NOW & THEN
7 JUNE
1494: Spain and Portugal, by Treaty of Tordesillas, agreed to divide the New World between themselves.
1546: Peace of Ardres ended England’s war with France and Scotland.
1614: England’s Parliament was dissolved without having passed a bill since it sat on 5 April. It became known as the Addled Parliament, having failed to resolve the conflict between James I of England (who wished it to raise money) and the House of Commons (who were resisting further taxation).
1862: Britain and United States signed treaty for suppression of slave trade.
1901: The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland was formed by Andrew Carnegie.
1905: Norway gained independence from Sweden.
1906: The Atlantic liner Lusitania was launched.
1921: First sitting of Northern Ireland Parliament.
1929: Ramsay Macdonald announced the composition of Britain’s second Labour government. It had no overall majority, and was dependent on Liberal goodwill for survival.
1929: The Papal State, extinct since 1870, was revived as the state of Vatican City, as a result of the Lateran Treaty.
1931: Britain’s most violent earthquake tremors were felt between Scotland and the English Channel.
1939: King George VI became the first British monarch to visit the United States. Accompanied by Queen Elizabeth, he crossed the border from Canada at Niagara Falls on their way to the World’s Fair in New York.
1946: Television resumed after the Second World War, with the announcement by Leslie Mitchell: “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted…”
1975: Married women on the island of Sark, Channel Islands, were given permission to have their own bank accounts, run their own businesses and keep possessions after marriage.
1989: Foreign embassies rushed to get their nationals out of Peking, with much of China appearing on the verge of chaos.
1990: The United States House of Representatives voted to bar the sale of computers and telecommunications gear to the Soviet Union until Moscow began negotiating Lithuania’s independence.
1990: Warsaw Pact agreed
to abandon its role as guardian of Kremlin power in eastern Europe.
1992: An IRA bomb went off outside the Royal Festival Hall in London.
1995: The Appeal Court ruled that British Rail must continue to run the Fort William-london sleeper indefinitely. Judges in Edinburgh said BR acted illegally by trying to avoid statutory closure procedure.
1995: The long range Boeing 777 entered service with United Airlines.
2001: Tony Blair made political history by becoming the first Labour Party leader to secure two full terms as British prime minister.
2009: Roger Federer beat Robin Soderling in straight sets to win his first French Open and equal Pete Sampras’s record of 14 Grand Slam titles.
BIRTHDAYS
Michael Cera, Canadian actor, 33; Lord Boyd of Duncansby, Lord Advocate 2000-6, 68;Damien Hirst, artist, 56; James Ivory, US film director, 93; Sir Tom Jones OBE, singer, 81; Anna Kournikova, Russian former tennis player, 40; Virginia Mckenna OBE, British actress and animal rights campaigner, 90; Liam Neeson OBE, Irish actor, 69; Michael Pennington, British actor, 78; Doctor Curtis Robb, athlete, 49; Bear Grylls OBE, British adventurer and TV presenter, 47; Sam Aston, English actor, 28; Helen Baxendale, British actress, 51; Allison Schmitt, US Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer, 31.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1868 Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Glasgow-born architect and designer; 1917 Dean Martin, US singer; 1958 Prince (born Prince Rogers Nelson),us pop singer. Deaths: 1329 Robert I (the Bruce), King of Scots; 1937 Jean Harlow, US film actress; 1954 Alan Turing OBE, British codebreaker; 1994 Dennis Potter, playwright; 1996 Glyn Worsnip, TV presenter; 2014 Norman Willis, British trade unionist; 2015 Sir Christopher Lee CBE, British actor; 2018 Peter Stringfellow, nightclub owner.