NOW & THEN
14 JULY
BASTILLE DAY
1789: The Bastille, a former state prison in Paris, was stormed by the citizens of Paris and razed – the start of the French Revolution.
general election.
1853: The first World’s Fair opened at the Crystal Palace in New York.
1865: Edward Whymper, Lord Francis Douglas, Charles Hudson, Douglas Hadow, Michel Croz and two Zermatt guides, Peter Taugwalder father and son, became the first climbers to reach the summit of Matterhorn. Douglas, Hudson, Hadow and Croz were killed on the descent when Hadow slipped and pulled the other three with him down the north face.
1867: Swedish engineer Alfred Nobel demonstrated the use of dynamite, at Merstham Quarry, Redhill, Surrey.
1868: Alvin J Fellows patented the tape measure.
1902: The campanile in St Mark’s Square, Venice, collapsed. Remarkably, nobody was killed.
1927: The Scottish National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle was formally opened.
1930: The BBC transmitted the first television play, A Man with a Flower in his Mouth.
1940: The Soviet Union annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
1946: Dr Benjamin Spock’s baby bible, Common Sense Book of Baby And Child Care, was published, and became a 30-year best seller. Twentyeight years later he said he no longer backed his own theories.
1967: United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution asking Israel to halt action it was taking to alter Jerusalem after the Six-day War.
1967: Surveyor 4 – the fourth unmanned lunar lander sent to explore the moon – was launched. It exploded moments before landing back on earth.
1969: A 67-year-old Catholic civilian, Francis Mccloskey, died after being hit on the head by the baton of an RUC policeman during street disturbances in Dungiven, county Derry. It is believed to have been the first death of The Troubles.
1990: The trade and industry secretary, Nicholas Ridley, resigned after publication of interview in which he accused Germany of trying to take over Europe and called French obedient “poodles” to the
Germans.
1992: The government published its white paper on the privatisation of British Rail.
1994: It was announced Scotland would lose about 1,500 defence jobs out of 18,700 axed across the UK.
2000: A solar flare, later named the Bastille Day event, caused a geomagnetic storm on Earth.
2002: French president Jacques Chirac escaped an assassination bid at Bastille Day celebrations.
2010: A schoolboy reeled in the biggest goldfish ever found in Britain – a 5lb, 1ft 6in monster from a lake in Poole, Dorset. He threw it back.
2014: The Church of England voted in favour of allowing women to become bishops.
2014: The death toll from the west African Ebola outbreak reached 500.