NOW & THEN
21 JUNE
1675: Work began on the rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral, burned in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Money for the rebuilding was raised by a coal tax.
1796: Explorer Mungo Park reached the River Niger.
1813: The Battle of Vittoria, Wellington’s decisive victory over the French in the Peninsular War.
1843: The Royal College of Surgeons was founded in London.
1854: The first Victoria Cross was won by a 20-year-old Irishman, Charles Lucas. He picked up an unexploded bomb aboard HMS Hecla at Bomarsund in the Baltic and threw it over the side.
1887: Britain annexed Zululand, blocking Transvaal’s attempts to gain access to the coast.
1919: Seventy-two warships of the German fleet were scuttled in Scapa Flow, Orkney.
1929: Premiere of Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Blackmail, at the Regal Cinema, Marble Arch, London, the first full-length talking feature film in Britain.
1937: Lawn tennis at Wimbledon was televised for the first time.
1942: Tobruk fell to German forces with the capture of 25,000 Allied troops.
1948: The first successfully produced microgroove (long playing) records were unveiled by Doctor Peter Goldmark of Columbia Records.
1970: Brazil beat Italy in Mexico City to become football’s world champions and win the Jules Rimet Trophy for a record third time.
1970: Tony Jacklin became the first Briton since Ted Ray in 1920 to win the US Open golf championship, at Chaska, Minnesota.
1982: John Hinckley was acquitted of the attempted murder of president Ronald Reagan on grounds of insanity.
1988: In New York, a pair of crimson shoes worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz fetched $165,000 (£97,000) at auction.
1990: Prime minister Margaret Thatcher dismissed plans for Britain joining European exchange rate system.
1994: Singer George Michael lost an English High Court battle to break free from a long-term recording contract with Sony Records.
2000: Section 28 (outlawing the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in the United Kingdom) was repealed in Scotland with a 99 to 17 vote.
2003: The home secretary
called for an urgent report into how Aaron Barschak, a Fringe comedian, gatecrashed Prince William’s 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle.
2006: Pluto’s newly-discovered moons were officially named “Nix” and “Hydra”.
2010: Britain’s military death toll in Afghanistan reached 300.
2012: The first strike by doctors in the UK for almost 40 years took place.
2012: The credit ratings agency Moody’s downgraded 15 banks and financial institutions. UK banks downgraded included RBS, Barclays and HSBC.
2015: The world’s largest and smelliest flower, the Amorphophallus Titanum, which generally takes seven to ten years to bloom, came into flower at Edinburgh’s Royal Botanical Garden, reaching a final measurement of 267 centimetres.