NOW & THEN
3 JANUARY
1431: Joan of Arc was handed over to Bishop Pierre Cauchon.
1496: Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tested a flying machine.
1521: Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic church by Pope Leo X.
1777: General George Washington’s revolutionary army defeated British forces at the Battle of Princeton during the American Revolutionary War.
1825: Scottish factory owner Robert Owen bought 30,000 acres in the state of Indiana as the site for New Harmony Utopia community.
1833: Britain seized control of the Falkland Islands.
1848: Joseph Jenkins Roberts was sworn in as first president of the independent African Republic of Liberia.
1870: Construction began on the Brooklyn Bridge, New York. It was completed in May 1883.
1888: The first drinking straws were patented.
1911: Sidney Street siege, with more than 1,000 troops and armed police involved when three anarchists were trapped inside No 100 Sidney Street in London’s East End. The house burned down and two charred bodies were found, but one, “Peter the Painter”, is believed to have escaped.
1915: The first use of tear-gas in warfare was reported – by Germans against Russians in Poland.
1919: Prof Ernest Rutherford split the atom for first time.
1958: Sir Edmund Hillary reached South Pole with a New Zealand party, the first to do so overland since Captain Scott.
1961: US severed relations with Cuba.
1971: The Open University was inaugurated.
1974: Kuwait reached agreement with Gulf Oil and British Petroleum Companies for 60 per cent takeover of their operations in Persian Gulf state.
1977: Largest loan in 30-year history of International Monetary Fund, almost $4 billion, was made to Britain to bolster its currency.
1988: Margaret Thatcher became longest serving prime minister of the century.
1989: Amnesty International accused Turkish authorities of routinely torturing political detainees.
1990: General Manuel Noriega surrendered to US troops in
Panama and was flown to Florida to face drug charges in America.
1990: Employment secretary Norman Fowler resigned to spend more time with his family.
1990: Lord Young, former trade secretary, refused to give evidence to the public accounts committee on the sale of Rover to British Aerospace.
1996: Jackie Stewart announced that he was to make a comeback in Formula 1 racing as a team owner, 22 years after his third world driver’s championship.
1999: The Mars Polar Lander was launched.
2012: Scotland was hit by another fierce storm following the so-called “Hurricane Bawbag” the previous month. This time, winds reached 102mph causing millions of pounds of damage and 85,000 homes were left without power.