On this day: TV resumed after WW2|Lusitania launch

EVENTS, birthdays and anniversaries on 7th of June

On this day in 1946 Leslie Mitchell announced the resumption of television broadcasting after WW2. Picture: Contributed

1494: Spain and Portugal, by Treaty of Tordesillas, agreed to divide the New World between themselves.

1546: Peace of Ardres ended England’s war with France and Scotland.

1614: England’s Parliament was dissolved without having passed a bill since it sat on 5 April. It became known as the Addled Parliament having failed to resolve the conflict between James I of England (who wished it to raise money) and the House of Commons (which was resisting further taxation).

1862: Britain and United States signed treaty for suppression of the slave trade.

1901: The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland was formed by Andrew Carnegie.

1905: Norway gained independence from Sweden.

1906: The Atlantic liner Lusitania was launched.

1921: First sitting of Northern Ireland Parliament.

1929: Ramsay MacDonald announced the composition of Britain’s second Labour government. It had no overall majority, and was dependent on Liberal goodwill for survival.

1929: The Papal State, extinct since 1870, was revived as the state of Vatican City, as a result of the Lateran Treaty.

1931: Britain’s most violent earthquake tremors were felt between Scotland and the English Channel.

1939: King George VI became the first British monarch to visit the US. Accompanied by Queen Elizabeth, he crossed the border from Canada at Niagara Falls on their way to the World’s Fair in New York.

1946: Television resumed after the Second World War, with the announcement by Leslie Mitchell: “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted …”

1950: The Archers BBC radio serial was first broadcast.

1967: Israeli forces driving into Egypt reached banks of Suez Canal.

1975: The United States withdrew its last combat aircraft based on Nationalist Chinese island of Taiwan.

1975: Married women on the island of Sark, Channel Islands, were given permission to have their own bank accounts, run their own businesses and keep possessions after marriage. Previously Sark law decreed that the wife’s property became the property of the husband at the wedding.

1990: The United States House of Representatives voted to bar the sale of computers and telecommunications gear to the Soviet Union until Moscow began negotiating Lithuania’s independence.

1995: The Appeal Court ruled that British Rail must continue to run the Fort William-London sleeper indefinitely. Judges in Edinburgh said BR acted illegally by trying to avoid statutory closure procedure.

2001: Tony Blair made political history by becoming the first Labour leader to secure two full terms as prime minister.

2009: Roger Federer beat Robin Soderling in straight sets to win his first French Open and equal Pete Sampras’s record of 14 Grand Slam titles. The Swiss became only the sixth man to have won each of the four Grand Slam tournaments.

BIRTHDAYS

Prince (born Prince Rogers Nelson), rock singer, 56; Michael Cera, actor, 26; Lord Boyd of Duncansby, Lord Advocate 2000-6, 61; Dougie Donnelly, Scottish radio and television presenter, 61; Damien Hirst, artist, 49; James Ivory, film director, 86; Sir Tom Jones, singer, 74; Anna Kournikova, former tennis player, 33; Virginia McKenna OBE, actress and animal rights campaigner, 83; Liam Neeson OBE, actor, 62; Michael Pennington, actor and writer, 71; Michael Fergus Bowes-Lyon, 18th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, Captain of the Yeoman of the Guard 1991-4, 57; Bear Grylls, adventurer and TV presenter, 40; Allison Schmitt, Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer, 24.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1761 John Rennie, Phantassie-born civil engineer, builder of Waterloo and Southwark Bridges in London; 1778 “Beau” Brummell, dandy and leader of fashion; 1811 Sir James Young Simpson, Bathgate-born pioneer of anaesthetics in childbirth; 1848 Paul Gauguin, artist; 1866 EW Hornung, novelist, 1868 Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Glasgow-born architect and designer; 1877 Charles Glover Barkla, Edinburgh professor who won Nobel prize in physics for work on X-rays; 1899 Elizabeth Bowen, novelist; 1917 Dean Martin, singer and actor.

Deaths: 1329 Robert I (the Bruce), King of Scots (died of leprosy at Cardross Castle and buried under the High Altar in Dunfermline Abbey); 1937 Jean Harlow, actress; 1954 Alan Turing OBE, mathematical genius and codebreaker; 1967 Dorothy Parker, poet and journalist; 1970 EM Forster, novelist; 1980 Elizabeth Craig, cookery writer; 1980 Henry Miller, novelist; 1994 Dennis Potter, playwright.