On this day: Arab League founded | Battle of Baugé

Events, birthdays and anniversaries for 22 March

Today is actress Reese Witherspoon's birthday. Picture: Getty

The earliest date on which Easter can fall.

1421: Scottish and French troops under the Earl of Buchan defeated English forces at Bauge in Anjou.

1794: United States Congress passed law prohibiting American ships from supplying slaves to other countries.

1888: The Football League was formed at a meeting in Fleet Street, London, with 12 clubs.

1895: Auguste and Louis Lumière demonstrated celluloid cinematograph film in Paris.

1917: US became first nation to recognise new provisional government in Russia.

1926: First road markings came into operation at Hyde Park Corner, London. There were seven accidents on the first day as drivers tried to follow the painted signals.

1942: Britain began Morse code broadcasts to the French Resistance.

1945: Arab League was founded in Cairo.

1946: Jordan became a kingdom independent of British protection.

1972: More than 70 people were injured in Belfast when bomb exploded in car park near city’s largest hotel.

1988: Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze retreated from pledge to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

1989: Delegates from 105 countries, meeting in Switzerland, adopted draft United Nations treaty to control international transport of dangerous wastes.

1991: UN mission to Iraq found Allied bombing had destroyed power plants, oil refineries and water treatment plants, with “near apocalyptic results”.

1994: People in Strathclyde voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to reject government plans to take water out of local authority control in Scotland.

1997: Tara Lipinski, age 14 years and ten months, became the youngest champion women’s World Figure Skating Champion.

2002: In a landmark ruling, seven Scottish judges made it illegal for a man to have sex with a woman without her consent.

2006: ETA, the armed Basque separatist group, declared a permanent ceasefire.

2006: Three Christian Peacemaker Team hostages were freed by British forces in Baghdad after 118 days of captivity.

2009: Mount Redoubt, a volcano in Alaska, began erupting after a prolonged period of unrest.

BIRTHDAYS

Reese Witherspoon, actress, 38; George Benson, singer and guitarist, 71; Des Browne, defence secretary, 2006-8, 62; Lord (Andrew) Lloyd-Webber composer, 66; Matthew Modine, actor, 55; William Shatner, actor, 83; Stephen Sondheim, songwriter, 84; Leslie Thomas OBE, novelist, 83; Rob Wainwright, former Scotland rugby captain, farmer, 49; M Emmet Walsh, actor, 79; Roger Whittaker, singer, songwriter, 78.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1599 Sir Anthony van Dyck, artist; 1868 Hamish MacCunn, composer (Land of the Mountain and the Flood); 1887 Chico Marx, silent film comedian; 1910 Nicholas Monsarrat, author; 1923 Marcel Marceau, mime artist; 1949 Brian Hanrahan, broadcaster; 1950 Jocky Wilson, Fife-born darts player.

Deaths: 1832 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet; 1896 Thomas Hughes, reformer and writer; 1998 PB (“Laddie”) Lucas, golfer, fighter pilot and MP; 2009 Jade Goody, reality television star; 2010 Sir James Black, Scottish pharmacologist and Nobel laureate, chancellor, Dundee University 1992-2006.