Now & Then
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24 JANUARY
AD41: Roman emperor Caligula was assassinated.
1076: German king Henry IV fired Pope Gregory VII at Synod of Worms.
1679: Charles II dissolved the English parliament.
1798: Irish rebellion broke out. 1848: Gold was discovered in California at Sutter’s Mill near Coloma, by James Marshall, sparking the Gold Rush.
1875: Camille Saint-saëns’ Danse Macabre premiered in Paris. 1900: The world’s first badminton club – Newcastle Badminton Club – was established.
1907: First Boy Scout troop was organised by Sir Robert Badenpowell.
1915: Battle of the Dogger Bank in which German cruiser Blucher was sunk.
1924: Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. It was changed to St Petersburg in 1991.
1935: Canned beer made its first appearance, marketed by Krueger Brewery of Richmond, Virginia, United States.
1936: Benny Goodman and his orchestra recorded Stompin’ at the Savoy.
1941: British forces invaded Italian Somaliland as part of the East African campaign during the Second World War.
1946: United Nations General Assembly voted to create the UN Atomic Energy Commission. 1962: Brian Epstein signed a contract to manage the Beatles. 1969: Sports saloon, the Capri, unveiled in Britain by Ford.
1972: Japanese soldier, Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi, was found in a jungle in Guam, where he had been hiding since the end of World War II. 1973: US negotiator Henry Kissinger said the Vietnam peace agreement worked out in Paris also meant an end to fighting in Laos and Cambodia. Hanoi’s De Luc Tho called the agreement “a great victory for the Vietnamese people”. 1976: Margaret Thatcher was dubbed the Iron Lady in the Soviet defence ministry’s newspaper Red Star after a speech on 19 January about the Soviet threat.
1978: Russian space satellite crashed near Yellowknife, Canada. 1986: The Westland affair reached its climax with the resignation of Leon Brittan. 1986: Guerrillas advanced into the Ugandan capital of Kampala as army opposition crumbled, pushing the military government to the edge of collapse.
1987: Clashes outside News International plant at Wapping, east London, left 162 policemen and 33 demonstrators hurt in the worst disturbances of a year-long newspaper printers’ dispute. 1988: The Liberals voted for a merger with the Social Democratic Party.
1996: Polish premier Jozef Oleksy resigned amid charges that he spied for Moscow.
2003: The US Department of Homeland Security officially began operation.
2008: Peter Hain resigned as work and pensions and Welsh secretary after the Electoral Commission referred the non-declaration of more than £100,000 in donations to his campaign for the Labour Party deputy leadership to the police.
2009: Three climbers died following an avalanche on a mountain in Glencoe.
BIRTHDAYS
Vic Reeves (Jim Moir), comedian and actor, 65; Neil Diamond, singer and actor, 83; Adrian Edmondson, comic actor, 67; Jools Holland OBE, musician and television presenter, 66; Nastassja Kinski, actress, 63; Dr Desmond Morris, anthropologist and author, 96; Aaron Neville, R&B singer, 83; Chad Hurley, co-founder of Youtube, 47; Hayley Tamaddon, actress (Emmerdale and Coronation Street), 47;
Ray Stevens, country singersongwriter and comedian, 85.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: AD76 Hadrian, Roman emperor; 1712 Frederick the Great, Prussian king; 1862 Edith Wharton, novelist; 11917 Ernest Borgnine, actor; 1930 Bernard Matthews CBE, British poultry industry figure; 11949 John Belushi, comedian, actor, musician.
Deaths: 1895 Lord Randolph Churchill, British statesman; 1920 Amedeo Modigliani, painter and sculptor; 1965 Sir Winston Churchill, British prime minister 1951 to 1955 and 1940 to 1945; 2018 Mark E Smith, British singer (The Fall); 2019 Hugh Mcilvanney OBE, Scottish journalist.