On this day: US admitted existence of ‘Area 51’

The US admitted to the existence of Area 51 in 2003. Situated in Nevada, the airbase had long been rumoured to house UFOs. Picture: Getty

National days of France and Iraq.

1544: England’s King Henry VIII crossed to Calais to join Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in campaign against France’s King Francis I in Picardy.

1690: Seven French privateers captured New England islands of Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and Block Island.

1789: The Bastille, a former state prison in Paris, was stormed by the citizens of Paris and razed – the start of the French Revolution.

1867: Alfred Nobel ﬁrst demonstrated the use of dynamite, at Merstham Quarry, Redhill, Surrey.

1888: The ﬁrst record company, the North American Phonograph Co, was founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1917: US troops, under General Pershing, arrived in France.

1930: BBC transmitted the ﬁrst television play, A Man with a Flower in his Mouth.

1940: The Soviet Union annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

1946: Dr Benjamin Spock’s baby bible, Baby And Child Care, was published, and became a 30-year best seller. Twenty-eight years later, he said he no longer supported his own theories.

1958: King Faisal of Iraq was assassinated in a military coup led by General Kassem.

1967: United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution asking Israel to halt action it was taking to alter Jerusalem after the Six-Day War.

1971: Government troops in Jordan attempted to crush Palestine guerrilla movement.

1988: Iran ,at the United Nations, accused US of committing a “barbaric crime” in shooting down an Iranian commercial airliner.

1990:The trade and industry secretary, Nicholas Ridley, resigned after publication of interview in which he accused Germany of trying to take over Europe and called the French obedient “poodles” to the Germans.

1992: The government published its white paper on the privatisation of British Rail.

1994: It was announced Scotland would lose about 1,500 defence jobs out of 18,700 axed across the UK.

2000: A solar ﬂare, later named the Bastille Day event, caused a geomagnetic storm on Earth.

2002: French president Jacques Chirac escaped an assassination bid at Bastille Day celebrations.

2003: The US admitted to the existence of “Area 51”.

2009: Two BNP MEPs began their terms in Strasbourg.

2010: A schoolboy reeled in what was thought to be the biggest goldﬁsh ever found in Britain – a 5lb, 1ft 6in monster from a lake in Poole, Dorset. He threw it back.

BIRTHDAYS

Sue Lawley, television presenter, 68; Arthur Desmond Colquhoun Gore, 9th Earl of Arran,76; Colin Brooks,golfer, 49; John Colquhoun, Scottish footballer and writer, 51; Paul Eddery, jockey, 51; Bruce Oldﬁeld OBE, fashion designer, 63; David Mitchell, comedian and actor, 40; Julia Somerville, television newsreader, 67.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: : 1721 Sir Robert Strange, Kirkwall-born engraver; 1794; John Gibson Lockhart, Wishaw-born biographer of Sir Walter Scott; 1834 James Whistler, painter and writer; 1858 Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette;. Deaths: president, 1974-77.

Deaths: 1887 Alfred Krupp, arms manufacturer; 1904 Paul Kruger, South African statesman and Boer leader; 1959 Grock (Adrien Wettach), acclaimed as the “greatest clown on earth”; 1965 Adlai Stevenson, US statesman.