NOW & THEN
31 AUGUST
1422: Henry VI of England acceded to the throne at the age of nine months.
1538: Pope Paul II excommunicated King Henry VIII of England.
1751: British troops, under Sir Robert Clive, occupied Arcot, India.
1778: British troops killed 40 Indians in the Bronx (the “Stockbridge Indian Massacre”) in the Battle of Kingsbridge during the American Revolution.
1836: HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, anchored in Postage Praia, Cape Verde Islands.
1887: Thomas Edison patented the kinetoscope to produce moving pictures.
1888: The first victim of Jack the Ripper, Mary “Polly” Nichols, a prostitute, was found dead in Whitechapel, London.
1897: General Kitchener’s forces occupied Berber, north of Khartoum.
1900: Coca-cola went on sale in Britain.
1907: Britain, Russia and France formed the Triple Alliance.
1908: WG Grace retired from first-class cricket at the age of 60. He scored 54,896 runs (126 centuries), took 2,879 wickets and held 871 catches over 43 years.
1924: Paavo Nurmi of Finland set a new world record time of 30:06.2 for the 10,000 metres.
1957: Malaysia (formerly Malaya) gained independence from Britain.
1962: Chris Bonington and Ian Clough became the first Britons to conquer the north face of the Eiger.
1962: Trinidad & Tobago gained independence from Britain.
1963: The “hot line” linking the Kremlin with the White House went into service.
1976: George Harrison was found guilty of “subconscious plagiarism” after lifting the melody from the Chiffons’ He’s So Fine for his first solo recording, My Sweet Lord in 1971. He was ordered to pay £1,599,987.
1980: The Solidarity trade union movement was recognised by the Polish government as the Gdansk Agreement was signed.
1990: Baton-wielding French riot police clashed with farmers demonstrating against imported British meat.
1990: President FW de Klerk announced that membership of South Africa’s National Party was to be open to all races.
1990: East and West Germany signed a unification treaty, joining their legal and political systems.
1993: HMS Mercury, the Royal Navy’s communications establishment, was decommissioned.
1994: Peace in Northern Ireland moved a step closer as the IRA announced a “complete cessation of military operations”.
1994: World chess champion Gary Kasparov was defeated by a computer.
1997: Diana, Princess of Wales, 36, and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, died in a high-speed car crash in Paris.
2006: Stolen on 22 August, 2004, Edvard Munch’s famous painting The Scream was recovered by Norwegian police.
BIRTHDAYS
Richard Gere, actor, 71; Martin Bell OBE, broadcaster, MP 1997-2001, 82; Todd Carty, actor, 57; Padraig Harrington, major-winning golfer, 49; Sir Van Morrison OBE, singer and songwriter, 75; Edwin Moses, Olympic athlete, 65; Glenn Tilbrook, musician (Squeeze), 63; Derek Whyte, Scottish retired footballer, 52; Debbie Gibson, singer and actress, 50; Sir Clive Lloyd CBE, West Indies Test cricketer, 76
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: AD12 Caligula, Roman emperor; 1870 Maria Montessori, educationist; 1897 Fredric March, actor; 1913 Prof Sir Bernard Lovell OBE, astronomer; 1918 Alan Jay Lerner, songwriter; 1924 Buddy Hackett, comedian and actor; 1928 James Coburn, actor; 1932 Roy Castle OBE, musician and entertainer; 1935 Eldridge Cleaver, writer and political activist; 1945 Bob Welch, musician (Fleetwood Mac). Deaths: 1422 King Henry V of England; 1688 John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress; 1867 Charles-pierre Baudelaire, writer; 1967 Ilya Ehrenburg, novelist and poet; 1969 Rocky Marciano, boxer; 1973 John Ford, film director; 1986 Henry Moore, abstract sculptor; 2015 Joy Beverley, singer & member of the Beverley Sisters; 2017 Ann Jellicoe, playwright and theatre director.