NOW & THEN
5 APRIL
1603: King James VI left Scotland for his new kingdom of England.
1614: The Addled Parliament began – and was dissolved on 7 June without having passed a bill – hence its name.
1793: Plan for the building of the Capitol, Washington DC, was accepted.
1794: French revolutionary leaders Georges-jacques Danton and Camille Desmoulins were guillotined.
1874: Première of Johann Strauss’s opera Die Fledermaus in Vienna.
1881: Britain concluded Treaty of Pretoria with Boers, recognising independence of South African Republic of Transvaal.
1902: The stand at Ibrox Park stadium in Glasgow collapsed during an England versus Scotland match, killing 20 spectators and injuring more than 200.
1910: Kissing was banned on French railways.
1916: Military Medal introduced in First World War for forces fighting on Western Front.
1939: All German children between ages of ten and 13 were ordered to serve in Hitler Youth Organisation.
1946: Billy Smart opened his first circus.
1955: Sir Winston Churchill resigned as prime minister, aged 80.
1958: Fidel Castro began “total war” against Batista government in Cuba.
1966: Corporation tax brought into force by Harold Wilson’s Labour government.
1968: Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth was sold to an American syndicate for $3,230,000.
1969: Four-man British expedition reached North Pole after 14-month, 1,300-mile trek by dog sled.
1971: Fran Phipps became the first woman to reach the North Pole.
1976: James Callaghan succeeded Harold Wilson as Labour prime minister, defeating Michael Foot in the final ballot for leadership of the Labour Party.
1986: Bomb, blamed on terrorists, killed two and injured 155 at crowded West Berlin discotheque popular with American soldiers.
1988: Arabic-speaking hijackers commandeered Kuwaiti Airways plane with 112 people aboard and forced it to land in Iran.
1989: The lighthouse at Fastnet,
off County Cork, was computerised, ending almost 150 years of human habitation.
1990: King Baudouin I resumed the Belgian throne after a 36-hour abdication rather than sign a law legalising abortion.
1991: In Manchester, terrorists planted 12 firebombs in the city’s main shopping precinct.
1997: IRA bomb threats stopped the Grand National and 70,000 spectators were evacuated from Aintree. The race was run two days later.
2004: Cartoon character Oor Wullie was named as Scotland’s top icon, ahead of William Wallace and Sir Sean Connery.
2010: 115 Chinese miners trapped in a flooded mine for more than a week were rescued and brought to the surface.
2014: Pineau De Re won the Grand National at Aintree.