On this day: Iain Gray wins Scottish Labour vote

Iain Gray, left, was elected leader of the Scottish Labour Party. Picture: TSPL

13 September

490BC: The Greeks defeated the Persians at the Battle of Marathon. Pheidippides had run 150 miles in two days in a futile attempt to ask the Spartans to assist the Greek army, but in the end its help was not required.

1645: Battle of Philiphaugh and defeat of the Royalist troops under Montrose by the Covenanting army under Sir David Leslie.

1788: New York became capital of the new United States of America.

1902: The first conviction in Britain on the evidence of fingerprints was secured at the Old Bailey.

1914: Battle of the Aisne began.

1922: The temperature at El Azizia, Libya, reached a world record 58ºC or 136.4ºF.

1940: Buckingham Palace was bombed.

1942: German attack on Stalingrad began.

1985: The World Health Organisation declared Aids a worldwide epidemic.

1989: Twenty thousand people took to the streets of Cape Town in South Africa’s biggest anti-apartheid march for 30 years.

1990: Wartime Allied powers signed Treaty of Final Settlement with Relation to Germany in Moscow, handing full sovereignty to single and united German state.

1990: Colin Wallace, a former Army press officer who alleged dirty tricks campaign in Northern Ireland to destabilise Labour politicians, was awarded £30,000 compensation by Ministry of Defence following his forced resignation in 1975.

1992: United Nations began airlift of food to small towns in Somalia to try to stop residents fleeing.

1993: The slow march towards Middle East peace continued when PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin signed self-government agreements in the White House.

2001: Civilian aircraft traffic resumed in the US after the 11 September attacks.

2008: Iain Gray was elected as the new Scottish Labour leader. The former Scottish enterprise minister beat off competition from Andy Kerr and Cathy Jamieson.

2008: Presenter Noel Edmonds announced that he had stopped paying his TV licence fee as he did not like the BBC’s “threatening” manner towards those who evaded the charge.

BIRTHDAYS

Stella McCartney OBE, fashion designer, 43; Archibald Angus Charles Kennedy, 8th Marquess of Ailsa, 58; Jacqueline Bisset, actress, 70; Bobby Davro, comedian and actor, 56; Elaine Delmar, singer, 75; Goran Ivanisevic, tennis player, 43; Michael Johnson, Olympic gold medallist athlete, 47; Shane Warne, cricketer and commentator, 45; Thomas Müller, 2014 World Cup-winning footballer; Robbie Kay, actor, 19; Peter Cetera, singer-songwriter, musician and producer (Chicago), 70; Luke Fitzgerald, Irish rugby union international, 27; Kamui Kobayashi, Japanese racing driver, 28; Mark Wiebe, golfer, 57; Joni Sledge, singer (Sister Sledge), 58.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1475 Cesare Borgia, Italian nobleman, politician and cardinal; 1660 Daniel Defoe, author; 1857 Milton Hershey, confectioner, philanthropist and founder of the Hershey Chocolate Company.

Deaths: 81 Titus, Roman emperor; 1321 Dante, Italian poet; 1506 Andrea Mantegna, Italian painter; 1944 Heath Robinson, artist known for his drawings of complex machinery which performed simple tasks.