NOW & THEN
25 MAY
1768: Captain Cook set off on his first voyage, to explore the Antipodes.
1840: The first drama school in Britain, Miss Kelly’s Theatre, was opened in Dean Street, London.
1871: The House of Commons passed the Bank Holiday Act, creating public holidays on Easter Monday, Whit Monday and Christmas Day.
1907: The first 24-hour motor race, called the Endurance Derby, was held in Philadelphia. The winning car covered a distance of 791 miles.
1914: The House of Commons passed Irish Home Rule Bill.
1915: Second Battle of Ypres ended.
1935: Jesse Owens, US athlete, set six world records within 45 minutes in Michigan.
1951: The spies Burgess and Mclean escaped from Britain en route to Moscow.
1953: Chris Chataway set a twomile run record of eight minutes and 49.6 seconds.
1955: A British expedition, led by Charles Evans, became first to climb Himalayan peak Kangchenjunga, third-highest summit in world.
1962: Coventry’s new cathedral, designed by Sir Basil Spence, was consecrated, after six years of building.
1963: Leaders of six African nations, meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, formed Organisation of African Unity.
1967: Celtic, managed by Jock Stein, became the first British football club to win the European Cup, beating Inter Milan 2-1 in Lisbon.
1982: Destroyer HMS Coventry was sunk by Argentine Exocet missiles in Falklands war.
1990: Prime minister Margaret Thatcher pledged to stabilise UK carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2000, and called for tough international efforts to save the earth from global warming.
1991: In two-day airlift, Israel rescued about 18,000 Ethiopian Jews as civil war engulfed Addis Ababa.
1994: Camelot, a consortium including Cadbury Schweppes, security printer De La Rue and communication group Racal, won the contract to run the National Lottery.
1995: The Scottish Nationalists captured the late Sir Nicholas Fairbairn’s parliamentary seat of Perth and Kinross in an 11.5 per cent swing from the Tories.
1996: A woman swam for four hours to try to get help when a clam dredger sank in the Firth of Clyde. She survived, but her four companions drowned.
2000: Israel withdrew its army from most of the Lebanese territory after 22 years of its first invasion in 1978.
2001: Thirty-two-year-old Erik Weihenmayer, of Boulder, Colorado, became the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
2002: A train crash in Tenga, Mozambique killed 197 people.
2009: Gordon Strachan resigned as manager of Celtic a day after his team lost the Scottish Premier League title to Rangers. However, in his four years with the club, Strachan won three league titles.
2011: As part of his state visit to the UK, American president Barack Obama addressed MPS and peers in London.
BIRTHDAYS
Alastair Campbell, journalist and former Downing Street spin doctor, 63; Julian Clary, comedian and actor, 61; Eric Deacon, British actor, 70; Anne Heche, actress, 51; Sir Malcolm Innes of Edingight, Lord Lyon King of Arms 1981-2001, and president, Heraldry Society of Scotland, 82; David Jenkins, Scottish athlete, 68; Sir Ian Mckellen CBE, actor and director, 81; Mike Myers, Canadian actor, 57; Cillian Murphy, Irish actor, 44; Frank Oz, US film director, 76; Johnny Wilkinson CBE, rugby player, 41; Mark Mcghee, Glasgow-born footballer and manager, 63
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1881 Béla Bartók, composer; 1889 Igor Sikorsky, pioneer of helicopter; 1913 Richard Dimbleby, broadcaster; 1916 Elizabeth, Duchess of Hamilton, deputy lieutenant for East Lothian and charity founder; 1926 Miles Davis, US jazz trumpeter; 1929 Arthur Montford, Scottish sports commentator;.
Deaths: 1934 Gustav Holst, composer of The Planets; 2005 Ismail Merchant, film producer; 2008 Sydney Pollack, film director; 2014 Matthew Saad Muhammad, world lightheavyweight boxing champion.