NOW & THEN
OCTOBER 24
1604: King James VI of Scotland was proclaimed James I, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland.
1681: The Earl of Shaftesbury was accused of treason.
1795: Poland was partitioned by Prussia, Austria and Russia. 1857: The world’s first football club, Sheffield FC, was founded. 1881: Levi P Morton, the US ambassador to France, drove the first rivet into the Statue of Liberty.
1899: The Battle of Rietfontein, between the South African Boers and the British army, took place.
1901: Annie Taylor, a 63- yearold schoolteacher, became the first person to survive a plunge over the Niagara Falls in a barrel. 1911: Orville Wright remained airborne for nine miutes 45 seconds in a glider over North Carolina, creating a new world record that lasted for ten years.
1926: Illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini gave his last performance at the Garrick Theatre, Detroit.
1929: Black Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street, when confidence in American companies collapsed. 1932: The British government signed a trade treaty with the USSR.
1934: Mahatma Gandhi withdrew from Indian National Congress.
1937: Jean Batten flew from Australia to Britain in a record five days, 18 hours, 18 minutes. 1939: Nylon stockings went on sale for the first time.
1945: United Nations charter went into effect as Soviet Union became 29th nation to ratify it. 1945: Vidkun Quisling, Norwegian premier and Nazi collaborator, executed by firing squad in Oslo.
1947: Twenty- one people were killed in Croydon train crash. 1961: Malta gained independence.
1961: Protests were made at United Nations after Soviet Union exploded largest nuclear bomb ever tested.
1962: United States began blockade of Cuba.
1964: Northern Rhodesia became Republic of Zambia. 1986: Britain broke diplomatic relations with Syria after jury convicted Arab man of trying to blow up an Israeli airliner.
1989: Ambulancemen resumed emergency cover in London as ACAS talks began.
1998: Deep Space 1 comet/ asteroid mission was launched. 2003: Concorde made its last commercial flight.
2007: A report into the Scottish Parliament elections chaos when 146,000 Holyrood ballot papers and 38,532 papers for the local council elections were spoilt by puzzled voters criticised Labour ministers in London and Edinburgh for treating the electorate as an “afterthought”. It said responsibility for both elections should pass to the Scottish Executive.
2008: “Bloody Friday” saw many of the world’s stock exchanges experience the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10 per cent in most indices.
2012: Hurricane Sandy struck Jamaica, killing one person and causing $ 50 million in damage.