NOW & THEN
1 JUNE
1679: Battle of Drumclog fought between Covenanters attending a conventicle and Royalist troops under Graham of Claverhouse.
1794: The “Glorious First of June”, British naval defeat of French off Ushant.
1831: Sir James Clark Ross located the magnetic North Pole.
1857: Royal Navy destroyed Chinese fleet in China Sea.
1874: Pullman cars were introduced in Britain on Midland Railway from London to Bradford, for use by both first and third-class passengers.
1911: Britain’s first electric trolley buses began operating in Bradford and Leeds.
1921: Derby Day was broadcast on radio for first time.
1935: Driving tests in Britain were introduced by Leslie Horebelisha, and L-plates were made compulsory.
1939: The British submarine Thetis sank while on trials in Liverpool Bay, with the loss of 99 lives. It was later raised and put back into service as HMS Thunderbolt.
1946: The first TV licences were issued in Britain, at a fee of £2.
1953: Gordon Richards became the first jockey to be knighted; six days later he won the Derby at his 28th attempt.
1957: The first Premium Bond prize winners were drawn by the computer “Ernie” with a first prize of £1,000.
1958: Charles de Gaulle became prime minister of France.
1958: The Clean Air Act came into force.
1966: Bob Dylan was booed by British folk fans for performing on stage with an electric guitar.
1979: Rhodesia became Zimbabwe Rhodesia.
1983: The first prosecution was made of a “video nasty” under the Obscene Publications Act.
1987: Lebanon’s prime minister, Rashid Karami, was killed when a bomb planted in briefcase exploded on board a helicopter.
1989: Kitty, the oldest recorded cat in Britain, died in Eccleshall, Staffordshire, aged 32, the equivalent to a human age of 224. She was mother to 218 kittens.
1990: Russian premier Mikhail Gorbachev and United States president George Bush signed agreement on the reduction of conventional and nuclear forces.
1993: Britain stood alone in opposition as the European Community voted in favour of a maximum 48-hour working week.
1994: Willie Carson, 51, won his fourth Derby at Epsom, on 7-2 favourite Erhaab.
2001: The King and Queen of Nepal were shot dead by their son, Crown Prince Dipendra, who then shot himself, dying two days later. Ten members of the royal family, including Dipendra’s brother and sister, died in the assassination.
2001: A Hamas suicide bomber kills 21 at a disco in Tel Aviv.
2009: An Air France plane carrying 228 people – including five Britons – from Brazil to France vanished over the Atlantic after flying into a storm.
2011: Fifa president Sepp Blatter won a fourth term in charge after attempts by the English and Scottish Football Associations to delay the election failed.