On this day: Princess Margaret married Antony Armstrong-Jones

On this day in 1960 Princess Margaret married Antony Armstrong-Jones. They were divorced 18 years later. Picture: Getty

1626: Manhattan Island, a borough of New York City, was bought from the local Indians by Peter Minuit for goods and trinkets to the equivalent of $24.

1642: City of Montreal was established, as Ville Marie.

1839: House of Commons passed bill to suspend Jamaica’s Constitution after riots due to emancipation of slaves.

1840: The first adhesive British stamps, for general use – the penny black and twopenny blue – were issued by the Post Office.

1851: American mechanical engineer Linus Yale patented the lock which bears his name.

1877: Britain sent Russia note warning it against attempted blockade of Suez or occupation of Egypt.

1882: Lord Cavendish and Thomas Henry Burke were assassinated by Fenian “Invincibles” in Phoenix Park, Dublin.

1937: The 804-ft German dirigible, Hindenburg, burned at its moorings in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 of the 97 people aboard.

1941: Joseph Stalin became Soviet premier, succeeding VM Molotov.

1941: In the last German bombing attack on the Clyde area, Greenock was worst hit, with 280 dead.

1942: United States-Filipino force on island of Corregidor in Manila Bay surrendered to Japanese.

1942: The song White Christmas, by Irving Berlin, was published. It became the greatest selling record of all time.

1954: Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile on the Iffley Road track in Oxford, in three minutes 59.4 seconds.

1959: The Cod War between Britain and Iceland over fishing rights intensified when Icelandic gunboats fired live ammunition at British trawlers.

1960: Princess Margaret married Antony Armstrong-Jones in Westminster Abbey.

1964: South Africa passed Bantu Laws Amendment Bill.

1966: Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were found guilty of the Moors murders at Chester Crown Court.

1968: Spain closed border between Gibraltar and Spain to all but Spaniards.

1972: The first all-women race under Jockey Club rules, the Goya Stakes, was run over nine furlongs at Kempton Park.

1993: Conservatives lost Newbury in a massive by-election swing to the Liberal Democrats plus control of all but one county council in England and Wales.

1994: The Queen and President Mitterrand of France opened the Channel Tunnel.

1995: Will Carling was sacked as England captain for describing Rugby Football Union officials as “57 old farts”. He was reinstated 72 hours later.

1996: Stephen Hendry won the Embassy world professional snooker championship for the sixth time, beating Peter Ebdon 18-12 in Sheffield.

1999: The new Scottish Parliament was elected, with 56 Labour MSPs, 35 SNPs, 18 Conservatives, 16 Liberal Democrats, one Green, one Scottish Socialist and one Independent.

2010: The general election took place, but resulted in Britain’s first hung parliament since 1974 with the Conservatives ending up the leading party on 306 seats.

2014: The Mini motor car, which was launched in 1959, was named in a survey as the best British car ever built. It was the second time that the Mini had come out on top in research carried out by Autocar magazine.

BIRTHDAYS

Tony Blair, prime minister 1997-2007, 62; Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, author and painter, 83; George Clooney, actor and director, 54; Richard Cox, actor, 67; Alan Dale, New Zealand actor, 68; Neil Foster, English cricketer, 53; Lord (John) Hutton, former Labour Cabinet minister, 60; Bob Seger, rock singer, 70; Graeme Souness, Scottish footballer, manager and pundit, 62; Susan Brown, actress, 69; Jeffery Deaver, author, 65; Goran Dragic, Slovenian NBA basketball player, 29; Willie Mays, American baseball Hall of Famer, 84; Julianne Phillips, actress and model, 55.

ANNIVERSARIES

Birthdays: Robespierre, French revolutionary leader; 1856 Robert Peary, Arctic explorer who claimed to be the first to reach the North Pole; 1856 Sigmund Freud, pioneer of psychoanalysis; 1895 Rudolph Valentino, silent screen actor; 1913 Stewart Granger, actor; 1915 Orson Welles, actor, writer and director.

Deaths: 1856 Sir William Hamilton, metaphysicist; 1862 Henry David Thoreau, writer and naturalist; 1870 Sir James Simpson, obstetrician and pioneer of chloroform; 1910 King Edward VII; 1952 Maria Montessori, physician and educationist; 1991 Wilfred Hyde-White, actor; 1992 Marlene Dietrich, actress; 1999 Johnny Morris, naturalist and broadcaster; 2014 Jimmy Ellis, world heavyweight boxing champion; 2014 Antony Hopkins CBE, composer, conductor.