Now & Then
National days of India and Australia
1340: English King Edward III was proclaimed king of France.
1348: Black Death began in England.
1531: Lisbon was struck by an earthquake, leading to around 30,000 deaths.
1736: Stanislaw I of Poland abdicated his throne.
1788: The first consignment of convicts from England arrived in Australia, at Sydney Cove.
1790: Mozart’s opera Cosi Fan Tutte premiered in Vienna.
1828: Duke of Wellington became Conservative prime minister. 1837: Michigan was admitted as the 26th US state.
1841: British sovereignty was proclaimed over Hong Kong.
1871: The Rugby Football Union was founded in London.
1875: The electric dental drill was patented by George F Green. 1905: The Cullinan Diamond, the largest in the world, weighing more than 1lb 4oz, was found at the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, by Captain Wells.
1908: The 1st Glasgow Boy Scout troop was registered, the first to be formed.
1926: The BBC broadcast the first shipping forecasts.
1931: Mahatma Gandhi was released from prison in India for discussions with the government.
Germany signed a ten-year non-aggression pact with Poland.
Filming began on the epic movie Gone with the Wind.
First US expeditionary force arrived in Europe, with troops put ashore in Northern Ireland.
India was proclaimed a republic within the Commonwealth.
Famed Shepheard Hotel in Cairo, Egypt, was burned during riots by mobs demanding British withdrawal from Suez.
1968: The National Provincial and Westminster Banks merged, under the name National Westminster Bank.
1982: Unemployment in Britain rose above three million for the first time since the 1930s.
1991: Seven Iraqi warplanes flew to Iran and the Pentagon said at least two dozen had landed there in recent days.
1993: Chancellor Norman Lamont cut interest rates to 6 per cent, the lowest level for more than 15 years. 1998: President Bill Clinton went on television to deny he had had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a member of the White House staff. 2001: An earthquake hit Gujarat, India, killing more than 20,000. 2004: President Hamid Karzai signed the new constitution of Afghanistan.
2009: Steelmaker Corus confirmed that it was to cut 3,500 jobs worldwide, including around 2,500 in the UK.
2009: Iceland’s coalition government collapsed under the strain of the economic crisis in the country and around the world, with the whole cabinet resigning.
2011: Former MSP Tommy Sheridan was jailed for three years for committing perjury.
2015: Libby Lane was ordained the first female bishop of the Church of England.
2020: Basketball legend Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were among nine people who perished in a helicopter crash in California.
José Mourinho, football manager, 61; Jazzie B OBE, rapper (Soul II Soul), 61; Anita Baker, soul singer, 66; John Brown, Scottish footballer and manager, 62; Sir Timothy Clifford, director-general, National Galleries of Scotland 1984-2006, 78; Ellen Degeneres, chat show presenter, 66; Andrew Ridgeley, singer (Wham), 61; Tyger Drewhoney, actor, 28; Brendan Rodgers, football manager, 51; Heather Stanning OBE, Scottish Olympi rowing champion, 39.
Births: 1908 Stephane Grappelli, jazz violinist; 1922 Michael Bentine, founder member of The Goon Show; 1925 Paul Newman, actor; 1928 Roger Vadim, film director; 1945 Jacqueline du Pré, cellist. Deaths: 1823 Edward Jenner, vaccination pioneer; 1878 Kirkpatrick Macmillan, Dumfriesshire inventor of the bicycle; 2003 Viscount Younger of Leckie, politician; 2012 Alex Eadie, Labour MP 1966-92; 2017 Sir Thomas Dalyell of the Binns, MP 1962-2005; 2017 Barbara Hale, US actress; 2019 Michel Legrand, French film music composer.