Now & Then
◆ 29 FEBRUARY
Leap Year Day, which occurs every four years to make the calendar year “catch up” with the solar year which actually takes 365.242199 days. 1528: Patrick Hamilton, student of Paris, Louvain, St Andrews, Marburg, Abbot of Fearn, burned at St Andrews for heresy, the first Reformation martyr in Scotland. 1832: New Grenada, in South America, proclaimed constitution providing for republic form of government.
1872: Young revolutionary attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria.
1880: The cutting of the nine-mile St Gotthard tunnel in Switzerland was completed – the work of engineer Louis Favre – linking the Swiss and Italian railways.
1892: Britain and United States signed treaty on Bering Sea seal fishery.
1892: World première of Brandon Thomas’s farce Charley’s Aunt in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
1916: German order for sinking armed merchantmen at sight went into effect in First World War. 1920: Czechoslovak Constitution was adopted.
1932: Nazi revolt began in Finland. 1932: Britain abandoned free trade after nearly a century as the Import Duties Act imposed tariff of 10 per cent.
1944: American troops invaded the Admiralty Islands in Pacific. 1948: Stern Gang mined rail track north of Rehoboth and derailed the Cairo-to-haifa train, killing 27 British soldiers and injuring 35. 1952: Edgar Faure’s ministry fell in France, and Antoine Pinay formed cabinet.
1956: Pakistan became an Islamic republic.
1960: Hugh Hefner opened his first Playboy Club in Chicago, introducing the Playboy Bunnies, scantily clad waitresses dressed as fur-tailed human rabbits.
1960: The Moroccan port of Agadir was devastated by an earthquake which left 12,000 dead. 1968: The discovery of the first “pulsar” (pulsating radio source) was announced by Dr Jocelyn Burnell of Cambridge.
1984: John Francome rode his 1,000th National Hunt winner at Worcester, the second jockey to do so after Stan Mellor. 1988: At the Xvth Winter Olympics at Calgary, the Soviet Union topped the medals table with 11 golds, nine silvers and nine bronzes.
1988: Lisa Dluchik of Swindon celebrated her first birthday – she had been born in 1984. Her mother was also born on this day, in 1956, so officially celebrated her eighth birthday. The odds of a mother and daughter sharing a Leap Year birthday are two million to one. 1992: One woman was injured when an IRA bomb exploded outside the offices of the Crown Prosecution Service in High Holborn, London.
1996: Faucett Flight 251 crashed in the Andes, killing 123 people. 2004: Jean-bertrand Aristide was removed as president of Haiti following a coup.
2012: James Murdoch stepped down as executive chairman of publishing firm News International to focus on international business. 2012: North Korea agreed to suspend uranium enrichment, as well as nuclear and long-range missile tests, in return for food aid from the United States.
◆ BIRTHDAYS
Darren Ambrose, English footballer 40; Mario Andretti, Italian American racing driver, 84; James Ogilvy, British landscape designer son of Princess Alexandra, 60; Ja Rule, American rapper, 49; Hannah Mills MBE, British Olympic medalwinning sailor, 36; Antonio Sabàto Jr, Italian-american model, 52; Jessica Long, multi-gold medal winning Paralympic swimmer, 32; Sean Abbott, Australian cricketer, 32; Mervyn Warren, American film composer, 60.
◆ ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1792 Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer of operas; 1840 John Philip Holland, Irish-born American inventor who pioneered the modern submarine; 1904 Jimmy Dorsey, US musician and band leader; 1916 Dinah Shore, actress and singer; 1952 Dennis Farina, American actor
Deaths: AD992 St Oswald, Archbishop of York; 1852 John Landseer, artist and author; 1940 Edward Benson, novelist; 1964 Sir Theobold Mathew, director of public prosecutions; 2012 Davy Jones, singer (The Monkees) and former jockey.