On this day: Scotland’s first public theatre

Commander Lt Gen John F Sattler delivers a speech to Marines anticipating the final offensive on insurgents in Iraq in 2004. Picture: Getty

8 November

1519: Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes reached Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, later Mexico City.

1736: The first regular public theatre in Scotland opened in Carrubber’s Close, Edinburgh.

1793: Louvre Museum in Paris opened to public.

1895: Wilhelm Roentgen discovered electromagnetic rays which he called X-rays.

1911: Arthur Balfour resigned as Conservative Party leader.

1917: Vladimir Illyich Lenin became chief commissar in Russia and Leon Trotsky premier.

1923: Adolf Hitler made attempted putsch at Munich.

1931: Halogen discovered by Frederick Allison.

1932: Franklin Delano Roosevelt won United States presidency with promise of a “New Deal”.

1942: British and American troops landed in North-west Africa under Eisenhower’s command in “Operation Torch”.

1950: First battle between jet planes as United States fighters were attacked by North Korean MIGs near Yalu River.

1959: United Arab Republic and Sudan signed agreement on sharing Nile waters after construction of Aswan Dam.

1966: Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California.

1973: “Cod war” between Britain and Iceland ended.

1987: Eleven die in Remembrance Day bombing at the war memorial at Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.

1989: Troops took over ambulance duties in London amid industrial action by 999 crews.

1990: President George Bush ordered 200,000 more American troops to Iraq.

1991: Yugoslav army warned Croatia that it had missiles pointed at targets in that republic.

1993: The Princess of Wales won a High Court injunction barring the Daily Mirror from publishing further pictures of her in a gym.

2001: Henry McLeish resigned as Scotland’s first minister after failing to declare £36,000 rental income for sub-letting a constituency office.

2002: The UN Security Council approved a resolution on Iraq, forcing Saddam Hussein to disarm or face “serious consequences”.

2004: More than 10,000 US troops and a small number of Iraqi army units lay siege to insurgent stronghold in Fallujah, Iraq.

2010: Coronation Street legend Jack Duckworth, played by Bill Tarmey, bowed out of the soap.

BIRTHDAYS

Roy Wood, British rock musician (Wizard, The Move, ELO), 67; Rupert Allason, spy writer (as Nigel West) and MP 1987-97, 62; Jane Danson, actress, 35; Liz Dawn MBE, British actress (Coronation Street), 74; Ken Dodd OBE, British comedian and singer, 86; Nerys Hughes, British actress, 72; David Jessel, British television journalist, 68; Martin Peters MBE, British footballer, 70; Bonnie Raitt, American singer and guitarist, 64; Gordon Ramsay, chef and broadcaster, 47.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1608 John Milton, poet; 1656 Edmond Halley, astronomer and mathematician; 1847 Bram Stoker, creator of Count Dracula; 1884 Hermann Rorschach, Swiss psychiatrist; 1891 Neil Gunn, novelist; 1900 Margaret Mitchell, American author of Gone With the Wind; 1922 Professor Christiaan Barnard, heart transplant pioneer.

Deaths: 1308 John Duns Scotus, Berwickshire-born philosopher; 1605 Robert Catesby, Gunpowder Plotter; 1865 Tom Sayers, bare-knuckle fighter; 1968 Wendell Corey, actor; 1978 Norman Rockwell, artist; 1998 Rumer Godden, novelist; 2012 Roger Hammond, British actor.