NOW & THEN
8 SEPTEMBER
23BC: The first recorded ritual Sumo wrestling bout took place. Each year a priest still officiates for the Ceremony of the Crows at the Kamo Shrine, Kyoto, Japan.
1504: Michelangelo’s statue of David was unveiled in Florence.
1565: The siege of Malta by Turkish forces was broken by the Maltese and the Knights of St John.
1664: The Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam was seized by the English and renamed New York, in honour of James, Duke of York.
1820: John Baird and Andrew Hardie, prominent members of “The Radicals” who were on strike from the weaving communities in Scotland in outrage over reduced wages, were hanged for treason following the Battle of Bonnymuir.
1831: The coronation of William IV took place.
1888: The first Football League matches were played in England.
1893: William Gladstone’s Government of Ireland Bill 1893 (known as the second Home Rule Bill) was vetoed in the House of Lords by 419 votes to 41, having previously been passed in the House of Commons.
1914: HMS Oceanic, sister to the Titanic and the largest ship in the world of her time, sank off the coast of Scotland.
1914: Private Thomas Highgate became the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during the First World War.
1934: Fred Perry defeated Wilmer Allison 6-4, 6-3, 1-6, 8-6 to win the US Open.
1941: Germany began its blockade of Leningrad during the Second World War.
1943: Italy surrendered to the Allies.
1944: The first German V2 rockets fell in Britain.
1948: A British De Havilland 08 fighter plane flew faster than sound.
1960: Penguin Books charged with public obscenity for publishing DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
1960: The German Democratic Republic limited access to East Berlin for West Berliners.
1962: The last steam engine built by British Railways – “Evening Star” – made the last run of the Pines Express over the Somerset and Dorset line.
1968: Virginia Wade beat Billie Jean King to win US Open Tennis Championship.
1974: US president Gerald Ford pardoned former president Richard Nixon of all federal crimes.
1977: Canadian swimmer Cindy Nicholas, 19, crossed the Channel both ways in 19 hours, 55 minutes.
1990: European finance ministers, meeting in Rome, agreed to prime minister John Major’s plan for monetary union.
1991: Macedonia voted for independence from Yugoslavia.
1992: CBI director-general became the first employers’ representative to address the TUC in its 124-year-history.
2008: British tennis No1 Andy Murray played in his first ever Grand Slam final. He faced Swiss player Roger Federer at the US Open, losing in straight sets. It was the first time in 11 years that a British player had featured in the final of a Grand Slam event.