NOW & THEN
7 APRIL
The Dutch under Jan van Riebeeck founded Cape Town in South Africa.
Highwayman Dick Turpin was hanged in York. He was not a romantic figure in reality, but a cattle-thief, rapist and murderer.
Mozart heard Beethoven, aged 17, play the piano and said: “Some day he will give the world something to talk about.”
Queen Victoria became the first monarch to have chloroform administered, for the birth of her eighth child, Prince Leopold.
A water-powered railway opened between Lynton and Lynmouth.
In Italy, Mount Vesuvius erupted, and destroyed the town of Attaiano, leaving hundreds dead and injured.
Copyright Act, giving authors protection of their works for life plus 50 years, was approved by parliament.
The first jazz band to perform in Britain opened at the London Hippodrome. The comedian George Robey complained that they upstaged him, so they were dismissed after only one performance.
Scottish National Party was formed by the amalgamation of the National Party of Scotland and the Scottish Party.
The World Health Organisation was established.
South Pacific, by Rodgers and Hammerstein and starring Mary Martin, opened on Broadway.
Dag Hammarskjöld, Swedish diplomat, was elected secretary-general of United Nations.
Jim Clark, of Kilmany, near Cupar, twice world motor racing champion, was killed taking part in a Formula 2 race when his car slid off the rainsoaked Hockenheim track in West Germany and hit a tree.
Britain declared 200mile exclusion zone round the Falkland Islands.
Iran and Iraq bombed each other’s capitals and other towns, killing and wounding scores of people.
A major investigation was started into a fire on board the roll-on, roll-off ferry Scandinavian Star as she sailed from Norway to Denmark. Some 150 people died.
The former Yugoslavian republic of Macedonia became a member of the United Nations.
Rwanda’s woman prime minister and 11 peacekeepers were murdered as decades of tribal violence reached a peak.
Gay rights activists attacked Cardinal Thomas Winning after he compared homosexuality to a physical handicap.
Mars Odyssey launched. American troops captured Baghdad; Saddam Hussein’s regime would fall two days later.
An inquest jury in London ruled that Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed were unlawfully killed in Paris by the “gross negligence” of their drunken driver and a pack of paparazzi.
Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering killings and kidnappings by security forces.
BIRTHDAYS
JACKIE CHAN MBE
Hong Kong actor, 66
Dennis Amiss MBE, English cricketer and administrator, 77; Francis Ford Coppola, US film director, 81; Russell Crowe, New Zealand actor, 56; Sir Martyn Lewis CBE, newscaster, 75; Gerhard Schröder, German chancellor 1998-2005, 76; Michaela Strachan, British TV presenter, 54; Duncan James, singer (Blue), 42; John Oates, musician, songwriter (Hall & Oates), 72
ANNIVERSARIES
1506 St Francis Xavier, Jesuit missionary; 1770 William Wordsworth, poet; 1915 Billie Holiday, US jazz singer; 1920 Ravi Shankar, Indian sitar player; 1930 Cliff Morgan, Welsh rugby player; 1934 Ian Richardson, actor; 1939 Sir David Frost OBE, broadcaster; 1941 Gorden Kaye, British actor; 1946 Andrew Sachs, German-born British actor.
Phineas T Barnum, showman; 1928 James Garner, US actor; 1947 Henry Ford, US car manufacturer; 1950 Walter Huston, US film actor; 1955 Theda Bara, silent screen actress; 2010 Christopher Cazenove, British actor; 2014 John Shirley-quirk CBE, British bass-baritone; 2017 Tim Pigottsmith, British actor and director.