On this day: RBS formed | Earthquake hit Peru

Rescuers in Chimbote, Peru, with one of those injured in an earthquake which killed more than 66,000 on this day in 1970. Picture: Getty

1727: The Royal Bank of Scotland was formed from a company of debenture holders of the equivalent stock, chartered with £111,000 capital.

1793: Reign of terror began in French Revolution.

1889: Flood at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, claimed more than 2,000 lives.

1910: The colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony became united to form the Union of South Africa.

1911: SS Titanic, world’s biggest liner, was launched from Harland & Wolff’s shipyard, Belfast.

1915: The first air raid on London took place.

1916: The Battle of Jutland was fought in the North Sea between the British fleet under Jellicoe and Beatty and the German fleet commanded by Scheer and von Hipper.

1927: The last “Tin Lizzie” car came off the production line – almost unchanged since it was introduced as the model T Ford in 1908.

1942: Reinhard Heydrich, deputy chief of Gestapo and one of the architects of the Final Solution, was assassinated by Czechoslovak Resistance.

1942: More than 200 factories were destroyed in 1,000-bomber raid by RAF on Cologne.

1961: South Africa declared itself a republic and withdrew from the Commonwealth.

1962: Adolf Eichmann was executed in prison near Tel Aviv for his part in wartime mass killing of millions of Jews.

1962: Gaumont Cinema in Edinburgh was destroyed by fire.

1970: Earthquake hit Peru, leaving more than 66,000 dead, 20,000 missing and 200,000 injured.

1985: English football clubs were given an indefinite ban from playing in Europe after the Heysel Stadium disaster in Belgium in which 39 supporters, mostly Italian, died when a wall collapsed before the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus. The ban was lifted after five years.

2009: The last survivor of the sinking of the Titanic died, aged 97. Millvina Dean was only nine weeks old when the liner sank after hitting an iceberg in the early hours of 15 April, 1912, on her maiden voyage from Southampton.

2010: In international waters in the Mediterranean, Shayetet 13 soldiers, from the Israeli navy, attacked a flotilla that wanted to break the blockade on the Gaza Strip. There were clashes on the MV Mavi Marmara ship, and nine Turkish activists were killed.

BIRTHDAYS

Sharon Gless, actress (Chris Cagney in Cagney & Lacey), 70; Lynda Bellingham, actress, 65; Tom Berenger, actor, 64; Clint Eastwood, actor and director, 83; Stephen Jones OBE, British milliner, 56; Ben de Lisi, fashion designer, 58; Lord (John) Prescott, MP, deputy prime minister 1997-2007, 75; Terry Waite CBE, charity worker and writer, 74; Peter Winterbottom, rugby player, 53.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1819 William Mayo, physician; 1819 Walt Whitman, poet and writer; 1860 Walter Sickert, painter; 1872 William Heath Robinson, humorous artist of mechanical contraptions; 1916 Judy Campbell, actress (noted for singing A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square).

Deaths:1594 Tintoretto, painter; 1809 Franz Joseph Haydn, composer; 1910 Elizabeth Blackwell, English-born American physician, first woman to gain an MD degree; 2000 Andrew Faulds, MP and actor; 2009 Danny La Rue OBE, entertainer.