NOW & THEN
21 APRIL
1500: Pedro Alvares Cabral landed in Brazil, which he claimed for Portugal.
1916: Roger Casement, British diplomat and Irish patriot, landed in Ireland by German submarine to aid Easter Rising.
1918: Manfred von Richthofen, better known as the Red Baron, scourge of First World War British fliers, was killed when he was shot down in his red Fokker triplane.
1948: The first television award, the Television Society Silver Medal, was won by BBC producer George More O’ferrall for Hamlet.
1952: BOAC began world’s first jet-liner service, flying Comets between London and Rome.
1956: Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen signed military alliance at Jiddah.
1960: Brasilia was inaugurated as capital of Brazil.
1962: Radio paging was introduced by Bell Telephone Company.
1964: The BBC’S second television channel opened.
1966: The opening of Parliament was televised for the first time.
1967: Military coup in Greece resulted in King Constantine II fleeing to exile in Rome.
1975: South Vietnam’s president, Nguyen van Thieu, resigned, denounced United States as untrustworthy, and named successor to seek negotiations with Communist forces sweeping across country.
1977: Pakistan’s prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, assumed emergency powers and imposed martial law on three cities in crackdown on opponents trying to force his resignation.
1983: One pound coins went into circulation, replacing the paper notes in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland retained paper notes.
1985: Chris Bonington, 50, became the oldest climber to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
1987: Terrorists exploded bomb at height of rush-hour near main bus station in Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 150.
1989: Thousands of Chinese students marched into Tiananmen Square, Peking, demanding an end to the Communist system.
1990: Baroness de Stempel was jailed for seven years, Baron Michael de Stempel was jailed for four years, daughter Sophia Wilberforce was jailed for 30 months and son Marcus Wilberforce for 18 months following a plot to steal £500,000 from the senile Lady Illingworth.
1992: Robert Alton Harris, a double murderer, became the first person to be executed in California for 25 years after a series of late appeals failed.
1994: Second World War veterans forced the government to rethink its controversial plans for a D-day celebration event in Hyde Park, London.
2004: Five suicide car bombers targeted police stations in and around Basra, killing 74 people and wounding 160.
2009: CIA agents used waterboarding 266 times on two al-qaeda prisoners during the Noughties, according to an agency memo.
2010: UK airports reopened after six days of disruption due to Icelandic volcano eruption.
BIRTHDAYS
The Queen, 95; Angela Barrett CBE (Angela Mortimer), Wimbledon tennis champion, 89; Tony Danza, Italian-american actor (Taxi, Who’s the Boss?), 70; Charles Grodin, American actor (The Heartbreak Kid, Midnight Run), 86; Andie Macdowell, American actress (Sex, Lies and Videotape), 63; Iggy Pop (James Osterberg), rock singer, 74; Robert Smith, rock musician (The Cure), 62; Nicole Sullivan, American actress (Black-ish), 51; Princess Isabella of Denmark, 14; Max Chilton, British racing driver, 30; Robbie Amell, Canadian actor (The Tomorrow People, The Flash), 33.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1816 Charlotte Brontë, author; 1838 John Muir, conservationist; 1915 Anthony Quinn, actor; 1917 Megs Jenkins, actress (Oh No, It’s Selwyn Froggitt); 1923 Sir John Mortimer CBE QC, barrister, playwright and author
Deaths: 1995 Tessie O’shea, singer, actress and comedienne; 2001 12th Duke of Argyll; 2009 Jack Jones MBE, trade unionist and pensioners’ champion; 2016 Prince (born Prince Rogers Nelson), musician, singer, songwriter; 2019 Ken Kercheval, actor (Dallas).