NOW & THEN
20 NOVEMBER
1616: Cardinal Richelieu appointed minister of state in France.
1795: The government of Curacao prohibited work by slaves on a Sunday.
1873: The rival cities of Buda and Pest united to become Budapest, the capital city of Hungary.
1892: The union was broken and nine were left dead as 3,000 workers called off a five-month strike at Carnegie Steel Works, Pennsylvania.
1902: French sports journalist Geo Lefevre and editor Henri Desgrange created the Tour de France cycle race. The first race was staged the following year. 1906: Charles Rolls and Henry Royce collaborated to form their car company, Rolls-royce Ltd. 1917: British forces broke through the German lines at the Battle of Cambrai in the First World War, the first successful use of tanks in battle.
1920: The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to US president Woodrow Wilson.
1929: Painter Salvador Dali put on his first one-man show. 1944: The lights were switched on again in Piccadilly, The Strand and Fleet Street, London, after five years of wartime blackout. 1947: Princess Elizabeth married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten in Westminster Abbey. She was 21. The BBC covered the occasion in 42 different languages.
1968: Alcatraz Island, the abandoned former penitentiary off San Francisco, was seized by a group of 89 Native Americans, and held for 19 months before the occupation was forcibly ended by the US government. 1969: Brazilian football great Pelé scored his 1,000th career goal, a penalty, while playing for visiting Santos against Vasco da Gama in the Maracana Stadium, Rio de Janeiro. With the score at 1-1, his goal proved to be the winner.;
1970: The 50p coin replaced the ten-shilling note.
1970: Majority in United Nations General Assembly voted to give China a seat, but two-thirds majority required for admission was not met.
1977: Egyptian president Sadat became the first Arab leader to address the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
1990: Saddam Hussein ordered 250,000 more Iraqi troops into Kuwait.
1992: A fire caused extensive
damage to the state apartments at Windsor Castle.
1995: In a BBC Panorama interview, the Princess of Wales admitted she had had an affair with Major James Hewitt and that she had known of Prince Charles’ affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, saying: “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”
2007: American billionaire Donald Trump’s plan for a £1 billion golf resort with two championship courses, a five-star hotel, 500 private homes and 1,000 holiday homes on 1,400 acres of coastline at Balmedie was thrown out by Aberdeenshire Council’s planning authority. 2008: A $20 million party and fireworks display, which organisers claimed could be seen from space, took place to mark the opening of a new $1.5bn resort in Dubai.
BIRTHDAYS
Joe Walsh, American rock musician (The Eagles), 74; Bo Derek, American actress, producer and model, 65; Veronica Hamel, actress, 78; Margo Stilley, American actress, 39; Kimberley Walsh, English singer 40; Sean Young, American actress, 62; Aneka (born Mary Sandeman), Scottish singer, 74; Mike Vernon, record producer, 77; Estelle Parsons, actress and TV presenter, 94; Ashley Fink, actress and singer (Glee), 35; Connie Talbot, singer, 21; Norman Greenbaum, singer-songwriter (Spirit In The Sky), 79; Mike D (born Michael Diamond), rapper, singer the Beastie Boys, 56.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1889 Edwin Hubble, astronomer; 1908 Alistair Cooke, KBE, journalist and broadcaster; 1923 Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize-winning novelist; 1925 Robert Kennedy, US politicia. Deaths: 1713 Thomas Tompion, clock and watchmaker (the “Father of English Clockmaking); 1910 Leo Tolstoy, novelist; 1925 Queen Alexandra of Great Britain; 1975 General Franco, dictator of Spain for 35 years; 2006 Robert Altman, film director; 2015 Peter Dimmock CBE, TV executive and sports broadcaster – first host of Grandstand.