NOW & THEN
18 JUNE
1429: Joan of Arc defeated the English at the Battle of Patay.
1583: The first life insurance policy was sold. It was also the first to be disputed by the insurance company, which refused to pay out on the death of the insured, but the court ruled against and payment was eventually made.
1746: Flora Macdonald met Prince Charles Edward Stuart, and persuaded him to don woman’s clothes as part of escape plan.
1812: American Congress, by a small majority, voted a declaration of war against Great Britain.
1815: The Battle of Waterloo took place south of Brussels, the scene of Napoleon’s defeat by the troops of Wellington and Blucher.
1817: Waterloo Bridge in London, built by John Rennie, was opened. It was originally called Strand Bridge but was renamed at the opening as it was the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.
1846: North British Railway was opened from Edinburgh to Berwick-on-tweed. The inaugural train had five locomotives and 28 carriages, displaying – according to the account in The Scotsman – “the flexibility of a silken cord, while rivalling the eagle’s flight in speed”.
1928: Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer and first to reach the South Pole in 1911, was lost in a flying accident near the North Pole.
1928: Amelia Earhart became the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air. She was passenger to pilot Wilmer Stulz, flying from Newfoundland to Wales.
1940: Winston Churchill spoke the words: “Let us brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and its Commonwealth lasts a thousand years, men will still say: ‘This was their finest hour’.”
1963: Henry Cooper floored Cassius Clay in round four at Wembley. But by the sixth, with Cooper badly cut, the fight was stopped and Clay remained world heavyweight champion.
1970: The Conservatives won the general election with an overall majority of 30. Edward Heath became prime minister the following day.
1983: Sally Ride became America’s first woman in space when the shuttle Challenger blasted off from Cape Canaveral.
1991: Talks on the future of Northern Ireland began in earnest with the first roundtable meeting of the province’s four constitutional political parties since 1976.
1993: Irish president Mary Robinson, visiting Belfast, caused a storm of protest when she shook hands with the Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams.
1994: Loyalist gunmen killed six Roman Catholics when they fired at people watching World Cup football at a bar in Loughinisland, Co Down.
2001: The bodies of 58 Chinese illegal immigrants were found in a sealed lorry container at Dover.
2001: Protests took place in Manipur over the extension of the ceasefire between Naga insurgents and the government of India.
Ray Cochrane, Irish jockey, 63; Katie Derham, newscaster, 50; Peter Donohoe CBE, British pianist, 67; Sir Paul Mccartney MBE, British musician and composer, 78; Isabella Rossellini, Italian actress, 68; Delia Smith CBE, British cookery writer, broadcaster and football club director, 79; Linda Thorson, Canadian actress, 73; Jeremy Irvine, actor, 30
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1886 George Mallory, mountaineer; 1901 Jeanette Macdonald, Hollywood musicals star; 1910 EG Marshall, American actor; 1916 Richard Boone, actor; 1920 Ian Carmichael OBE, British actor; 1926 Eva Bartok, actress; 1927 Paul Eddington, actor. Deaths: 1835 William Cobbett, political journalist and radical reformer; 1902 Samuel Butler, novelist; 1909 Learmont Drysdale, composer; 1928 Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer, first to reach the South Pole in 1911 (flying accident); 1958 Douglas Jardine, England cricket captain whose body-line bowling tactic caused controversy; 1959 Ethel Barrymore, actress; 2007 Bernard Manning, comedian; 2012 Victor Spinetti, Welsh actor and director; 2014 Horace Silver, jazz pianist.