NOW & THEN
JANUARY 22
1528: England and France declared war on Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
1720: Shares in South Sea Company which had monopoly of trade with South America, rose rapidly, speculation followed, and when “South Sea bubble” burst, thousands of people were ruined.
1760: French were defeated by British under Eyre Coote at Wandiwash, India.
1771: Spain agreed to cede Falkland Islands to Britain.
1879: About 4,000 Zulu warriors assaulted British troops in Battle of Rorke’s Drift (South Africa), where 139 soldiers repelled attacks for almost 12 hours.
1905: “Bloody Sunday” in St Petersburg, Russia, when workers in revolt were massacred by Cossacks and Imperial Army troops.
1907: Music hall artists in London went on strike for more money. Halls were shut until the dispute was settled on February 17.
1924: Ramsay Macdonald became Britain’s first Labour prime minister.
1927: Football League game between Arsenal and Sheffield United was the first match to be broadcast.
1941: Libyan harbour of Tobruk captured by Allied forces.
1944: The Allied army landings began at Anzio, Italy.
1947: Fresh meat ration was reduced from 1s 2d to 1s (5p) worth weekly.
1947: Fifty-five days of lying snow began in Britain.
1952: The Goon Show, with Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Michael Bentine, started on BBC radio – it ran until 1959.
1957: Israeli forces completed withdrawal from Sinai Peninsula, but remained in Gaza Strip.
1972: UK, Ireland and Denmark joined European Community.
1981: Rupert Murdoch acquired the Times and Sunday Times from the Thomson Organisation.
1986: Three Sikhs were convicted of 1984 assassination of India’s prime minister Indira Gandhi and were sentenced to death.
1990: The Metropolitan Police abolished height restriction to attract recruits from ethnic minorities.
1991: President Mikhail Gorbachev withdrew 50 and 100 rouble notes, wiping out savings of Soviet citizens overnight.
The government unveiled its plans for the privatisation of British Rail.
1997: Bahamas-based billionaire Joseph Lewis bought a 25 per cent, £40 million stake in Glasgow Rangers.
1999: Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were burned alive by radical Hindus while sleeping in their car in Eastern India.
2006: Evo Morales was inaugurated as president of Bolivia, becoming the country’s first indigenous president.
2007: More than 85 people were killed when two car bombs explode in the Bab Al-sharqi market in central Baghdad, Iraq.
2009: In his first week as United States president, Barack Obama ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp as well as all overseas CIA detention centres for terror suspects.