NOW & THEN
24 APRIL
1558: Mary, Queen of Scots, married the Dauphin of France. She was 16.
1567: First printed book ever published in Gaelic, translated from English by Bishop John Carswell of the Isles, was Forms of Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Catechism of the Christian Faith.
1633: The Privy Council gave warrant to Sir John Hepburn to raise regiment of 1,200 men to fight in the French service. It was recruited mainly from Scottish mercenaries of Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years’ War. The corps ultimately became the First Regiment of Foot, The Royal Scots.
1792: La Marseillaise was composed by Claude Rouget de l’isle, a captain of engineers, after he had been asked by the Mayor of Strasbourg to provide a patriotic song in exchange for a bottle of wine.
1898: Spain declared war on United States after receiving US ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.
1916: Republican insurrection known as the Easter Rising occurred in Dublin on Easter Monday.
1927: English Table Tennis Association was formed.
1967: Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when parachute straps of his spacecraft became tangled during landing.
1970: After a national referendum, Gambia became a republic within the Commonwealth, having been a British colony since 1843.
1970: China launched its first satellite.
1971: Russian Soyuz 10 spacecraft linked up with orbiting space station Salyut.
1986: A pre-dawn bomb blast damaged British Airways office and other stores near Oxford Street, London.
1989: Muslim rebels shelled eastern Afghanistan city of Jalalabad, and at least 54 people were killed.
1990: United States space shuttle Discovery launched with giant Hubble telescope on board.
1992: Chris Patten was named governor of Hong Kong.
1993: An IRA bomb devastated a huge area of the City of London. One man was killed.
1994: Nine people died and 100 were injured in a car-bomb blast in Johannesburg as violence escalated in the run-up to South
Africa’s first all-race elections.
1995: The government agreed to the first face-to-face meeting in over 20 years between a minister and Sinn Fein to discuss peace in Northern Ireland.
1996: Lord Cameron ruled that doctors could withdraw artificial feeding from Janet Johnston, to allow her a “peaceful and dignified” death, the first rightto-die decision in Scotland.
2005: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.
2005: Snuppy, the world’s first cloned dog, was born in South Korea.
2014: The BBC suspended its membership of the CBI over the business organisation’s registration as a supporter of the No campaign in the Scottish independence debate. Kelly Clarkson, US singer, 37; Jean-paul Gaultier, fashion designer, 67; Djimon Hounsou, Beninese-born US actor, 55; Chris Kelly, British broadcaster, writer and producer, 79; Gabby Logan, British TV presenter, 46; Shirley Maclaine, US actress, 85; Michael O’keefe, US actor, 64; Bridget Riley CBE, British artist, 88; John Williams, Australian classical guitarist, 78: Lee Westwood OBE, golfer, 46; Laura Kenny (nee Trott) CBE, Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist, 27; Tommy Docherty, Scottish footballer and manager, 91
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1743 Edmund Cartwright, inventor of power loom; 1815 Anthony Trollope, novelist and inventor of pillar box; 1825 RM Ballantyne, Edinburgh-born novelist; 1889 Sir Stafford Cripps, Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer; 1892; 1914 Charlie Chester, comedian; 1924 Sir Clement Freud, writer, MP 1973-1987.
Deaths: 1731 Daniel Defoe, author; 1942 Lucy Montgomery, Canadian novelist; 1947 Willa Cather, novelist; 1974 Bud Abbott, comedian; 1986 Duchess of Windsor (Wallis Simpson); 2004 Estée Lauder, founder of cosmetics empire; 2014 Sandy Jardine, Scottish footballer.