NOW & THEN
25 MARCH
Annunciation Day, the old legal New Year until 1599. 1306: Robert de Brus, Earl of Carrick and Lord of Annandale, was crowned King of Scots at Scone by the Countess of Buchan.
1802: The Treaty of Amiens was signed with France, Spain and Holland, returning most of Britain’s possessions taken during the French Revolutionary Wars.
1807: Slave trade in Britain abolished.
1810: The Commercial Bank of Scotland was officially founded in Edinburgh by John Pitcairn, Lord Cockburn and others.
1815: Austria, Britain, Prussia and Russia allied against Napoleon Bonaparte to maintain established order in Europe.
1821: Greek patriots began revolt against domination of Ottoman Empire, an uprising that lasted 12 years and won Greek independence.
1843: The 1,300ft Thames tunnel, linking Wapping with Rotherhithe, was formally opened.
1876: First Scotland versus Wales football international was played in Glasgow: Scotland won 4-0.
1897: The Scottish Trades Union Congress was founded.
1940: The Mosquito, Britain’s two-seater fighter bomber, made its maiden flight.
1949: Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet won five Oscars – the first British film to win an Academy award.
1957: Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands signed Treaty of Rome and established the European Economic Community.
1975: Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal was assassinated in palace in Riyadh by nephew with history of mental illness. Faisal’s brother, Crown Prince Khaled, succeeded to throne.
1980: Doctor Robert Runcie became 102nd Archbishop of Canterbury.
1982: Former Labour deputy leader Roy Jenkins took traditional Conservative seat at Glasgow Hillhead for the SDP in byelection victory.
1987: More than 80 Afghan guerrillas and civilians were killed when Afghan air force jets attacked camps close to Pakistani border.
1989: Heads of Egypt, Jordan and Palestine Liberation Organisation met to co-ordinate Middle East peace strategy.
1989: The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race had two women as coxes for the first time in its 135 years. Oxford won.
1992: Aldershot Football Club collapsed with £1.2 million debts.
1993: The Warrington IRA bomb atrocity claimed a second young victim when 12-year-old Tim Parry died in hospital.
1993: Barbara Harmer, 39, became civil aviation’s first woman supersonic pilot when she flew as first officer on the Concorde.
1996: The EU’S Veterinarian Committee banned the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow disease.
2010: Sherlock, a Collie crossbreed, who lived to be Scotland’s oldest dog, died at the age of 21.
2020: Buckingham Palace announced that Prince Charles, Duke of Rothesay, had tested positive for coronavirus.