NOW & THEN
19 APRIL
1587: Sir Francis Drake’s fleet sacked Cadiz in Spain. He called the action “singeing the King of Spain’s beard”.
1689: Followers of the Covenanter Richard Cameron, who had assembled at Edinburgh to guard the Revolution Convention of Estates, formed into a regiment under the Earl of Angus. The Cameronians disbanded in 1968.
1783: United States Congress announced the end of War of American Independence.
1794: Britain, by Treaty of The Hague, subsidised 60,000 Prussian and Dutch troops in coalition against France.
1843: The gas meter was patented by Carl Ludwig Farwig.
1921: The Government of Ireland Act went into effect.
1943: About 60,000 poorly armed Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto put up fierce resistance when attacked by a Nazi force with orders to wipe them out. A month later, the Nazi general in charge reported that the city’s Jewish quarter “no longer existed”.
1951: Kiki Håkansson, Miss Sweden, won the first Miss World Contest, held at the Lyceum Ballroom in London.
1956: Prince Rainier of Monaco married film actress Grace Kelly. She was the first American to wed a reigning monarch.
1956: Diver Commander Lionel “Buster” Crabbe disappeared in Portsmouth Harbour while investigating the hull of a Russian cruiser which had brought the Soviet leaders Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev to Britain. His headless body was washed up 14 months later.
1971: Soviets launched the first space station, Salyut.
1975: India’s first satellite was launched by Soviet rocket.
1982: Salisbury, capital of Zimbabwe, was renamed Harare.
1989: Riots erupted in Jordan against government-imposed price increases.
1990: In Nicaragua, representatives of Contras, outgoing Sandinista government and incoming government of Violeta Barrios Chamorro agreed on a ceasefire.
1990: The government won a Commons majority of 97 for its bill to give full British citizenship to up to 225,000 Hong Kong Chinese.
1990: Soviet Union announced oil and natural gas blockade of Lithuania to bring it into line with
centralist thinking.
1993: At least 85 people died when the 51-day Waco cult siege in Texas ended in tragedy as a giant ball of flame engulfed the compound.
1994: South Africa was pulled back from the edge of disaster when Zulu Chief Buthelezi called off his boycott of the country’s first all-race elections.
1995: A bomb ripped through a federal government building in Oklahoma, killing 168 people
2005: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, 78, of Germany, was elected successor to Pope John Paul II, taking the name Benedict XVI.
2009: Scottish scientists revealed they had discovered genetic “brakes” which could stop or slow down diseases such as MS and cancer.
BIRTHDAYS
SUE BARKER OBE
Tennis player and broadcaster, 63 Harold “Dickie” Bird OBE, cricket umpire, 86; Hayden Christensen, actor, 38; Tim Curry, British actor, 73; Trevor Francis, footballer and manager, 65; Dame Kelly Holmes MBE, DBE, Olympic double gold medal winner, 49; Kate Hudson, actress,40; Professorhugh Pennington CBE, Aberdeen University E coli expert, 81; Alan Price, British pop musician, 77; Michel Roux OBE, French chef and restaurateur, 78; Maria Sharapova, tennis player, 32; Ruby Wax OBE, US actress and comic, 66
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1903 Eliot Ness, US government special agent; 1905 Jim Mollison, Glasgowborn aviator who set record for Australia-england flight; 1931 Garfield Morgan, British actor; 1932 Jayne Mansfield, US actress; 1935 Dudley Moore, actor and musician; 1937 Antonio Carluccio OBE, Italian restaurateur; 1943 Margo Macdonald, MSP, MP 1973-4 and broadcaster.
Deaths: 1824 Lord Byron, poet; 1881 Benjamin Disraeli, prime minister; 1882 Charles Darwin, naturalist; 1906 Pierre Curie, French physicist who discovered radium; 1989 Daphne du Maurier, author; 1992 Frankie Howerd, comedian 2009 JG Ballard, novelist; 2011 Elisabeth Sladen, British actress.