On this day
1587: Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire, implicated in a Catholic plot to overthrow Elizabeth I. 1725: Catherine I became Empress of Russia on the death of her husband Peter the Great.
1819: John Ruskin, writer and artist, was born in London.
1886: Rioting and looting followed a protest march by the unemployed in Trafalgar Square.
1904: The Russo-Japanese War broke out, provoked by Russian penetration into Manchuria and Korea.
1915: DW Griffith’s epic The Birth Of A Nation was released.
1931: James Dean, cult actor, was born in Marion, Indiana. He made just three films, East Of Eden, Rebel Without A Cause and Giant, before he died in a car smash.
1965: The government announced a ban on cigarette advertising on TV.
1976: Fourteen British mercenaries died by firing squad in Angola.
1990: American pop singer Del Shannon shot himself.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex revealed plans to achieve “great philanthropic work” now they’d stepped down from royal duties, their friend David Furnish said.