NOW & THEN
5 JULY
1295: Scotland and France formed an alliance – the start of the “Auld Alliance” against England.
1530: John Armstrong of Gilnockie, a Border reiver, and 50 of his men, were hanged for blackmail by James V at Carlanrig.
1687: Isaac Newton’s PRINCIPIA, outlining the laws of motion and universal gravitation, was published by the Royal Society in England.
1695: Scottish Parliament established a General Post Office.
1817: Sovereigns were first issued as coins in Britain.
1841: Thomas Cook opened his first travel agency.
1847: The Edinburgh to London horse-drawn mail coach made its last run, as railways were taking over the deliveries.
1865: The Locomotives and Highway Act stipulated that the speed limit for road vehicles in Britain should be 4mph in the country, 2mph in towns. One person drove, one stoked the engine, a third walked 60 yards ahead with a red flag. The act became known as the Red Flag Act and lasted 31 years.
1940: A convoy of ships carrying £1,800 million in gold bullion left the River Clyde bound for Canada as part of Operation Fish, the biggest movement of wealth in history.
1940: Diplomatic relations between Britain and the Vichy government in France broke down.
1942: The creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming, graduated from a training school for spies in Canada.
1943: German offensive on Soviet front began with the Battle of Kursk, involving 6,000 tanks – the biggest tank battle of the Second World War.
1944: Harry Crosby took the first rocket airplane, the MX-324, for its maiden flight.
1945: The Labour Party, led by Clement Attlee, won an unexpected landslide victory in the general election.
1948: Clement Attlee’s Labour government introduced the National Health Service.
1950: The Law of Return was passed, guaranteeing all Jews the right to live in Israel.
1954: The BBC broadcast its first television news bulletin.
1965: Opera star Maria Callas gave her last stage performance – in Tosca – at Covent Garden, at 41.
1970: An Air Canada DC-8 crashed seven miles from Toronto airport, killing 109 people.
1973: The Isle of Man issued its first postage stamps.
1989: Rod Stewart accidentally hit himself on the head while on stage during a performance at Pine Knob, Michigan, and knocked himself out.
1991: Nelson Mandela named president of ANC.
1993: Christine Witcutt, of Edinburgh, a British aid worker in Bosnia, was shot dead by a sniper while driving in a relief convoy near Sarajevo.
2003: The World Health Organisation announced the killer disease SARS had been contained.
2009: The largest hoard of Anglo-saxon gold ever discovered, consisting of more than 1,500 items, was found near the village of Hammerwich, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire.