On this day: Prince Charles becomes a school pupil

EVENTS, birthdays and anniversaries on May 11.

Prince Charles, pictured with his father and teachers, became a pupil at Gordonstoun school in Moray. Picture: Hulton Getty

National day of Laos.

AD868: The first printed book, known as the Diamond Sutra, was published in China. It was discovered in 1900.

1685: Two female Covenanters were executed by drowning at Wigtown.

1812: Spencer Perceval, Tory prime minister, was shot and killed by a bankrupt Liverpool broker, John Bellingham, as he entered the House of Commons.

1818: The Old Vic Theatre opened in Waterloo Road, London, as the Royal Coburg.

1824: British forces took Rangoon in Burma.

1866: Black Friday on London stock market as commercial panic followed stoppage of bankers Overend and Gurney.

1908: The foundation stone of the Liver Building, Liverpool, was laid.

1922: The British radio station 2LO was established at Marconi House, in The Strand, London.

1940: Winston Churchill became head of the wartime coalition government.

1941: House of Commons chamber destroyed in blitz bombing which, on same night, damaged Westminster Abbey, the British Museum and four mainline stations. The death toll was 1,400.

1949: Israel was admitted to United Nations.

1949: Siam changed name to Thailand.

1960: The world’s longest liner, SS France, was launched by Madame de Gaulle.

1962: Prince Charles became a pupil at Gordonstoun School.

1971: The Daily Sketch closed after 62 years.

1983: Aberdeen FC won the European Cup-winners’ Cup by beating Real Madrid 2-1 in Gothenburg.

1985: Fire broke out in the main stand of Bradford City football ground and 56 spectators died.

1987: Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s government imposed direct federal control on Punjab State because of continued violence by Sikh separatists.

1989: New Official Secrets Act given Royal Assent.

1989: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats became London’s longest-running musical, celebrating its eighth birthday.

1990: Inflation in Britain, at 9.4 per cent, was the highest for eight years.

1994: The late Marquess of Bute left estate valued at £144m, the bulk of it in trust to his son and heir, racing driver Johnny Dumfries.

1995: The Nolan Committee on standards in public life recommended stringent restrictions on the freedom of MPs to make money from outside interests.

1997: IBM Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeated Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.

2004: Nine people died when an explosion destroyed the four-storey Stockline Plastics factory in Maryhill, Glasgow. Seven people were pulled alive from the wreckage. ICL Plastics and ICL Tech were fined £400,000 for health and safety breaches.

2010: Conservative leader David Cameron became the new UK prime minister after the resignation of Labour leader Gordon Brown.

2014: The annual Sunday Times super-rich list revealed that the number of billionaires living in the UK rose to more than 100 for the first time.

BIRTHDAYS

Jeremy Paxman, television presenter, 65; Lady Rachel Billington OBE, writer, 73; Carla Bley, instrumentalist and jazz composer, 79; Eric Burdon, singer (The Animals), 74; Laetitia Casta, model and actress, 37; Frances Fisher, actress, 63; Andrés Iniesta, Spanish football player, 31; John Parrott MBE, snooker player and commentator, 51; Ian Redpath, Australian cricketer, 74; Mort Sahl, comedian and actor, 88; Holly Valance, actress and singer, 32; Judith Weir CBE, British composer, 61; Pam Ferris, actress (The Darling Buds of May), 67.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1713 James Drummond, 3rd Duke of Perth, a noted Jacobite and Lieutenant General in the army of Prince Charles Edward Stuart; 1888 Irving Berlin, song writer; 1889 Paul Nash, artist; 1892 Dame Margaret Rutherford, actress; 1894 Martha Graham, dancer-choreographer; 1904 Salvador Dali, artist; 1912 Phil Silvers, comedy actor; 1920 Beryl Bryden, jazz singer and musician; 1922 Eve Boswell, singer; 1963 Natasha Richardson, stage and screen actress.

Deaths: 1778 William Pitt the Elder, first Earl of Chatham, statesman; 1848 Tom Cribb, prizefighter; 1916 Max Reger, composer; 1979 Barbara Hutton, heiress; 1981 Bob Marley, reggae musician; 1988 Harold “Kim” Philby, double agent; 2001 Douglas Adams, author; 2004 Alf Valentine, cricketer; 2006 Floyd Patterson, world boxing champion; 2008 Jeff Torrington, Gorbals-born writer..