On this day: 100,000 East Germans crossed through Berlin Wall

On this day in 1989 around 100,000 East Germans poured through the Berlin Wall, which was being destroyed to create crossing points. Picture: AFP

1834: HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, set sail from Valparaiso, Chile.

1847: The passenger ship Stephen Whitney was wrecked in thick fog off the southern coast of Ireland, with the loss of 92 lives. The disaster triggered the decision to build the Fastnet Rock lighthouse.

1871: Henry Morton Stanley was said to have spoken the immortal words “Doctor Livingstone, I presume”, when the two met at Ujiji, Tanganyika.

1885: Gottlieb Daimler unveiled the world’s first motorcycle.

1911: Dunfermline-born steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie established the Carnegie Corporation in New York “to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding”.

1919: Britain’s first regular airmail service inaugurated, between Hounslow and Paris.

1930: Elephants broke away from the Lord Mayor’s Show procession in London and trampled several spectators.

1940: Walt Disney began his role as informant to the LA office of the FBI, providing information on Hollywood “subversives”.

1928: The coronation of Hirohito as emperor of Japan took place.

1955: The worst fire that Edinburgh had seen for more than 100 years destroyed C&A Modes department store in Princes Street. Within the space of a few hours, another spectacular fire in nearby Jeffrey Street devastated the boot and shoe warehouse of CW Carr Aikman

1961: Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd.

1962: President of Yemen accused Britain of plotting to overthrow regime.

1965: A new colony, the British Indian Ocean Territory, was set up.

1971: Kenny Dalglish made his football international debut for Scotland as a substitute in a match against Belgium.

1978: Larry Holmes knocked out Uruguay’s Alfredo Evangelista in the seventh round at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas in the first defence of his WBC heavyweight title.

1980: Michael Foot was elected leader of the Labour Party by ten votes.

1985: Gary Kasparov, 22, became world chess champion, beating Anatoly Karpov in Moscow.

1989: Some 100,000 East Germans poured through the Berlin Wall, which was being destroyed to create crossing points.

1992: John Major, the prime minister, announced a judicial inquiry into the arms-to-Iran affair.

1994: The High Court in London ruled that the foreign secretary, Douglas Hurd, had acted unlawfully in authorising £234 million in aid for the Pergau Dam project in Malaysia.

1995: Nigeria defied world opinion and executed writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other environmental campaigners in what were seen as trumped-up murder charges.

1997: WorldCom and MCI Communications announced a $37 billion merger (the largest merger in US history at the time).

2006: Sri Lankan Tamil Parliamentarian Nadarajah Raviraj was assassinated in Colombo.

2010: The Scottish Parliament passed a raft of new restrictions on the sale of alcohol in a bid to tackle the country’s binge-drinking culture.

BIRTHDAYS

Sir Tim Rice, lyricist, 71; Eddie Irvine, racing driver, 50; Greg Lake, British rock musician (Emerson, Lake and Palmer), 68; Archie Macpherson, television sports commentator, 78; Neil Gaiman, author, 55; DJ Ashba, musician, singer-songwriter (Guns N’ Roses), 43; Hugh Bonneville, actor, 52; Steve Brookstein singer; Robert Engle, economist, 73.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1683 King George II; 1697 William Hogarth, painter; 1795 Walter Geikie, Edinburgh-born painter; 1861 Robert Innes, Scottish astronomer; 1919 Mikhail Kalashnikov, Russian general and inventor who developed the AK-47 assault rifle; 1925 Richard Burton, actor; 1940 Screaming Lord Sutch, founder of Monster Raving Loony Party.

Deaths: 1796 Catherine II (the Great), Empress of Russia; 1891 Jean-Arthur Nicholas Rimbaud, poet; 1938 Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder and first president of Turkish Republic; 1982 Leonid Brezhnev, premier of Soviet Union; 1990 Lady (Mary) Ogilvie, pioneer of women’s education; 1996 Marjorie Proops OBE, agony aunt; 2007 Norman Mailer, author, playwright, journalist.