On this day: James V born

1413: Henry V was crowned in Westminster Abbey, aged 25.

1710: The Copyright Act came into effect, recognising the rights of authors for the first time.

1820: The first British settlers arrived in South Africa, at Algoa Bay near Port Elizabeth.

1829: Parliament passed the Catholic Emancipation Bill.

1832: French law excluded families of Charles X and Napoleon from the country.

1849: The safety pin was patented after American inventor Walter Hunt had made it in only three hours – selling the rights in order to pay off a $15 debt.

1858: Big Ben, the bell in the Westminster clock tower, was cast. Weighing 13.5 tons, it was named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the commissioner of works, a large man known as “Big Ben”.

1917: Vimy Ridge, in Northern France, was taken by Canadian forces with heavy losses in an assault during the Battle of Arras.

1925: F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published.

1945: American troops liberated Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany.

1955: David Blakely, 24, a racing driver, was shot dead outside a pub in London by Ruth Ellis. She was later hanged for the crime.

1960: The American Civil Rights Bill was passed by US Senate.

1986: United States conducted nuclear test in Nevada desert in spite of growing protests among peace groups and strong Soviet campaign for nuclear test ban.

1988: Sandy Lyle became first British golfer to win the Masters at Augusta in the United States.

1992: Three people died and 90 were injured when an IRA bomb went off in the City of London.

1993: Chris Hani, general secretary of South African Communist Party and member of ANC national executive, was assassinated outside his home.

1993: The body of an Edinburgh teacher, Adrian Strasser, was found in New Orleans where he had been on holiday. The killing remains unsolved.

1994: United Nations aircraft bombed Serbian forces shelling the town of Gorazde, raising the risk of the West becoming involved in a full-scale conflict in the former Yugoslavia.

2010: Polish president Lech Kaczynski was among 96 people, many of them senior political and military figures, killed in a plane crash in Russia.

BIRTHDAYS

Nicky Campbell, Scottish TV and radio broadcaster, 52; Sophie Ellis-Bextor, British singer, 34; Ed Byrne, Irish stand-up comic, 41; Patrick Garland, British theatre and film director, 78; Lesley Garrett, soprano, 58; Gloria Hunniford, British broadcaster, 73; David Moorcroft, British athlete, 60; Mandy Moore, American pop singer, 29; Haley Joel Osment, actor (The Sixth Sense), 25; Steven Seagal, film actor and director, 62; Omar Sharif, Egyptian film actor and top bridge player, 81; Gerda Stevenson, Scottish actress, singer and writer, 57; Max von Sydow, Swedish actor, 84; Paul Theroux, American author, 72; Bunny Wailer, Jamaican reggae musician, 66.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1512 James V (at Linlithgow Palace); 1829 William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army; 1870 Lenin, Communist leader; 1915 Harry Morgan, American actor (M*A*S*H); 1929 Mike Hawthorne, racing driver.

Deaths: 1840 Alexander Nasmyth, Edinburgh-born artist; 1954 Auguste Lumière, pioneer of cinematography; 1966 Evelyn Waugh, novelist; 1980 Antonia White, journalist and novelist; 2010 Dixie Carter, American actress.

On this day: James V born | Big Ben cast