NOW & THEN
29 APRIL
1376: Sir Peter de la Mare took his place as first Speaker in the House of Commons.
1429: Joan of Arc entered Orleans, France, and won victory over English.
1781: French fleet under Admiral Suffren prevented Britain from seizing the Cape of Good Hope.
1842: Corn Law Bill was given Royal assent.
1909: In a revolutionary Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, introduced a “supertax” of sixpence in the pound for anyone earning more than £5,000 a year to pay for oldage pensions and rearmament. He also doubled death duties.
1930: Actress Peggy O’neil became the first person to be interviewed on television, from the Ideal Home Exhibition in Southampton.
1933: Players’ football shirts were first numbered, in the English FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, the numbers running from one to 22, with Manchester City having the higher set of numbers.
1935: Glass reflectors, or “cat’s eyes”, invented by Percy Shaw, were first used on British roads.
1945: Allied troops in Germany liberated 32,000 victims of Nazis in concentration camp at Dachau.
1958: With the words: “Good evening, each!” Beryl Reid heralded her character Marlene on radio’s Educating Archie.
1961: The World Wildlife Fund was founded.
1986: The funeral of the Duchess of Windsor took place in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.
1990: Wrecking cranes tore down the section of the Berlin Wall surrounding the Brandenburg Gate, the wall’s most famous section.
1990: Stephen Hendry, aged 21, became the youngest world snooker champion by beating Jimmy White 18-12 in the Embassy Championship.
1991: A cyclone travelling at 145mph drove a tidal wave 20ft high into the port of Chittagong in Bangladesh, killing more than 100,000 and making millions homeless.
1992: Rioting began in Los Angeles after the acquittal of four policemen seen beating up a black man, Rodney King, on an amateur video film.
1993: The Queen announced that Buckingham Palace would be open to the public – for an entrance fee.
1995: Tony Blair won a victory in his battle to modernise the Labour Party when it voted to ditch its Clause 4 commitment to nationalisation.
2004: Oldsmobile built its final car, ending 107 years of production.
2005: Syria completed withdrawal from Lebanon, ending 29 years of occupation.
2009: Gordon Brown’s government suffered a surprise defeat in the Commons on its policy of restricting the right of former Gurkhas to settle in the UK. MPS voted by 267 to 246 in favour of a Liberal Democrat motion that all Gurkhas be offered an equal right of residence.
2011: One million people gathered in London to watch the marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, who became Duke and Duchess of Cambridge after the ceremony.
BIRTHDAYS
Frank Auerbach, German-born British artist, 91; André Agassi, US tennis champion, 52; Willie Nelson, US country singer, 89; Baroness Chalker of Wallasey, 80; Sir Daniel Day-lewis, British/ Irish actor, 65; Anita Dobson, British actress, 73; Zubin Mehta, Indian conductor, 86; Johnny Miller, US golfer, 75; Lloyd Quinan, Scottish broadcaster and former politician, 65; Cheryl Kennedy, British actress, 75; Jerry Seinfeld, US comic, 68; Uma Thurman, US actress, 52; Kate Mulgrew, US actress, 67; Francis Lee CBE, former international footballer, 78; Sara Errani, Italian tennis player, 35.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1899 Duke Ellington, jazz musician and composer; 1914 Deryck Guyler, actor; 1928 Professor Heinz Wolff, Germanbritish scientist and broadcaster; 1929 Jeremy Thorpe, leader of the Liberal Party 1967-76; 1931 Lonnie Donegan, skiffle musician and singer
Deaths: 1937 Wallace Carothers, chemist and developer of nylon; 1980 Sir Alfred Hitchcock, film director; 1988 Andrew Cruickshank, actor; 1999 Elspeth March, actress; 2014 Bob Hoskins, British actor; 2019 Stevie Chalmers, Scottish footballer