On this day: Japanese troops took Shanghai
1541: Queen Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII, was imprisoned. She was executed at the Tower of London three months later.
1620: The Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower, having crossed the Atlantic, spotted land at Cape Cod.
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Hide Ad1769: The first Co-operative Society in Britain was founded by weavers of Fenwick in Ayrshire.
1794: Russian troops occupied Warsaw.
1799: Napoleon Bonaparte became the First Consul of France.
1847: Doctor James Young Simpson delivered Wilhemina Carstairs in Edinburgh, the first child to be born with the aid of anaesthesia.
1859: Flogging was banned in the British Army.
1888: Jack the Ripper’s fifth and final victim, Mary Jane Kelly, was found dead in her room in London.
1907: The Cullinan Diamond, which had been discovered in South Africa in 1905, was presented to King Edward VII on his birthday.
1922: Nazi SS was officially founded in Germany.
1937: Japanese troops took Shanghai.
1938: Kristallnacht in Germany, when Nazis burned 267 synagogues and destroyed thousands of Jewish homes and businesses.
1944: The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Red Cross.
1950: Ice blocks reputed to be the size of dinner plates fell out
of the Devon sky – a shower of frozen meteors weighing up to 15oz each. One of them
beheaded a sheep.
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Hide Ad1955: The United Nations expressed disapproval of South Africa’s apartheid politics.
1960: John F Kennedy, at 43, was elected the youngest United States president.
1962: United States completed emergency airlift of arms and ammunition to India in that nation’s border war with China.
1963: Coal mine explosion at Umuta, Japan, killed 452 miners and injured 450.
1965: The biggest power cut in United States history blacked out sections of New York and nine other states. There was a significant increase in births nine months later.
1965: Act abolishing capital punishment in UK came into effect.
1966: John Lennon met Yoko Ono at Indica Gallery, London, where she was exhibiting.
1979: A computer fault led to a full-scale nuclear alert in the
United States.
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Hide Ad1989: The East German government announced the opening of the Iron Curtain border, including the Berlin Wall. Crowds stormed Checkpoint Charlie.
1990: Mary Robinson, a 46-year-old lawyer, became the first woman president of the Republic of Ireland.
1994: The £180 million Health Care International Hospital in Clydebank went into receivership five months after opening, with the loss of £30 million of taxpayers’ money.
2010: The anti-tobacco group ASH Scotland released a report which revealed that smoking cost the country £1.1 billion a year.
2014: USA led air strikes on the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, against Islamic State.
BIRTHDAYS
Bill Martin, Scottish songwriter, 77; Karen Dotrice, actress, 60; John Doyle, Scottish theatre director, 62; David Duval, American golfer, 44; Lou Ferrigno, American actor, 64; Sir Ronald Harwood CBE, South African playwright and novelist, 81; Dame Marina Warner DBE, cultural historian, critic and novelist, 69; Caroline Flack, TV presenter, 36; Bryn Terfel CBE, bass-baritone opera and concert singer; Alan Gratzer, musician (REO Speedwagon).
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1801 Gail Borden, inventor of condensed milk; 1841 King Edward VII; Hedy Lamarr, actress and inventor; 1918 Spiro Agnew, US vice-president 1969-1973; 1934 Carl Sagan, astronomer and author; 1936 Mary Travers, folk singer (Peter, Paul and Mary); 1941 Tom Fogerty, musician (Creedence Clearwater Revival); 1961 Jill Dando, TV presenter.
Deaths: 959 Constantine VII, Byzantine emperor; 1770 John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyle, Scottish Whig politician; 1937 Ramsay MacDonald, Britain’s first Labour prime minister; 1940 Neville Chamberlain, British prime minister 1937-1940; 1953 Dylan Thomas, poet; 1970 Charles de Gaulle, president of France 1959-69; 1991 Yves Montand, actor and singer; 2004 Stieg Larsson.