Now & Then
◆ 1 FEBRUARY
Pheasant and partridge shooting seasons end
1587: England’s Queen Elizabeth I signed a warrant for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.
1708: Alexander Selkirk, sailor born at Lower Largo, Fife, was discovered on the island of Juan Fernandez, near Chile, where he had survived for four years after being abandoned by his ship. His story inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe.
1811: The Bell Rock lighthouse began operating.
1844: The lamp at Skerryvore Lighthouse off the west coast of Scotland went into operation. Engineered by Alan Stevenson for the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses, it had a range of 23 miles.
1865: The Highland Railway was formed from an amalgamation of the Inverness and Perth Junction and the Inverness and Aberdeen Junction Railways.
1884: The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was published.
1908: Portugal’s King Carlos I and Crown Prince were assassinated in Lisbon, and Manuel II became King. 1910: First British labour exchanges opened.
1911: HMS Thunderer, the last battleship built on the Thames, launched from the old Thames Ironworks in East London.
1915: Passport photographs were first required in Britain.
1924: Britain recognised Communist government of the Soviet Union.
1941: The Air Training Corps was formed.
1946: Trygve Lie was elected United Nations Secretary-general.
1949: Name of Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) was changed to Women’s Royal Army Corps (WRAC).
1965: Prescriptions on the National Health Service were made free of charge – until 10 June, 1968, when charges were reintroduced. 1972: British embassy in Dublin was bombed as anti-british demonstrations swept Ireland. 1973: Women were allowed on the Stock Exchange for the first time. 1995: Paul Agutter, 48, was jailed for 12 years at the High Court in Edinburgh for attempting to murder his wife. He placed contaminated bottles of tonic water on the shelves of a Safeway store.
1996: Police and forensic scientists exhumed the body of John Irvine Mcinnes at Stonehouse, Lanarkshire, believed to be the Glasgow serial killer Bible John. Tests later failed to prove he was the killer.
2003: Seven astronauts died when the American shuttle Columbia broke up as it entered the atmosphere minutes before it was due to land.
2004: One of pop singer Janet Jackson’s breasts was exposed during the half-time show of the Super Bowl.
2009: More than 100 people died in Kenya after an overturned petrol tanker caught fire on a highway and exploded. Reports say the fire broke out after hundreds of people gathered to collect spilled fuel. About 200 people were also injured in the blaze.
2012: Dozens of people were killed and hundreds more injured after a riot broke out at a football match in the coastal city of Port Said, in Egypt.
◆ BIRTHDAYS
Sherilyn Fenn, actress (Twin Peaks), 59; Michael C Hall, actor (Dexter), 53; Darren Fletcher, Scottish footballer, 40; Adam Ingram, Labour MP 1987-2010, 77; Princess Stéphanie of Monaco, 59; Joshua Redman, jazz saxophonist; 55; Rachelle Lefevre, Canadian actress (Twilight), 45; Richard Wisker, British actor (Tracy Beaker Returns), 29; Josceline Dimbleby, UK cookery writer, 81; Harry Styles, singer/songwriter, 30; Shoaib Malik, Pakistani cricketer, 42
◆ ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1895 John Ford, US film director; 1901 Clark Gable, US film actor; 1915 Sir Stanley Matthews, footballer; 1918 Dame Muriel Spark, novelist; 1921 Peter Sallis OBE, British actor; 1931 Boris Yeltsin, president, Russian Federation 1991-99; 1942 Terry Jones, British comic actor and writer; 1948 Elisabeth Sladen, British actress. Deaths: 1851 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, novelist; 1966 Buster Keaton, silent film comic; 2004 Ally Mcleod, football manager; 2017 Desmond Carrington, radio presenter; 2019 Clive Swift, British actor.