On this day: Korean War began | Michael Jackson died

1595: Earl of Tyrone was proclaimed traitor for his rebellion in Ireland.

1867: The first patent for barbed wire was taken out by Lucien Smith of Kent, Ohio.

1891: First Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle was published in Strand magazine.

1920: The Hague became the permanent seat of the International Court of Justice.

1942: RAF carried out a raid on Brem,en involving 1,000-bombers.

1945: The United Nations Organisation was founded.

1950: The Korean War began when Communist forces of the north crossed the 38th Parallel. Almost five million died in the conflict.

1951: World’s first regular colour television service was broadcast by CBS in New York, featuring Ed Sullivan.

1953: John Christie was sentenced to death for the murder of four women, including his wife. He was believed to have killed three other women, including Beryl Evans and her daughter in 1950, for which Timothy Evans was found guilty and subsequently hanged.

1969: Pancho Gonzalez and Charlie Pasarell played a record 112-game singles match, on Wimbledon’s Centre Court. It lasted five hours 12 minutes. Gonzalez, aged 41, won.

1975: Mozambique became fully independent after a ten-year war with Portugal.

1988: Landslide buried about 100 people in Turkish mountain village of Catak.

1989: World Wide Fund for Nature issued a warning that making it illegal to pick wild gladioli, found in the New Forest, Hampshire.

1990: IRA bomb injured seven, at the Carlton Club, London.

1991: Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence from Yugoslavia, triggering conflict.

1996: Free Church theologian the Reverend Professor Donald Macleod was cleared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court of five charges of indecent assault involving four women.

2008: The Queen stripped president Robert Mugabe of his honorary knighthood.

2009: Pop icon Michael Jackson died following a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles.

2011: A parade of 2,500 military personnel, veterans and cadets took place in Edinburgh to mark UK Armed Forces Day.

BIRTHDAYS

Carly Simon, American singer and songwriter, 68; Sir Peter Blake CBE, British artist, 78; Tim Finn OBE, musician, singer/song writer (Split Enz), 61; Ricky Gervais, British comedian, actor and writer, 52; Iestyn Harris, rugby league and union player, 37; Johnny Herbert, racing driver, 49; Rhoda Lewis, British actress, 80; Eddie Large, Glasgow-born comedian (of Little & Large duo), 71; Roy Marsden, British actor, 72; George Michael, singer (Wham!), 50; Greg Raymer, professional poker player, 49; Patrick Tambay, French racing driver, 64.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1870 Robert Erskine Childers, author (Riddle of the Sands); 1894 Hermann Oberth, rocket pioneer; 1900 Earl Mountbatten of Burma; 1903 Eric Blair (George Orwell), novelist (Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four); 1913 Cyril Fletcher, comedian.

Deaths: 1634 John Marston, playwright and satirist; 1876 Colonel George Armstrong Custer; 1968 Tony Hancock, comedy actor;1997 Jacques Cousteau, underwater explorer and inventor of aqualung; 2009 Farrah Fawcett, actress; 2011 Margaret Tyzack OBE, British actress.