Now & Then
◆ 15 JANUARY
1535: King Henry VIII assumed the title of “Supreme Head of the Church” in England.
1759: The British Museum opened in Montague House, London. 1790: Fletcher Christian and eight fellow mutineers from the Bounty landed on Pitcairn Island, accompanied by six Tahitian men and 12 women.
1861: The steam elevator was patented by Elisha Otis.
1867: Forty people died when ice on London’s Regents Park lake gave way.
1880: The first telephone directory was published by the London Telephone Company. It listed 255 subscribers.
1889: The Coca-cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, was incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia. 1895: Tchaikovsky’s ballet, Swan Lake, premiered in St Petersburg. 1913: The first sickness benefit (10/- or 50p per week), unemployment benefit (7/-) and maternity benefit (30/-) were introduced in Britain.
1919: Twenty-one people were drowned when two million gallons of molasses flooded Boston, Massachusetts.
1934: India and Nepal were struck by an earthquake measuring 8.4, resulting in 10,700 deaths.
1943: The Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defence, in Virginia, was opened. 1961: Motown Records signed The Supremes.
1962: Yves St Laurent opened a fashion house in Paris.
1963: The BBC ended its ban on mentioning politics, royalty, religion and sex in comedy shows.
1968: Twenty people died as gales swept Scotland.
1969: Twenty-five crew were killed and 85 wounded by explosions aboard US aircraft carrier Enterprise.
1970: The Republic of Biafra disbanded and joined Nigeria. 1971: The Aswan High Dam was officially opened in Egypt.
1973: Pope Paul VI had an audience with Israeli prime minister Golda Meir.
1976: Sara Jane Moore was sentenced to life imprisonment for attempting to shoot US president Gerald Ford.
1990: Bulgarian parliament abolished Communist Party’s monopoly on power.
1991: As a UN deadline for withdrawal from Kuwait arrived, Iraqi army newspaper al-qadissiya published a warning that the Gulf war would “extend to the entire map of the Earth and wherever there are American and foreign interests hostile to Iraq”.
1991: The Queen, in her capacity as Queen of Australia, signed letters patent allowing Australia to become the first Commonwealth Realm to institute its own separate Victoria Cross award in its own honours system.
2001: Wikipedia, a free Wiki content encyclopaedia, went online for the first time.
2005: An intense solar flare blasted X-rays across the solar system.
2009: The pilot of a United States Airways Airbus A320 airliner forced to land on New York’s Hudson River after it hit a flock of birds was hailed as a hero after all 155 passengers and crew survived. 2013: A rocket attack on Aleppo University, Syria killed 83 people and injured 150 others.
◆ BIRTHDAYS
Edith Bowman, Scottish broadcaster, 50; Jackie Baillie, Labour MSP, 60; Dame Margaret Beckett, former Labour Cabinet minister, 81; Gareth Hale, comedian, 70; Princess Michael of Kent, 79; James Nesbitt OBE, actor, 59; Margaret O’brien, actress, 87; Mario Van Peebles, actor, 67; Claudia Winkleman, TV presenter, 52; Sean Lamont, Scottish rugby player, 43; Princes Philip and Alexander of Yugoslavia, 42; Pete Waterman OBE, DJ, record producer, 77.
◆ ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1893 Ivor Novello, composer; 1906 Aristotle Onassis, ship-owner; 1913 Lloyd Bridges, actor; 1919 Sir John Junor, Scottish newspaper editor; 1921 Frank Thornton, actor; 1923 Ivor Cutler, Scottish humourist; 1929 Martin Luther King, UA civil rights leader; 1941 Captain Beefheart, musician. Deaths: 1987 Ray Bolger, actor; 1990 Gordon Jackson, Scottish actor; 1993 Sammy Cahn, songwriter and musician; 1994 Harry Nilsson, singer-songwriter; 2011 Susannah York, actress; 2018 Dolores O’riordan, singer; 2019 Carol Channing, US actress.