Now & Then
◆ 22 MARCH
1421: Scottish and French troops under the Earl of Buchan defeated English forces at Bauge in Anjou. 1622: About 35 Virginians were killed in the first Indian massacre of European colonists in North America.
1859: The first working class Labour Party was founded in Melbourne, Australia.
1888: The Football League was formed at a meeting in Fleet Street, London, with 12 clubs.
1895: Auguste and Louis Lumière demonstrated celluloid cinematograph film in Paris.
1917: United States becomes first nation to recognise new provisional government in Russia.
1926: First road markings came into operation at Hyde Park Corner, London. There were seven accidents on the first day as drivers tried to follow the painted signals. 1942: Britain began Morse code broadcasts to the French Resistance.
1945: Arab League was founded in Cairo.
1946: Jordan became a kingdom independent of British protection. 1963: United States attempted to mediate a political dispute that threatened civil war in South Vietnam.
1964: Anti-muslim violence broke out in India.
1972: More than 70 people were injured in Belfast when bomb exploded in car park near city’s largest hotel.
1987: Chadian soldiers seized a major Libyan ground and air base at Ouadi Doum in northern Chad after heavy fighting.
1988: Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze retreated from pledge to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
1989: Delegates from 105 countries, meeting in Switzerland, adopted a draft United Nations treaty to control international transport of dangerous wastes. 1989: A survey showed that Mickey Mouse and his Disney cartoon friends had ousted Lenin, the Bible and Agatha Christie as the most frequently translated works.
1990: Václav Havel said Czechoslovakia sold tons of Semtex explosives to Libya.
1991: United Nations mission to Iraq found Allied bombing had destroyed power plants, oil refineries and water treatment plants, with “near apocalyptic results”.
1994: People in Strathclyde voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to reject government plans to take water out of local authority control in Scotland.
1997: Tara Lipinski, age 14 years and ten months, became the youngest champion women’s World Figure Skating Champion. 2002: In a landmark ruling, seven Scottish judges made it illegal for a man to have sex with a woman without her consent.
2006: ETA, the armed Basque separatist group, declared a permanent ceasefire.
2016: Three co-ordinated terrorist bombings took place – two at Brussels Airport and one at Maalbeek metro station in the city. Thirty-one people lost their lives. 2017: Terrorist Khalid Masood ploughed his car through a crowd of pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before running towards parliament wielding a knife, fatally stabbing PC Keith Palmer before being shot dead by security staff. Three other victims died.
◆ BIRTHDAYS
William Shatner, Canadian actor (Star Trek’s Captain Kirk), 93; George Benson, Grammy Awardwinning singer and guitarist, 81; Desmond Browne, Baron Browne of Ladyton, defence secretary, 20068, 72; Lord (Andrew) Lloyd-webber composer, 76; Matthew Modine, American actor (Full Metal Jacket), 65; Rob Wainwright, former Scotland rugby captain, farmer, 59; Reese Witherspoon, actress, 48; Emma Wray, British actress (Watching, My Wonderful Life), 59.
◆ ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1599 Sir Anthony van Dyck, artist; 11887 Chico Marx, film comedian; 1910 Nicholas Monsarrat, author of sea novels, notably The Cruel Sea; 1923 Marcel Marceau, mime artist; 1950 Jocky Wilson, Fife-born darts player. Deaths: 896 Thomas Hughes, reformer who wrote Tom Brown’s Schooldays; 1903 Frederic William Farrar, clergyman and writer of school stories; 2010 Sir James Black, Scottish pharmacologist and Nobel laureate, chancellor, Dundee University 1992-2006; 2019 Scott Walker, lead singer of the Walker Brothers.