On this day: Eric Lubbock wins shock by-election

EVENTS, birthdays and anniversaries on March 14.

Liberal Eric Lubbock took Orpington in Kent from the Tories, who had had a majority of 14,760. Picture: Getty

Close season for trout ends.

1647: France and Sweden signed the Treaty of Ulm with Elector of Bavaria.

1885: At the first night of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado at the Savoy Theatre, London, the Japanese Ambassador presented a petition to have it banned for racism. It ran for two years.

1891: First submarine telephone lines laid across English Channel.

1915: The German cruiser Dresden was sunk.

1917: German army began retreat to Hindenburg Line.

1930: The Channel Tunnel Committee in London gave approval for the building of a tunnel between Britain and France.

1945: The heaviest bomb of the war, Grand Slam, weighing 22,000lb, was dropped by the RAF on Bielefeld railway viaduct.

1961: New English Bible published in two phases (New Testament on this day, Old Testament on 16 March, 1970).

1962: Eric Lubbock captured Orpington for Liberals in sensational by-election, turning Tory majority of 14,760 into Liberal majority of 7,855.

1964: Jack Ruby was found guilty of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged assassin of President Kennedy, and was sentenced to death. He died of a blood clot in 1967.

1965: Israel’s Cabinet formally approved establishment of diplomatic relations with West Germany.

1978: Israeli troops invaded Lebanon on mission Israel said was designed to root out terrorist bases.

1984: Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Fein, was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt in central Belfast.

1987: At least 12 people were killed in escalated Communist insurgency in Philippines with congressional elections almost two months away.

1988: Iran and Iraq unleashed missiles on each other’s capitals as so-called “war of the cities” erupted.

1989: Israeli foreign minister Moshe Arens accused Palestine Liberation Organisation of worst atrocities since Second World War.

1991: Birmingham Six were freed after wrongfully serving 16 years in jail for 1974 Birmingham pub bombings.

1992: Eleven died when helicopter transferring workers from Shell Cormorant Alpha platform to nearby accommodation flotel, Safe Supporter, crashed in North Sea.

1993: More than 70 people were killed as hurricanes, blizzards and floods left a trail of destruction along America’s Atlantic coast.

1994: Government rejected IRA demands for talks on Northern Ireland, saying there would be no negotiations until violence stopped.

1995: Norman Thagard became the first American astronaut to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle.

2006: Members of the Chadian military failed in a coup d’état attempt.

2007: The Left Front government of West Bengal sent at least 3,000 police to Nandigram in an attempt to break Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee resistance there; the resulting clash left 14 dead.

2011: Figures revealed that the number of women given prison sentences in Scotland had almost doubled in the past decade.

2012: Perth became Scotland’s seventh city after winning a UK competition marking the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

BIRTHDAYS

Sir Michael Caine CBE (born Maurice Micklewhite), actor, 82; Pam Ayres MBE, poet and broadcaster, 68; Jamie Bell, actor, 29; Jasper Carrott OBE, comedian, actor and television presenter, 70; Sir Robert (Bob) Charles CBE, golfer, 79; Billy Crystal, actor, 67; Quincy Jones, composer, arranger and bandleader, 82; Mark Murphy, jazz singer, 83; Wolfgang Petersen, film director, 74; Tessa Sanderson CBE, athlete and broadcaster, 59; Francine Stock, writer and broadcaster, 57; Rita Tushingham, actress, 73.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1681 George Telemann, composer; 1804 Johann Strauss, the elder, Austrian violinist and composer; 1836 Isabella Mary Mayson (Mrs Beeton), author of The Book of Household Management; 1868 Maxim Gorky, author; 1879 Albert Einstein, mathematical physicist; 1922 Sir Kenneth Alexander, Chancellor, Aberdeen University 1986-96, principal and vice-chancellor, Stirling University 1981-86; 1926 Lita Roza, singer (How Much is That Doggie in the Window?).

Deaths: 1748 George Wade, soldier and road-builder; 1757 Admiral John Byng; 1883 Karl Marx, German social philosopher and radical leader; 1932 George Eastman, photographic pioneer; 1975 Susan Hayward actress; 1976 Busby Berkeley, creator of film extravaganzas; 1986 Sir Huw Wheldon, broadcaster; 2009 Terence Edmond, actor (Z-Cars); 2010 Peter Graves, actor; 2014 Tony Benn, MP 1950-60 and 1963-2001, and Cabinet minister.