NOW & THEN
17 JULY
1203: The siege of Constantinople began during the fourth Crusade, when the city was attacked by Crusaders aboard a Venetian fleet.
1453: The Hundred Years’ War ended after the defeat of the English at Castillon.
1537: John, Master of Forbes, was executed at Edinburgh Castle.
1585: Secret service agents discovered Anthony Babington’s plot to murder Elizabeth I. 1652: The Great Fire of Glasgow destroyed almost one-third of the city.
1695: the Bank of Scotland was established.
1774: Captain James Cook arrived at the New Hebrides. 1790: The first sewing machine was patented by cabinet-maker Thomas Smith in London. . 1832: Scottish Reform Bill became law.
1841: The first issue of the magazine Punch was published in London.
1863: British troops defeated the Maoris at Koheroa in the New Zealand wars between Maoris and British colonials. 1895: The east coast express train from London to Aberdeen set a record time of 10 hours 21 minutes for 540 miles.
1917: The Royal Family changed its name from the House of Saxe-coburg-gotha to the House of Windsor during the First World War.
1936: Spanish Civil War started as General Francisco Franco led army forces in revolt against Spain’s government.
1944: The largest convoy of the Second World War embarked from Halifax, Nova Scotia under Royal Canadian Navy protection. 1945: The Potsdam Conference involving Allied leaders Harry S Truman, Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill began.
1955: Walt Disney’s Disneyland was opened in California.
1959: Paleoanthropologist Dr Mary Leakey discovered the 600,000-year-old skull of an early human ancestor, who lived in Africa.
1964: Donald Campbell attained a world speed record of more than 403mph by a wheel-driven car, Bluebird, on the salt flats at Lake Eyre in South Australia. 1967: First anti-litter campaign begun by the new Keep Britain Tidy group.
1974: The Moody Blues opened the UK’S first quadrophenic recording studio.
1975: Apollo 18 and Soyuz 19 made the first US/USSR link-up in space.
1976: The Queen opened the Montreal Olympic Games. 1988: Four billion television viewers watched Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday tribute.
1994: Brazil defeated Italy in a penalty shoot-out to win their fourth World Cup.
1995: 150,000 people watched a fireworks display at Leith Docks, Edinburgh, to celebrate the Cutty Sark Tall Ships Race. The next day thousands more crowded vantage points as the 90 ships left the Forth under sail for Germany.
2005: Tiger Woods won the Open Championship at St Andrews, his tenth major. 2009: Jakarta bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz-carlton Hotels killed nine people.