NOW & THEN
2MAY
1536: Queen Anne Boleyn was sent to Tower of London and eventually beheaded.
1813: Napoleon Bonaparte defeated Prussian and Russian armies at Lutzen, Germany.
1895: British South Africa Company territory south of Zambesi was organised as Rhodesia.
1933: Adolf Hitler abolished trade unions in Germany.
1942: HMS Edinburgh sank in the Barents Sea off northern Norway after being torpedoed on 30 April while carrying gold from Russia to the United States to pay for arms.
1945: Soviet Army completed capture of Berlin. German forces surrendered in Italy.
1953: Stanley Matthews helped Blackpool recover from 3-1 down to beat Bolton Wanderers 4-3 in a thrilling FA Cup final, dubbed forever the “Matthews final”.
1959: Chapelcross nuclear power station, the first in Scotland, was opened.
1963: The Beatles achieved their first Number One with From Me To You.
1967: Labour government under prime minister Harold Wilson decided to seek membership in European Common Market.
1969: The QE2 made her maiden voyage.
1982: Argentine cruiser General Belgrano was sunk by British submarine HMS Conqueror off the Falklands – 368 people died.
1989: Communist Hungary began cutting the barbed-wire and electrically charged fencing dividing it from the West.
1990: African National Congress and South African government opened three days of negotiations in Cape Town on gradually ending white rule in South Africa.
1990: Northwest Airlines inaugurated first regular transatlantic flights between Glasgow and North America.
1992: At 56, Lester Pigott won his 30th British classic, riding Rodrigo de Triano to victory in the 2000 Guineas.
1993: Bosnian Serbs signed Vance-owen peace plan, raising hopes of an end to the fighting in former Yugoslavia.
1994: Stephen Hendry won his fourth World Snooker Championship at the Crucible, Sheffield, beating Jimmy White in the final frame.
1995: During the Croatian War of Independence, Serb forces fired cluster bombs at Zagreb, killing seven and wounding over 175 civilians.
2003: From the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, US president George W Bush announced in a nationally televised address in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner that major combat operations in Iraq had ended.
2004: Yelwa massacre of more than 630 nomad Muslims by Christians in Nigeria.
2011: Osama bin Laden, the man behind the 9/11 attacks on America, was killed at a private compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by US elite forces in a covert operation authorised by President Barrack Obama.
2014: More than 2,000 people were feared dead and 700 families were displaced when a torrent of mud swept through the village of Abi Barik in northeastern Afghanistan.
BIRTHDAYS
ISLA ST CLAIR Scottish singer, broadcaster and TV presenter, 67 Lily Allen, singer, 34; David Beckham OBE, English footballer, 44; Engelbert Humperdinck, 83; Bianca Jagger, human rights advocate and model, 74; Steve James, British snooker player, 58; Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, US actor and former wrestler, 47; Brian Lara, West Indian Test cricketer, 50; Lynda Myles, British film producer, director, Edinburgh International Film Festival 197380, 72; Willie Miller MBE, Scottish footballer and broadcaster, 64; David Suchet CBE, British actor, 73; Alan Titchmarsh MBE, British horticulturalist, broadcaster and author, 70; Jimmy White MBE, British snooker player, 57
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1729 Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia; 1810 Ebeneezer Cobham Brewer, compiler of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable; 1895 Lorenz Hart, lyricist; 1904 Bing Crosby, singer and film actor.
Deaths: 1519 Leonardo da Vinci, artist; 1964 Nancy, Lady Astor, first woman to sit in Commons; 1972 John Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI; 2008 Beryl Cook, painter; 2010 Lynne Redgrave OBE, British actress; 2014 Efrem Zimbalist junior, American actor; 2015 Ruth Rendell CBE, crime novelist.