NOW & THEN
5 NOVEMBER
1492: Christopher Columbus was introduced to corn by the inhabitants of Cuba.
1605: Guy Fawkes’s plot to blow up Parliament was foiled when 36 barrels of gunpowder were found in cellar.
1872: Ulysses S Grant was re-elected as US president.
1883: The Mahdi defeated Egyptian force under William Hicks at El Obeid and Britain decided to evacuate the Sudan.
1909: The first Woolworth’s store in Britain opened in Liverpool.
1912: The British Board of Film Censors was appointed. It decided on only two classifications - ‘Universal’ and ‘Not Suitable for Children’.
1916: Emperors Wilhelm II of Germany and Franz Jozef I of Austria established the kingdom of Poland.
1919: The world’s greatest screen lover, Rudolph Valentino, married actress Jean Acker, and found he was locked out on his wedding night. The marriage lasted less than six hours.
1927: Britain’s first set of automatic traffic lights began working in Wolverhampton.
1935: The modern version of the board game Monopoly was first published by Parker Brothers, subtitled ‘The Fast-dealing Property Trading Game’.
1945: Colombia joined the United Nations.
1956: Revolt in Hungary was quelled by Soviet forces who killed 20,000 people. Some Hungarians escaped to Britain.
1956: Britain and France landed forces in Egypt in reaction to the seizure of the Suez Canal.
1957: Mrs Nellie Mcgrail of Stockport, Cheshire scooped £205,235 on the football pools – the first to win a jackpot of more than £200,000.
1962: United Nations General Assembly demanded all nuclear tests cease by 1 January, 1963.
1966: Britain’s first post codes came into use, in Croydon.
1967: Forty-nine people died and 78 were injured when a train derailed at Hither Green, London. The survivors included Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees.
1975: Roof and top floor of Inveraray Castle were destroyed in a six-hour blaze. Most of its antiques and art treasures were rescued intact by estate workers and firemen. The castle was restored after a successful appeal campaign.
1988: Seven hundred Orangemen marched through Brixham, Devon, to celebrate the 300th anniversary of William of Orange’s arrival to claim the British throne.
2006: The former president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was sentenced to death at a court in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
2007: China’s first lunar satellite, Chang’e 1 went into orbit around the Moon.
2008: Barack Obama, a Democratic senator, was elected as the 44th president of the US and, in so doing, became the country’s first black president.
2009: Thirteen people were killed and 30 injured in a shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas. The attack was carried out by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an army psychiatrist.