On this day: Scottish independence referendum question chosen

Events, birthdays and anniversaries on January 25 (Burns Night)

On this day in 2012 First Minister Alex Salmond set out the question he intended to ask voters in the referendum. Picture: Hemedia

1327: Edward III ascended to the english throne.

1533: King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn were secretly married by the Bishop of Lichfield - and become the parents of the future Queen Elizabeth I of England.

1554: The city of Sao Paulo, Brazil was founded.

1817: First issue of The Scotsman was published by its founders, Charles Maclaren, William Ritchie and John MacDiarmid.

1858: Mendelssohn’s Wedding March was first played at the wedding of Queen Victoria’s daughter, Princess Victoria, to the crown prince of Prussia.

1881: Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell formed the Oriental Telephone Company.

1918: Russia declared a republic of Soviets.

1919: League of Nations was founded. Its first meeting was held a year later.

1924: The opening ceremony of the first Winter Olympics took place at Chamonix in Switzerland.

1939: Boxer Joe Louis retained his world heavyweight title when he knocked out John Henry Lewis in the first round at Madison Square Garden, New York.

1944: Battle for Cassino began in Italy.

1955: Scientists at Columbia University developed an atomic clock accurate to within one second in 300 years.

1961: Walt Disney’s 101 Dalmatians was released.

1968: Great train robber Charles Wilson captured in Montreal three years after escaping from Winson Green Prison.

1971: Idi Amin became president of Uganda, leading a military coup which deposed Milton Obote while he was absent abroad.

1971: Charles Manson and others were found guilty of multiple murders in the US.

1981: The Gang of Four - Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and William Rodgers - announced the Limehouse Declaration, which called for a classless crusade for social justice. They were expelled from the Labour Party for forming a Council for Social Democracy.

1986: Voyager 2, sweeping to within 51,000 miles (81,000 kilometres) of Uranus, discovered a tenth ring, and a 15th moon.

1990: Forty-six people died in the worst storms in southern Britain since the hurricane of October, 1987. Gusts of up to 110 mph caused road and rail chaos.

1991: Saddam Hussein unleashed environmental disaster when he ordered the release of millions of gallons of crude oil into the sea from a Kuwaiti storage plant.

1995: Ministers ordered a rethink of plans to axe most Anglo-Scottish night trains.

2004: Opportunity rover landed on the surface of Mars.

2008: Scottish & Newcastle, Britain’s biggest brewer and maker of Newcastle Brown Ale and Fosters, was taken over by Carlsberg and Heineken for £7.8bn.

2012: First Minister Alex Salmond set out the question he intended to ask voters in the referendum. He said Scots would be asked: “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?”