NOW & THEN
24 APRIL
1558: Queen of Scots married the Dauphin of France. She was 16.
1567: First printed book ever published in Gaelic, translated from English by Bishop John Carswell of the Isles, was Forms of Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Catechism of the Christian Faith.
1633: Privy Council gave warrant to Sir John Hepburn to raise regiment of 1,200 men to fight in the French service. It was recruited mainly from Scottish mercenaries of Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years’ War. The corps ultimately became the First Regiment of Foot, The Royal Scots.
1792: La Marseillaise was composed by Claude Rouget de l’isle, a captain of engineers, after he had been asked by the Mayor of Strasbourg to provide a patriotic song in exchange for a bottle of wine.
1900: The Daily Express, founded by C Arthur Pearson, was first published.
1916: Republican insurrection known as the Easter Rising occurred in Dublin on Easter Monday.
1963: Princess Anne was chief bridesmaid at the wedding of Princess Alexandra to Angus Ogilvy.
1967: Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when parachute straps of his spacecraft became tangled during landing.
1970: After a national referendum, Gambia became a republic within the Commonwealth, having been a British colony since 1843.
1971: Russian Soyuz 10 spacecraft linked up with orbiting space station Salyut.
1986: Pre-dawn bomb blast damaged British Airways office and other stores in Lumley Street, off Oxford Street, London.
1990: United States space shuttle Discovery launched with giant Hubble telescope on board.
1992: Chris Patten was named governor of Hong Kong.
1993: An IRA bomb devastated a huge area of the City of London. One man was killed.
1995: The government agreed to the first face-to-face meeting for more than 20 years between a minister and Sinn Fein to discuss peace in Northern Ireland.
1996: Lord Cameron ruled that doctors could withdraw artificial feeding from Janet Johnston, to allow her a “peaceful and dignified” death, the first right-to-die decision in Scotland.
2004: The United States lifted economic sanctions imposed on Libya 18 years previously, as a reward for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction.
2005: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.
2005: Snuppy, the world’s first cloned dog, was born in South Korea.
2006: King Gyanendra of Nepal gave into the demands of protesters and restored the parliament that he dissolved in 2002.
2014: The BBC suspended its membership of the CBI over the business organisation’s registration as a support of the No campaign in the Scottish independence debate.
BIRTHDAYS
Kelly Clarkson, American singer, 38; Jean-paul Gaultier, fashion designer, 68; Gabby Logan MBE, British television presenter, 47; Shirley Maclaine, American actress, 86; Karen Murden, British actress, 50; 65; Bridget Riley CBE, British artist, 89; Peter Spence, British screenwriter and journalist, 76; John Williams OBE, Australian classical guitarist, 79: Lee Westwood OBE, golfer, 47; Laura Kenny (nee Trott) CBE, multi Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist, 28; Tommy Docherty, Scottish footballer and manager, 92.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1743 Edmund Cartwright, inventor of the power loom; 1825 RM Ballantyne, Edinburgh-born novelist; 1882 Lord Dowding, RAF commander in Battle of Britain; 1889 Sir Stafford Cripps, Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer; 1906 William Joyce (alias Lord Haw-haw), traitor and Nazi collaborator.
Deaths: 1731 Daniel Defoe, author and adventurer; 1942 Lucy Montgomery, Canadian novelist (Anne of Green Gables); 1986 Duchess of Windsor (Wallis Simpson), wife of the former King Edward VIII; 1993 Sir Ian Jacob, director-general of BBC; 2014 Sandy Jardine, Scottish international footballer.