On this day: Scottish National Covenant signed

In 1975, 42 people died when a tube train crashed at Moorgate Tube station. Picture: Getty

28 February

1638: The Scottish National Covenant was signed in Edinburgh.

1784: John Wesley signed the “deed of declaration” of the Wesleyan faith.

1874: Arthur Orton, claimant to the Tichborne estate, was found guilty of perjury and sentenced to 14 years’ hard labour.

1900: General Buller relieved Ladysmith, besieged by Boer forces for 118 days.

1912: The world’s first parachute jump from an aeroplane was made over Missouri, by Albert Berry.

1940: Sandy’s Half Hour began on radio, with Sandy MacPherson at the organ. It was the start of the modern listeners’ request programme.

1942: The heavy cruiser USS Houston was sunk in the Battle of Sunda Strait with 693 crew members killed, along with HMAS Perth, which lost 375 men.

1948: The Royal Family went to see Danny Kaye at the London Palladium, the first “non-command performance” attended by a reigning monarch.

1953: James D Watson and Francis Crick announced to friends that they had determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement took place on 25 April.

1966: Liverpool’s Cavern Club, where The Beatles made their name, went into liquidation.

1975: A train from Drayton Park crashed through buffers at Moorgate Tube station in London, killing 42 people.

1985: The Provisional IRA carried out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.

1997: Some 3,000 people were killed when an earthquake struck in Iran.

2001: Ten people died and 76 were injured when a Land Rover and trailer careered off the M62 and derailed a Newcastle-London express which collided head-on with a freight train, at Selby, in north Yorkshire.

2004: More than one million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally formed a 310-mile-long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947.

2005: A suicide bombing at a police recruiting centre in Al Hillah, Iraq killed 127 people.

2013: Pope Benedict XVI resigned as the Pope of the Catholic Church, becoming the first Pope to do so since 1415.

BIRTHDAYS

Stephanie Beacham, actress, 67; Peter Alliss, golfer and commentator, 83; John Carson, actor, 87; Julia Carling, television presenter, 49; Barry Fantoni, comic strip cartoonist and jazz musician, 74; Mike Figgis, film director, 66; Jelena Jankovic, tennis player, 29; Barry McGuigan, former featherweight boxing champion, 53; Robin Phillips, actor and director, 72; Sir Peter Stothard, editor, Times 1992-2002, 63; John Turturro, actor, 56.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1483 Raphael, artist; 1632 Henry Stubbs, physician and author; 11824 Charles Blondin (Jean-Francois Gravelet), tightrope walker; 1890 Vladimir Nijinsky, dancer; 1909 Prof Sir Stephen Spender, poet and critic; 1910 Vincente Minnelli, film director; 1932 Brian Moore, football commentator; 1942 Brian Jones, guitarist; 1946 Robin Cook, foreign secretary 1999-2001.

Deaths: 1916 Henry James, novelist; 1990 Greville Wynne, spy; 1993 Ruby Keeler, actress; 1998 Dermot Morgan, actor (Father Ted); 2011 Jane Russell, actress.