On this day: Kabul falls to Northern Alliance

On this day in 2001, Kabul fell to the American and British-backed Northern Alliance. Picture: Getty

13 NOVEMBER

1093: King Malcolm III died at the Battle of Alnwick, during an invasion of Northumbria. Malcolm Canmore, husband of St Margaret, was the last of the Celtic kings of Scotland.

1553: Lady Jane Grey and others tried for treason in England.

1715: Battle of Sheriffmuir between the Jacobite army under the Earl of Mar and Hanoverian troops under the Duke of Argyll.

1851: Telegraph service between London and Paris opened.

1914: The brassiere was patented in the United States by Mary Phelps Jacob.

1916: Battle of the Somme ended at a cost of 60,000 Allied lives, having started on 1 July.

1936: Edward VIII told prime minister Stanley Baldwin he intended to marry twice-divorced American Mrs Wallis Simpson.

1939: Bombs hit the Shetland Islands, the first to drop on British soil in the Second World War.

1940: Walt Disney’s Fantasia opened in New York.

1942: United States troops held off Japanese at Guadalcanal.

1956: The United States Supreme Court declared invalid Alabama’s law segregating black people from whites on buses.

1964: Pope Paul VI said he would give his jewelled tiara to the world’s poor.

1973: State of emergency declared after overtime ban by Britain’s electricity and coal workers.

1977: Somalia, angered by Soviet support for Ethiopia in territorial war, ordered Soviet advisers to leave and ended Soviet use of naval facilities in Indian Ocean.

1987: The first criminal conviction based on genetic fingerprinting led to a rapist being sentenced at Bristol Crown Court to eight years’ imprisonment.

2001: The Afghanistan capital of Kabul fell to the American and British-backed Northern Alliance as troops of the ruling Taleban retreated towards Kandahar.

2001: The cost of the Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood soared to above £240 million, six times the original estimate. (It eventually topped £400m.)

2004: MP Boris Johnson was dismissed as the Conservative Party vice-chairman and arts spokesman after accusations of lying about an affair.

2007: First Minister Alex Salmond predicted the break-up of Britain by 2017.

BIRTHDAYS

Gerard Butler, Glasgow-born actor, 45; George Carey, Baron Carey of Clifton, Archbishop of Canterbury 1991-2002, 79; Adrienne Corri, Scottish actress and author, 83; Bonnie Dobson, Canadian singer and songwriter, 74; Whoopi Goldberg, actress, 59; Joe Mantegna, American actor, director, producer, 67; Chris Noth, American actor, 60; Terry Reid, British rock musician, 65; Alexandra Shulman OBE, editor of British Vogue, 56; Howard Wilkinson, English football administrator and former manager, 71; Steve Zahn, American actor and comedian, 47; Candye Kane, blues and jazz singer, 49; Art Malik, actor, 62; John Paul Hammond, blues singer and guitarist, 72; Garry Marshall, director, writer and producer, 80; Kelly Sotherton, British heptathlete, 38; Andrew Ranken, drummer (the Pogues), 61; Roberto Boninsegna, Italian footballer, 71.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1312 Edward III, king of England; 1718 John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich; 1761 Sir John Moore, Glasgow-born general and posthumous hero of the Battle of Corunna; 1785 Caroline Lamb, writer and Byron’s lover; 1825 Charles Worth, fashion designer; 1833 Edwin Booth, Shakespearean actor and founder of Booth’s Theatre in New York; 1848 Albert I, prince of Monaco; 1850 Robert Louis Stevenson, author; 1912 Eugéne Ionesco, playwright and surrealist; Jack Elam, actor; 1921 Eddie Calhoun, jazz musician; 1931 Joan Lestor, Baroness Lestor of Eccles, British Labour politician; 1932 Richard Mulligan, actor; 1932 Clyde McPhatter, R&B and rock’n’roll singer; 1938 Jean Seberg, actress; 1964 Paul McBride QC, Scottish criminal lawyer.

Deaths: 867AD Pope Nicholas I; 1093 Malcolm III (Canmore), king of Scotland; 1460 Henry the Navigator, prince of Portugal; 1770 George Grenville, British prime minister 1763 to 1765; 1868 Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer; 1903 Camille Pissarro, painter; 1973 Elsa Schiaparelli, couturier; 1974 Karen Silkwood, chemical technician and union activist; 1779 Thomas Chippendale, furniture maker; 1849 William Etty, British painter; 1982 Chesney Allen, entertainer, half of “Flanagan and Allen”.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SCOTSMAN’S BUSINESS BRIEFING

• Get the latest business headlines from a variety of news sources emailed to your inbox each morning