NOW & THEN
19 JUNE
1820: A baton was first used to conduct an orchestra in England, by Ludwig Spohr.
1829: The London Metropolitan Police was founded by Sir Robert Peel.
1850: Discovery of spiral nebulae announced by Earl of Rosse.
1866: First chess championships, the British Nationals, were played at St George’s Club, London.
1867: Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was executed by firing squad on orders of new liberal president, Benito Juárez.
1895: The Kiel Canal, connecting the North Sea with the Baltic, was formally opened by the German emperor Wilhelm II.
1905: The world’s first allmotion picture theatre opened in Pittsburgh.
1910: Father’s Day was initiated in America by Mrs John Bruce Dodd, to honour her own father, who brought up six children after their mother died.
1910: Deutschland, the first Zeppelin airliner, was launched. It crashed nine days later.
1917: The House of Commons voted by a majority of 330 to give votes to women over 30.
1931: Canadian opera singer Lissaint Beardmore made first cross-channel glider flight from Lympne, Kent, to Boulogne.
1953: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed at Ossining, New York, for espionage.
1960: Daimler was acquired by Jaguar Motors.
1961: Kuwait became independent. 1964: The Civil Rights Bill was passed by United States Senate. 1967: The Monterey Pop Festival attracted thousands of hippies to watch stars including Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin and The Who.
1968: House of Lords rejected Labour government’s sanctions against Rhodesia.
1987: Israel condemned decision by Pope John Paul II to grant audience to Austria’s president, Kurt Waldheim.
1989: Israelis clamoured to buy copies of the Hebrew translation of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. All 4,000 copies sold in three days.
1990: President François Mitterrand of France called for the European Community to give aid to Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev to help his economic reforms.
1995: A report into the activities of Monklands District Council said that there had been abuse of power by councillors, including “jobs for the boys” and sectarian discrimination.
1996: Britain offered to increase the number of cows to be culled in the “mad cow” affair from 80,000 to 150,000 in an attempt to get the European Commission to lift its export ban.
1997: William Hague, 36, became the youngest Conservative leader in more than 200 years when he defeated Kenneth Clarke by 92 votes to 70, to succeed John Major.
2009: A report claimed that 100 people are killed by sunbeds in the UK each year.
2011: Northern Ireland’s Rory Mcilroy became the youngest US Open champion since Bobby Jones in 1923 after his stunning victory by eight strokes at the Congressional Country Club, in Washington. It was Mcilroy’s first win in a golfing major.
BIRTHDAYS
Paula Abdul, American singer and television presenter, 57; Lisa Aziz, British television presenter, 57; Mark Debarge, American pop musician, 60; 35; Boris Johnson MP, Mayor of London 2008-2016, British foreign secretary 2016- , 55; Gena Rowlands, American actress, 89; Sir Salman Rushdie, author, 72; Kathleen Turner, American actress, 65; Samuel West, British actor, 53; Sadie Frost, English actress, 54.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1566 King James VI , only son of Mary, Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley (in Edinburgh Castle); 1623 Blaise Pascal, mathematician and philosopher, inventor of first calculating machines; 1861 Earl Haig, army commander; 1896 Bessie Wallis Warfield, Duchess of Windsor; 1902 Guy Lombardo, bandleader; 1906 Sir Ernst Chain, bacteriologist and pioneer of penicillin. Deaths: 1787 John Brown, theologian (at Haddington); 1820 Sir Joseph Banks, botanist who accompanied Cook on his voyage round the world in the Endeavour; 1937 Sir James M Barrie, author of Peter Pan; 1953 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, spies (executed); 1993 Sir William Golding, author (Lord of the Flies).