenemy in order to concentrate Iraq’s forces against the international army mustered in Saudi Arabia after the invasion of Kuwait.
1992: Nigel Mansell clinched his first world drivers’ championship.
2005: West Caribbean Airways flight 708 crashed in Venezuela, killing all 160 on board
2006: Private Harry Farr, pardoned 90 years after he was executed by firing squad for cowardice during the First World War, was the first of 300 soldiers shot for military offences in the war to receive pardons.
2009: Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt set a new 100 metres world record of 9.58 seconds at the World Championships in Berlin. The new mark took 0.11 seconds off the previous record.
BIRTHDAYS
George Galloway, MP 2012-2015, 64; Angela Bassett, actress, 60; James Cameron, film director, 64; John Challis, actor, 76; John Craven OBE, TV presenter,
78; David Dickinson, antiques expert, 77; Katharine Hamnett CBE, fashion designer, 71; Timothy Hutton, actor, 58; Ulrika Jonsson, presenter, 51; Sir Trevor Macdonald OBE, broadcaster, 79; Madonna, pop singer 60; Tom Maschler, publisher and inventor of the Booker Prize, 85; Steve Carell, actor, 56; Ann Blyth, actress, 90; Julie Newmar, actress, dancer and singer, 85; Sir John Ronald Leon Standing, 4th Baronet, English actor, 84
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: TE Lawrence, British army officer and writer (Lawrence of Arabia); 1902 Georgette Heyer, novelist; 1913 Menachem Begin, prime minister of Israel 1977 to 1983; 1930 Ted Hughes, author, Poet Laureate 1984-98; 1930 Robert Culp, acto.
Deaths: 1888 John Pemberton, chemist, inventor of Coca-cola; 1899 Robert Bunsen, inventor of gas burner; 1949 Margaret Mitchell, author; 1956 Béla Lugosi, actor; 1977 Elvis Presley, singer and actor; 1993 Stewart Granger, actor; 2018 Aretha Franklin, American soul singer.