Now & Then
7 FEBRUARY
1301: The first Prince of Wales was created – Edward of Caernarvon later became King Edward II.
1912: The ice-cream cornet was introduced in Britain.
1922: Foot-and-mouth disease swept through Britain, causing thousands of cattle to be slaughtered.
1928: An amended version of the Book Of Common Prayer was approved by the Church of England. It included sexual equality in the wedding service.
1940: Walt Disney’s Pinocchio had its world premiere, being dubbed into seven languages, and earning the dubious distinction of having some of the most terrifying scenes in any of Disney’s films.
1941: The British captured Benghazi.
1944: German forces began an offensive against the Anzio bridgehead in Italy.
1947: British proposal for dividing Palestine into Arab and Jewish zones with administration as trusteeship was rejected by Arabs and Jews.
1947: Main group of Dead Sea Scrolls discovered.
1962: Coal mine explosion in Saarbruecken, Germany, killed 298 miners.
1969: Nigerian planes bombed and strafed a crowded market in village in secessionist Biafra, killing more than 200 people.
1971: US Apollo 14 astronauts sped toward splashdown in Pacific Ocean after their visit to the Moon. 1974: Grenada, in the Windward Isles, a British colony since 1783, became a fully independent state within the Commonwealth.
1976: Two women made sporting history: Joan Bazely became the first woman football referee of an all-male match at Croydon, and Diana Thorne became the first woman jockey to win under National Hunt Rules on Ben Ruler at Stratford.
1984: Bruce Mccandless, from Challenger, became the first person to walk in space without being attached to his spacecraft. 1986: Haiti’s president-for-life, Jean-claude Duvalier, went into exile, ending 29-year family dynasty in the Caribbean republic. 1986: Lindy Chamberlain, the mother convicted in the “dingo baby” case, was freed in Australia when new evidence emerged to support her innocence.
1989: River Ness burst its banks, flooding parts of Inverness and wrecking the 127-year-old railway bridge over the river.
1991: The IRA launched a mortar bomb attack on 10 Downing Street from a van in Whitehall. One of the bombs blasted a hole in the back garden, shattering the window of the room in which John Major and his war cabinet were meeting. No-one was hurt.
1992: German sprinter Katrin Krabbe, world 100m and 200m champion, was suspended after a drugs test.
1995: Allan Stewart resigned as Scottish Officer industry minister over a pick-axe incident with M77 protesters.
1999: Crown Prince Abdullah became the King of Jordan on the death of his father, King Hussein. 2008: The Archbishop of Canterbury, Doctor Rowan Williams, faced demands for his resignation after calling for parts of Islamic law, or sharia, including aspects of marriage and financial laws, to be introduced in Britain.
BIRTHDAYS
Garth Brooks, country music singer, 62; Stuart Burrows OBE, British tenor, 91; Gerald Davies CBE, Welsh rugby player, 79; Eddie Izzard, British actor and comedian, 62; Peter Jay, British writer and broadcaster, 87; Ashton Kutcher, American actor (That 70s Show), 46; James Spader, American actor (Sex, Lies and Videotape), 64; Sammy Lee, footballer and coach, 65; Brian Morton, Paisley-born journalist and broadcaster, 70, Chris Rock, American actor, 59.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1478 Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII; 1812 Charles Dickens, British novelist; 1908 Buster Crabbe, Olympic champion swimmer and actor; 1946 Pete Postlethwaite OBE, British actor; 1923 George Henry Hubert Lascelles KBE, 7th Earl of Harewood, artistic director of the Edinburgh Festival 1961-65; . Deaths: 1894 Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone; 1993 Joseph Mankiewicz, film director and writer; 1998 Carl Wilson, guitarist and singer (The Beach Boys); 2019 1936 Albert Finney, British actor.