Now & Then
◆ 6MAY
1626: Manhattan Island, a borough of New York City, was bought from Native Americans for goods and trinkets to the equivalent of $24. 1839: House of Commons passed a bill to suspend Jamaica’s Constitution after riots due to emancipation of slaves.
1840: The first adhesive British stamps, for general use – the penny black and twopenny blue – were issued by the Post Office.
1851: US engineer Linus Yale patented the lock which bears his name.
1877: Britain sent Russia a note warning it against any blockade of Suez or occupation of Egypt. 1882: Lord Cavendish and Thomas Henry Burke were assassinated by Fenian “Invincibles” in Phoenix Park, Dublin.
1937: The 804-ft German dirigible, Hindenburg, burned at its moorings in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 of the 97 people aboard.
1941: Joseph Stalin became Soviet premier.
1941: In the last German bombing attack on the Clyde area, Greenock was worst hit, with 280 dead. 1942: The song White Christmas, by Irving Berlin, was published. It became the greatest selling record of all time.
1954: Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile in Oxford, in three minutes 59.4 seconds. 1954: First radio series for Morecambe and Wise, You’re Only Young Once, was broadcast with Pearl Carr.
1959: The Cod War between Britain and Iceland over fishing rights intensified when Icelandic gunboats fired live ammunition at British trawlers.
1960: Princess Margaret married Antony Armstrong-jones in Westminster Abbey.
1966: Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were found guilty of the Moors murders at Chester Crown Court. 1968: Spain closed the border between Gibraltar and Spain to all but Spaniards.
1972: The first all-women race under Jockey Club rules, the Goya Stakes, was run over nine furlongs at Kempton Park.
1993: Conservatives lost Newbury in a massive by-election swing to the Liberal Democrats plus control of all but one county council in England and Wales. 1994: The Queen and President Mitterrand of France opened the Channel Tunnel.
1995: Will Carling was sacked as England captain for describing Rugby Football Union officials as “57 old farts”. He was reinstated 72 hours later.
1996: Stephen Hendry won the Embassy world professional snooker championship for the sixth time, beating Peter Ebdon 18-12 in Sheffield.
1999: The new Scottish Parliament was elected, with 56 Labour MSPS, 35 SNPS, 18 Conservatives, 16 Liberal Democrats, one Green, one Scottish Socialist and one Independent.
2010: The general election took place, but resulted in Britain’s first hung parliament since 1974 with the Conservatives ending up the leading party on 306 seats.
2012: François Hollande was elected president of France. 2019: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex celebrated the birth of their first child, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-windsor, seventh in line to the British throne.
◆ BIRTHDAYS
Tony Blair, prime minister 19972007, 71; George Clooney, US actor and director, 63; Alan Dale, New Zealand actor, 77; Lord (John) Hutton, former Labour Cabinet minister, 69; Bob Seger, US rock singer, 79; Graeme Souness, Scottish footballer, manager and pundit, 71; Susan Brown, British actress, 78; Jeffery Deaver, US author, 74; Julianne Phillips, US actress and model, 64; Archie Mountbatten-windsor, son of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, 5
◆ ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1856 Sigmund Freud, Austrian pioneer of psychoanalysis; 1895 Rudolph Valentino, actor; 1902 Max Ophüls, film director; 1913 Stewart Granger, actor; 1915 Orson Welles, film actor, writer and director; 2014 Leslie Thomas OBE, British novelist. Deaths: 1952 Maria Montessori, educationist; 1991 Wilfred Hydewhite, actor; 1992 Marlene Dietrich, film actress; 1993 Ann Todd, film actress; 1999 Johnny Morris, broadcaster; 2014 Antony Hopkins CBE, British composer; 2015 Errol Brown, singer-songwriter; 2016 Candye Kane, jazz singer.