NOW & THEN
MAY 2
1536: Queen Anne Boleyn was sent to the Tower of London and eventually beheaded.
1641: Dutch Prince William of Orange married Princess Mary, daughter of Charles I.
1895: British South Africa Company territory south of Zambesi was organised as Rhodesia.
1942: HMS Edinburgh sank in the Barents Sea off northern Norway after being torpedoed on 30 April while carrying gold from Russia to the United States to pay for arms. In 1981 bullion worth more than £45 million was salvaged from the wreck by divers working 800ft down.
1952: A British DH Comet flew from London to Johannesburg, inaugurating the first turbo-jet airliner service.
1953: Stanley Matthews helped Blackpool recover from 3-1 down to beat Bolton Wanderers 4-3 in a thrilling FA Cup final, dubbed forever the “Matthews final”.
1959: Chapelcross nuclear power station, the first in Scotland, was opened.
1963: The Beatles achieved their first No 1 record when From Me To You went to the top of the charts.
1969: The QE2 made her maiden voyage.
1986: Sikh extremists killed seven people outside the holy town of Amritsar, India.
1982: Argentine cruiser General Belgrano was sunk by British submarine HMS Conqueror off the Falklands, with the loss of 368 lives.
1989: Communist Hungary began cutting through the barbed-wire and electrically charged fencing dividing it from the West.
1990: African National Congress and South African government opened three days of negotiations in Cape Town on gradually ending white rule in South Africa.
1990: In London, a mugger snatched a city messenger’s case containing $291.9 million worth of bonds. It became worthless when the Bank of England flashed details to dealers.
1990: Northwest Airlines inaugurated first regular transatlantic flights between Glasgow and North America.
1992: At 56, Lester Pigott won his 30th British classic, riding Rodrigo de Triano to victory in the 2000 Guineas.
1994: Stephen Hendry won his fourth World Snooker Championship at the Crucible, Sheffield, beating Jimmy White in the final frame.
1998: The European Central Bank was founded in Brussels in order to define and execute the European Union’s monetary policy.
2011: Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man and the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks on America, was killed at a private compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by US elite forces in a covert operation authorised by President Barack Obama.
2014: Forty-two people were killed in a street battle in Odessa, which ended with pro-russian protesters dying in the burning Trade Union House – an event which was seen as a move close to civil war in Ukraine.
2014: More than 2,000 people were feared dead when a torrent of mud swept through the village of Abi Barik in Afghanistan.
BIRTHDAYS
David Beckham OBE, English footballer, 47; Isla St Clair, Grangemouth-born singer, 70; Sir James Dyson CBE, businessman, 75; Engelbert Humperdinck, singer, 86; Bianca Jagger, human rights advocate, 77; Brian Lara, West Indian cricketer, 53; Lynda Myles, British film producer, director, Edinburgh International Film Festival 1973-80, 75; Willie Miller MBE, Scottish footballer, 67; David Suchet CBE, British actor, 76; Alan Titchmarsh MBE, British horticulturist, 73; Jimmy White MBE, British snooker player, 60; Lord Woolf, Lord Chief Justice 2000-5, 89; Donatella Versace, fashion designer, 67
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1892 Baron Manfred von Richthofen, German air ace known as the Red Baron; 1903 Dr Benjamin Spock, paediatrician; 1904 Bing Crosby, singer and actor; 1925 John Neville OBE, actor and director; 1946 Lesley Gore, US singer.
Deaths: 1519 Leonardo da Vinci, artist; 1964 Nancy, Lady Astor, first woman to sit in Commons; 1972 John Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI; 2008 Beryl Cook, painter; 2010 Lynne Redgrave OBE, British actress; 2015 Ruth Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh CBE, crime novelist.