NOW & THEN
14 JANUARY
1205: A great frost gripped the whole country, lasting until 22 March.
1690: The clarinet was invented in Nuremburg, Germany.
1699: Massachusetts held a day of fasting for wrongly persecuting “witches”.
1724: King Philip V abdicated the Spanish throne.
1784: The US Congress of the Confederation ratified the Treaty of Paris at the end of the US Revolutionary War.
1814: The last London Frost Fair was held. Crowds flocked on to the frozen Thames to enjoy a variety of entertainment.
1858: French emperor Napoleon III escaped an attempt on his life by Felice Orsini, an Italian patriot who was later executed.
1878: Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his telephone to Queen Victoria, who made the first private call in the British Isles from her residence on the Isle of Wight.
1897: Aconcagua, Argentina, the highest peak in the western hemisphere (22,834ft) first climbed by William Martin, Baron Conway of Allington, British climber and art critic.
1900: Puccini’s opera Tosca premiered in Rome.
1907: More than 1,000 people died as the result of an earthquake in Jamaica.
1937: The first Gallup opinion poll took place in Britain, conducted by Doctor Henry Durant.
1938: Walt Disney’s first fulllength Technicolor cartoon Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs had its première in the US. It opened in London in 1939.
1939: Norway claimed Queen Maud Land in Antarctica.
1943: The Casablanca conference, between President Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, began.
1950: US recalled all consular personnel from China.
1953: Tito became president of Republic of Yugoslavia.
1956: Little Richard released Tutti Frutti.
1960: The US army promoted Elvis Presley to sergeant.
1975: Seventeen-year-old heiress Lesley Whittle was kidnapped in Shropshire by Donald Neilson, known as the “Black Panther”, who was later sentenced to life imprisonment for her kidnap and murder.
1986: Law requiring motorists to wear seatbelts in front seats came into effect.
1987: Guinness board sacked Ernest Saunders.
1989: Ronald Reagan made a farewell address to the American people shortly before the end of his eight-year presidency.
1989: The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie, was publicly burned at a demonstration by more than 1,000 Muslims in Bradford city centre.
1991: Yasser Arafat’s deputy, Salah Khalaf, was assassinated in Tunis after criticising PLO support for Saddam Hussein.
1992: Israel opened peace talks with Jordan and resumed bargaining with Palestinians.
1995: A newspaper poll suggested that Prince William, rather than his father, Prince Charles, was the popular choice to become King.
2000: A UN tribunal sentenced five Bosnian Croats to up to 25 years for the 1993 killing of over 100 Muslims in a Bosnian village.
2005: Landing of the Huygens probe on Saturn’s moon Titan.