On this day: Canned beer invented

The Ford Capri was launched on this day in 1969. Picture: Contributed

AD41: The mad Roman emperor Caligula was assassinated.

1798: Irish rebellion broke out.

1848: Gold was discovered in California at Sutter’s Mill near Coloma, by James Marshall, touching off the Gold Rush.

1907: First Boy Scout troop was organised by Sir Robert Baden-Powell.

1915: Battle of the Dogger Bank in which German cruiser Blucher was sunk.

1924: Petrograd was renamed Leningrad.

1935: Canned beer made its first appearance, marketed by Krueger Brewery of Richmond, Virginia, United States.

1946: United Nations General Assembly voted to create UN Atomic Energy Commission.

1969: Sports saloon, the Capri, unveiled in Britain by Ford.

1973: US negotiator Henry Kissinger said Vietnam peace agreement worked out in Paris also meant end to fighting in Laos and Cambodia. Hanoi’s De Luc Tho called agreement “a great victory for the Vietnamese people.”

1976: Margaret Thatcher was dubbed the Iron Lady in the Soviet defence ministry’s newspaper Red Star after a speech on 19 January about the Soviet threat.

1978: Russian space satellite crashed near Yellow Knife, Canada.

1986: The Westland affair reached its climax with resignation of Leon Brittan.

1986: Guerrillas advanced into Ugandan capital of Kampala as army opposition crumbled, pushing military government to edge of collapse.

1987: Clashes outside News International plant at Wapping, east London, left 162 policemen and 33 demonstrators hurt in worst disturbances of year-long newspaper printers’ dispute.

1988: The Liberals voted for a merger with the Social Democratic Party.

1996: Polish premier Jozef Oleksy resigned amid charges that he spied for Moscow.

2003: The US Department of Homeland Security officially began operation.

2008: Peter Hain resigned as work and pensions and Welsh secretary after the Electoral Commission referred the non-declaration of more than £100,000 in donations to his campaign for the Labour Party deputy leadership to the police.

2009: Three climbers died following an avalanche on a mountain in Glencoe.

2011: At least 35 died and 180 were injured in a bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport.

BIRTHDAYS

Vic Reeves (Jim Moir), comedian and actor, 55; Neil Diamond, singer and actor, 73; Adrian Edmondson, comic actor, 57; Bamber Gascoigne, broadcaster and author, 79; Jools Holland OBE, musician and television presenter, 56; Nastassia Kinski, actress, 55; Dr Desmond Morris, anthropologist and author, 86; Aaron Neville, R&B singer, 73; Masashi “Jumbo” Ozaki, Japanese golfer, 67.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: AD76 Hadrian, Roman emperor; 1712 Frederick the Great, Prussian king; 1732 Pierre Beaumarchais, playwright; 1749 Charles James Fox, statesman and orator; 1862 Edith Wharton, novelist; 1924 Earl Spencer, father of Princess of Wales; 1930 Bernard Matthews CBE, British poultry industry figure.

Deaths: 1874 Adam Black, Edinburgh-born publisher and politician; 1920 Amedeo Modigliani, painter and sculptor; 2009 Reg Gutteridge OBE, boxing journalist and television commentator.

On this day: Canned beer invented | Ford Capri