NOW & THEN
NOVEMBER 2
1619: Patent granted to Nathaniel Udwart of Edinburgh for a monopoly in the manufacture of soap.
1785: First unsinkable lifeboat patented by Lionel Lukin, a London coachbuilder.
1853: First public meeting of the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights was held in Edinburgh.
1871: All prisoners in Britain were photographed, thereby starting the “Rogues’ Gallery”.
1896: The first motor insurance policies were issued in Britain. They excluded damage caused by frightened horses.
1903: First edition of the Daily Mirror published.
1914: The UK annexed Cyprus.
1917: Balfour Declaration written by British Foreign Secretary AJ Balfour to Zionist leader Lord Rothschild declared support for the idea of a Jewish national home in Palestine provided safeguards were established to protect the rights of “existing nonJewish communities”.
1924: The Sunday Express became the first British newspaper to print a crossword puzzle.
1930: Tafare Makkonen was crowned Haile Selassie,emperor of Ethiopia.
1944: Erwin Rommel, German military commander known as the “Desert Fox”, died by selfadministered poison.
1947: The USA defeated Britain 11-1 in the Ryder Cup at Portland Golf Club, Oregon.
1947: Howard Hughes’ “Spruce Goose” – a prototype aircraft designed for military transport but not completed in time for use during the Second World War – made its first and only flight.
1949: The Netherlands recognised Indonesia as a sovereign state.
1953: Pakistan became an Islamic republic.
1954: Comedy series Hancock’s Half Hour began on BBC radio.
1959: £22 million M1 between London and Birmingham opened in Luton by minister of transport Ernest Marples.
1960: In Tanzania, Mary Leakey and her team discovered the first fossils of Homo Habilis, thought to be one of the earliest species to make stone tools and lived between 1.4 and 2.3 million years ago.
1960: The Lady Chatterley trial ended with publisher Penguin Books cleared of obscenity.
1962: Greville Wynne, businessman, was arrested by KGB in Prague and charged with spying in Moscow.
1967: Winifred “Winnie” Ewing won Hamilton by-election for the Scottish National Party.
1981: Citizens’ Band radio became legal in Britain.
1986: Britain’s first artificial heart transplant operation was performed at Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire.
1997: Typhoon Linda killed more than 200 people in southern Vietnam.
1990: Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV forced merger with rival British Satellite Broadcasting.
2008: Lewis Hamilton became the youngest world champion in Formula One history after a nailbiting Brazilian Grand Prix.
2014: Sixty people were killed and 110 injured by a suicide bombing in Lahore, Pakistan.