On this day: Mahatma Gandhi released from prison in India

Mahatma Gandhi was released from prison in India for discussions with the government on this day in 1931. Picture: Getty Images

National days of India and Australia

1340: English King Edward III was proclaimed king of France.

1348: Black Death began in England.

1531: Lisbon was struck by an earthquake, leading to around 30,000 deaths.

1788: The first consignment of convicts from England arrived in Australia, at Sydney Cove.

1790: Mozart’s opera Cosi Fan Tutte premiered at the Burg­theater in Vienna.

1828: Duke of Wellington became Conservative prime minister.

1837: Michigan was admitted as the 26th US state.

1841: British sovereignty was proclaimed over Hong Kong.

1871: The Rugby Football Union was founded in London.

1875: The electric dental drill was patented by George F Green.

1905: The Cullinan diamond, the largest in the world, weighing more than 1lb 4oz, was found at the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, by Captain Wells.

1908: The 1st Glasgow Boy Scout troop was registered, the first to be formed.

1926: The BBC broadcast the first shipping forecasts.

1931: Mahatma Gandhi was released from prison in India for discussions with government.

1934: Germany signed ten-year non-aggression pact with Poland.

1939: Filming began on the epic movie Gone with the Wind.

1942: First US expeditionary force arrived in Europe, with troops put ashore in Northern Ireland.

1950: India proclaimed a republic within the Commonwealth.

1952: Famed Shepheard Hotel in Cairo, Egypt, was burned during riots by mobs demanding British withdrawal from Suez.

1968: The National Provincial and Westminster Banks merged, under the name National Westminster Bank.

1982: Unemployment in Britain rose above three million for the first time since the 1930s.

1991: Seven Iraqi warplanes flew to Iran and Pentagon said at least two dozen had landed there in recent days.

1993: Chancellor Norman Lamont cut interest rates to 6 per cent, the lowest level for more than 15 years.

1998: US president Bill Clinton went on television to deny that he had had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a member of the White House staff.

2001: An earthquake hit Gujarat, India, killing more than 20,000 people.

2004: President Hamid Karzai signed the new constitution of Afghanistan.

2009: Steelmaker Corus confirmed that it was to cut 3,500 jobs worldwide, including around 2,500 in the UK.

2009: Iceland’s coalition government collapsed under the strain of the global economic, with the whole cabinet resigning.

2011: Former MSP Tommy Sheridan was jailed for three years for committing perjury.

2015: Libby Lane was ordained as the first female priest of the Church of England.

ANNIVERSARIES:

Births: 1714 Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, sculptor; 1880 General Douglas MacArthur, American commander in South-west Pacific; 1908 Stephane Grappelli, jazz violinist; 1922 Michael Bentine, founder member of The Goon Show; 1925 Paul Newman, actor; 1928 Roger Vadim, film director; 1945 Jacqueline du Pré, cellist.

Deaths: 1823 Edward Jenner, vaccination pioneer; 1850 Francis, Lord Jeffrey, founder and editor of the Edinburgh Review; 1878 Kirkpatrick Macmillan, Dumfriesshire inventor of the bicycle; 2003 Viscount Younger of Leckie, politician; 2012 Alex Eadie, Labour MP 1966-92.