NOW & THEN
10 APRIL
1710: Copyright had its statutory beginnings as the Copyright Act of 1709, called the Statute of Anne, came into effect, recognising the position of authors for the first time.
1820: The first British settlers arrived in South Africa, at Algoa Bay near Port Elizabeth.
1829: Parliament passed the Catholic Emancipation Bill. 1832: French law excluded families of Charles X and Napoleon from France.
1858: Big Ben, the bell in the Westminster clock tower, was cast in Whitechapel. It weighed 13.5 tons and was named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the commissioner of works, who was a large man known as Big Ben.
1917: Vimy Ridge, in Northern France, was finally taken by Canadian forces with heavy losses in an epic assault during the Battle of Arras.
1924: The first book of crosswords was published in New York by Simon & Schuster. 1925: F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published. 1932: Paul von Hindenburg was re-elected German president over Adolf Hitler.
1945: American troops liberated Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany.
1955: David Blakely, a 24-yearold racing driver, was shot dead outside a pub in North London by Ruth Ellis. She was subsequently hanged.
1960: The American Civil Rights Bill was passed by United States Senate.
1972: Britain, United States, Soviet Union and 46 other countries signed convention outlawing biological weapons.
1988: Sandy Lyle became first British golfer to win the Masters tournament in Augusta, United States.
1989: The Liberal Democrat leader, Paddy Ashdown, denounced Parliament as ludicrous, inefficient and potentially a deeply corrupt mechanism. 1992: Three people died and 90 were injured when an IRA postelection bomb caused devastation in the City of London. 1993: Members of Britain’s biggest teaching union, the NUT, voted unanimously to boycott national curriculum tests. 1993: The body of an Edinburgh teacher murdered on holiday, Adrian Strasser, was found in New Orleans. The killing remains unsolved.
1994: United Nations aircraft bombed Serbian forces shelling the town of Gorazde, raising the risk of the West becoming involved in a full-scale conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
2009: Plans were unveiled to create the world’s first solar-powered city, a $2 billion (£1.4bn) emission-free community in Florida.
2010: Polish president Lech Kaczynski and scores of other senior political figures from the country were killed in a plane crash in Russia.
2014: A Public Health England report revealed that air pollution was responsible for ten times as many deaths in Scotland as obesity.
1849: The safety pin was patented after US inventor Walter Hunt made it in just three hours. He sold the rights to settle a $15 debt.
BIRTHDAYS
Sophie Ellis-bextor, British singer and lockdown kitchen sensation, 42; Lesley Garrett CBE, operatic soprano, 66; Gloria Hunniford OBE, British broadcaster, 81; Peter Macnicol, American actor (Ally Macbeal), 67; David Moorcroft OBE, British athlete, chief executive UK Athletics 1997-2007, 68; Mandy Moore, American pop singer, 37; Haley Joel Osment, actor (The Sixth Sense), 33; Steven Seagal, film actor and director (Under Siege, The Glimmer Man), 69; Gerda Stevenson, Scottish actress, singer and writer, 65; Paul Theroux, American author (The Great Railway Bazaar), 80.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1512 James V (at Linlithgow Palace); 1915 Harry Morgan, American actor (M*A*S*H); 1929 Max von Sydow, Swedish actor; 1932 Omar Sharif, Egyptian film actor and international bridge player; 1935 Patrick Garland, British theatre and film director. Deaths: 1966 Evelyn Waugh, novelist; 2000 Peter Jones, actor; 2001 Nyree Dawn Porter, actress; 2014 Sue Townsend, British author (Adrian Mole); 2015 Richie Benaud OBE, former Australian cricket captain, broadcaster; 2018 John Lambie, Scottish football manager.