NOW & THEN
29 JULY
1030: St Olaf, King of Norway, was killed in battle. Several churches in Shetland and Orkney were dedicated to him.
1565: Mary, Queen of Scots, married her cousin Lord Darnley, in the Old Abbey Chapel at Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh.
1567: James VI was crowned King of Scotland at the church of the Holy Rude in Stirling, following the abdication of Mary Queen of Scots five days earlier.
1588: The Spanish Armada was sighted off Cornwall. It was defeated by the English fleet under Howard and Drake, the battle beginning off Plymouth. 1783: Skaptar volcano in Iceland erupted, killing 9,000 people. 1836: The inauguration of the Arc de Triomphe took place in Paris.
1907: Sir Robert Baden-powell formed the Boy Scouts.
1914: the first transcontinental phone link was made between New York and San Francisco.
1921: Adolf Hitler was elected president of National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
1922: Music hall artist Will Hay was the first comedian on British radio, when excerpts from a forthcoming show at the Apollo Theatre were broadcast on a programme called Listening In.
1928: Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie, the movie in which Mickey and Minnie Mouse made their debuts, wasreleased.
1930: Airship R300 made the first passenger-carrying flight from the UK to Canada.
1945: The BBC Light Programme began broadcasting.
1948: King George VI opened the 14th Olympic Games at Wembley. They were to become known as the wettest ever held.
1949: The BBC televised the first regular weather forecast.
1954: Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of Lord of the rings by JRR Tolkein, was published by George Allen & Unwin.
1959: Hawaii voted for first time as one of United States, and elected first Orientals to be seated in United States Congress.
1965: Princess Margaret attended the premier of the Beatles movie Help! at the London Pavilion theatre.
1968: Pope Paul VI declared that any artificial form of birth control was prohibited.
1975: US president Gerald Ford visited the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
1976: Serial killer David Berkowitz, also known as “Son of Sam”, killed one person and injured another in the first of a series os shooting attacks in New Yor which left six people dead and seven others wounded.
1978: Penny Dean swam the English Channel in a record time of 7 hours 40 minutes.
1981: The Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer were married at St Paul’s Cathedral, London.
1989: London Weather Centre announced that 1989 had reached the record for the sunniest summer of the century.
1992: Chris Boardman became the first British cyclist for 84 years to win an individual Olympic gold medal when he won the 4,000 metres pursuit on his revolutionary “superbike” in Barcelona.
2009: A tornado hit Stornoway, causing widespread damage.