On this day: Nicola Sturgeon born

1333: Battle of Halidon Hill at Berwick, in which Scots were crushed by Edward III of England and Edward Balliol.

1545: The Mary Rose, flagship of Henry VIII’s battle fleet, keeled over and sank in the Solent with the loss of 700 lives.

1553: Mary Tudor was proclaimed Queen, and Lady Jane Grey, a Protestant, was sent to the Tower.

1588: “There’s plenty of time to finish this game and thrash the Spaniards too,” Sir Francis Drake was said to have commented on Plymouth Hoe as he played bowls while the Spanish Armada approached.

1821: Coronation of King George IV took place in Westminster Abbey.

1837: Brunel’s 236ft Great Western was launched at Patterson’s Yard, Bristol.

1928: King Faud staged coup in Egypt and parliament was dissolved.

1956: US and Britain informed Egypt they could not participate in financing Aswan Dam project.

1983: People searching a clay pit in Surrey discovered fossils of a previously unknown species of carnivorous dinosaur.

1990: National Union of Mineworkers sued Arthur Scargill over missing Soviet money given during miners’ strike of 1984-5.

1995: The Prince of Wales gave up flying, despite being cleared of blame for crashing an aircraft he was piloting as it landed on Islay.

2001: The novelist and former MP, Lord Archer, was jailed for four years at the Old Bailey for perverting the course of justice and committing perjury during his 1987 libel trial against the Daily Star, which had accused him of sleeping with a prostitute.

2002: A public inquiry ruled that GP Harold Shipman, serving life for murdering 15 patients, altogether killed 215 patients in Hyde, near Manchester, and that he might have been responsible for 45 other deaths.

2009: American Stewart Cink won the 138th Open golf Championship at Turnberry after he overcame the 59-year-old former five-time winner Tom Watson in a play-off.

2011: News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch, his son, James, and the firm’s former chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, faced questions from MPs over the phone-hacking scandal that had led the 80-year-old media baron to shut down the News of the World.

BIRTHDAYS

Nicola Sturgeon, MSP, Deputy First Minister, 43; Anthony Edwards, actor, 51; Gabrielle, house/R&B singer, 45; Dame Evelyn Glennie, Scottish percussionist and composer, 48; Angela Griffin, actress, 37; Bernie Leadon, guitarist (The Eagles), 66; Brian May, guitarist (Queen), 66; Ilie Nastase, tennis player, 67; Adrian Noble, British artistic director, Royal Shakespeare Company 1991-2003, 63; Donald Park, Scottish footballer and SFA coach, 60; Mark Wigglesworth, conductor, 49.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1814 Samuel Colt, inventor of revolver; 1834 Edgar Degas, Impressionist painter; 1846 Edward Pickering, astronomer; 1865 Charles Mayo, surgeon and founder of the Mayo Clinic; 1896 AJ (Archibald Joseph) Cronin, Cardross-born novelist and creator of Dr Finlay; 1933 4th Viscount Colville of Culross, judge 1993-9.

Deaths: 1374 Petrarch, poet; 1814 Matthew Flinders, explorer of Australia’s coasts; 1819 John Playfair, Edinburgh-born mathematician; 1937 Sir James Barrie, creator of Peter Pan; 1993 Cardinal Gordon Gray, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh; 2009 Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

On this day: Nicola Sturgeon born | Mary Tudor Queen