On this day: Parking meters introduced in Britain

On this day in 1958 parking meters were introduced for the first time in Britain. Picture: Getty.

988: Dublin was founded on the banks of the river Liffey.

1040: Lady Godiva rode naked on horseback through Coventry to force her husband, the Earl of Mercia, to reduce taxes.

1533: Lady Jane Grey began her brief reign as the Queen of England.

1579: The first Bible to be printed in Scotland was published.

1584: William of Orange was assassinated by Balthazar Gérard at instigation of Spain.

1778: During the American Revolutionary War, King Louis XVI of France, which was allied to the US, declared war in Great Britain.

1884: England and Australia met on the first day of Test cricket to be played at Old Trafford. Play was washed out by rain.

1890: Wyoming became the 44th state of the USA.

1918: The Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic was formed.

1919: President Woodrow Wilson delivered the Treaty of Versailles to the US senate.

1924: Denmark took possession of Greenland as Norway ended its claim on the territory.

1938: Howard Hughes flew around the world in 91 hours.

1940: Battle of Britain began following Nazi attacks on shipping convoys in the English Channel.

1942: Heinrich Himmler ordered the sterilisation of all Jewish women in Ravensbruck camp.

1943: Eighth Army and US 7th Army began invasion of Sicily.

1950: Soap rationing in Britain, started during the war, ended.

1958: Parking meters introduced in England - in Mayfair, London.

1962: Telstar I, the world’s first television telecommunications satellite, was launched in America.

1962: The US performed an atmospheric nuclear test on Christmas Island.

1966: The US launched Orbiter I to the moon.

1971: Golfer Lee Trevino won the 100th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.

1973: The Bahamas declared independence from UK and adopted its constitution.

1980: The Alexandra Palace in London burned down.

1981: Copycat urban rioting emulating Brixton (3 April) and Toxteth (5 July), broke out in London, Birmingham, Preston, Hull and Wolverhampton.

1985: Two explosions sank the Greenpeace campaign ship Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland, New Zealand.

1989: Rangers manager Graeme Souness caused a major stir when he signed former Celtic player Maurice Johnson, who became the Ibrox club’s first well-known Roman Catholic player.

1990: Uefa unconditionally readmitted English clubs, except Liverpool, to European competition from which they had been banned after the Heysel Stadium riot in 1985.

1991: Boris Yeltsin was sworn in as the first elected president of the Russian Federation.

1998: The Diocese of Dallas agreed to pay $23.4m to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by former priest Rudolph Kos.

2000: A leaking southern Nigerian petroleum pipeline exploded, killing about 250 villagers scavenging gasoline.

2002: At a Sotheby’s auction, Peter Paul Rubens’ painting The Massacre of the Innocents was sold for £49.5m to Lord Thomson.

2011: The last edition of the News of the World was published in the wake of phone-hacking allegations.

BIRTHDAYS

Winnie Ewing, MEP 1975-99 and MSP 1999-03, 85; Virginia Wade, Wimbledon champion and commentator, 69; Sir Thomas Farmer, founder of Kwik-Fit, 74; Lord Mackie of Benshie CBE, MP 1964-66, chairman, Scottish Liberal Party 1983-88, 95; John Motson OBE, sports commentator, 69; John Simm, actor, 44; Dr Gavin Strang, MP (1970-2010), 71; Neil Tennant, singer (Pet Shop Boys), 60; Jake LaMotta, former world middleweight boxing champion, 93; Jason Orange, singer-songwriter (Take That), 44; Mavis Staples, R&B and gospel singer and civil rights activist, 75; David Dinkins, first black mayor of New York, 87; Imelda May, singer-songwriter, 40.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1509 John Calvin (born Jean Cauvin), theologian; 1802 Robert Chambers, bookseller and publisher; 1830 Camille Pissarro, painter; 1834 James McNeill Whistler, etcher and painter; 1856 Nikola Tesla, inventor of alternating current electricity supply system; 1871 Marcel Proust, writer; 1917 Reg Smythe, cartoonist (“Andy Capp”); 1943 Arthur Ashe, tennis champion.

Deaths: 138AD Hadrian, Roman Emperor; 1099 El Cid, Spanish patriot; 1290 Kink Ladislaus of Hungary; 1559 Henry II, king of France; 1851 Louis Daguerre, nventor and photographer; 1910 Johann G Galle, discoverer of planet Neptune; 1941 Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton, jazz pianist; 1978 Joe Davis, snooker player; 1987 John Hammond, jazz reviewer; 1989 Tommy Trinder, comedian; 1989 Mel Blanc cartoon voice; 1998 Hammond Innes, novelist.