ON THIS SUNDAY
1580: Sir Francis Drake arrived back in Plymouth in the Golden Hind – originally the Pelican – after 33 months, to make him the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world.
1687: The Parthenon in Athens was severely damaged when a mortar bomb, fired by the Venetian army, set off its gunpowder supplies. 1934: The British liner Queen Mary was launched at John Brown’s Yard in Clydebank, Scotland.
1937: “The Empress of the Blues” Bessie Smith died in a car crash in Mississippi, amid rumours that she had bled to death while a white person had been given preferential treatment. 1953: Sugar rationing ended in Britain.
1957: West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein’s musical based on Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet, opened in Broadway’s Winter Garden, New York.
1977: Sir Freddie Laker’s first Skytrain service began between Gatwick and New York.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: After three years of extensive restoration work, scaffolding was finally set to be removed from the tower housing London’s iconic Big Ben.