NOW & THEN
MARCH 22
1421: Scottish and French troops under the Earl of Buchan defeated English forces at Bauge in Anjou.
1622: About 35 Virginians were killed in first Indian massacre of European colonists in North America.
1859: The first working class Labour Party was founded in Melbourne, Australia.
1888: The Football League was formed at a meeting in Fleet Street, London, with 12 clubs.
1895: Auguste and Louis Lumière demonstrated celluloid cinematograph film in Paris.
1926: First road markings came into operation at Hyde Park Corner, London. There were seven accidents on the first day as drivers tried to follow the painted signals.
1942: Britain began Morse code broadcasts to the French Resistance.
1945: Arab League was founded in Cairo.
1946: Jordan became a kingdom independent of British protection.
1962: Right-wing French terrorists attacked government forces in Algiers.
1963: United States attempted to mediate political dispute that threatened civil war in South Vietnam.
1964: Anti-muslim violence broke out in India.
1972: More than 70 people were injured in Belfast when bomb exploded in car park near city’s largest hotel.
1988: Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze retreated from pledge to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
1990: Vaclav Havel said Czechoslovakia sold tons of Semtex explosives to Libya.
1991: United Nations mission to Iraq found Allied bombing had destroyed power plants, oil refineries and water treatment plants, with “near apocalyptic results”.
1994: People in Strathclyde voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to reject government plans to take water out of local authority control in Scotland.
1997: Tara Lipinski, age 14 years and ten months, became the youngest champion women’s World Figure Skating Champion.
2002: In a landmark ruling, seven Scottish judges made it illegal for a man to have sex with a woman without her consent.
2006: ETA, the armed Basque
separatist group, declared a permanent ceasefire.
2006: Three Christian Peacemaker Team hostages were freed by British forces in Baghdad after 118 days of captivity.
2009: Mount Redoubt, a volcano in Alaska, began erupting after a prolonged period of unrest.
2016: Three co-ordinated terrorist bombings took place – two at Brussels Airport and one at Maalbeek metro station in the city. Thirty-one people lost their lives.
2017: Terrorist Khalid Masood ploughed his car through a crowd of pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before running towards parliament wielding a knife, fatally stabbing PC Keith Palmer before being shot dead by security staff. Three other victims died as a result of the incident.
BIRTHDAYS
George Benson, Grammy Awardwinning singer and guitarist, 78; Desmond Browne, Baron Browne of Ladyton, defence secretary, 2006-8, 69; Lord (Andrew) Lloyd-webber composer (Cats), 73; Matthew Modine, American actor, 62; Alan Opie OBE, British baritone, 76; Stephen Sondheim, American composer and songwriter, 91; Rob Wainwright, former Scotland rugby captain, farmer, 56; M Emmet Walsh, American actor, 86; Roger Whittaker, Anglo-kenyan singer and songwriter, 85; Reese Witherspoon, actress (Legally Blonde), 45; Emma Wray, British actress (Watching), 56.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1868 Hamish Maccunn, composer; 1887 Chico Marx, US comedian; 1910 Nicholas Monsarrat, author; 1923 Marcel Marceau, mime artist; 1931 Leslie Thomas OBE, British novelist; 1949 Brian Hanrahan, British broadcaster; 1950 Jocky Wilson, Fife-born darts player; 1950 Mary Tamm, British actress. Deaths: 2010 Sir James Black, Scottish pharmacologist and Nobel laureate, chancellor, Dundee University 1992-2006; 2019 Scott Walker, lead singer of the Walker Brothers;2020 Julie Felix, American singer.