On this day: Raith Rovers win the Coca Cola Cup

Twenty years ago today Raith Rovers beat Celtic in a penalty shoot-out to win the Coca Cola Cup their first major trophy. Picture: SNS

AD 602: Byzantine Emperor Maurice and his five sons were beheaded by mutineers at Chalcedon in Asia Minor.

1582: William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway.

1703: More than 8,000 people died in 24 hours, and over 800 churches and 400 windmills were destroyed in a great storm. At least 300 vessels were lost at sea or smashed at their moorings, and the first Eddystone Lighthouse disappeared.

1879: French Chamber was moved from Versailles to Paris.

1912: Spain established a protectorate over Morocco.

1914: The first two trained policewomen to be granted official status in Britain, Miss Mary Allen and Miss EF Harburn, reported for duty at Grantham, Lincolnshire.

1919: Bulgaria signed First World War peace treaty which yielded territory to Greece and Yugoslavia.

1940: Germany annexed French province of Lorraine.

1942: As German troops arrived in Toulon, the French fleet was scuttled in the harbour.

1944: Between 3,500 and 4,000 tons of high explosives went off in a cavern beneath Staffordshire, killing 68 people and wiping out an entire farm. The explosion was recorded as an earthquake in Geneva.

1948: Clement Attlee, the prime minister, appointed the Lynskey Tribunal to investigate charges of corruption against ministers and officials.

1950: United Nations troops retreated in Korea.

1961: Soviet Union proposed immediate ban on nuclear testing without international controls.

1962: Britain agreed to provide arms to India to resist Chinese aggression.

1963: The Buchanan Committee published a report warning of future chaos as traffic in cities multiplied.

1975: Ross McWhirter, co-editor with his twin brother of The Guinness Book Of Records, was killed by IRA gunmen at his London home.

1987: Troops combed Matabeleland bush in Zimbabwe for rebels who hacked to death 16 missionaries and their children.

1989: Colombian plane crashed, killing 107 people.

1990: John Major, aged 47, became prime minister.

1991: A 15th century Bible fetched £1.1 million at Christie’s – bought by a New York antiquarian bookseller.

1994: Raith Rovers caused a major football upset when they beat Celtic in a penalty shoot-out to win the Coca Cola Cup – their first major trophy.

1995: The Appeal Court in London upheld the convictions of four men who took part in illegal share-fixing that helped Guinness win control of Distillers.

1996: A fifth person died in an E coli food poisoning outbreak linked to a butcher’s shop in Wishaw, Lanarkshire. Twenty people would die in the outbreak.

2001: Hours after being sworn in as Scotland’s first minister to succeed Henry McLeish, Jack McConnell sacked almost half of the Labour Cabinet. Four senior ministers were dismissed and another resigned.

2009: The world’s top golfer, Tiger Woods, suffered facial injuries after he suffered a car crash outside his Florida home. In the aftermath of the accident, revelations about Woods’s private life emerged.

BIRTHDAYS

Samantha Bond, actress, 53; John Alderton, actor, 74; Rodney Bewes, actor, 77; Charlie Burchill, Glasgow-born rock guitarist (Simple Minds), 55; Andrea Catherwood, television journalist, 47; Robin Givens, actress, 50; Alec Newman, Glasgow-born actor and singer, 40; Alan Simpson OBE, scriptwriter and author, 85; Manolo Blahnik CBE, designer, 72; Ricky Carmichael, Motocross champion, 35; Roberto Mancini, football manager and former player, 50; Kathryn Bigelow, first woman to win Academy Award for Best Director, 63; Michael Yardy, cricketer, 34; Dave Winthrop, musician (Supertramp), 66.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1701 Anders Celsius, astronomer who created the centigrade temperature scale; 1758 Mary Robinson, actress and writer; 1874 Chaim Weizmann, first president of Israel; 1925 Ernie Wise, comedian; 1917 Roland “Tiny” Rowland, businessman; 1935 Al Jackson jnr, drummer (Booker T & the MGs); 1935 Verity Lambert OBE, film and TV producer; 1940 Bruce Lee, martial art expert and action film star; 1942 Jimi Hendrix, musician.

Deaths: 1811 Andrew Meikle, Dunbar-born millwright and inventor of the threshing machine; 1895 Alexandre Dumas (fils), playwright; 1953 Eugene O’Neill, playwright; 1978 Harvey Milk, politician; 2000 Len Shackleton, footballer; 2000 Professor Sir Malcolm Bradbury, novelist, academic and critic; 2006 Alan “Fluff” Freeman MBE, DJ and radio personality; 2011 Gary Speed MBE, footballer and manager; 2011 Ken Russell, film maker; 2013 Lewis Collins, actor.