Now & Then
20 APRIL
1534: Elizabeth Barton, the “Holy Maid of Kent”, was executed with five of her associates for treason. 1653: The Long Parliament was forcibly dissolved by Oliver Cromwell.
1887: The world’s first motor race took place along the banks of the River Seine from the centre of Paris to Neuilly. It was organised by the editor of La Velocipede, and was won by Georges Bouton in his fourseater quadricycle.
1949: The first three-day Badminton horse trials were held in Gloucestershire.
1957: Mayflower II, a replica of the Pilgrim Fathers’ ship, sailed from Plymouth to Cape Cod, the landfall of the 1620 original.
1968: Pierre Trudeau became Liberal prime minister of Canada for the first time.
1972: Orion, lunar module of Apollo 16, landed on Descartes' area of the Moon with Charles Duke and John Young. They made three walks and collected samples of rock. The roving Moon vehicle travelled nearly 17 miles.
1981: Steve Davis became the world snooker champion at
23 years of age, beating Doug Mountjoy at Sheffield.
1986: Giant irrigation reservoir burst and flooded Sri Lanka town, leaving at least 100 people feared dead and up to 20,000 families homeless.
1987: PLO chairman Yasser Arafat called for sovereign Palestinian state “with Jerusalem as its capital.”
1989: Scientists said that the Earth narrowly missed being struck by a passing asteroid weighing 400 million tons.
1992: Spain’s Expo 92 exhibition was opened in Seville by King Juan Carlos.
1992: More than 70,000 packed Wembley Stadium for an AIDS Awareness concert in memory of Queen singer Freddie Mercury. 1993: The Council of the National Trust ruled that deer-hunting would continue on its land – overruling a vote at its 1990 annual meeting.
1994: Priceless antique treasures were stolen in a raid on Sir Walter Scott’s Borders home at Abbotsford.
1995: Tory MPS David Tredinnick and Graham Riddick were suspended without pay from
Parliament for 20 and ten days respectively in the “cash for questions” row.
1999: Two teenagers ran amok with guns and grenades in Columbine High School in Denver, Colorado, killing 23 pupils and staff. 2007: A man with a handgun barricaded himself in Nasa’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas before killing a male hostage and himself.
2008: Danica Patrick won the Indy Japan 300 to become the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.
2010: BP’S Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers, before causing a massive natural disaster after the release of almost four million gallons of crude into the sea off the coast of Louisiana.
2011: It was revealed that “viable” parcel bombs were sent to Celtic manager Neil Lennon and two high-profile fans of the Glasgow club.
2014: Canadian singer Kiesza’s debut single, Hideaway, went straight to No 1 in the UK singles chart after selling 136,000 copies in the first seven days.
BIRTHDAYS
Michael Brandon, American actor, 79; Ray Brooks, British actor, 85; Merlin Hay, 24th Earl of Erroll, Hereditary Lord High Constable of Scotland, 76; Sebastian Faulks CBE, British writer, 71; Louise Jameson, British actress, 73; Jessica Lange, US actress, 75; Nicholas Lyndhurst, British actor, 63; Brian Marchbank, golfer, 66; Peter Snow CBE, British broadcaster, 86; George Takei, US actor, 87; Dame Rachel Whiteread DBE, British sculptor, 61; Crispin Glover, US actor, 60.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1851 “Young” Tom Morris, golfer; 1889 Adolf Hitler, Nazi dictator; 1893 Harold Lloyd, US actor; 1930 Sir Antony Jay CBE, British scriptwriter; 1943 Alan Bold, Scottish poet, author and artist. Deaths: 1912 Bram Stoker, author; 1982 Andy Sandham, English cricketer; 1998 Rt Rev’d Trevor Huddleston, antiapartheid campaigner; 2004 Norris Mcwhirter, editor, Guinness Book of Records; 2016 Victoria Wood CBE, comic and writer; 2017 Sir Ewen Fergusson, British ambassador to France, Scotland international rugby player