On this day: Seven explosions in Mumbai

On this day in 2006, seven explosions ripped through trains and stations in the city of Mumbai, India, killing scores. Picture: Getty

National day of Mongolia

1274: Robert the Bruce was born at Turnberry Castle.

1370: Marjory Stewart, the daughter of King Robert II, married John Dunbar, the first Earl of Moray, against her father’s consent.

1346: Charles IV of Luxembourg was elected Holy Roman Emperor.

1533: Pope Clement VII excommunicated King Henry VIII.

1690: William III defeated the deposed James II at the Battle of the Boyne.

1750: Halifax in Nova Scotia was almost totally destroyed by fire.

1776: Captain Cook sailed from Portsmouth in the Resolution, accompanied by the Discovery, on his third and last expedition.

1810: Napoleonic Empire annexed Holland.

1818: John Keats visited the first home of Robert Burns in Alloway and wrote his sonnet Written In the Cottage Where Burns was born.

1848: Waterloo Station in London was opened.

1859: The chime of Big Ben in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament was heard for the first time.

1881: The “ghost-ship” Flying Dutchman was sighted 50 miles off the Cape of Good Hope, by the crew of HMS Inconstant.

1893: The first cultured pearl was obtained by Kokichi Mikimoto.

1895: Auguste and Louis Lumiere, who invented film, demonstrated it to scientists.

1924: Scottish athlete Eric Liddell won the Olympic 400 metres sprint in Paris.

1930: Don Bradman hit 309 runs in one day for Australia against England at Leeds, and went on to score 334.

1952: General Eisenhower was nominated as the Republican US presidential candidate.

1962: American Fred Baldassare became first to swim the English Channel underwater with scuba equipment.

1968: Colin Cowdrey became the first cricketer to play in 100 Test matches.

1969: David Bowie released his single Space Oddity and the Rolling Stones released Honky Tonk Women.

1975: China’s great terracotta army was uncovered near the ancient capital of Xian. More than 6,000 life-sized warriors were made in about 206 BC to guard the tomb of the first emperor.

1976: France performed a nuclear test on Muruora Island.

1979: America’s Skylab I returned to earth after 34,981 orbits since its launch on 14 May, 1973.

1981: Neva Rockefeller became the first woman ordered to pay her husband alimony.

1986: Ingrid Kristiansen of Norway ran the 10,000 metres in a world record time of 30 minutes, 13.74 seconds.

1991: A total solar eclipse was seen in Hawaii.

1994: A report said that women in Glasgow have the world’s highest rate of heart disease.

1995: Actor Hugh Grant was fined £750 by a Los Angeles court and put on probation for two years when he admitted lewd conduct with a prostitute.

2006: 209 people were killed in a series of bomb attacks in Mumbai, India.

2007: Four suicide bomber refugees found guilty of plotting to detonate explosions on three Tube trains and a bus in London in 2005 were jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 40 years. All the bombs failed to go off.

2010: Spain beat the Netherlands 1-0 in South Africa to win the World Cup for the first time.

BIRTHDAYS

Giorgio Armani, fashion designer, 80; Suzanne Vega, singer-songwriter, 55; Giorgio Armani, fashion designer, 80; Nadeem Aslam, novelist, 48; John Kettley, weatherman, 62; Mark Lester, actor and singer, 56; Lord Levy, 70; Dean Richards, rugby player and coach, 51; Richie Sambora, rock guitarist (Bon Jovi), 55; Peter de Savary, businessman and yachtsman, 70; Kellie Shirley, actress, 33; Leon Spinks, former world heavyweight boxing champion, 61; John Stride, actor, 78; Gough Whitlam, Australian prime minister 1972-1975, 98; Bonnie Pointer, R&B and disco singer (The Pointer Sisters), 64; Ray Dodds, drummer (Fairground Attraction), 56.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1754 Thomas Bowdler, Scottish physician and publisher; 1767 John Quincy Adams, 6th United States president; 1834 James Whistler, painter and writer; 1862 Liza Lehmann, composer and singer; 1916 Reg Varney, actor; 1917 Yul Brynner, actor; 1924 Charlie Tully, Celtic and Northern Ireland footballer; 1926 Patrick Wymark, actor; 1929 David Kelly, Irish actor.

Deaths: 1937 George Gershwin, composer; 1941 Sir Arthur Evans, archaeologist; 1958 Karel Wellens, Flemish painter; 1989 Lord Olivier, actor; 1992 Albert Pierrepoint, hangman; 2000 Right-Reverend Lord Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury 1980-91; 2011 George Henry Hubert Lascelles KBE, 7th Earl of Harewood, artistic director of the Edinburgh Festival 1961-65; 2007 Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady of US.