NOW & THEN
11 NOVEMBER
1640: Thomas Wentworth, the 1st Earl of Strafford, was impeached by the House of Lords and sent to the Tower of London. He was later executed.
1675: Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated integral calculus for the first time.
1790: Chrysanthemums, native to China, were first brought to Britain from France.
1830: Mail first carried by railway, on the newly opened Liverpool to Manchester line.
1836: Chile declared war on Bolivia and Peru.
1880: Australian outlaw Ned Kelly was hanged at Melbourne Gaol. His final words were reputed to be “Such is life”.
1887: The first sod of the Manchester Ship Canal was cut.
1889: Golfer Willie Park jnr won a play-off against Andrew Kirkaldy, having been tied on a score of 155, to win the Open at Musselburgh Links.
1909: Construction began on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.
1918: Armistice signed by Germany and Allies at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, in Marshal Foch’s railway coach at Compiègne, France.
1920: The Cenotaph in Whitehall, London, Britain’s monument to her war dead, designed by Edwin Lutyens, was unveiled by King George V.
1920: The burials of unknown soldiers took place simultaneously at Westminster Abbey, London and the Arc de Triomphe, Paris.
1921: British Legion held its first Poppy Day.
1940: Willys produced the Jeep, so-called from the initials GP, for general purpose cars.
1946: Stevenage in Herefordshire was designated the first “new town” in Britain.
1965: Ian Smith, prime minister of Rhodesia, announced his country’s unilateral declaration of independence. Regime was declared illegal by Britain.
1982: Geoffrey Prime, GCHQ spy, was jailed for 35 years.
1988: George Bush defeated Michael Dukakis in the United States presidential election.
1990: China told Saddam Hussein it would not use veto power to block a UN Security Council resolution authorising military action to force Iraq out of Kuwait.
1991: The Metropolitan Police announced it would admit homosexuals to the force.
1992: Church of England gen
eral synod voted to allow women to become priests.
1995: The SFA ordered an investigation and the procurator fiscal’s office called for a police report into incidents, overlooked by the referee, involving Rangers’ Paul Gascoigne, in which an Aberdeen player needed five stitches in a head wound.
1997: Labour admitted Formula 1 motor-racing boss Bernie Ecclestone had donated £1m to it.
1999: The House of Lords Act was given Royal Assent, restricting membership of the British House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.
2008: The world-famous QE2 liner left Southampton on its last ever voyage with thousands of well-wishers looking on from the quayside. The 41-year-old liner was turned into a floating hotel in Dubai.
BIRTHDAYS
Calista Flockhart, actress, 57; Kathy Lette, author, 63; Demi Moore, actress, 59; Richard Rowe, jockey and racehorse trainer, 62; Stanley Tucci, actor, director, producer, 61; James Edward George Younger, 5th Viscount Younger of Leckie, 66; Ellie Simmonds OBE, gold medalwinning Paralympic swimmer, 27; Philipp Lahm, footballer, captain of Germany’s 2014 World Cup winning team, 38;Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua since 2007, 76; Ian Craig Marsh, musician (Human League and Heaven 17), 65; Andy Partridge, singer-songwriter, musician (XTC), 68.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1748 Charles IV, king of Spain; 1885 George Patton, US military commander in Second World War; 1901 Sam Spiegel, film producer (only winner of three outright Academy Awards for Best Picture); 1919 Dr Hamish Henderson, folklorist, poet and songwriter; 1920 Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, politician and historian; 1922 Kurt Vonnegut, novelist. Deaths: 1831 Nat Turner, leader of slave rebellion (hanged);1945 Jerome Kern, composer of musical theatre; 2005 Patrick Anson, 5th Earl of Lichfield, photographer; 2016 Robert Vaughn, actor.