Now & Then
14 FEBRUARY St Valentine’s Day.
c270: St Valentine was martyred by Roman Emperor Claudius II. The tradition of sending love letters on this day is unlikely to be connected with St Valentine but to follow the medieval belief that birds traditionally pair on 14 February.
1797: The naval Battle of Cape St Vincent took place off southwest Portugal. The Spanish fleet was defeated by the British, under Admiral Sir John Jervis.
1852: The Children’s Hospital at Great Ormond Street, London, admitted its first patient.
1922: Marconi began the first regular broadcasting transmissions in Britain.
1929: St Valentine’s Day massacre took place in a Chicago warehouse as seven members of Bugsy Moran’s gang were gunned down.
1933: The world’s first speaking clock began to operate in Paris. It was designed for the French Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications by M Esclangon of the Paris Observatory, who was fed-up with people phoning the observatory to ask for the exact time.
1936: The Post Office introduced special greetings telegrams for St Valentine’s Day. One suitor telegraphed: “And now I’ve asked you to be mine, by gosh – it’s cost me eight and nine.”
1946: The Bank of England was nationalised.
1963: Harold Wilson became leader of the Labour Party.
1981: Fire at Dublin disco killed 49. 1984: Britain’s Torvill and Dean skated their way to a gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, getting maximum points for artistic expression.
1989: An entomologist from the Ministry of Agriculture said that Britain was battling with the worst infestation of slugs for ten years.
1993: Two-year-old James Bulger, missing after being abducted from a shopping centre in Bootle, was found dead on a nearby railway embankment.
1996: The government decided to send 500 troops to Northern Ireland as security was stepped up in the wake of the IRA bombing of London’s Dockland.
1998: An oil tanker train collided with a freight train in Yaoundé, Cameroon, spilling fuel oil. One person scavenging the oil dropped a lit cigarette, creating a massive explosion which killed 120.
2000: The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker entered orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.
2004: In a suburb of Moscow, Russia, the roof of the Transvaal water park collapsed, killing 25 people, and wounding more than 100 others.
2005: Seven people were killed and 151 wounded in a series of bombings by suspected al-qaeda-linked militants that hit the Philippines’ Makati financial district in Metro Manila, Davao City, and General Santos City.
2006: MPS voted for a complete ban on smoking in all pubs, clubs and work places in England.
2009: US president Barack Obama welcomed Congress’s approval of his $787 billion (£548bn) economic stimulus package.
2012: Rangers Football Club entered administration.
2013: Three people died and a man was critically injured by an avalanche in the Highlands.
◆ BIRTHDAYS
Carl Bernstein, Watergate journalist, 80; Sir Stelios Hajiioannou, founder of Easyjet, 57; Kevin Keegan OBE, English football player and coach, 73; Du’aine Ladejo, athlete, 53; Simon Pegg, British actor, 54; Meg Tilly, Canadian-american actress, 64; Tom Watt, British actor and radio presenter, 68; Baron Wilson of Tillyorn, Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and former governor of Hong Kong, 89.
◆ ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1473 Nicolas Copernicus, Polish astronomer; 1894 Jack Benny, US comedian and actor; 1924 Patricia Knatchbull CBE, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma; 1932 Sir Jocelyn Stevens, British publisher and chairman of English Heritage 1992-2000; 1944 Sir Alan Parker CBE, British film director, chairman, Film Council 1999-2004. Deaths: 1400 King Richard II; 1779 Captain Cook; 1969 Kenneth Horne, comedian; 2003 Dolly the sheep; 2010 Dick Francis CBE, jockey and thriller writer; 2011 Sir George Shearing OBE, jazz pianist; 2015 Louis Jourdan, French actor