Now & Then
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16 APRIL
1746: The Jacobites were defeated by the Duke of Cumberland’s forces at the battle of Culloden, terminating attempts by the Stuarts to regain the throne. 1804: War between British East India Company and Holkar of Indore began in India.
1912: American pilot Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly the English Channel, from Dover to Hardelot.
1917: A large crowd in Petrograd welcomed Lenin back from exile in Switzerland.
1924: The Metro Goldwyn Mayer film studio was formed – a merger between Metro-goldwyn and the Louis B Mayer Company.
1929: The first machine for making tea bags was patented.
1941: The Blitz reached climax as 500 German aircraft dropped 100,000 bombs in all-night attack on London.
1942: India’s Congress rejected terms of self-government offered by Britain.
1947: Fires and explosions wrecked Texas City, Texas, as a French freighter loaded with nitrate blew up, leaving an eventual death toll of more than 500.
1948: The Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (EEC) was set up.
1951: The British submarine Affray sank in the English Channel with the loss of 75 lives.
1953: The Royal yacht Britannia was launched by the Queen from John Brown’s yard on the Clyde. 1964: Twelve members of the Great Train Robbery gang were sentenced to a total of 307 years in jail.
1972: Apollo 16 was launched with John Young, Charles Duke and Thomas Mattingley; Young and Duke made the fifth Moon landing. 1975: Cambodian government in Phnom Penh asked for truce and offered to yield to Communist forces sweeping into the city. 1979: Seven killed, 63 injured, in head-on collision between trains at Wellneuk Junction, Paisley.
1988: Commando unit killed Palestine Liberation Organisation military commander in Tunis. 1990: Explosion caused by leaking gas killed at least 80 people on a commuter train in Bihar, India. 1990: Nelson Mandela was hailed by a 70,000 crowd at Wembley Stadium. 1991: First 300 United Nations observers arrived in Kuwait to monitor the ceasefire.
1992: President Mohammad Najibullah of Afghanistan was deposed in an army coup.
1993: The year’s second national rail strike kept thousands of commuters at home for a second Friday in two weeks.
1994: A British Sea Harrier was shot down over Gorazde in Bosnia, as United Nations jets tried to halt a Serbian assault on the town. 2003: The Treaty of Accession was signed in Athens admitting ten new member states to the European Union.
2007: A gunman killed 32 students and staff at Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, in America’s worst peacetime shooting. Cho Seung Hui, a student at the university, then shot himself. 2009: Scientists created a clock that takes 300 million years to lose just one second.
2014: A ferry carrying 475 passengers, mostly schoolchildren, capsized and sank off the coast of South Korea – 14 people died.
BIRTHDAYS
Akon, hip hop singer, 51; Baroness Joan Bakewell DBE, broadcaster and writer, 91; Ellen Barkin, American actress, 70; Nick Berry, British actor, 61; Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, 84; Paul di Resta, Scottish racing driver, 38; Lynne Franks OBE, British public relations consultant, 76; Martin Lawrence, American actor, 59; Conchita Martinez, Spanish tennis player, 52; Jimmy Osmond, pop singer, 61; Ed Byrne, Irish stand up comedian, 52; Bobby Vinton, American singer, 89.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1889 Sir Charles Chaplin, actor; 1918 Spike Milligan KBE, comedian; 1921 Sir Peter Ustinov, actor; 1922 Sir Kingsley Amis, novelist; 1924 Henry Mancini, composer; 1938 Gordon Wilson, leader of SNP; 1939 Dusty Springfield, singer; 1939 Donald Maccormick, Scottish broadcaster; 1947 Gerry Rafferty, Paisley-born singer and songwriter.
Deaths: 1850 Madame Tussaud, founder of wax museum; 1991 Sir David Lean, director; 1995 Arthur English, actor; 1998 Fred Davis, snooker champion; 2014 Frank Kopel, Dundee United footballer