On this day: Scottish Football Association formed | Discovery of Pluto announced

Published on 13/03/2013 00:00

Events, birthdays and anniversaries from 13 March

1567: Margaret of Parma, Regent of the Netherlands, used German mercenaries to annihilate 2,000 Calvinists.

1781: Amateur astronomer Sir William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus – 1,783 million miles from the Sun. Herschel lived to be 84, the number of Earth years it takes for Uranus to orbit the Sun.

1873: Scottish Football Association formed with constituent clubs Queen’s Park, Clydesdale, Vale of Leven, Dumbreck, Third Lanark, Eastern, Granville, and Kilmarnock.

1881: Alexander II, Tsar of Russia, was assassinated when a bomb was thrown at him near his palace.

1918: MPs voted to raise the school-leaving age to 14.

1925: MPs approved Summer Time Bill making daylight saving permanent.

1930: Discovery of planet Pluto was announced by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory, Arizona, although its existence had been predicted earlier by Percival Lowell.

1935: The driving test was introduced in Britain. It became compulsory three months later.

1938: Nazi Germany invaded Austria. It was declared part of the German Reich (the Anschluss) under the name of Ostmark.

1942: British bombers staged saturation raid on Cologne.

1957: British-Jordan Treaty of 1948 expired.

1961: Black and white Bank of England £5 notes ceased to be legal tender.

1967: Peasant rioting was reported in China.

1972: Clifford Irving admitted to a New York Court that he had fabricated Howard Hughes’s autobiography after receiving a $750,000 advance from his publishers. He had hoped the reclusive millionaire would not venture into the public limelight to denounce him.

1990: Soviet Congress approved strong presidency, sanctioned multiparty system and private ownership of factories.

1992: Pravda, for eight decades the official newspaper of the Communist Party, suspended publication due to lack of funds.

1994: Sir Peter Harding, Chief of the Defence Staff, resigned after newspaper reports of a relationship with the wife of former Conservative defence minister, Sir Anthony Buck.

1996: Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 children and a teacher at their Dunblane primary school, and then turned the gun on himself.

BIRTHDAYS

Neil Sedaka, singer and songwriter, 74; Baroness Amos, Leader of the House of Lords 2003-7, 59; Gordon Borrie, Baron Borrie, QC, Labour Party life peer and director-general of Fair Trading 1976-92, 82; Joe Bugner, boxer, 63; Sir Michael Checkland, director-general, BBC 1987-92, 77; Adam Clayton, musician (U2), 53; William H Macy, actor, director and writer, 63; Dave Mattacks, drummer (Fairport Convention), 65; Cillian Murphy, actor, 37; David Nobbs, author, 78; Candi Staton, singer, 73.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1733 Joseph Priestley, scientist who discovered oxygen; 1884 Sir Hugh Walpole, novelist; 1913 Sir Reo Stakis, hotelier; 1940 Christopher Gable, dancer, actor, choreographer; 1917 Sir Robert Mark GBE, commissioner, Metropolitan Police 1972-7; 1921 Gitta Sereny CBE, historian and author.

Deaths: 1906 Susan Anthony, leader of women’s suffrage in America; 1933 Robert Innes, Scottish astronomer; 1990 Jane Grigson, cookery writer; 1995 Mrs Odette Hallowes, GC, wartime agent.