ON THIS DAY
MAY 18
1804: Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Emperor of France.
1830: Edwin Budding of Gloucestershire signed an agreement for the manufacture of his invention, the lawn mower. The first customer was Regent’s Park Zoo.
1909: Fred Perry, three times Wimbledon men’s singles champion, was born. 1954: The European Convention on Human Rights came into force.
1961: The first London production of The Sound Of Music opened.
MAY 19
1536: Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII and mother of Queen Elizabeth I, was executed on Tower Green for alleged adultery.
1588: The Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon.
1900: Britain annexed Tonga, the Friendly Islands.
1982: Italian actress Sophia Loren was jailed for a month for tax evasion.
1984: Sir John Betjeman, Poet Laureate from 1972, died aged 77.
MAY 20
1498: Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut, southern India, after discovering a route via the tip of southern Africa. 1932: Amelia Earhart became the first woman to make a solo air crossing of the Atlantic.
1941: Germany began an aerial invasion of Crete.
1956: America dropped its first hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. 1991: In the USSR, the government passed a new law allowing Soviet citizens to leave the country of their own free will.
MAY 21
1471: Henry VI was murdered in the Tower of London.
1688: Poet and satirist Alexander Pope was born in London.
1780: Elizabeth Fry, English Quaker and prison reformer, was born in Norwich. 1840: New Zealand was declared a colony of Britain.
1851: Gold was discovered in Australia. 1894: The Manchester Ship Canal was opened.
1916: Clocks and watches in Britain went forward one hour as the Daylight Saving Act (Summer Time) was introduced. 1966: Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) ended Henry Cooper’s hopes of winning the world heavyweight crown for Britain in round six, in London.
MAY 22
1859: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, was born of Irish parents in Edinburgh.
1908: The Wright Brothers patented their flying machine.
1972: Ceylon became the Republic of Sri Lanka.
1981: ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ Peter Sutcliffe was found guilty at the Old Bailey of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others. He was sentenced to 30 years minimum.