On this day: Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane premiered

Citizen Kane later received 14 Oscar nominations, winning just one. Picture: Kobal

1517: “Evil May Day” riots in London as apprentices attacked foreign residents. Sixty rioters later were hanged.

1522: England declared war on France and Scotland.

1648: Scots began second Civil War.

1707: The Act of Union between Scotland and England came into force.

1786: The first performance took place, in Vienna, of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

1840: The first Penny Black stamps with Queen Victoria’s head went on sale five days before the official issue date.

1841: London Library, founded by Thomas Carlyle, WE Gladstone, Lord Macaulay and others, was opened.

1851: The Great Exhibition was opened in Hyde Park by Queen Victoria.

1912: The statue of Peter Pan was installed in Kensington Gardens, London. JM Barrie, author of Peter Pan, commissioned and paid for it although children were told fairies put it there.

1931: President Hoover opened New York’s Empire State Building, 1,245ft high, with 102 floors.

1931: First unit trusts went on sale in Britain, marketed by M&G General Trust Fund.

1941: Orson Welles’s first film, Citizen Kane, received its première.

1942: Japanese forces took Mandalay, Burma, while British retreated along Chindwin Valley to India.

1949: Britain’s gas industry was nationalised.

1961: The Betting and Gaming Act came into force, and betting shops opened in Britain.

1978: The May Day holiday was celebrated for the first time in Britain.

1982: British Vulcan bombers flew epic 3,500 miles from Ascension Island to bomb Falklands airport at Port Stanley.

1986: Millions of black people stayed away from jobs and schools in what was described as largest anti-apartheid protest in South Africa’s history.

1989: Vietnamese-installed government in Cambodia changed country’s name and flag.

1990: Soviet protesters heckled president Mikhail Gorbachev at May Day parade on Red Square.

1990: Secret naval documents published in The Scotsman revealed history of accidents involving the multi-million pound submarine hoists at Faslane.

1991: Government forced War Crimes Bill through, using Parliament Act for first time in 40 years to override Lords objections.

1997: Seven Tory Cabinet ministers lost their seats as Labour swept back to power after 18 years in a general election landslide that saw Tony Blair become prime minister. Labour had 419 MPs in the new Parliament, Tories 165, Liberal Democrats 46 and SNP six.

2003: Ten countries – Estonia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – joined the 25-member European Union.

2008: The Conservatives scored a resounding victory in local elections in England and Wales in which Labour’s 24 per cent of the vote cost them 331 seats and pushed them into third place behind the Tories and Liberal Democrats. A day later the Tories’ Boris Johnson unseated Ken Livingstone as mayor of London.

2011: The late Pope, John Paul II, was beatified at a ceremony at the Vatican in front of hundreds of thousands of Catholic faithful.

BIRTHDAYS

Joanna Lumley OBE, actress, 69; Rodger Arneil, Scottish rugby player, 71; Naim Attallah, publisher, 84; Lady Sarah Chatto, daughter of Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon, 51; Roger Chapman, golfer, 56; Judy Collins, singer, 76; Rita Coolidge, Grammy Award-winning pianist/singer, 70; Tony Dobbin, Northern Irish jockey, 43; Prof Phillip King, sculptor, president of the Royal Academy of Arts 1997-2004, 81; Danny McGrain, Scottish footballer, 65; Julian Mitchell, author, 80; Una Stubbs, actress, 78; Antony Worrall Thompson, television chef and restaurateur, 64; Anushka Sharma, actress, 27; Ray Parker junior, musician, 61.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1218 Rudolf I, founder of the Habsburg dynasty; 1672 Joseph Addison, poet, essayist and co-founder of The Spectator; 1839 Hilaire, Comte de Chardonnet, rayon manufacture pioneer; 1878 James Graham, 6th Duke of Montrose, inventor; 1923 Joseph Heller, author (Catch-22).

Deaths: 1700 John Dryden, Poet Laureate for 32 years; 1859 John Walker, inventor of friction match; 1873 David Livingstone, medical missionary, traveller, philanthropist; 1928 Sir Ebenezer Howard, founder of Letchworth and Welwyn Garden cities; 1945 Joseph Goebbels, Nazi leader; 1952 William Fox, founder of 20th Century Fox; 1998 Justin Fashanu, footballer; 2011 Ted Lowe MBE, British snooker commentator; 2011 Sir Henry Cooper OBE, former British heavyweight boxing champion.