Now & Then
◆ MAY 20
1498: Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut, southern India, after discovering a route via the tip of southern Africa.
1588: The Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon on a mission to invade England. It comprised 129 ships sent by Phillip II of Spain.
1835: Otto is named the first modern king of Greece.
1840: York Minster was badly damaged by fire.
1862: Abraham Lincoln, the United States president, signed the Homestead Act into law.
1873: Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a United States patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
1883: Krakatoa began to erupt. The volcano’s final and most notable explosion occurred on 26 August.
1902: Cuba gained independence from the United States. Tomás Estrada Palma became the first president of Cuba.
1932: Amelia Earhart became the first woman to make a solo air crossing of the Atlantic.
1940: The first prisoners arrived at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.
1941: Germany began an aerial invasion of Crete.
1956: The Americans dropped their first hydrogen bomb over Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific.
1965: PIA Flight 705, a Pakistan International Airlines Boeing 720040 B, crashed while descending to land at Cairo International Airport, killing 119 of the 125 passengers and crew.
1969: The Battle of Hamburger Hill in Vietnam ended.
1983: First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes Aids in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo individually.
1991: The USSR passed a law allowing Soviet citizens to leave the country of their own free will. 1993: The House of Commons gave the Maastricht Treaty bill its third reading. Forty-one Conservative MPS voted against the agreement.
1994: Cluny Parish Church in Edinburgh was packed and 2,000 people stood in the streets outside for the funeral service of the Labour leader, John Smith.
2002: The independence of
East Timor was recognised by Portugal, formally ending 23 years of Indonesian rule and three years of provisional United Nations administration.
2009: An Indonesian military transport plane carrying troops and their families crashed on Java, killing more than 100 people. 2010: The first annual Everybody Draw Mohammed Day was celebrated. The event caused Pakistan to shut down the social networking site Facebook in their country in protest.
2013: A tornado, which reached speeds of 210mph, swept through Moore, Oklahoma, in the United States, killing 24 people – including ten children – and injuring more than 350 others.
2014: Thailand’s army declared martial law, deploying troops, armed with machine guns, in the heart of Bangkok, in a move aimed at stabilising the country after months of unrest. It came a day after caretaker prime minister Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan refused to step down in the face of long-running anti-government protests.
◆ BIRTHDAYS
Cher (Cherilyn Sarkasian), actress and singer, 78; Lord Carloway, Lord President of the Court of Session, Lord Justice General, head of the Scottish Judiciary, 70; Lynn Davies CBE, Olympic gold medallist longjumper, 82; Greg Dyke, directorgeneral, BBC 2000-04, 77; Annabel Giles, television presenter, 65; Nigel Griffiths, former Labour MP (19872010), 69; Nick Heyward, British singer, 63; 53; Michèle Roberts, British novelist, 75; Louis Theroux, broadcaster, 54.
◆ ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1799 Honoré de Balzac, French novelist; 1806 John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist; 1895 Reginald Joseph Mitchell, aircraft designer, including the Spitfire; 1908 James Stewart, actor; 1944 Joe Cocker OBE, British singer, 70.
Deaths: 1506 Christopher Columbus, navigator and discoverer of the New World; 1864 John Clare, peasant poet; 1956 Sir Max Beerbohm, writer and caricaturist; 1975 Dame Barbara Hepworth, sculptor; 1994 Jacqueline Onassis, former wife of president John F Kennedy.