NOW & THEN
6 APRIL
1320: Declaration of Independence sent to Pope John XXII from the Scottish Parliament at Arbroath Abbey.
1789: George Washington was elected first United States president.
1830: The Mormon Movement (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), was founded in New York State by Joseph Smith.
1843: William Wordsworth was appointed Poet Laureate.
1850: Koh-i-noor diamond was sent from India to become part of British Crown jewels.
1866: Civil Rights Act, giving full citizenship to American blacks after Civil War, was passed by United States Congress.
1896: Snowdon Mountain Railway opened.
1896: Modern Olympic Games revived by Pierre de Coubertin at Athens.
1909: The first man at the North Pole was Robert Peary, an American explorer who arrived with a servant and 246 dogs. It was his sixth attempt in 15 years to reach the Pole.
1917: The United States declared war on Germany.
1944: Pay As You Earn income tax, devised by Sir Cornelius Gregg, came into operation.
1955: Sir Anthony Eden succeeded Sir Winston Churchill as Prime Minister.
1972: Scarman Report on 1969 outbreaks of violence and civil disturbances in Northern Ireland was published.
1973: The Pioneer 11 spacecraft was launched
1978: The world’s largest hovercraft, the Princess Anne, weighing 300 tons, was launched at Cowes, Isle of Wight.
1984: The 17-year-old South African barefoot runner Zola Budd, who was brought by the Daily Mail to Britain, was granted British citizenship by home secretary Leon Brittan after a matter of weeks.
1985: Henrietta Shaw became the first woman to cox Cambridge University in the boat race.
1990: Police opened fire on prodemocracy demonstrators in Nepal, killing at least 35 people.
1992: European Community foreign ministers agreed to scrap its oil embargo on South Africa.
1993: Labour dropped its last commitment to nationalisation when it published its new proposals for industrial strategy.
1994: English FA called off a match with Germany, planned for Berlin on Hitler’s birth date, because of feared clashes between neo-nazis and antifascists.
1995: The Conservatives were all but eliminated from Scottish local government as Labour dominated council elections.
2000: MSPS voted 68-56 to go ahead with the Holyrood parliament building in Edinburgh, but with a fixed price of £195 million.
2006: Almost 1,000 square miles of Scotland were placed under quarantine after the first British case of the deadly strain of H5N1 bird flu was confirmed in a swan found dead at Cellardyke in Fife.
2009: A 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck near L’aquila, Italy, killing 307.
2011: In San Fernando, Mexico, near 200 bodies were exhumed from mass graves made by Los Zetas crime syndicate. Joan Carlyle, British soprano, 90; Roger Cook, investigative reporter, 78; Marilu Henner, American actress, 69; Myleene Klass, British pop star (Hear’say), pianist, TV and radio presenter, 43; Barry Levinson, American film director and producer, 79; James Graham, 8th Duke of Montrose, 86; Dame Felicity Palmer DBE, British mezzo-soprano, 77; John Ratzenberger, American actor 74; Michael Rooker, American actor, 66; Paul Rudd, American actor and comedian, 52; Professor James D Watson KBE, American geneticist, joint discoverer of DNA, 93; Billy Dee Williams, US actor, 84
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1874 Harry Houdini, escapologist; 1907 Richard Murdoch, comic actor; 1926 Reverend Ian Paisley, first minister, Northern Ireland 2007-08; 1929 André Previn KBE, pianist, conductor and composer; 1938 Paul Daniels, British magician; 1945 Rodney Bickerstaffe, trade unionist and pensions campaigner.
Deaths: 1996 Greer Garson, film actress; 1998 Tammy Wynette, singer; 2010 Corin Redgrave, British actor and director; 2014 Mickey Rooney, US actor; 2020 Honor Blackman, actress