NOW & THEN
FEBRUARY 1
1587: England’s Queen Elizabeth I signed warrant for the execution of her cousin Mary Queen of Scots.
1708: Alexander Selkirk, sailor born at Lower Largo, Fife, was discovered on the island of Juan Fernandez, near Chile, where he had survived for four years after being abandoned by his ship. His story inspired Daniel Defoe to write the novel Robinson Crusoe.
1811: The Bell Rock lighthouse began operating.
1844: The lamp at Skerryvore Lighthouse off the west coast of Scotland went into operation. Engineered by Alan Stevenson (uncle of Robert Louis Stevenson) for the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses, it had a range of 23 miles.
1865: The Highland Railway was formed from an amalgamation of the Inverness and Perth Junction and the Inverness and Aberdeen Junction Railways.
1884: The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was published.
1908: Portugal’s King Carlos I and Crown Prince were assassinated in Lisbon, and Manuel II became King.
1910: First British labour exchanges opened.
1911: HMS Thunderer, the last battleship built on the Thames, launched from the old Thames Ironworks in Silvertown.
1915: Passport photographs were first required in Britain.
1924: Britain recognised Communist government of Soviet Union.
1941: The Air Training Corps was formed.
1949: Name of Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) was changed to Women’s Royal Army Corps (WRAC).
1965: Prescriptions on the National Health Service were made free of charge – until 10 June, 1968, when charges were reintroduced.
1972: British embassy in Dublin was bombed as anti-british demonstrations swept Ireland.
1973: Women were allowed on the Stock Exchange for the first time.
1995: Paul Agutter, 48, was jailed for 12 years at the High Court in Edinburgh for attempting to murder his wife. He placed contaminated bottles of tonic water on the shelves of a Safeway store.
1996: Police and forensic scientists exhumed the body of John Irvine Mcinnes at Stonehouse, Lanarkshire, believed to be the Glasgow serial killer Bible John. Tests later failed to prove he was the killer.
1998: Rear Admiral Lillian E Fishburne became the first female African American to be promoted to rear admiral.
2003: Seven astronauts died when the American shuttle Columbia broke up as it entered the atmosphere minutes before it was due to land.
2004: Janet Jackson’s breast was exposed during the halftime show of the annual Super Bowl game, bringing the phrase ‘wardrobe malfunction’ into use.
2009: More than 100 people died in Kenya after an overturned petrol tanker caught fire on a highway and exploded.
2012: Dozens of people were killed and hundreds more injured after a riot broke out at a football match in the coastal city of Port Said, in Egypt.