NOW & THEN
6 JANUARY
1066: Harold was crowned King of England in succession to Edward the Confessor.
1540: Henry VIII married wife number four, Anne of Cleves. The marriage was dissolved after six months.
1649: The “Rump” parliament voted to put King Charles I on trial for treason and other “high crimes”.
1681: The first recorded boxing match took place when the Earl of Albemarle organised a contest between his butler and his butcher, which was won by the latter.
1781: The Battle of Jersey was fought between Britain and France. It was a failed attempt by French invaders to remove the threat which the island posed to French and American shipping during the American War of Independence.
1838: Samuel Morse demonstrated his electric telegraph.
1916: The Allies began to evacuate Gallipoli.
1928: The River Thames overflowed, drowning 14 people in basement homes. It filled the moat of the Tower of London and the basement of the Tate Gallery, where many paintings were damaged.
1929: Mother Teresa arrived in Calcutta to begin her work among India’s poor and diseased.
1930: Don Bradman scored 452 not out in a single innings, breaking all first class cricket records, in Sheffield Shield match, in Sydney. The scoring rate was 65 runs an hour and he hit 49 fours.
1941: American president Franklin D Roosevelt defined American goal of “Four Freedoms” – freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.
1945: The Battle of the Bulge ended.
1950: Britain recognised Communist regime in China.
1957: Five members of crew lost when fishery cruiser Vaila sank off Lewis.
1964: Pope Paul VI ended three-day tour of Holy Land the first Pope to visit there since Christianity began.
1977: EMI records dropped the punk band The Sex Pistols.
1988: Israeli soldiers broke up violent demonstrations in occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
1980: Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party won the general election in India.
1989: Soviet Union called downing of two Libyan aircraft by US “absolutely unfounded”.
1990: Polish Communist leaders voted to disband their party and form a new leftist party under a different name.
1991: Saddam Hussein told Iraqis to prepare for a long war against “tyranny represented by the US”.
1993: Bill Wyman announced that he would be leaving the Rolling Stones.
2011: The pies at Ayrshire bakery Irvine’s of Beith were judged the best in the world at the World Scotch Pie Championships.
BIRTHDAYS
Nigella Lawson, cookery writer and broadcaster, 60; Rowan Atkinson CBE, comedian and actor, 65; Angus Deayton, TV presenter and actor, 64; Kapil Dev, cricketer and golfer, 61; Martin O’neill, Baron O’neill of Clackmannan, 75; Terry Venables, football manager and commentator, 77; Sir Clive Woodward OBE, England Rugby Union coach 1997-2004, 64; Norman Reedus, actor, 51; Eddie Redmayne OBE, actor, 38
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1367 King Richard
II, last Plantagenet King of England; 1412 Joan of Arc, Maid of Orleans; 1884 Gregor Mendel, geneticist; 1920 John Maynard Smith, British biologist and geneticist; 1924 Earl Scruggs, bluegrass musician; 1946 Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd founder and songwriter; 1953 Malcolm Young, Scottish musician (AC/DC); 1954 Anthony Minghella, scriptwriter and film director.
Deaths: 1852 Louis Braille, inventor of raised-dot system used by the blind; 1884 Gregor Mendel, founder of modern science of genetics; 1981 AJ Cronin, Scottish physician and novelist; 1990 Ian Charleson, Scottish actor; 1993 Rudolf Nureyev, ballet dancer; 1993 Dizzy Gillespie, jazz trumpeter; 2012 Bob Holness, radio and TV presenter; 2015 Lance Percival, singer and actor.