On this day: Bloody Sunday in Londonderry

On this day in 1972 Bloody Sunday 13 protesters will killed by British paratroopers in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Picture: PA

1647: Scots handed over King Charles I to parliamentary forces.

1790: The first purpose-built lifeboat, named The Original, launched at South Shields on the River Tyne.

1840: Emperor of China forbade all trade with Britain.

1902: Britain signed treaty with Japan providing for independence of China and Korea.

1933: Adolf Hitler was appointed German chancellor by president Paul von Hindenburg.

1943: Soviets destroyed German army southwest of Stalingrad.

1951: Elizabeth Taylor, 19, divorced her first husband, Nicky Hilton.

1965: State funeral of Sir Winston Churchill. Big Ben was silenced and his body was taken for burial in Bladon churchyard in a Battle of Britain Class locomotive 34051, named Winston Churchill.

1968: Vietcong captured the United States embassy in Saigon.

1972: Bloody Sunday in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, when 13 protest marchers were killed by British paratroopers.

1972: Pakistan left the British Commonwealth.

1979: White Rhodesians approved new constitution to give black people eventual control of the nation.

1986: President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines pledged to relinquish power peacefully if he lost to Corazon Aquino in the election due on 7 February.

1989: US closed its embassy in besieged Afghan capital of Kabul.

1989: Temperatures in Alaska plummeted to 80ºF below zero and many Eskimos were so cold they were forced to leave the area.

1991: American and Iraqi

troops clashed in first ground battle of Gulf war at Khafji, as Iraqi tanks probed Kuwait-Saudi border.

1992: Estate agent Stephanie Slater was released after being held captive for eight days by a kidnapper. A £175,000 ransom was paid.

1992: US military announced it would halt or cut back operations at 83 military sites in Europe.

1996: Islanders on Eigg called on their landlord, German artist Marlin Eckhard Maruma, to fulfil his promise to invest £15m in the island or get out.

2000: Off the coast of Ivory Coast, Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 169.

2011: Andy Murray lost his third grand slam final, this one in Australia to Novak Djokovic.

BIRTHDAYS

Olivia Colman, actress, 40; Christian Bale, actor, 40; Phil Collins, musician, 63; Stu Francis, comedian, 66; Gene Hackman, actor, 84; Lord Mackay of Drumadoon, QC, Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland, Lord Advocate 1995-7, 68; Vanessa Redgrave CBE, actress, 77; Boris Spassky, Soviet-French chess grandmaster, 77; Derek White, Scottish rugby player, 55.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1882 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd US President; 1899 Lord Bernstein, founder of Granada Group; 1913 Percy Thrower, gardener and broadcaster; 1957 Payne Stewart, golfer.

Deaths: 1606 Sir Everard

Digby, Thomas Winter, John

Grant and Thomas Bates, Guy Fawkes plotters; 1649 Charles I; 1889: Crown Prince Archduke Rudolf of Austria; 1948 Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political and religious leader; 1948 Orville Wright, flight pioneer; 1999 Mick McGahey, Scottish miners’ leader; 2011 John Barry OBE, film music composer (notably James Bond films).