On this day: Italian troops invaded Ethiopia

On this day in 1935 Italian troops invaded Ethiopia on the orders of Mussolini, starting the second Italo-Abyssinian war. Picture: Getty

1594: Battle of Glenlivet and the defeat of royalist troops under the Earl of Argyll by Catholic lords under the Earl of Huntly.

1906: SOS was established as an international distress signal at the Berlin Radio Conference replacing the call sign CQD.

1914: 2,400 people died in an earthquake in Turkey.

1918: German-Austrian note was sent to US via Switzerland for armistice in First World War.

1932: Iraq joined League of Nations as British mandate ended.

1935: Italian forces invaded Ethiopia.

1941: Adolf Hitler announced that Soviet Union had been defeated and would never rise again.

1940: Former prime minister Neville Chamberlain resigned from government because of poor health – he died two months later.

1941: John Huston’s film The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart, premiered in New York.

1941: The aerosol was patented by LD Goodhue and WN Sullivan.

1952: Tea rationing ended in Britain.

1952: Britain detonated its first atomic bomb, aboard a naval vessel at the Monte Bello Islands off north-west Australia.

1956: The Bolshoi Ballet appeared at Covent Garden, London, for the first time.

1959: The post code, required in the addressing of mail for mechanical sorting, was first used in Britain, in Norwich.

1971: Luna 19, unmanned Soviet spacecraft, went into orbit around Moon.

1972: American president Richard Nixon signed the SALT agreement (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) with the Soviet Union.

1977: India’s former Congress Party prime minister Indira Gandhi was arrested in New Delhi on two charges of corruption while in office.

1990: East and West Germany were reunited as the Federal Republic of Germany.

1990: Former Labour MP Dick Douglas joined the SNP.

1993: There was bloodshed in Moscow as demonstrators attacked government buildings. President Boris Yeltsin declared a state of emergency.

1995: Former US football star and film actor OJ Simpson was cleared after a nine-month trial of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman.

BIRTHDAYS

Gwen Stefani, pop singer, 45; India Arie, singer-songwriter, producer, 39; Lindsey Buckingham, musician (Fleetwood Mac), 65; Neve Campbell, actress, 41, Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans), singer, 73; Fred Couples, golfer, 55; Lena Headey, actress (Game of Thrones), 41; Tommy Lee, rock drummer, 52; Ruggero Raimondi, bass-baritone, 73; Danny O’Donoghue, singer-songwriter, 34; Clive Owen, actor, 50; Kevin Richardson, singer, model, actor (Backstreet Boys); Charlie Wernham, comedian and actor, 20; Greg Proops, actor, comedian and TV host, 55; Kathryn D Sullivan, Nasa astronaut, first woman to walk in space, 63.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1900 Thomas Clayton Wolfe, novelist; 1911 Sir Michael Hordern, actor; 1916 James Herriott OBE, author; 1925 Gore Vidal, novelist and critic; 1938 Eddie Cochran, singer.

Deaths: 1226 St Francis of Assisi; 1637 Ben Jonson, poet and dramatist; 1896 William Morris, poet and artist; 1967 Woody Guthrie, singer and composer; 1987 Jean Anouilh, playwright; 2004 Janet Leigh, actress.