On this day: The funeral of Princess Diana

Events, birthdays and anniversaries

Thousands lined the streets to mourn the passing of the Princess of Wales. Picture: Getty

6 September

1522: Ferdinand Magellan’s ship, the Vittoria, arrived in San Lucar, Spain, after completing the first circumnavigation of the world. Magellan had been killed in the Philippines.

1620: The Mayflower set sail from Plymouth. She did not land first at Plymouth Rock, but at the tip of Cape Cod on 11 November, reaching the Rock on 21 December.

1715: The standard of the Old Pretender was unfurled by

the Earl of Mar at Braemar in the first of the two major Jacobite risings.

1736: The Porteous Riot took place, in which Edinburgh’s Tolbooth prison was broken

into, several prisoners freed,

and Captain John Porteous, whose Royal reprieve from a death sentence had been

granted, was dragged out and hanged.

1820: Andrew Hardie and John Baird, Glasgow weavers, were hanged at Stirling for high treason. They were involved in the so-called “Radical Rising” and the “battle” of Bonnymuir on 5 April, precursors of the Reform Movement.

1852: The first free public lending library was opened in Manchester.

1868: The Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society began business in Glasgow.

1926: Chiang Kai-shek’s forces reached Hankow in the general’s northern campaign in the Chinese civil war.

1941: Nazi secret police ordered all Jews in Germany over the age of six to wear a Yellow Star of David.

1952: Twenty-six people died at the Farnborough Air Show when prototype De Havilland jet exploded over the crowd.

1965: India invaded West Pakistan and bombed Lahore.

1975: More than 2,300 people were killed by an earthquake in eastern Turkey.

1989: President George Bush announced a plan costing $7.86 billion to halve drug use in the United States by the year 2000.

1991: The USSR was no more as the Congress of People’s Deputies in Moscow scrapped the old power structures built up over 70 years and gave the Soviet republics their independence.

1995: There was international condemnation after France exploded a nuclear device in the South Pacific.

1997: Hundreds of thousands of people lined the route for the Westminster Abbey funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.

2006: A junior minister and six aides resigned in protest at prime minister Tony Blair’s refusal to name a departure date.

BIRTHDAYS

Idris Elba, British actor, 42; Foxy Brown, American rapper, 36; Tim Henman, former British No 1 tennis player, 40; Roger Law, satirist and puppeteer (Spitting Image), 73; Claire Martin, jazz singer, 47; Dame Monica Mason DBE, director, Royal Ballet, 73; Pat Nevin, football analyst and former player, 51; Dolores O’Riordan, singer (The Cranberries), 43; Rosie Perez, American actress, 50; CeCe Peniston, singer, 45; Nina Persson, lead singer of Swedish group The Cardigans, 40; Bruce Rioch, football manager and former Scotland international player, 67; Greg Rusedski, former British No 1 tennis player, 41; Jackie Trent, singer and songwriter, 74; Roger Waters, rock musician (Pink Floyd), 71; Pippa Middleton, socialite, columnist, sister of Duchess of Cambridge, 31; Max George, singer (The Wanted), 26; Macy Gray, R&B and soul singer-songwriter and actress, 45; Matthew Horne, actor (Gavin & Stacey), 36; Naomie Harris, actress, 38; Paddy Boom, drummer (Scissor Sisters), 46; Joseph Yobo Nigerian footballer, 34; Carlo Cudicini, goalkeeper, 41; Christopher Brookmyre, Scottish novelist, 46; Scott Travis, drummer (Judas Priest), 53; Buster Bloodvessel, singer (Bad Manners), 56.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1729 Moses Mendelssohn, philosopher; 1766 John Dalton, chemist and physician; 1808 William Livingston, Gaelic poet; John James Macleod, Perthshire-born co-discoverer of insulin; 1879 Max Schreck, German actor; 1888 Joseph Patrick Kennedy, US financier, father of John, Robert and Edward; 1917 George Mann, cricketer; 1925 Jimmy Reed, blues musician and songwriter; 1932 Hugh John Vaughan Campbell, 6th Earl Cawdor; 1935 Jock Wallace, Scottish football player and manager.

Deaths: 1652 Thomas Dempster, Scottish scholar and historian; 1701 King James VIIⅈ 1782 Martha Jefferson, US first lady; 1932 Arthur Rackham, illustrator (Aesop’s Fables, Alices Adventures in Wonderland, etc); 1952 Gertrude Lawrence, actress; 1959 Edmund Gwenn, actor; 1959 Kay Kendall, actress; 1966 Hendrik Verwoerd, South African prime minister (assassinated); 1981 Christy Brown, Irish writer and painter; 1984 Ernest Tubb, country music singer-songwriter; 1985 Johnny Desmond, singer; 1990 Tom Fogerty, musician (Credence Clearwater Revival); 1994 James Clavell, novelist.