NOW & THEN
10 JANUARY
49BC: Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, signalling the start of a civil war in Italy.
1642 AD: King Charles I and his family fled London for Oxford during the prelude to the English Civil War.
1812: An impenetrable fog of sooty smoke and polluted mist shrouded London so totally that midday was like midnight.
1828: The lowest-ever denomination note was issued by the Bank of England – worth one penny.
1839: Tea from India first arrived in the UK.
1840: Sir Rowland Hill’s Penny Post came into force in Britain.
1840: Shorthand inventor Isaac Pitman advertised the first correspondence course.
1845: Poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning began corresponding. In September 1846 they eloped to get married.
1861: Florida seceded from the Union during the build-up to the American Civil War.
1863: The world’s first underground railway – the Metropolitan line – opened in London.
1901: The first oil strike in Texas.
1920: The League of Nations came into being, holding its first meeting in Geneva. It was dissolved on the same date in 1946, and superseded by the UN.
1928: Leon Trotsky ordered into exile by the Soviet governme nt.
1947: Fifteen miners died in an explosion at Burngrange Colliery, Midlothian, caused by flame from an open acetylene lamp.
1949: RCA introduced the 45 rpm record.
1953: The European Coal and Steel Community met for the first time.
1956: Elvis Presley recorded Heartbreak Hotel.
1958: Great Balls of Fire, by Jerry Lee Lewis, became No 1 in the UK pop charts.
1977: Two Soviet cosmonauts went into space to join the crew of orbiting Salyut research station.
1985: Sir Clive Sinclair unveiled the £399 C5 battery and pedalpowered tricycle, with a range of 20 miles. He predicted that by the year 2000 the petrol engine would be a thing of the past.
1989: Astronomers discovered a 90-trillion-mile long stream of gas that appeared to be feeding a black hole at the centre of Earth’s Milky Way galaxy.
1990: China ended seven months of martial law in Beijing.
Tiananmen Square was opened for the first time since the June 1989 massacre.
1992: A bomb exploded in Whitehall, only 300 metres away from Downing Street. The IRA claimed responsibility.
1993: Iraqis crossed into Kuwait and seized four Silkworm missiles.
1998: Donald Dewar, the Scottish Secretary, announced he had chosen Holyrood as the site for the new Scottish Parliament building, and that it would be ready for the autumn session of 2001.
2005: A mudslide occurs in La Conchita, California, killed ten people, and closing the coast road between San Francisco and Los Angeles, for ten days.
2011: Torrential rain in Queensland’s Lockyer Valley caused severe flash flooding, killing nine people.
BIRTHDAYS
Pat Benatar, pop/rock singer, 69; Tom Clarke CBE, Labour MP 1982-2015, 81; Shawn Colvin, rock singer, 66; Aynsley Dunbar, rock drummer, 76; Donald Fagen, co-founder and lead singer of Steely Dan, 74; George Foreman, boxer, ordained priest and grilling machine entrepreneur, 73; Caroline Langrishe, TV actress, 64; Mischa Maisky, cellist, 74; Sherrill Milnes, American baritone, 87; Félix Trinidad, former world champion boxer, 49; Ian Poulter, golfer, 46; Ford Kiernan, Scottish actor and comedian, 60; Bob Lang, actor and musician (the Mindbenders), 76; David Horowitz, writer, 83.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1750 Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine, Scottish lawyer, politician and Lord Chancellor; 1883 Alexei Tolstoy, novelist and playwright; 1903 Barbara Hepworth, sculptor; 1922 Billy Liddell, footballer.
Deaths: 1778 Carl Linnaeus, Swedish botanist; 1917 Buffalo Bill Cody, hunter, scout, Pony Express rider and showman; 1961 Dashiel Hammett, author; 1971 Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, fashion designer; 1976 Howlin’ Wolf (born Chester Arthur Burnett), blues singer and musician; 2016 David Bowie, singer and actor.