On this day: Halle Berry wins Oscar for Best Actress

On this day in 2002 Halle Barry made history when she became the first black woman to win an Oscar for best actress. Picture: Getty

Annunciation Day, the old legal New Year until 1599.

Lady Day.

National day of Greece.

1306: Robert de Brus, Earl of Carrick and Lord of Annandale, was crowned King of Scots at Scone by the Countess of Buchan.

1802: The Treaty of Amiens was signed with France, Spain and Holland, returning most of Britain’s possessions taken during the French Revolutionary Wars.

1807: Slave trade in Britain was abolished.

1810: The Commercial Bank of Scotland was officially founded in Edinburgh by John Pitcairn, Lord Cockburn and others.

1821: Greek patriots began revolt against domination of Ottoman Empire, an uprising that lasted 12 years and won Greek independence.

1876: First Scotland versus Wales football international was played in Glasgow: Scotland won 4-0.

1897: The Scottish Trades Union Congress was founded.

1925: Greece was formally declared a republic.

1940: The Mosquito, Britain’s two-seater fighter bomber, made its maiden flight.

1941: Yugoslavia joined Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Alliance.

1949: Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet won five Oscars – the first British film to win an Academy award.

1957: Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands signed Treaty of Rome and established the European Economic Community.

1969: Pakistan’s president, Ayub Khan, turned power over to military after 11 years of leadership.

1975: Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal was assassinated in palace in Riyadh by nephew with history of mental illness. Faisal’s brother, Crown Prince Khaled, succeeded to throne.

1980: Doctor Robert Runcie enthroned as the 102nd Archbishop of Canterbury.

1982: Former Labour deputy leader Roy Jenkins took traditional Conservative seat at Glasgow Hillhead for the SDP in sensational by-election victory.

1987: More than 80 Afghan guerrillas and civilians were killed when Afghan air force jets attacked camps close to Pakistani border.

1989: Heads of Egypt, Jordan and Palestine Liberation Organisation met to co-ordinate Middle East peace strategy.

1989: The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race had two women as coxes for the first time in its 135 years. Oxford won.

1992: Aldershot Football Club collapsed with debts of £1.2 million – the first Football League club to fold during a season since Accrington Stanley in 1962.

1993: The Warrington IRA bomb atrocity claimed a second young victim when 12-year-old Tim Parry died in hospital.

1993: Barbara Harmer, 39, became civil aviation’s first woman supersonic pilot when she flew as first officer on the Concorde.

1994: Five members of a British Army climbing expedition, missing for four weeks in the jungles of Borneo, were found alive.

1996: The European Union’s Veterinarian Committee banned the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow disease.

2002: Halle Berry made became the first black woman to win an Oscar – for Best Actress.

2006: A gunman killed six people before taking his own life at a party in Seattle’.

2010: Sherlock, a Collie cross-breed, who lived to be Scotland’s oldest dog, died at the age of 21.

BIRTHDAYS

Sarah Jessica Parker, actress, 50; Bonnie Bedelia, A actress, 67; Melanie Blatt, pop singer (All Saints), 40; Humphrey Burton CBE, writer and broadcaster, 84; Marcia Cross, actress (Desperate Housewives), 53; Cathy Dennis, singer and songwriter, 46; Robert Fox, theatre, film and television producer, 62; Aretha Franklin, soul singer, 73; Paul Michael Glaser, actor (Starsky and Hutch) 72; John Jeffrey, Scottish rugby player and broadcaster, 56; Sir Elton John CBE, singer and songwriter, 68; Barry Kyle, theatre director, 68; Alyson Michalka, actress and singer, 26; Richard O’Brien, actor and writer (Rocky Horror Show), 73.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1867 Arturo Toscanini, conductor; 1881 Béla Bartók, composer; 1882 Haydn Wood, composer; 1906 AJP Taylor, historian and broadcaster; 1908 Sir David Lean, film director; 1914 Denis Peploe, artist; 1915 Dorothy Squires, singer; 1929 David Hicks, interior decorator and designer; 1932 Lord Walker of Worcester MBE, MP 1961-92, secretary of state for energy 1983-87.

Deaths: 1902 Major-General Sir Hector Macdonald, crofter’s son who rose through ranks of Gordon Highlanders and became known as “Fighting Mac” for his war exploits; 1904 Frédéric Mistral, poet; 1918 Claude Debussy, composer; 1937 John Drinkwater, poet and playwright; 2002 Kenneth Wolstenholme, football commentator.