NOW & THEN
14 DECEMBER
867: Adrian II began his reign as Catholic pope. 1287: The Zuiderzee sea wall collapsed, causing more than 50,000 deaths, during St Lucia’s Flood in north-west Netherlands – the fifth-largest recorded flood in history. 1542: Princess Mary Stuart ascended to the Scottish throne at just six days old, following the death of her father, James V, and became Mary I (Mary, Queen of Scots). 1782: Charleston, South Carolina was evacuated by the British during the American Revolutionary War. 1877: Serbia joined Russia in war on Turkey. 1896: The opening of Glasgow District Subway’s six-and-a-half mile system with 15 stations. 1901: The first table tennis tournament took place at the Royal Aquarium, London. 1911: Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer, became the first man to reach the South Pole - 35 days ahead of Captain Robert Falcon Scott. His party of five travelled by dog-sled, starting with 52 dogs and eating 36 of them en route. 1913: Greece formally took possession of Crete. 1918: Women over 30 voted in a British general election for the first time; David Lloyd George’s coalition won a clear majority; Sinn Fein won in 73 of 105 Irish constituencies but refused to take up any of their seats in parliament, instead meeting at a Dail Eireann in Dublin. 1920: The first accident involving a scheduled airliner occurred when an aircraft bound for Paris crashed into a house in Golders Green, London, just after take-off from Cricklewood Airport, killing the crew of two and two of the six passengers. 1926: A nationwide police hunt ended for Agatha Christie, whose abandoned car had been found in Surrey, when she was identified at a Harrogate hotel. 1927: China and Soviet Union broke off relations. 1957: Nine miners died in explosion at Lindsay Colliery in Fife. The report on the disaster blamed “a match struck for the purposes of smoking”. 1959: Archbishop Makarios was elected first president of Cyprus. 1960: Convention was signed in Paris by 20 nations to form Atlantic Economic Community. 1967: University of Stirling was constituted by royal charter. 1969: The Jackson 5 made their TV debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. 1994: Axing of the London-fort William sleeper was announced. It led to The Scotsman’s Save Our Sleeper campaign, and the service was later guaranteed for at least seven years. 2009: Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was taken to hospital after an assault left his face covered in blood following a rally in Milan. 2011: US President Barack Obama marked the end of the Iraq war with a speech at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, telling troops: “Welcome home!” 2012: Twenty-year-old gunman Adam Lanza shot to death 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
BIRTHDAYS
Natascha Mcelhone, actress, 44; Jane Birkin OBE, actress, 69; Linda Fabiani, SNP MSP, 59; Miranda Hart, comedian, 43; Michael Owen, footballer, 36; Mike Scott, Edinburgh-born singer (Waterboys), 57; Stan Smith, tennis player, 69; Chris Waddle, footballer and manager, 55; Sam Burgess, Rugby Union inernationalist, 27; Patti Duke, actress, 69; Leanne Mitchell, singer, first winner of The Voice, 32; Cliff Williams, musician (AC/DC), 66; Vicki Michelle, actress, 65; Lex Gold, civil servant and Scottish football administrator, 75; Spider Stacy, musician (The Pogues), 57.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1503 Nostradamus, apothecary and author of book of prophecies; 1730 James Bruce, Larbert-born explorer and discoverer of the source of the Blue Nile; 1775 Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald; 1895 King George VI, second son of George V and Mary; 1917 Alberto Morrocco, painter; 1920 Rosemary Sutcliff, novelist; 1924 Raj Kapoor, actor; 1935 Lee Remick, actress. Deaths: 872 Pope Adrian II; 1542 James V of Scotland, father of Mary, Queen of Scots (at Falkland); 1715 Thomas Tenison, Atchbishop of Canterbury; 1799 George Washington, first US president; 1861 Albert, consort and husband of Queen Victoria; 1947 Stanley, first Earl Baldwin, three times prime minister; 1947 Will Fyffe, comedian (at St Andrews); 1963 Dinah Washington, singer and pianist; 1989 Andrei Sakharov, nuclear physicist and human rights activist; 2012 Kenneth Kendall, broadcaster; 2013 Peter O’toole, actor.