On this day: Lyle wins Masters|Gatsby published

On this day in 1945 American troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, German. Picture: Getty

1413: Henry V was crowned in Westminster Abbey, aged 25.

1849: The safety pin was patented after American inventor Walter Hunt had made it in only three hours – selling the rights in order to pay off a $15 debt.

1858: Big Ben, the bell in the Westminster clock tower, was cast in Whitechapel. It weighed 13.5 tons and was named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the commissioner of works, a large man known as Big Ben.

1917: Vimy Ridge, in northern France, was taken by Canadian forces with heavy losses during the Battle of Arras.

1925: F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published.

1932: Paul von Hindenburg was re-elected German president over Adolf Hitler.

1945: American troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany.

1955: David Blakely, a 24-year-old racing driver, was shot dead outside a pub in North London by Ruth Ellis, for which she was subsequently hanged.

1960: The American Civil Rights Bill was passed by the US Senate.

1963: US atomic submarine Thresher failed to surface after a deep dive off Cape Cod, with the loss of 129 lives.

1972: Britain, the US, Soviet Union and 46 other countries signed convention outlawing biological weapons.

1986: US conducted a nuclear test in Nevada desert in spite of growing protests and a Soviet campaign for a nuclear test ban.

1988: Sandy Lyle became first British golfer to win the Masters tournament in Augusta, US.

1989: The Liberal Democrat leader, Paddy Ashdown, denounced Parliament as ludicrous, inefficient and potentially a deeply corrupt mechanism.

1992: Three people died and 90 were injured when an IRA post-election bomb caused devastation in the City of London.

1993: The body of Adrian Strasser, an Edinburgh teacher murdered on holiday, was found in New Orleans. The killing has remained unsolved.

1995: Channel Tunnel builder Eurotunnel warned that it could be “overwhelmed” by debt service costs after a net loss of £387 million in 1994.

2010: Polish president Lech Kaczynski and scores of other senior political figures from the country were killed in a plane crash in Russia. The plane hit trees as it approached Smolensk Airport in thick fog.

BIRTHDAYS

Nicky Campbell, Scottish television and radio broadcaster, 53; Sophie Ellis-Bextor, singer, 35; Ed Byrne, comedian, 42; Lesley Garrett, soprano, 59; Gloria Hunniford, broadcaster, 74; Peter MacNicol, actor, 60; David Moorcroft, athlete, 61; Haley Joel Osment, actor, 26; Steven Seagal, actor and director, 62; Omar Sharif, actor and international bridge player, 82; Gerda Stevenson, Scottish actress, singer and writer, 58; Max von Sydow, actor, 85; Paul Theroux, author, 73; Bunny Wailer, reggae musician, 67.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1512 James V (at Linlithgow Palace); 1829 William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army; 1847 Joseph Pulitzer, newspaper publisher; 1870 Lenin, Communist leader and founder of Bolshevism; 1935 Patrick Garland, British theatre and film director.

Deaths: 1840 Alexander Nasmyth, Edinburgh-born artist; 1954 Auguste Lumière, pioneer of cinematography; 1966 Evelyn Waugh, novelist; 2009 Richard Arnell, composer, conductor, poet, principal lecturer, Trinity School of Music 1981-7.