NOW & THEN
19 JULY
1333: Battle of Halidon Hill at Berwick, in which Scots lost 600 men as they were crushed by Edward III of England and Edward Balliol.
1524: The Peasants’ War began in the Black Forest in Germany.
1545: The Mary Rose, flagship of Henry VIII’S battle fleet, keeled over and sank in the Solent with the loss of 700 lives.
1553: Mary Tudor was proclaimed Queen, while 15-yearold Lady Jane Grey, a Protestant, was deposed after only nine days and sent to the Tower.
1588: “There’s plenty of time to finish this game and thrash the Spaniards too,” Sir Francis Drake was said to have commented on Plymouth Hoe as he played bowls while the Spanish Armada approached.
1692: Five people were hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, bringing the total to 20.
1821: Coronation of King George IV took place in Westminster Abbey.
1836: Charles Darwin’s ship, HMS Beagle, reached Ascension Island.
1870: The Franco-prussian War began after France declared war on Prussia.
1877: Spencer Gore became the first Wimbledon men’s singles champion, defeating William Marshall 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 in the final.
1879: Wild west gambler and gunman Doc Holliday made his first killing after a man shot up his bar in New Mexico.
1912: A meteorite, estimated to be 190kg of mass, exploded over Holsbrook, Arizona, causing approximately 16,000 pieces of debris to rain down on the town.
1940: Adolf Hitler ordered Great Britain to surrender.
1941: British prime minister Winston Churchill launched his “V for Victory” campaign during the Second World War.
1956: US and Britain informed Egypt they could not participate in financing Aswan Dam project.
1952: Freddie Trueman took eight wickets for 31 runs for England against India at Old Trafford.
1957: The first rocket fitted with a nuclear warhead was fired at Yucca Flat, Nevada.
1961: Trans-world Airlines showed the first in-flight movie.
1969: Apollo 11 went into Moon
orbit. 1979: On Nicaragua’s Liberation Day, the Sandinistas took over from Somoza. 1985: The Val di Stava dam collapsed killing 268 people in Val di Stava, Italy.
2001: The novelist and former MP, Lord Archer, was jailed for four years at the Old Bailey for perverting the course of justice and committing perjury during his 1987 libel trial against the Daily Star, which had accused him of sleeping with a prostitute.
2002: A public inquiry ruled that GP Harold Shipman, serving life for murdering 15 patients, altogether killed 215 patients in Hyde, near Manchester, and that he might have been responsible for 45 other deaths.
2011: News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch, his son, James, and the firm’s former chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, faced questions from MPS over the phone-hacking scandal that had led the media baron to shut down the News of the World.
BIRTHDAYS
HELEN SKELTON
TV presenter, 35 Nicola Sturgeon MSP, First Minister, 48; Anthony Edwards, actor, 56; Dame Evelyn Glennie DBE, Scottish percussionist and composer, 53; Angela Griffin, actress, 42; Brian May CBE, guitarist (Queen), 71; Ilie Nastase, tennis player, 72; Donald Park, Scottish footballer and coach, 65; Mark Wigglesworth, conductor, 54; Benedict Cumberbatch CBE, actor, 42
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1814 Samuel Colt, inventor of revolver; 1834 Edgar Degas, Impressionist painter; 1846 Edward Pickering, astronomer; 1 1896 AJ (Archibald Joseph) Cronin, Cardross-born novelist and creator of Dr Finlay; 1933 4th Viscount Colville of Culross, judge 1993-9.
Deaths: 1374 Petrarch, poet; 1543 Lady Mary Boleyn, mistress of Henry VIII; 1545 Roger Grenville, captain of the Mary Rose; 1819 John Playfair, Edinburghborn mathematician; 1937 Sir James Barrie, creator of Peter Pan; 1993 Cardinal Gordon Gray, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh; 2013 Bert Trautmann, former prisoner of war and FA Cup-winning goalkeeper; 2013 Mel Smith, comedian, writer and actor;.