NOW & THEN
0 The costly series of assaults on Monte Cassino was launched on this day in 1944 by the British Fifth Army
4 JANUARY
871: Ethelred of Wessex defeated the Danish invasion army at the Battle of Reading.
1493: Christopher Columbus sailed from America back to Spain in the ship Nina.
1642: King Charles I entered parliament along with 400 soldiers, to arrest the MPS.
1698: Most of the Palace of Whitehall, the main London residence of the monarch at the time, was destroyed by fire.
1847: Samuel Colt sold his first revolver pistol to the US government.
1856: Faculty of Actuaries in Scotland was constituted.
1863: Four-wheeled roller skates were patented by James Plimpton.
1868: Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, generally considered to be the first detective novel in the English language, was serialised for the first time in All The Year Round, a magazine owned by Charles Dickens.
1884: The Fabian Society was born. A gradual-reform socialist organisation, it took its name from the Roman Quintus Fabius Maximus, who fought the Second Punic War with delaying tactics. Its members included George Bernard Shaw and Beatrice and Sydney Webb.
1885: The first successful appendix operation was performed by Doctor William West Grant, in Iowa.
1910: Six juvenile courts opened for business in London. Among the crimes were stone-throwing and playing pitch-and-toss.
1912: The Scout Association was incorporated throughout the British Commonwealth by royal Charter.
1929: Australian cricketer Don Bradman made his first Test century, playing against England in Melbourne.
1932: Gandhi’s National Congress of India was declared illegal by the British administration, and he was arrested.
1936: First pop music chart compiled, based on record sales published in New York.
1944: Assault on Monte Cassino launched by British Fifth Army.
1958: Sputnik 1 disintegrated after completing 1,367 circuits of the earth and travelling 43 million miles on its 92-day flight.
1981: Broadway show Frankenstein opened and closed on same night, losing an estimated $2million.
1985: Mrs Kim Cotton, believed to be first commercial surrogate mother in Britain, gave birth to a girl.
1990: Manfred Rommel, son of Field Marshal Rommel, awarded honorary CBE for services to British-german relations.
1999: Gunmen opened fire on Shiite Muslims worshipping in an Islamabad mosque, killing 16 people and injuring 25.
2004: Spirit, a Nasa Mars Rover, landed successfully on Mars.
2007: The 110th US Congress convened, electing Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House in US history.
2010: The world’s tallest building was opened in a dramatic fireworks ceremony in the Gulf emirate of Dubai. The Burj Khalifa was revealed to be 828 metres (2,716ft) high.
2015: Musselburgh-born Gary Anderson won the PDC World Darts Championship
BIRTHDAYS
Rick Stein CBE, chef and broadcaster, 73; Dyan Cannon, actress, 83; Alan Mclaren, Scottish footballer, 49; James Milner, footballer, 34; Margaret Marshall OBE, Stirling-born opera and concert singer, 71; Michael Stipe, singer (REM), 60; Bernard Sumner, musician (Joy Division and New Order), 64; Craig Revel Horwood, TV judge and director, 55; Tina Knowles, fashion designer, 66
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1771 Sir William Hillary, founder, Royal National Lifeboat Institution; 1809 Louis Braille, blind musician and inventor of braille reading and writing system for the blind; 1813
Sir Isaac Pitman, pioneer of phonetic shorthand; 1930 Iain Cuthbertson, Glasgow-born actor; 1935 Floyd Patterson, world boxing champion; 1940 Alexander Chancellor CBE, journalist.
Deaths: 1957 Albert Camus, novelist; 1958 Vaughan Williams, composer; 1965 TS Eliot, poet and playwright; 1986 Christopher Isherwood, novelist and playwright; 2011 Gerry Rafferty, Paisley-born singer and songwriter; 2018 Ray Thomas, musician and singer (the Moody Blues).