On this day: 800m Chinese pay tribute to Mao

EVENTS, birthdays, anniversaries
On this day in 1976, 800 million Chinese paid tribute to their leader Mao Tse Tung at his memorial service. Picture: AFP/Getty ImagesOn this day in 1976, 800 million Chinese paid tribute to their leader Mao Tse Tung at his memorial service. Picture: AFP/Getty Images
On this day in 1976, 800 million Chinese paid tribute to their leader Mao Tse Tung at his memorial service. Picture: AFP/Getty Images

1759: Battle of Quebec ended with French surrender to the British.

1867: Karl Marx’s Das Kapital was published.

1879: Blackpool held the first of its annual illuminations.

1914: The Irish Home Rule Bill received Royal Assent.

1951: The Al Read Show started on BBC radio, with Jimmy Edwards and Pat Kirkwood, introducing the catchphrases “Right monkey” and “You’ll be lucky!”

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1959: Forty-seven miners at Auchengeich Colliery, Chryston, Lanarkshire, were trapped and died when the bogies carrying them to work ran into smoke 1,000ft below ground.

1961: Dag Hammarskjöld, Swedish secretary-general of United Nations, was killed in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia when flying from Leopoldville.

1972: First planeload of Ugandan Asians expelled by dictator Idi Amin arrived in Britain.

1976: Eight-hundred million Chinese paid tribute to their leader Mao Tse Tung at his memorial service. For three minutes, one fifth of the world’s population stood in silence.

1981: France abolished capital punishment.

1982: Christian Falangist forces massacred 800 Palestinians in Chatilla and Bourj el Barajneh refugee camps in Beirut.

1990: Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Terry, governor of Gibraltar 
when SAS killed three IRA terrorists on the Rock in March, 1988, was shot six times at close range by the IRA at his home in Stafford.

1994: Four people, including two children, died when a double-decker bus carrying Girl Guides on an outing smashed into a bridge in Glasgow.

1995: Inquiry was ordered after it was discovered that Brian MacKinnon, 32, a carpet fitter, posed as a 17-year-old and returned to the school, Bearsden Academy, he had left 15 years earlier, and won a place at Dundee University medical school.

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1997: United States media magnate Ted Turner donated $1 billion to the United Nations.

2001: First mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

2007: Buddhist monks joined anti-government protesters in Myanmar, starting what some called the “Saffron Revolution”.

2009: The 72-year run of American soap opera The Guiding Light ended as its final episode was broadcast.

2014: Scots went to the polls to vote in the Scottish Independence referendum. The “No” vote prevailed with 55.3 per cent of voters opting against independence, compared with 44.7 per cent who voted “Yes”.

BIRTHDAYS

John Fashanu, footballer and television presenter, 53; Russ Abbot, comedian, 68; Frankie Avalon, American singer, actor and playwright, 75; Lance Armstrong, disgraced cyclist, 44; Sol Campbell, footballer, 41; Lord Bracadale, QC, Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland, 66; Tara Fitzgerald, actress, 48; Keeley Hazell, model, 29; Alex Stepney, football goalkeeper, 73; Darren Gough, cricketer, 45; James Marsden, actor, 42; Jada Pinkett Smith, actress, 44; Derek Pringle, cricketer and journalist, 57; Peter Shilton OBE, goalkeeper with record 125 England caps, 66; Robert Blake, actor, 82; Ben Carson, neurosurgeon, author, politician; John Aldridge, 57; Giancarlo minardi, founder of Minardi Formula One racing team, 58; Billy Drago, actor, 66; Joanne Catherall, vocalist (the Human League), 53.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1709 Dr Samuel Johnson, writer and lexicographer; 1733 George Read, lawyer, statesman, signatory of American declaration of Independence; 1765 Pope Gregory XVI; 1819 Jean Foucault, French physicist; 1861 Sir Owen Seaman, 1st Baronet, editor of Punch 1906 -1932; 1905 Greta Garbo, actress; 1916 Rosanno Brazzi, actor; 1920 Jack Warden, actor; 1925 Peter Sellers, actor and comedian; 1930 Ray Alan, ventriloquist; 1949 Dr Mo Mowlam, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 1997-2000; 1961 James Gandolfini, actor (The Sopranos).

Deaths: 1180 Louis VII, king of France; 1830 William Hazlitt, critic and essayist; 1860 Joseph Locke, civil engineer (at Moffat); 1911 Peter Stolypin, Russian premier (assassinated); 1945 “Blind” Willie Johnson, Blues singer and guitarist; 1949 Frank Morgan, actor (the “Wizard” in The Wizard of Oz); 1961 Dag Hammarskjöld, secretary-general of United Nations; 1964 Sean O’Casey, playwright; 1967 Sir John Cockcroft, physicist who split the atom with Ernest Walton; 1970 Jimi Hendrix, singer and guitarist; 2002 Bob Hayes, world record-breaking sprinter turned American footballer; 2008 Henry Steinway, piano maker; 2013 Ken Norton, world heavyweight champion boxer.

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