On this day: John Profumo | Scottish Devolution

Published on 01/03/2013 00:00

Birthdays, anniversaries and events for 1 March

1 March

St David’s Day – national day of Wales.

1498: Vasco da Gama discovered Mozambique on the south-east African coast.

1682: The Advocates’ Library (since 1925 the National Library of Scotland) opened by its founder, Sir George Mackenzie, the Lord Advocate.

1780: Pennsylvania became first American state to abolish slavery.

1810: Sweden appointed world’s first Ombudsman, Lars Mannerheim.

1815: Napoleon Bonaparte landed in France, forcing King Louis XVIII to flee.

1912: Suffragettes smashed nearly every shop window in Oxford and Regent Streets, London. More than 120 arrested, including Emmeline Pankhurst.

1913: The International Lawn Tennis Federation, the world’s governing body for tennis, was founded in Paris.

1932: Charles Lindbergh, 20-month-old son of the aviator, was snatched from his home in New Jersey. His body was found four miles away on 12 May.

1940: Vivien Leigh won Best Actress Oscar for playing Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind.

1946: The Bank of England passed to public ownership by Act of Parliament.

1947: The International Monetary Fund began operations.

1954: The US tested a hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll.

1961: US president John F Kennedy established the Peace Corps.

1963: John Profumo, secretary of state for war, resigned on the disclosure of his affair with Christine Keeler, said to be the mistress also of a Soviet naval attaché.

1966: Soviet spacecraft Venus III, launched the previous 16 November, made hard landing on Venus to become first craft to land on another planet.

1979: Referendum on the Scottish Devolution Bill. Six regions voted for the proposals, six against. The result was: Yes 1,230,937 (32.85 per cent); No 1,153,503 (30.78 per cent). Just over 36 per cent did not vote.

1991: Monopoly on publication of television listings ended.

2001: Scotland’s first cases of foot-and-mouth disease for 40 years confirmed in Dumfries and Galloway.

2011: Insurers were told they were not allowed to charge different premiums to men and women because of their gender, under a ruling by the European Court of Justice.

BIRTHDAYS

Roger Daltrey, actor and singer (The Who), 69; Catherine Bach, actress, 59; Harry Belafonte, singer and actor, 86; Dirk Benedict, actor, 68; Sir David Broome CBE showjumper, 73; David Scott Cowper, solo yachtsman, 71; Paul Le Guen, football coach, 49; Ron Howard, actor and director, 59; Nik Kershaw, singer, 55; Rear-Admiral Timothy Laurence, chief executive, Defence Estates, 58; Mike Read, disc jockey, 62; Brian Waites, golfer, 73.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1810 Frédéric Chopin, composer and pianist; 1812 Augustus Pugin, Gothic revival architect; 1847 Sir Thomas Brock, sculptor; 1880 Giles Lytton Strachey, author and member of the Bloomsbury group; 1904 Glenn Miller, band leader; 1910 David Niven, actor.

Deaths: AD625 St Ernan or Ernoc, patron saint of Kilmarnock; 1546: George Wishart, Protestant martyr (burned at the stake at St Andrews); 1575 Edward Moore, writer; 1620 Thomas Campion, musician and poet; 1938 Gabriele D’Annunzio, poet and nationalist.