On this day: Mrs Junko Tabei climbed Mount Everest

On this day in 1975 Mrs Junko Tabei of Japan pictured in 2003 became the first woman ever to climbed Mount Everest. Picture: Getty

1568: Mary Queen of Scots sailed from Port Mary across Solway Firth to begin her exile in England.

1763: Doctor Johnson and James Boswell met for the first time, at Tom Davie’s bookshop in Russell Street, London.

1770: Marie Antoinette was married to France’s King Louis XVI.

1888: Emile Berliner demonstrated the first gramophone in Philadelphia.

1908: Britain’s first diesel submarine, D1, was launched at Barrow.

1911: The Queen Victoria Monument in front of Buckingham Palace was unveiled.

1920: Joan of Arc was canonised.

1932: Japan’s premier, Tsuyoshi Inukai, was assassinated in Tokyo.

1938: The Women’s Voluntary Services Association was formed by the Marchioness of Reading, as the WVS. The Royal tag was added in 1966.

1943: The Dambusters, using “skip” bombs invented by Dr Barnes Wallis, made their famous raid on the Moehne, Eder and Sorpe dams in the Ruhr, led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson.

1962: United States Marines began arriving in Thailand to help defend it against communist threat in neighbouring Laos.

1963: India-Pakistan talks on Kashmir broke down.

1969: The Russian spacecraft Venus 5 touched down on Venus to send back information about planet’s atmosphere.

1975: Local Government (Scotland) Act (1974) came into effect, replacing 430 local authorities with nine regional, 53 district and three islands councils.

1975: Mrs Junko Tabei, of Japan, climbed Mount Everest, the first woman to do so.

1989: The Guardian Angels began work as vigilantes on London Underground trains.

1989: Hundreds of thousands from all walks of life arrived in Peking, China, to support college students fasting for freedom in Tiananmen Square.

1990: British Steel announced decision to close the hot strip mill at Ravenscraig with the loss of 770 jobs.

1990: Pavarotti sang to an audience of 12,000 at a sell-out concert at the SECC, Glasgow.

1991: President François Mitterrand appointed France’s first woman prime minister, Edith Cresson, aged 57.

2004: The Day of Mourning at Bykivnia forest, just outside of Kiev, Ukraine. Here during 1930s and early 1940s communist bolsheviks executed over 100,000 Ukrainian civilians.

2005: Kuwait permitted women’s suffrage in a 35-23 National Assembly vote.

2008: South African 400 metre runner Oscar Pistorius, whose lower legs were amputated as a child, was told by the IAAF he could compete against able-bodied athletes at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games using carbon-fibre blades.

2011: Donald Findlay, a leading QC and former vice-chairman of Rangers, was sent a knife in the post during a heightened period of sectarian tensions in Scotland.

2014: Thurso, the most northerly town on the Scottish mainland, was earmarked by conservationists as a haven for the great yellow bumblebee in a bid to save the species from extinction in the UK, its populations having dwindled by 80 per cent in recent years.

BIRTHDAYS

Judy Finnegan, television presenter, 67; Sarah Boyack, MSP, minister for transport 1999-2001, 54; Pierce Brosnan OBE, actor, 62; Billy Cobham, jazz drummer, 71; Megan Fox, actress, 29; Robert Fripp, rock guitarist (King Crimson), 69; Roy Hudd OBE, comedian, playwright and author, 79; Janet Jackson, singer, 49; Olga Korbut, Olympic gymnast, 60; Krist Novoselic, rock bassist (Nirvana), 50; Christian Lacroix, French fashion designer, 64; Janet Maw, actress, 61; Hazel O’Connor, singer, 60; Gabriela Sabatini, tennis player, 45; Tori Spelling, actress, 42; Nigel Twiston-Davies, racehorse trainer, 58; Debra Winger, actress, 60.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1763 Louis Vauquelin, scientist, discoverer of chromium; 1804 Elizabeth Peabody, educator; 1831 David Hughes, inventor of the teleprinter and the microphone; 1905 Herbert Ernest Bates, novelist; 1905 Henry Fonda, actor; 1910 Wilf Mannion, footballer; 1912 Studs Terkel, American radio broadcaster and writer; 1916 Bernard Braden, broadcaster; 1919 Waldzin Valentino (Liberace), pianist and entertainer; 1925 Idi Amin, president of Uganda 1971 to 1979; 1929 Betty Carter, jazz singer; 1931 Professor Peter Levi, poet and archaeologist; 1952 Jamie Douglas-Home racehorse trainer and journalist.

Deaths: 1703 Charles Perrault, writer of fairy tales, including Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella; 1782 Daniel Solander, botanist; 1928 Sir Edmund Gosse, critic; 1990 Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets; 1990 Sammy Davis, junior, entertainer; 2013 Paul Shane, British actor (Ted Bovis in Hi-de-Hi!).