NOW & THEN
Popular beat combo The Beatles had their first Number One record with From Me To You on this day in 1963
2MAY
1536: Queen Anne Boleyn was sent to Tower of London and eventually beheaded.
1641: Dutch Prince William of Orange married Princess Mary, daughter of Charles I.
1895: British South Africa Company territory south of Zambesi was organised as Rhodesia.
1942: HMS Edinburgh sank in the Barents Sea off northern Norway after being torpedoed on 30 April while carrying gold from Russia to the United States to pay for arms. In 1981 bullion worth more than £45 million was salvaged from the wreck by divers working 800ft down.
1952: A British DH Comet flew from London to Johannesburg, inaugurating the first turbo-jet airliner service.
1953: Stanley Matthews helped Blackpool recover from 3-1 down to beat Bolton Wanderers 4-3 in a thrilling FA Cup final, dubbed forever the “Matthews final”.
1959: Chapelcross nuclear power station, the first in Scotland, was opened.
1963: The Beatles had their first No 1 record when From Me To You went to the top of the charts.
1969: The QE2 made her maiden voyage.
1982: Argentine cruiser General Belgrano was sunk by British submarine HMS Conqueror off the Falklands, with loss of 368 lives.
1989: Communist Hungary began cutting through the barbed-wire and electrically charged fencing dividing it from the West.
1990: African National Congress and South African government opened three days of negotiations in Cape Town on gradually ending white rule in South Africa.
1990: In London, a mugger snatched a city messenger’s case containing $291.9 million worth of bonds. It became worthless when the Bank of England flashed details to dealers.
1990: Northwest Airlines inaugurated first regular transatlantic flights between Glasgow and North America.
1992: At 56, Lester Pigott won his 30th British classic, riding Rodrigo de Triano to victory in the 2000 Guineas.
1994: Stephen Hendry won his fourth World Snooker Championship at the Crucible, Sheffield, beating Jimmy White in the final frame.
1998: The European Central Bank was founded in Brussels to define and execute the EU’S monetary policy.
2010: Scottish snooker champion John Higgins was suspended from competing in tournaments following allegations of match-fixing made by a national newspaper.
2011: Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man and the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks on America, was killed at a private compound in Pakistan by US elite forces.
2014: Forty-two people were killed in a street battle in Odessa, which ended with pro-russian protesters dying in the burning Trade Union House.
2014: More than 2,000 people were feared dead and 700 families were displaced when a torrent of mud swept through the village of Abi Barik in northeastern Afghanistan.