On this day: 96 football fans died at Hillsborough

On this day in 1989, 96 football fans were crushed to death at a game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough stadium. Picture: PA

1638: English settlers arrived at what is now New Haven, Connecticut, in the United States.

1689: France’s King Louis XIV declared war on Spain.

1755: Doctor Samuel Johnson’s dictionary was published, containing 40,000 words.

1793: £5 notes were first issued by the Bank of England.

1845: Building of the new House of Lords was completed, after the fire of 1834.

1852: The first screw-top bottles were patented by Francois Joseph Belzung of Paris.

1865: Andrew Johnson was sworn in as president of the United States on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

1894: Thomas Edison’s “kinetoscope”, invented in 1887, was given its first public showing at 1155 Broadway, New York City.

1901: A motor hearse was used in Coventry, the first time at a British funeral.

1912: The Titanic struck an iceberg and sank with the loss of 1,513 passengers and crew on her maiden voyage. There were 732 survivors.

1923: Insulin, discovered by Sir Frederick Banting, JRR Macleod and Charles H Best, was made available for use by diabetics.

1927: Chiang Kai-Shek organised government at Nanking in China.

1929: Sir James Barrie donated the copyright fee of his story Peter Pan to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children.

1942: The island of Malta was awarded the George Cross for its heroism during German and Italian bombardment.

1952: Boeing B-52 bomber made its maiden flight.

1955: The world’s largest hamburger chain, McDonald’s, was founded in Chicago by Ray Kroc, using the motto “Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value”.

1961: England defeated Scotland 9-3 at Wembley.

1989: Ninety-six football supporters were crushed to death and 200 injured at Hillsborough, Sheffield, at the start of an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

1991: The 12 foreign ministers of the European Community agreed to lift the sanctions on South Africa imposed five years earlier.

1995: Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said there was no chance of the IRA giving up its guns and bombs in the short-term.

2013: During the Boston Marathon, pressure cooker bombs killed three people and injured more than 180 others.

BIRTHDAYS

Emma Watson, actress, 24; Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare, author, 74; Claudia Cardinale, actress, 76; Dave Edmunds, rock guitarist, 70; Samantha Fox, model and singer, 48; Marsha Hunt, singer and actress, 68; Baroness Linklater of Butterstone, 71; Sir Neville Marriner, conductor, 90; Ed O’Brien, rock guitarist (Radiohead), 46; Seth Rogen, actor and writer, 32; Sir Robert Hill Smith, Bt MP, 56; Emma Thompson, actress, 55; Marty Wilde, musician, 75.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1452 Leonardo da Vinci, artist and scientist; 1800 Sir James Clark Ross, Arctic explorer; 1812 Théodore Rousseau, landscape artist; 1843 Henry James, novelist; 1894 Bessie Smith, blues singer; 1901 Joe Davis, billiards and snooker champion; 1924 Rikki Fulton, actor and entertainer.

Deaths: 1865 Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president; 1980 Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher and novelist; 1982 Arthur Lowe, actor; 1984 Tommy Cooper, comedian; 1990 Greta Garbo, actress; 2008 Sir Clement Freud, writer, broadcaster, MP 1973-1987.