Now & Then
◆ 8 APRIL
1766: London watchmaker David Marie patented the first fire escape – a wicker basket let down by chain and pulley.
1907: Britain and France signed a convention confirming independence of Siam (Thailand). 1908: Herbert Henry Asquith became Liberal prime minister and held office until 7 December, 1916.
1915: The Croix de Guerre, France’s military decoration for bravery in battle, was instituted.
1938: Paul Temple, the amateur detective created by Francis Durbridge for an eight-part radio series in the English Midlands, began his sleuthing – and continued for 30 years.
1953: Jomo Kenyatta and five others were convicted of involvement with Mau Mau terrorism in the British colony of Kenya. Kenyatta stayed in detention until 1959 and was Kenya’s first president and prime minister.
1962: Nearly 1,200 Bay of Pigs invaders were sentenced to 30 years in jail in Cuba.
1966: Leonid Brezhnev became Soviet leader.
1967: The Eurovision Song Contest was won by the British entry, Puppet On A String, sung by the shoeless Sandie Shaw.
1967: All but one of the 27 horses still running in the Grand National were involved in a pile-up at the 23rd fence. The exception, 100-1 shot Foinavon, ran on to win.
1991: John Major introduced a plan for United Nations-protected enclaves in northern Iraq as ‘safe havens’ for thousands of Kurdish refugees exposed on Turkish border mountains.
1992: Yasser Arafat, Palestine Liberation chairman, survived a plane crash in a sandstorm in the Libyan desert.
1992: Punch magazine, the legendary humour title, folded after 151 years.
1992: Retired tennis great Arthur Ashe announced that he had Aids, acquired from blood transfusions during one of his two heart surgeries.
1993: The Salvation Army said it had lost £5 million in an allegedly fraudulent investment scheme. 2002: A 300 million worldwide television audience watched the Queen Mother’s funeral at Westminster Abbey. Some 200,000 people had queued for up to eight hours to walk through Westminster Hall over the four days of lying in state.
2004: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement was signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups.
2006: The bodies of eight men, all shot to death, were found in a field in Ontario, Canada. The murders were linked to the Bandidos motorcycle gang.
2008: The construction of the world’s first building to integrate wind turbines was completed in Bahrain.
2014: Voters in Quebec voted a resounding “No” in a third referendum on independence from Canada, one of the worst ever electoral defeats for the main separatist party in the French-speaking province, Parti Quebecois.
2017: One for Arthur, trained in Milnathort by Lucinda Russell, won the Grand National at Aintree, becoming only the second Scottish-trained horse to win the world-famous steeplechase.
◆ BIRTHDAYS
Patricia Arquette, American actress, 56; Mark Blundell, racing driver and commentator, 58; Emma Caulfield, US actress, 51; Roger Chapman, British rock singer, 82; Gordon Chisholm, Scottish footballer, 64; Steve Howe, British rock guitarist, 77; Julian Lennon, musician, 61; Robin Wright, American actress, 58; Alec Stewart OBE, English cricketer, 61; Baroness Young of Old Scone, life peer, 76, Dean Norris, actor, 61, Josh Widdecombe, comedian, 41.
◆ ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1889 Sir Adrian Boult, conductor; 1893 Mary Pickford, silent film actress; 1912 Sonja Henie, skater and film actress; 1919 Ian Smith, Prime Minister of Rhodesia 1964-79; 1930 Eric Porter, actor; 1930 Dame Dorothy Tutin, actress; 1938 Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general 1997-2007; 1944 Hywel Bennett, British actor. Deaths: 1950 Vaslav Nijinsky, ballet dancer; 1973 Pablo Picasso, Spanish artist; 2009 Lennie Bennett, British comic; 2010 Malcolm Mclaren, musician and impresario; 2013 Baroness Thatcher, prime minister 1979-90