On this day: Demolition of the Berlin Wall began
1496: Act for compulsory education in Scotland was passed.
1546: Protestant princes of Germany denounced Council of Trent.
1799: Act was passed freeing colliers from servitude to coalmasters in Scotland.
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Hide Ad1819: The Strathnaver Clearances began on the Sutherland estates.
1842: Queen Victoria, accompanied by Prince Albert, travelled from Slough to Paddington on the Great Western Railway, becoming the first British monarch to use such transport.
1849: Communard riots in Paris were crushed.
1866: Black civil rights were first enshrined in the US Constitution with passing of the 14th Amendment. States could enfranchise blacks or accept reduced representation in Congress.
1893: First women’s golf championship was held at Royal Lytham. The winner was Lady Margaret Scott.
1900: The Boxer Rebellion began in China.
1911: Stravinsky’s Petrushka was premiered.
1917: First German daylight air raid on London killed 162 and injured 432 people.
1930: Al Capone was arrested in Miami on a perjury charge.
1944: The first V-1 flying bomb, Hitler’s “secret weapon,” hit a house in Southampton, killing three people.
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Hide Ad1956: Real Madrid won the first European Cup final, beating Reims 4-3 in Paris.
1975: Inflation in Britain reached 25 per cent.
1977: The Commission for Racial Equality was established.
1981: Blanks were fired at the Queen as she rode to the Trooping the Colour ceremony. Marcus Sarjeant, 17, was held and later charged with treason for which he was sentenced to five years in jail, serving three.
1987: Princess Anne was created Princess Royal by the Queen.
1990: The official demolition of the Berlin Wall began.
2000: Italy pardoned Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill the Polish Pope John Paul II by shooting him in Rome 1981.
2002: The US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
2010: A capsule of the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa, containing particles of the asteroid 25143 Itokawa, returned to Earth.
BIRTHDAYS
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Hide AdKathy Burke, actress, 51; Tim Allen, actor, 62; Christo, environmental artist, 80; David Gray, singer, 47; Alan Hansen, footballer and TV pundit, 60; Gwynne Howell, opera singer, 77; Lord King of Bridgwater, defence secretary 1989-92, 82; Ban Ki-moon, United Nations secretary-general, 71; Malcolm McDowell, film actor, 72; Kym Marsh, actress and pop singer (ex-Hear’Say), 39; Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, actresses and fashion designers, 28; Lisa Riley, actress, 39; Peter Scudamore, champion jockey and commentator, 57; Andreas Whittam Smith CBE, founder Independent newspaper, and chairman, Board of Film Classification 1998-2002, 78; Richard Thomas, actor (The Waltons) and producer, 64.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1831 James Clerk Maxwell, physicist; 1865 William Butler Yeats, poet; 1885 Elisabeth Schumann, soprano; 1892 Basil Rathbone, stage and film actor; 1893 Dorothy L Sayers, writer; 1961 Bob Crow, trade union leader.
Deaths: 323BC Alexander the Great, aged 32; 1986 Benny Goodman, clarinettist; 1998 Reg Smythe, cartoonist (Andy Capp); 2010 Jimmy Dean, country music singer.