NOW & THEN

21 MAY

1502: The South Atlantic island of St Helena was discovered by Portuguese explorer Joao de Nova.

1840: New Zealand was declared a colony of Britain.

1884: The Statue of Liberty was finished, work having been begun by Auguste Bartholdi in about 1874 in Paris.

1894: The 35-mile Manchester Ship Canal was formally opened by Queen Victoria.

1904: The football federation Fifa was founded in Paris to improve international control of the game.

1916: Daylight saving, advocated by William Willett, was introduced in Britain.

1927: Charles “Lucky” Lindbergh, United States airmail pilot, became the first to fly the Atlantic solo from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York to Le Bourget airfield, Paris, in 33 hours.

1966: Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) beat Henry Cooper to retain world heavyweight boxing title.

1982: British troops landed at Port San Carlos on Argentineheld Falkland Islands. Destroyer HMS Ardent sunk with loss of 22 lives. In air battle as liner Canberra was strafed, 17 Argentine planes were shot down.

1983: Five people were injured and several arrested when demonstrators protesting against Nazi stormtroopers’ reunion in Bad Hersfeld, West Germany, clashed with neonazis and riot police.

1984: In Bombay, troops fought thousands of rioters in Hindumuslim violence that claimed 108 lives.

1989: Students occupying Tiananmen Square in Peking rejected government ultimatum to leave.

1990: The Labour Party warned members not to support the Allbritain Anti-poll Tax Federation, calling it a Militant front organisation.

1992: Peace returned to Bangkok after four days in which police and soldiers fought with pro-democracy protesters.

1993: President Carlos Andres Perez of Venezuela was ordered to stand trial on corruption charges.

1994: Dundee United beat Rangers 1-0 to win the Scottish Cup.

1995: Iran indicated that the sixyear “death sentence” on author Salman Rushdie could be lifted. 2 Craig Brewster holds the Scottish Cup aloft after Dundee United defeated Rangers 1-0 in the final on this day in 1994 1998: In Miami, Florida, five abortion clinics were hit by a butyric acid attacker.

2005: The tallest rollercoaster in the world, Kingda Ka, opened at Six Flags Great Adventure, in New Jersey, United States.

2006: The Republic of Montenegro held a referendum proposing independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. The Montenegrin people chose independence with a majority of 55 per cent.

2011: The Rapture was predicted to take place.

2014: Ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was jailed for three years by a court in Cairo after being found guilty of embezzlement.

2016: Hibernian defeated Rangers 3-2 in the Scottish Cup final, ending a 114-year wait since the Edinburgh club previously won the trophy in 1902.

BIRTHDAYS

MR T (LAURENCE TUREAUD) US actor, 68

Mutya Buena, English singer (Sugababes), 35; Tom Daley, Olympic diver, 26; Noel Fielding, English comic, 47; Will Hutton, British writer and journalist, 70; Andrew Neil, broadcaster, 71; Rosalind Plowright OBE, British mezzo-soprano, 71; Judge Reinhold, US actor, 63; Mary Robinson, president of Republic of Ireland 1990-7, United Nations high commissioner for Human Rights 1997-2002, 76; Leo Sayer, British singer-songwriter, 72; Mark Cavendish MBE, British Olympic cyclist, 35

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1471 Albrecht Dürer, German artist and engraver; 1688: Alexander Pope, poet known as “the wasp of Twickenham”; 1904 Thomas “Fats” Waller, jazz pianist, singer, and composer; 1916 Harold Robbins, author; 1921 Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist. Deaths: 1471 King Henry VI (murdered in the Tower of London); 1650: James Graham, Marquis of Montrose (hanged in Edinburgh); 1929 Lord Rosebery, Liberal prime minister; 1965 Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, aircraft designer; 1983 Kenneth Clark, art historian;1992 Elizabeth David, food writer; 2000 Barbara Cartland, romantic novelist; 2000 Sir John Gielgud, actor.