Now & Then
◆ 9 APRIL
1747: Britain’s last execution by beheading took place on Tower Hill, London. Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, was executed for his part in the Jacobite rising. The Scots Magazine reported that as he mounted the steps to the scaffold, assisted by two warders, he looked round and, seeing so many people, declared: “God save us, why should there be such a bustle about taking off an old grey head that can’t get up three steps without two men to support it?”
1770: James Cook discovered Botany Bay – declaring that the Aborigines seemed “open to reason”.
1838: The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London, was opened.
1865: Confederate Robert E Lee surrendered to General Grant in Virginia, effectively bringing the American Civil War to an end.
1869: The Hudson Bay Company ceded its territorial rights to Canada.
1917: Battles of Arras and Vimy Ridge began in the First World War.
1918: Latvia proclaimed its independence.
1940: Germany invaded Norway and Denmark.
1941: Première of The Road to Zanzibar, the first film in Road series featuring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour.
1949: UN International Court of Justice delivered its first decision, holding Albania responsible for incidents in Corfu Channel and awarding Britain damages.
1961: Fire on the British passenger and cargo vessel “Dara” off Dubai killed 150.
1969: The British supersonic airliner, Concorde, made its maiden flight from Bristol to Fairford in Gloucestershire.
1970: Legal moves to dissolve Beatles’ business partnership were begun by Paul Mccartney.
1978: Loyal troops in Somalia crushed an attempted coup by army officers.
1983: Jenny Pitman became the first woman to train a Grand National winner with Corbiere.
1986: West Berlin expelled two Libyan diplomats and said it had “several indications” Libya was behind bombing of Berlin discotheque.
1989: Sixteen people were reported killed as Soviet troops rushed a crowd of protesters in a central square of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.
1990: East Germany’s Lothar de Maizière proposed a 24-member “grand coalition” Cabinet.
1990: Ford motor company cancelled a planned £225 million Welsh investment.
1990: Four members of Ulster Defence Regiment were killed by an IRA land mine at Downpatrick. 1991: Georgia voted to secede from the Soviet Union.
1992: The Conservatives won a fourth successive term in office when they triumphed at the general election – but with a greatly-reduced majority of 21.
2003: Baghdad fell to American forces; Saddam Hussein statue toppled as Iraqis turn on symbols of their former leader, pulling down the statue and tearing it to pieces.
2005: The Prince of Wales married Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles, a divorcee, at a civil ceremony in Windsor.
2021: Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, died at Windsor Castle, aged 99.
◆ BIRTHDAYS
Hannah Gordon, Edinburgh-born actress, 83; Tom Lehrer, American lecturer and satirical songwriter, 96; Gerard Way, American singersongwriter and comic book writer, 47; Jerzy Maksymiuk, Polish chief conductor 1983-93, conductor laureate, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, 88; Cynthia Nixon, American actress (Sex and the City), 58; Dennis Quaid, actor, 70; Valerie Singleton OBE, British broadcast er ,87; Jacques Villeneuve, racing driver, 53.
◆ ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1806 Isambard Kingdom Brunel, railway and marine engineer; 1893 Sir Victor Gollancz, publisher; 1898 Paul Robeson, American singer and actor; 1906 Hugh Gaitskell, leader of Labour Party and chancellor; 1957 Severiano Ballesteros, Spanish golfer.
Deaths: 1553 François Rabelais, writer; 1626 Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam), philosopher and statesman; 1882 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, poet and painter; 1959 Frank Lloyd Wright, architect; 2011 Sidney Lumet, American film director.