On this day: The Queen Mary launched from Clydebank

On this day in 1934 the Queen Mary was launched at John Browns Clydebank yard, four years after work started on her. Picture: Getty

1580: Francis Drake and crew arrived back in Plymouth in the 100-ton Golden Hind to become the first Englishmen to circumnavigate the world.

1687: The Parthenon was destroyed when the Venetians bombarded Athens.

1815: Anti-liberal Holy Alliance was formed among Austria, Russia and Prussia to maintain Vienna Settlement.

1831: British Association for the Advancement of Science set up.

1860: First Open golf championship was held at Prestwick. The Belt was won by Willie Park of Musselburgh.

1887: The first gramophone, invented by Emile Berliner, was patented.

1907: New Zealand became self-governing dominion within British Commonwealth.

1918: Allies launched offensive that eventually broke Germany’s Hindenburg Line.

1934: The Cunard liner Queen Mary was launched from John Brown’s yard at Clydebank.

1937: Arabs murdered British district commissioner for Galilee.

1941: British Eighth Army formed.

1950: UN forces recaptured Seoul, capital of South Korea.

1953: Sugar rationing ends in UK.

1970: Jordan’s King Hussein named new government to placate critics who accused him of plotting to liquidate Palestinian guerrillas in his country.

1976: Leaders of five black African nations declined to accept plan presented by Rhodesia’s prime minister, Ian Smith, to achieve black majority rule.

1984: Britain and China initialled agreement to return Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997.

1989: Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze told the United Nations General Assembly that Moscow would join the United States in reducing or destroying all chemical weapons.

2000: The MS Express Samina sank off Paros in the Aegean sea, killing 80 passengers.

2002: The overcrowded Senegalese ferry MV Joola capsized off the coast of Gambia killing more than 1,000.

2008: German commandos arrested two men on a KLM plane at Cologne airport. They had intended to carry out “holy war”.

2009: Typhoon Ketsana hit the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, causing 700 fatalities.

BIRTHDAYS

Anne Robinson, TV presenter, 70; Neil Coles MBE, golfer, 80; Bryan Ferry CBE, rock singer, 69; Linda Hamilton, actress, 58; Will Self, author and broadcaster, 53; Ricky Tomlinson, actor, 75; Serena Williams, tennis champion, 33; Christina Milian, actress and singer-songwriter, 33; Jon Richardson, comedian, 32; Michael Ballack, footballer, 38; Lynn Anderson, country music singer, 67; Winnie Mandela, anti-apartheid activist and politician, 78; Olivia Newton-John OBE, actress and singer, 66; Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot, marathon runner, 36; Stuart Tosh, Aberdeen-born drummer, songwriter and vocalist, 63; Dick Roth, Olympic swimming champion, 67.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1181 Saint Francis of Assisi; 1686 August Ferdinand Möbius, mathematician; 1888 TS Eliot, poet; 1898 George Gershwin, US composer; 1901 George Raft, actor; 1907 Anthony Blunt, art historian and Soviet spy.

Deaths: 1820 Daniel Boone, frontiersman; 1902 Levi Strauss, businessman and first manufacturer of blue jeans; 1915 James Kier Hardie, founder of Scottish Labour Party; 1937 Bessie Smith, US singer