Now & Then
◆ 9 FEBRUARY
1540: The first recorded horserace meeting in Britain was held at the Roodeye Field, Chester.
1784: The Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland was formed in Fortune’s Tontin Tavern, Edinburgh.
1801: Peace of Luneville between Austria and France marked the virtual destruction of the Holy Roman Empire.
1855: Cloven hoofprints appeared overnight in South Devon. The prints, each four inches by twoand-a-half, were spread eightand-a-half inches apart in a single line covering 100 miles – over fields, walls and roofs. The more superstitious believed the Devil had passed through.
1916: Military conscription was first effective in Britain.
1939: The Home Office announced that it would provide steel-built tunnel shelters (the Anderson shelter) to thousands of homes in districts likely to be bombed. The shelters measured 6ft 6in by 4ft 6in.
1941: German troops under General Erwin Rommel crossed from Italy to North Africa.
1942: Soap rationing began in Britain.
1943: Battle for Guadalcanal ended in United States victory over Japanese.
1953: All but one of the crew of seven aboard the Fraserburgh lifeboat John and Charles Kennedy drowned when she capsized at the harbour entrance after escorting several yawls to safety in heavy seas. Hundreds of townspeople saw the tragedy.
1962: Jamaica became an independent nation within the British Commonwealth.
1964: The Beatles’ live appearance on The Ed Sullivan show was watched by 70 million viewers and heralded the arrival of Beatlemania in the United States.
1969: The Boeing 747 jumbo jet made its maiden flight. It entered service on 21 January, 1970.
1971: First British soldier killed in Northern Ireland since Provisional IRA troubles began.
1972: Prime minister Edward Heath declared a state of emergency in Britain after a month-long coal strike and ordered a three-day week in industry to conserve fuel.
1983: Shergar, the 1981 Derby winner, was stolen from his stable in County Kildare and a £2 million ransom was demanded. The horse was never seen again.
1989: Forty unknown paintings by 18th-century artist William Blake were handed in at Christie’s London salerooms in a brown envelope. They turned out to be the Blake discovery of the century. 1990: The musician Evelyn Glennie and the scientist Sir James Black were named Scots of the Decade.
1990: Kenyan Foreign Minister Robert Ouko was found murdered at his family farm.
1992: Stephen Hendry beat John Parrott 9-4 to win the Benson & Hedges Masters snooker championship.
1996: Two people died, more than 100 were injured and millions of pounds of damage caused when an IRA bomb attack in London’s Docklands shattered the 17-month-old Northern Ireland peace process.
2001: US submarine USS Greeneville accidentally struck and sank the Ehime-maru, a Japanese high school training vessel.
◆ BIRTHDAYS
Virginia Fortune Ogilvy, Countess of Airlie, 91; JM Coetzee, South African author, 84; Mia Farrow, US actress, 79; Bernard Gallacher OBE, Scottish golfer, 75; Carole King, US pop singer-songwriter, 82; Sandy Lyle MBE, Scottish golfer, 66; Joe Pesci, US actor, 81; Amanda Roocroft, opera singer, 58; Gordon Strachan OBE, Scottish footballer, 67; Dame Janet Suzman, South African actress, 85; Holly Johnson, singer, 64; Rose Leslie, Scottish actress, 37.
◆ ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1865 Mrs Patrick Campbell (Beatrice Tanner), actress; 1891 Ronald Colman, film actor; 1922 Kathryn Grayson, US actress; 1923 Brendan Behan, playwright; 1926 Garret Fitzgerald, prime minister, Irish Republic 1981-7; 1936 Clive Swift, British actor.
Deaths: 1881 Fyodor Dostoyevsky, novelist; 1977 Sergei Ilyushin, aircraft designer; 1981 Bill Haley, singer; 1984 Yuri Andropov, Soviet leader; 1997 Brian Connolly, Glasgow-born singer (Sweet); 2002 Princess Margaret; 2007 Ian Richardson, actor; 2012 Josh Gifford, British racehorse trainer.