NOW & THEN
20 APRIL
1653: The Long Parliament was forcibly dissolved by Oliver Cromwell.
1770: Captain James Cook discovered New South Wales.
1887: The world’s first motor race took place along the banks of the River Seine from the centre of Paris to Neuilly. It was organised by the editor of La Velocipede, and was won by Georges Bouton in his four-seater quadricycle.
1939: Battledress blouses were first issued in the British Army.
1949: The first three-day Badminton horse trials were held in Gloucestershire.
1957: Mayflower II, a replica of the Pilgrim Fathers’ ship, sailed from Plymouth to Cape Cod, the landfall of the 1620 original.
1968: Pierre Trudeau became Liberal prime minister of Canada for first time.
1972: Orion, lunar module of Apollo 16, landed on Descartes area of the Moon with Charles Duke and John Young. They made three walks and collected samples of rock. The rover travelled nearly 17 miles.
1981: Steve Davis became the world snooker champion at 23 years of age, beating Doug Mountjoy at Sheffield.
1986: Giant irrigation reservoir burst and flooded Sri Lanka town, leaving at least 100 people feared dead and up to 20,000 families homeless.
1987: PLO chairman Yasser Arafat called for sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
1989: Scientists said that the Earth narrowly missed being struck by a passing asteroid weighing 400 million tons.
1990: Lech Walesa was reelected chairman of Solidarity by a large margin.
1992: Spain’s Expo 92 exhibition was opened in Seville by King Juan Carlos.
1992: More than 70,000 packed Wembley Stadium for an AIDS Awareness concert in memory of Queen singer Freddie Mercury.
1993: The Council of the National Trust ruled that deerhunting would continue on its land – overruling a vote at its 1990 annual meeting.
1994: Priceless antique treasures were stolen in a raid on Sir Walter Scott’s Borders home at Abbotsford.
1995: Tory MPS David Tredinnick and Graham Riddick were suspended without pay from Parliament for 20 and ten days respectively in the “cash for questions” row.
1999: Two teenagers ran amok with guns and grenades in Columbine High School in Denver, Colorado, killing 23 people.
2007: A man with a handgun barricaded himself in Nasa’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas before killing a male hostage and himself.
2008: Danica Patrick won the Indy Japan 300 to become the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.
2010: BP’S Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers, before causing a massive natural disaster after the release of almost four million gallons of crude into the sea off the coast of Louisiana.
2011: It was revealed that “viable” parcel bombs were sent to Celtic manager Neil Lennon and two high-profile fans of the Glasgow club.
BIRTHDAYS
Baron Beith, MP 1973-2015, 78; Michael Brandon, US actor, 76; Ray Brooks, British actor, 82; Merlin Hay, 24th Earl of Erroll, Hereditary Lord High Constable of Scotland, 73; Sebastian Faulks CBE, British writer, 68; Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE, British conductor, 78; Paul Heiney, British broadcaster, 72; Louise Jameson, UK actress, 70; Jessica Lange, US actress, 72; Nicholas Lyndhurst, UK actor, 60; Brian Marchbank, golfer, 63; Ryan O’neal, US actor, 80; Peter Snow CBE, UK broadcaster, 83; George Takei, US actor, 84; Dame Rachel Whiteread DBE, British sculptor, 58; Crispin Glover, US actor, 57.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1893 Harold Lloyd, US silen film comedian; 1893 Joan Miró, Spanish artist; 1902 Sir Donald Wolfit, actor-manager; 1904 Bruce Cabot, actor; 1930 Sir Antony Jay CBE, British scriptwriter and producer Deaths:1912 Bram Stoker, auhor; 2004 Norris Mcwhirter, athlete, founder editor, Guinness Book of Records; 2012 Baron Ashley of Stoke, MP 1966-92; 2013 Deanna Durbin, actress; 2016 Victoria Wood CBE, comic and writer; 2017 Sir Ewen Fergusson, diplomat, Scotland international rugby player