NOW & THEN
2 JULY
311: Saint Militides began his reign as Catholic pope.
1266: By the Treaty of Perth, Norway renounced its claim on the Hebrides.
1578: Martin Frobisher sighted Baffin Island.
1687: King James II disbanded parliament.
1698: Thomas Savery patented the first steam engine.
1839: Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves, led by Joseph Cinque, took over the slave ship Amistad.
1865: Former Methodist minister William Booth and his wife Catherine founded the Salvation Army.
1900: Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin flew his first airship near Berlin.
1901: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed a train of $40,000 at Wagner, Wyoming.
1908: Dumfries recorded a record high temperature of 32.8C (91F).
1921: Jack Dempsey knocked out Georges Carpentier to win the world heavyweight title in boxing’s first fight to take more than a million dollars in admission money.
1928: British parliament reduced the age at which women could vote to 21.
1937: Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during an attempted circumnavigation of the globe.
1940: Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion of Britain.
1941: Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit premiered in London.
1948: Henry Cotton won the Open Championship at Muirfield with a score of 284.
1956: Elvis Presley recorded Hound Dog and Don’t Be Cruel.
1966: France exploded an atomic bomb in the Pacific in the first of six tests.
1971: The Erskine Bridge over the River Clyde was opened.
1972: Fiddler on the Roof closed at the Imperial Theatre, New York, after 3,242 performances.
1976: North and South Vietnam were formally reunified.
1982: Truck driver Larry Walters, using a patio chair and 45 helium-filled weather balloons, rose to almost 16,000ft and floated from San Pedro in Calfornia to controlled airspace near Los Angeles International Airport, where police were waiting to arrest him.
1985: The European Space Agency launched Giotto, a robotic spacecraft which flew by and observed Halley’s Comet.
1990: A stampede killed 1,400 pilgrims in Mecca.
1994: Colombian World Cup star Andres Escobar, who scored an own goal as his side was knocked out of the tournament, was shot dead after returning home.
2001: Barry George was jailed for life at the Old Bailey for the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando. His conviction was quashed in 2007.
2002: Steve Fossett, an American millionaire businessman, became the first person to fly a balloon solo round the world.
2008: Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages held by Farc guerrillas, were rescued.
2014: Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was charged with corruption.