On this day: IRA bomb in centre of Manchester

1567: Earl of Bothwell, defeated at Battle of Carberry Hill, escaped to Norway, but Mary Queen of Scots was taken captive.

1744: Admiral George Anson returned to Spithead in the Centurion, after circumnavigating the globe in three years and nine months.

1804: The Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, dealing with the manner of choosing the president and vice-president.

1855: Stamp duty on newspapers was abolished.

1887: Carlisle D Graham shot Niagara Falls in a barrel for the second time, and survived.

1904: More than 1,000 people died in fire aboard steamboat General Slocum off New York City.

1910: Captain Scott set out on his second and fatal expedition to the South Pole.

1919: John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown completed the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Lester’s Field, St John’s, Newfoundland, to Derrygimla Bog, County Galway, in a Vickers Vimy in just over 16 hours.

1936: The Wellington bomber made its maiden flight.

1939: Sixty-three men died when French submarine Phoenix sank off Indochina.

1945: Family allowance payments were introduced in Britain of five shillings (25p) a week for the second child and subsequent children.

1952: Anne Frank’s diary was published, eight years after she went into a concentration camp to die.

1977: Spain had its first general election since 1936, resulting in victory for Democratic Centre Party.

1982: Falklands Task Force leader, Major-General Jeremy Moore, arrived at Port Stanley and accepted formal Argentine surrender.

1994: A 24-hour strike, over a pay offer from Railtrack, brought most of Britain’s rail network to a standstill.

1996: More than 200 people were injured when an IRA bomb wrecked the centre of Manchester.

2010: The long-awaited Saville Inquiry into the Bloody Sunday shootings concluded that British paratroopers had opened fire on unarmed civilians as they tended the wounded on 30 January, 1972. The 14 civilians who died were exonerated in the report.

BIRTHDAYS

Simon Callow CBE, actor, 66; Richard Baker OBE, broadcaster, 90; James Belushi, actor, 61; Alan Brazil, footballer and radio broadcaster, 56; Michael Laudrup, footballer, 51; Courteney Cox, actress, 51; Nadine Coyle, singer (Girls Aloud), 30; Julie Hagerty, actress, 60; Noddy Holder MBE, pop singer (Slade), 69; Helen Hunt, actress, 52; Henry McLeish, first minister 2000-1, MP 1987-2001, 67; Professor Paul Patterson, composer, 68; Oliver Kahn, German international footballer goalkeeper, 46.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1563 George Heriot, jeweller, goldsmith and benefactor; 1815 Hablot Knight Browne, artist and illustrator (Phiz); 1843 Edvard Grieg, Norwegian composer; 1884 Harry Langdon, silent film comedian; 1907 James Robertson-Justice, actor; 1911 Rev W Awdry, creator of Thomas the Tank Engine; 1946 Demis Roussos, singer.

Deaths: 1844 Thomas Campbell, poet; 1929 Charles Bush, inventor of arc lamp; 1993 James Hunt, racing driver; 1996 Sir Fitzroy Maclean, diplomat, soldier, politician and writer; 1996 Ella Fitzgerald, jazz singer.