On this day: Outbreak of smallpox spreads through Britain

An outbreak of smallpox spreads throughout Britain in 1962. Picture: Getty Images

1419: English force captured French city of Rouen.

1559: Coronation of Elizabeth I of England.

1813: British fleet blockaded Chesapeake and Delaware Bays in United States during War of 1812.

1848: The Hudson’s Bay Company acquired Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

1849: Sikhs were defeated at Chilianwala in India, but British suffered heavy casualties.

1893: The Independent British Labour Party was formed by Keir Hardie.

1915: Earthquake in central Italy killed 30,000 people.

1942: The pilot of an experimental jet fighter was the first man to use an emergency ejector seat button, landing safely from 7,875ft in Germany.

1959: Belgium granted reforms in Belgian Congo after disturbances.

1962: An outbreak of smallpox spread throughout Britain.

1963: Togo’s President Sylvanus Olympio was murdered as insurgents took control.

1964: A reluctant Capitol Records released the first Beatles record in the United States “to see how it goes”. I Wanna Hold Your Hand became their fastest selling single – one million copies were sold in the first three weeks.

1967: Military officers in Togo seized power in bloodless coup.

1972: United Kingdom appointed first ambassador to communist China.

1982: A Boeing 737 hit a bridge full of commuter traffic and landed in the Potomac river, Washington, hitting five ships, during a blizzard. Seventy-eight people died.

1989: Polish Communist leaders said to be ready to offer legalisation to Solidarity – the banned trade union.

1990: Thirty-thousand people showed strength of public support for ambulance workers at a London rally.

1990: Undercover troops shot dead three men robbing a betting shop in the Falls Road, West Belfast.

1991: Lithuanian station in Kauna was seized by Soviet paratroopers in brutal assault that left 14 people dead.

1992: Ford workers at the Dagenham plant were told to speed up or risk losing their jobs, as the company aimed to match output at German plants.

1993: Space shuttle Endeavour headed for space for the third time as STS-54 launched from the Kennedy Space Centre.

2001: An earthquake hit El Salvador, killing more than 800 people.

2010: A gangster, dubbed Scotland’s “public enemy number one”, was shot dead in a supermarket car park. Kevin Carroll, nicknamed “gerbil”, died at the scene in Glasgow.

2011: A cruise ship carrying more than 4,000 passengers and crew ran aground after hitting rocks off western Italy. Several people died in the accident.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1596 Jan Van Goyen, artist; 1882 Peter Dawson, Australian singer and songwriter; 1884 Sophie Tucker, American showgirl known as “The Last Of the Red Hot Mommas”; 1904 Richard Addinsell, composer (including Warsaw Concerto); 1905 Oliver Messel, designer; 1918 Lord Willis, playwright and novelist (creator of Dixon of Dock Green); 1919 Robert Stack, actor (The Untouchables); 1926 Craigie Aitchison CBE, Edinburgh-born artist.

Deaths: AD603 St Kentigern (or St Mungo), patron saint of Glasgow; 1929 Wyatt Earp, American marshal who fought the Clanton gang at the OK Corral; 1930 Sebastian de Ferranti, electrical engineer; 1941 James Joyce, poet and novelist; 1978 Hubert Humphrey, United States senator and vice-president 1965-69; 1988 Chiang Ching-kuo, Nationalist China’s president; 2009 Patrick McGoohan, actor; 2010 Teddy Pendergrass, American soul singer.