On this day: Eagle, the lunar module of Apollo 11, landed on the Moon

1969: Eagle, the lunar module of Apollo 11, landed on the Moon, on the Sea of Tranquillity. Picture: Nasa

20 July

National day of Colombia.

1304: King Edward I of England took Stirling Castle, the last rebel stronghold of the Wars of Scottish Independence.

1651: At the The Battle of Inverkeithing, the Royalist force supporting Charles II failed to stop the advance of Oliver Cromwell’s army towards Perth.

1654: British-Portuguese Treaty placing Portugal under British control was signed.

1705: An Act of the Scottish Parliament established herring fishing in and around Scotland.

1773: Scottish settlers arrived in Pictou, Nova Scotia.

1810: Citizens of Bogota, New Grenada (now Colombia), declared independence from Spain.

1881: Sioux Indian chief Sitting Bull surrendered to US federal troops.

1885: Professional football was legalised by the Football Association.

1914: Armed resistance against British rule began in Ulster.

1926: A convention of the Methodist Church voted to admit women priests.

1933: Half a million people took part in an anti-Semitic march in London.

1940: Singles-record charts were first published in America, by Billboard. I’ll Never Smile Again by Tommy Dorsey was the first No 1.

1944: An assassination attempt on Hitler was made by a German staff officer, Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, at Rastenberg, East Prussia. He and 1,000 others implicated in the plot were executed.

1946: The Peace Conference began in Paris.

1957: At a meeting in Bradford, prime minister Harold Macmillan said: “Let’s be frank about it. Most of our people have never had it so good.” He later repeated it in the House of Commons.

1960: Sirima Bandaranaike became premier of Ceylon and the world’s first female head of government.

1969: Eagle, the lunar module of Apollo 11, landed on the Moon, on the Sea of Tranquillity.

1982: IRA bombs killed ten soldiers and seven army horses at Hyde Park and Regents Park, London. Fifty-three were injured.

1989: The government of Burma placed author Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.

1992: Kevin Maxwell was ordered to pay £406m damages to the liquidators of Bishopsgate Investment Management for alleged breaches of his duty as a director of the company.

1996: A bomb exploded at Reus Airport in northeastern Spain, injuring 35 people, mostly British tourists.

2005: Canada legalised same-sex marriages, the fourth country in the world to do so.

2007: The Crown Prosecution Service announced that no-one would be prosecuted as a result of the 16-month “cash-for-honours” investigation during which the prime minister, Tony Blair, was questioned by Scotland Yard.

2012: A gunman opened fire at the premiere of the movie The Dark Knight at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring 59 others.