Now & Then
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31 JANUARY
1858: The five-funnelled 692ft-long Great Eastern, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and John Scott Russell, was launched at Millwall.
1867: The lions arrived in Trafalgar Square, London. The four bronze figures at the base of Nelson’s Column were completed by Sir Edwin Landseer.
1876: The United States government banished all Sioux Indians to reservations, starting the Sioux wars.
1910: Doctor Crippen poisoned his wife, Cora, for which he was executed at Pentonville on 23 November.
1918: In a chaotic series of collisions involving battleships, destroyers and submarines during a night naval exercise off the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth, 103 officers and ratings were lost. Two K-class submarines were sunk and two other submarines and a cruiser were seriously damaged.
1928: Leon Trotsky exiled was from Russia by Stalin.
1943: German troops surrendered at Stalingrad.
1953: British Rail passenger and car ferry Princess Victoria capsized and sank, with the loss of 133 lives, in a storm off Irish coast at Donaghadee, after her stern doors had been smashed soon after leaving Stranraer. Only 44 people were saved; 39 of the 49 crew members were among the dead. 1953: Sixty-six crewmen were saved when cargo vessel Clan Macquarrie went aground near Borve, Lewis. The rescue, in winds gusting to 100mph, was the biggest ever carried out using breeches buoy in a single operation.
1958: America’s first satellite, Explorer I, was launched from Cape Canaveral.
1971: Apollo 14 launched with Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell.
1974: Pan American Airways plane crashed on American Samoa, killing 95 of 101 people aboard. 1983: The wearing of seat belts in cars became compulsory in Britain. 1984: Nine of the world's poorer nations opened talks in Lusaka, Zambia, on a joint strategy to break traditional trade links with South Africa and to combat two years of drought.
1988: Thousands of Solidarity supporters marched in Gdansk to protest at price increases announced by the Polish government.
1989: A symbolic burial service, with a single casket of ashes, was held for the victims of the Lockerbie airliner disaster.
1990: Huge queues formed as Mcdonald’s opened its first hamburger emporium in Moscow. 1991: Saudi and Qatari troops liberated Khafji in the Gulf war. 1994: The Rover car company was sold to BMW for £1.7billion.
1996: More than 80 people died and 1,400 were injured when Tamil Tiger guerrillas exploded a lorry bomb in the centre of the Sri Lankan capital Colombo.
2000: Doctor Harold Shipman, 54, was given 15 life sentences for the murder of 15 of his female patients at Hyde, Greater Manchester, between March 1995 and June 1998.
2020: After 47 years of membership, the UK left the European Union, three years and seven months after a referendum in which a majority voted to leave.
BIRTHDAYS
Beatrix, queen of the Netherlands 1980-2013, 86; Sir George Benjamin CBE, British composer, 64; Lloyd Cole, British singer, 63; John Collins, Scottish footballer and manager, 56; Grant Morrison MBE, Glasgow born comic book writer, 64; Minnie Driver, British actress, 54; Philip Glass, US composer, 87; Anthony Lapaglia, Australian actor, 65; John Lydon, rock singer (Johnny Rotten), 68; Justin Timberlake, pop star and actor, 43; Connie Booth, actress, 84.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1885 Anna Pavlova, prima ballerina; 1903 Tallulah Bankhead, actress; 1921 Mario Lanza, US singer and actor; 1921 Carol Channing, US actress; 1929 Jean Simmons OBE, English actress; 1931 Sir Christopher Chataway, Olympic athlete and MP. Deaths: 1606 Guy Fawkes, plotter; 1788 Prince Charles Edward Stuart, leader of Jacobite rising; 1956 AA Milne, writer; 1974 Sam Goldwyn, film producer; 1983 Winifred Atwell, pianist; 2006 Moira Shearer (Lady Kennedy), Dunfermline-born ballerina; 2015 Sir Terry Wogan KBE, broadcaster.