On this day: The Massacre of Glencoe

An aerial image taken from the top of Dresdens town hall reveals the devastation after the Allied bombing of 1945. Picture: Getty

1692: The Massacre of Glencoe, in which 34 men, two women and two children, all from clan Macdonald, were killed by Campbells and others on state orders after the clan chief failed to sign allegiance to William III.

1859: The Corps of Commissionaires was founded in London for the employment of former regular servicemen.

1931: Scottish Youth Hostels Association was formed.

1945: Hundreds of RAF and United States Air Force bombers devastated Dresden in three waves over a 14-hour period, creating a firestorm which sucked in and burned thousands of civilians. Estimates of the number killed now say around 25,000, though Nazi propaganda suggested 500,000 died.

1961: Patrice Lumumba, Congo leader, assassinated.

1969: It was announced that eggs removed from a woman volunteer had been fertilised in a test tube as a result of work done at Cambridge University in collaboration with a doctor at Oldham General Hospital.

1975: Turkish Cypriots proclaimed separate administration in Turkish-occupied northern part of Cyprus.

1989: A two-and-a-half-inch meteor crashed through the roof of Lewes Station, Sussex.

1989: Soviet Union’s Red Army left Afghan capital of Kabul in ceremony, leaving behind a handful of soldiers.

1990: The two Germanies, with Britain, France, Soviet Union, and United States, agreed a framework for German reunification.

1991: Hundreds died as Americans bombed concrete structure in Baghdad claimed by Allies as command and control centre and by Iraq as air raid shelter.

1994: John Major’s back-to-basics took new battering with resignation of Conservative MP Hartley Booth over relationship with Commons researcher.

2001: An earthquake measuring 6.6 hit El Salvador, killing at least 400 people.

2004: The Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics announced the discovery of the universe’s largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star “Lucy” after the Beatles’ song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

2010: Winter Olympics in Canada, were overshadowed by the death of luge competitor Georgian Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21, in a training-run crash.

BIRTHDAYS

Stockard Channing, actress, 70; Michael Attenborough CBE, theatre director, 64; Peter Gabriel, singer and songwriter, 64; Peter Hook, rock musician, 58; Simon Fraser, 16th Lord Lovat, 5th Baron Lovat, 37; John McAllion, MSP 1999-2003, MP 1987-2001, 66; Colin Matthews OBE, composer, 68; Jamie Murray, Wimbledon mixed doubles champion with Jelena Jankovic in 2007, 28; Kim Novak, actress, 81; Henry Rollins, actor and rock singer, 53; Professor Simon Schama CBE, broadcaster, 69; George Segal, actor, 80; Jerry Springer, talk show host, 70; Robbie Williams, singer, 40.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1728 John Hunter, physiologist and surgeon; 1744 David Allan, artist known as “the Scottish Hogarth”; 1901 Lewis Grassic Gibbon (James Leslie Mitchell), novelist; 1903 Georges Simenon, Belgian author who created Inspector Maigret.

Deaths: AD858 Kenneth MacAlpin, first King of Scots; 1883 Richard Wagner, composer; 1958 Dame Christabel Pankhurst, suffragette; 1976 Lily Pons, singer; 1979 Jean Renoir, film-maker.