NOW & THEN
4 OCTOBER
1537: The first complete English-language bible (the Matthew Bible) was printed.
1675: Dutch mathematician Christian Huygens patented the pocket watch.
1777: General George Washington’s troops attacked but were beaten by the British at the Battle of Germantown.
1824: Mexico became a republic.
1853: Turkey declared war on Russia, starting the Crimean War.
1865: Napoleon III and Otto von Bismarck met at Biarritz, where Napoleon III agreed to Prussian supremacy in Germany and to a united Italy.
1873: Tom Kidd won the 13th Open Championship with a score of 179 at St Andrews.
1883: The Boys’ Brigade was founded in Glasgow, by Sir William Alexander Smith.
1883: The Orient Express made its first run, linking Turkey to Europe by rail.
1911: The first escalator on the London Underground was installed at Earl’s Court Station.
1916: Six-hundred French soldiers died when the cruiser Callia was torpedoed in the Mediterranean.
1952: The first external pacemaker, developed by Dr Paul Zoll of Harvard Medical School, was fitted to David Schwartz to control his heartbeats.
1957: Soviet Union put the first spacecraft, Sputnik I, into orbit around Earth.
1959: Soviet spacecraft Lunik III sent back first close-up pictures of the Moon.
1969: China announced two nuclear weapons tests, including hydrogen bomb explosion in atmosphere.
1973: Peace talks began in Northern Ireland in attempt to end five years of conflict that had taken almost 900 lives.
1983: Richard Noble made the fastest official land-speed mile over Black Rock Desert, Nevada, with his Rolls-royce Avon 302 jet-powered Thrust 2, at 633.468mph.
1992: Two nine-storey flats were demolished in Amsterdam when an El Al Boeing 747 cargo crashed, with two engines on fire, soon after leaving Schiphol Airport, killing 50 people.
1993: The hardline rebellion against Boris Yeltsin was crushed as Russian parliament leaders surrendered to troops loyal to the president.
1994: At the Labour Party conference in Blackpool, leader Tony Blair proposed ditching Clause 4, the party’s commitment to common ownership.
1996: The Ministry of Defence admitted some British troops who served in the Gulf campaign might have been poisoned by pesticides.
2008: OJ Simpson, the former American football star and actor, was found guilty of 12 charges of armed robbery, conspiracy to kidnap and assault with a deadly weapon after being accused of robbing two dealers of sports memorabilia in 2007.
2012: Nineteen people were killed when they were buried by a lanslide in Yunnan, China.