On this day: Scottish independence referendum question chosen

On this day in 2012 First Minister Alex Salmond set out the question he intended to ask voters in the referendum. Picture: Hemedia

Events, birthdays and anniversaries on January 25 (Burns Night)

1327: Edward III ascended to the english throne.

1533: King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn were secretly married by the Bishop of Lichfield - and become the parents of the future Queen Elizabeth I of England.

1554: The city of Sao Paulo, Brazil was founded.

1817: First issue of The Scotsman was published by its founders, Charles Maclaren, William Ritchie and John MacDiarmid.

1858: Mendelssohn’s Wedding March was first played at the wedding of Queen Victoria’s daughter, Princess Victoria, to the crown prince of Prussia.

1881: Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell formed the Oriental Telephone Company.

1918: Russia declared a republic of Soviets.

1919: League of Nations was founded. Its first meeting was held a year later.

1924: The opening ceremony of the first Winter Olympics took place at Chamonix in Switzerland.

1939: Boxer Joe Louis retained his world heavyweight title when he knocked out John Henry Lewis in the first round at Madison Square Garden, New York.

1944: Battle for Cassino began in Italy.

1955: Scientists at Columbia University developed an atomic clock accurate to within one second in 300 years.

1961: Walt Disney’s 101 Dalmatians was released.

1968: Great train robber Charles Wilson captured in Montreal three years after escaping from Winson Green Prison.

1971: Idi Amin became president of Uganda, leading a military coup which deposed Milton Obote while he was absent abroad.

1971: Charles Manson and others were found guilty of multiple murders in the US.

1981: The Gang of Four - Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and William Rodgers - announced the Limehouse Declaration, which called for a classless crusade for social justice. They were expelled from the Labour Party for forming a Council for Social Democracy.

1986: Voyager 2, sweeping to within 51,000 miles (81,000 kilometres) of Uranus, discovered a tenth ring, and a 15th moon.

1990: Forty-six people died in the worst storms in southern Britain since the hurricane of October, 1987. Gusts of up to 110 mph caused road and rail chaos.

1991: Saddam Hussein unleashed environmental disaster when he ordered the release of millions of gallons of crude oil into the sea from a Kuwaiti storage plant.

1995: Ministers ordered a rethink of plans to axe most Anglo-Scottish night trains.

2004: Opportunity rover landed on the surface of Mars.

2008: Scottish & Newcastle, Britain’s biggest brewer and maker of Newcastle Brown Ale and Fosters, was taken over by Carlsberg and Heineken for £7.8bn.

2012: First Minister Alex Salmond set out the question he intended to ask voters in the referendum. He said Scots would be asked: “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?”