Now & Then
2 MARCH
1498: Explorer Vasco da Gama’s fleet landed at Mozambique. 1629: Charles I dissolved parliament and jailed nine MPS. 1717: Britain’s first ballet, The Loves of Mars and Venus, created by John Weaver, had its premiere at the Drury Lane Theatre, London. 1776: Americans began shelling British troops during the Siege of Boston in the American Revolutionary War.
1791: The optical telegraph (semaphore machine) was unveiled in Paris.
1807: US Congress banned the slave trade, with effect from 1 January 1808.
1808: The inaugural meeting of the Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, was held in Edinburgh. 1855: Aleksandr Romanov became tsar of Russia.
1867: The Jesse James gang robbed a bank in Savannah, Missouri, killing one person in the process.
1882: Robert Maclean tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Queen Victoria at Windsor.
1933: The movie King Kong, starring Fay Wray, premiered in New York.
1939: Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pope and took the name Pius XII.
1949: The first round-the-world non-stop flight was completed by Captain James Gallagher and his 13-man USAF crew. It took 94 hours, during which the plane, Lucky Lady II, was refuelled four times in flight.
1958: A British team led by Vivian Fuchs completed the first crossing of the Antarctic, covering 2,158 miles from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea in 99 days.
1969: The French-built supersonic airliner Concorde made its maiden flight from Toulouse.
1970: Southern Rhodesia broke away from Britain and became a republic under Ian Smith.
1986: The Queen signed the Australia Bill in Canberra, formally severing any Australian constitutional ties with Britain. 1988: A new political party was born when Liberals merged with the Social Democrats to form the Social and Liberal Democrats. 1990: Nelson Mandela was elected deputy president of the African National Congress. 1994: Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean retired from competitive skating after their disappointment in winning only the bronze medal at the Lillehammer Olympics in Norway.
1995: Financial dealer Nick Leeson, whose multi-million pound dealings on the high-risk derivatives market in Singapore bankrupted Barings Bank, was arrested at Frankfurt airport after a week-long manhunt.
1998: Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft indicated that Jupiter’s moon Europa had a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
2004: Al-qaeda carried out the Ashura Massacre in Iraq, which left 170 dead and more than 500 wounded.
2006: Sir Menzies Campbell was elected Liberal Democrats leader. 2012: A tornado outbreak over a large section of the southern United States and into the Ohio Valley region resulted in 40 deaths. 2014: Ukraine’s interim prime minister Yatsenyuk said Russia had effectively declared war. The USA said Russia had control of Crimea.
BIRTHDAYS
Pat Arrowsmith, British peace campaigner, 94; Daniel Craig, British actor, 56; Kevin Curren, tennis player, 66; Bryce Dallas Howard, US actress, 43; John Irving, US novelist, 82; Dame Naomi James DBE, yachtswoman, 75; Jon Bon Jovi, rock singer, 62; Robert Lloyd CBE, British opera singer, 84; Lembit Öpik, Lib Dem politician 1997-2010, 59; James Purnell, ex-labour minister, 54; Sir John Tusa, British broadcaster, 88; Ian Woosnam OBE, Welsh golfer, 66.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1917 Desi Arnaz, actor; 1919 Jennifer Jones, US actress; 1923 Cardinal Basil Hume, Archbishop of Westminster; 1940 Billy Mcneill, Scottish footballer and manager; 1942 Lou Reed, US rock musician; 1950 Karen Carpenter, US singer. Deaths: 1791 John Wesley, founder of Methodism; 1930 DH Lawrence, novelist; 1939 Howard Carter, Egyptologist; 1987 Joan Greenwood, actress; 1987 Randolph Scott, US film actor; 1999 Dusty Springfield, singer; 2015 Dave Mackay, Scottish footballer; 2017 Tommy Gemmell, Scottish footballer.