On this day: Spain votes in referendum on EU constitution

pain became the first country to vote in a referendum on the Constitution of the European Union in 2005. Picture: AFP/Getty Images

1452: Earl of Douglas murdered by James II.

1472: Orkney and Shetland annexed to the crown of Scotland as security for the dowry of Princess Margaret, daughter of Christian I, King of Norway and Denmark, and wife of James III of Scotland.

1547: The coronation of nine-year-old King Edward VI (son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour) took place in Westminster Abbey. He died of consumption at 15.

1570: Lord Hunsdon defeated Leonard Dacre’s rebel army, ending Northern Rebellion in England.

1631: German Protestant princes formed alliance with Sweden’s King Gustavus II.

1833: Russian ships entered Bosphorus on way to Constantinople to aid Turkey against Egypt.

1928: Britain recognised independence of Trans-Jordan.

1938: Anthony Eden resigned as Foreign Secretary, being unable to support prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy on Germany.

1942: Japanese invaded Bali in Dutch East Indies.

1947: Lord Louis Mountbatten was appointed the last Viceroy of India, the same day London announced that the British would leave India by June 1948.

1964: Morocco and Algeria signed accord to end border conflict.

1967: Indonesia’s president Sukarno surrendered all executive power to General Suharto, keeping only the title of president.

1973: Laos government and Communist-led Pathet Lao agreed on pact to end warfare.

1978: A judge indicted Senora Isabel Peron, Peron’s third wife and herself the ex-president of Argentina, for fraudulent use of £8 million from the funds of the state-run charity, the Solidarity Crusade.

1979: Poisonous fumes from Java volcano killed 175.

1990: Despite protests from other members of the European Community, Britain announced it would unilaterally lift ban on new investments in South Africa.

1990: Whyte & Mackay distillers sold to the United States for £160 million.

1991: Slovenia’s legislators voted overwhelmingly to initiate secession from Yugoslavia.

1991: In helicopter assault across Kuwait-Saudi border, United States forces took  500 prisoners, the biggest single surrender so far in the Gulf conflict.

1992: Hoover announced further job cuts at its Cambuslang plant in Glasgow. Unions were told 162 of the 1,150 remaining workers would have to go.

1993: South African president FW de Klerk named first non-white Cabinet ministers.

2005: Spain became the first country to vote in a referendum on ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, passing it by a substantial margin, but on a low turnout.

2009: Two Tamil Tigers aircraft packed with C4 explosives en-route to the national airforce headquarters were shot down by the Sri Lankan military before reaching their target, in a kamikaze-style attack.

ANNIVERSARIES:

Births: 1726 William Prescott, American revolutionary leader; 1784 Adam Black, Edinburgh-born publisher of the Encyclopaedia Britannica; 1888 Dame Marie Rambert, founder of Ballet Rambert; 1892 Carl Mayer, film director; 1904 Alexei Kosygin, Soviet prime minister; 1925 Robert Altman, film director.

Deaths: 1452 Earl of Douglas (murdered); 1855 Joseph Hume, social reformer; 1920 Robert Peary, first man to reach the North Pole; 1960 Leonard Woolley, archaeologist; 1961 Percy Grainger, composer and pianist.