Now & Then
◆ 30 MARCH
1772: Robert Clive defended his administration of Bengal, in India, at a hearing in the House of Commons.
1820: Duc de Richelieu re-established censorship in France.
1842: Ether was used as an anaesthetic for the first time, by American surgeon Doctor Crawford Long, of Jefferson, Georgia, when he removed a cyst from the neck of James Venable after administering sulphuric ether on a towel.
1855: Treaty of Peshawar, whereby Britain and Afghanistan formed an alliance against Persia.
1855: End of Taiping rebellion in China.
1856: The Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Crimean War. 1863: Denmark incorporated Schleswig Holstein.
1863: Poland was divided into provinces by Russia.
1867: Alaska was bought by America from Russia for $7.2 million. The 375 million acres worked out at less than 2 cents an acre, and included rights to fur, fish, timber, minerals and gold.
1912: Sultan of Morocco signed a treaty making Morocco a French protectorate.
1933: James Hertzog formed a national coalition in South Africa and was joined by Jan Smuts. 1940: Japan established a puppet government in occupied China. 1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg found guilty in America’s first atom bomb spy trial. They were subsequently executed.
1964: The seaside resort of Clacton was the scene of pitched battles by gangs of mods and rockers.
1966: United States embassy in Saigon was blown up by the Vietcong with the loss of 13 lives. 1967: The tanker Torrey Canyon, which had gone aground on the Pollard Rock between the Isles of Scilly and Land’s End on 18 March, was bombed and destroyed. 1972: William Whitelaw became secretary of state for Northern Ireland as the province came under direct rule from London.
1974: Chinese airliner arrived in New York in what was described as the first civilian flight from the Chinese mainland to the United States.
1981: United States president
Ronald Reagan was wounded in an assassination bid outside Washington’s Hilton Hotel.
1987: Sunflowers, by Vincent van Gogh, was sold at auction by Christie’s for £24,750,000.
1988: Sikh militants killed 15 people in overnight attacks in the northern Indian state of Punjab. 1990: Estonia’s parliament declared the Soviet Union an occupying power and pledged to seek full independence.
1992: The United Nations voted to impose sanctions on Libya for failing to hand over two Lockerbie bombing suspects.
1994: The prime minister, John Major, dismissed the IRA’S announcement of a post-easter three-day ceasefire as “selfserving and cynical”.
2010: Scotland was battered by severe storms that forced the closure of several main road and rail arteries.
2012: Two men were convicted of plotting to send parcel bombs designed to cause severe injury to Celtic manager Neil Lennon and two other high-profile fans.
◆ BIRTHDAYS
Sarah Badel, British actress, 81; Warren Beatty, US actor, 87; Tracy Chapman, US singer and -songwriter, 60; Eric Clapton CBE, British guitarist, 79; Sue Cook, British broadcaster, 75; Céline Dion, singer, 56; Margaret Fingerhut, British concert pianist, 69; MC Hammer (Stanley Kirk Burrell), rapper, 62; Norah Jones, singer and pianist, 45; Chris Paterson MBE, Scottish rugby player, 46; Stuart Armstrong, Scottish footballer, 32; Simone Ashley, actress, 29.
◆ ANNIVERSARIES
Births:1820 Anna Sewell, author of Black Beauty; 1853 Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch painter; 1880 Sean O’casey, Irish playwright; 1913 Frankie Laine, singer; 1921 Elizabeth Millicent Sutherland, 24th Countess of Sutherland, chief of Clan Sutherland; 1928 Tom Sharpe, British novelist (Wilt). Deaths: 1979 Airey Neave, MP and barrister; 1986 James Cagney, US actor; 2002 Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother; 2004 Alistair Cooke KBE, broadcaster; 2014 Kate O’mara, actress; 2018 Bill Maynard, actor; 2020 Bill Withers, singersongwriter.