NOW & THEN
20 JULY
1304: King Edward I of England took Stirling Castle, the last rebel stronghold of the Wars of Scottish Independence.
1651: At the The Battle of Inverkeithing, the Royalist force supporting Charles II failed to stop the advance of Oliver Cromwell’s army towards Perth.
1705: An Act of the Scottish Parliament established herring fishing in and around Scotland.
1712: The Riot Act came into effect in Britain.
1773: Scottish settlers arrived in Pictou, Nova Scotia.
1885: Professional football was legalised by the Football Association.
1914: Armed resistance against British rule began in Ulster.
1926: A convention of the Methodist Church voted to admit women priests.
1933: Half a million people took part in an anti-semitic march in London.
1944: An assassination attempt on Hitler was made by a German staff officer, Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, at Rastenberg, East Prussia. He and 1,000 others implicated in the plot were executed.
1952: Czech athlete Emil Zatopek set a new Olympic record of 29:17.0 for the 10,000 metres. He also won gold medals for the 5,000 metres and marathon.
1954: Tennis champion Maureen Connolly’s right leg was crushed in a riding accident, ending her competitive career.
1957: At a meeting in Bradford, prime minister Harold Macmillan said: “Let’s be frank about it. Most of our people have never had it so good.” He later repeated the statement in the House of Commons.
1969: Eagle, the lunar module of Apollo 11, landed on the Moon, on the Sea of Tranquillity.
1974: Turkey invaded Cyprus.
1975: India expelled three journalists, from the Times, the Daily Telegraph and Newsweek, because they refused to sign a pledge to abide by government censorship.
1976: Viking 1, the American unmanned spacecraft, touched down on Mars after an 11-month journey and began sending back clear pictures.
1980 Tom Watson scored 271 to win the Open Championship at Muirfield. 1982: IRA bombs killed ten soldiers and seven army horses at Hyde Park and Regents Park, London. Fifty-three were injured.
1989: The government of Burma placed author Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
1992: Nick Faldo scored 272 to win the Open Championship at Muirfield.
1994: OJ Simpson offered $500,000 to anyone who could produce evidence to identify his wife’s killer. He was later convicted of the murder himself.
2000: In Zimbabwe, parliament opened its new session and seated opposition members for the first time in a decade.
2005: Canada legalised samesex marriages, the fourth country in the world to do so.
2007: The Crown Prosecution Service announced that no-one would be prosecuted as a result of the 16-month “cash-for-honours” investigation during which the prime minister, Tony Blair, was questioned by Scotland Yard.
BIRTHDAYS
Gisele Bündchen, supermodel, 41; Kim Carnes, singer, 76; Paul Cook, drummer (Sex Pistols) and composer, 65; Jacques Delors, president, European Commission 1985-95, 96; Sally Ann Howes, actress, 91; Roger Hunt MBE, footballer, 83; John Lodge, rock bassist (Moody Blues), 76; Charlie Magri, former WBC British flyweight boxing champion, 65; Jonathon Morris, actor, 61; Jeff Rawle, actor, 70; Carlos Santana, musician, 74; Sandra Oh, actress, 51; Stone Gossard, musician, 55; Lisa Oz, TV producer, writer and actress, 58; Terri Irwin, author and TV naturalist, 57; Anton du Beke, dancer and judge, 56.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 356 BC Alexander the Great, king of Macedon; 1889 Lord Reith, first director-general of the BBC; 1919 Sir Edmund Hillary, first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest; 1938 Natalie Wood, actress; 1943 Wendy Richard, actress. Deaths: 1923 Pancho Villa, revolutionary leader; 1945 Paul Valéry, poet, essayist and philosopher; 1962 George Macauley Trevelyan, historian; 1970 Iain Macleod Chancellor of the Exchequer; 1973 Bruce Lee, Kung-fu actor; 2011 Lucian Freud artist; 2012 Simon Ward, actor.