On this day: Pat Clinton wins world flyweight title

Flyweight Pat Clinton became the sixth Scot to hold a world boxing championship title.

1291: Pope Gregory X issued a bull awarding clerical tithes of Scotland to Edward I of England for crusade.

1689: The Earl of Leven was commissioned to raise a regiment of 800 in Border country to hold Edinburgh against Jacobites. It became The King’s Own Scottish Borderers.

1834: The Tolpuddle Martyrs, who set up a society to stop decline of agricultural wages, were sentenced to seven years’ transportation to Tasmania. Public outcry had them released after two years.

1891: The opening of the London-Paris telephone system with communication between the Prince of Wales and President Carnot. The service did not become public until 1 April.

1902: Enrico Caruso shouted ten operatic arias into a horn in a room in Hotel de Milano to make the first successful song recording. He was the only person able to produce enough volume to disguise the crackles.

1903: French religious orders were dissolved.

1913: Greece’s King George I was assassinated in Salonika.

1922: Mahatma Gandhi was sentenced to six years in prison in India for civil disobedience.

1930: The planet Pluto was discovered by the astronomer Clyde Tombaugh.

1931: World’s first electric razor was manufactured by American firm Schick Inc.

1950: Roger Bannister ran the mile in a record 4 minutes 1.48 seconds.

1958: The last debutantes were presented to the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

1962: Ceasefire in Algerian War was signed by French and Algerian delegations.

1965: Aleksei Leonov left Soviet spacecraft to make first space walk, lasting ten minutes.

1967: The oil tanker Torrey Canyon was wrecked on Pollard Rock between Isles of Scilly and Land’s End, spilling 120,000 gallons of crude into the sea.

1967: The Soviet Union expelled two Chinese diplomats from Moscow, charging them with anti-Soviet activity.

1969: United States and Soviet Union proposed an international treaty to ban nuclear weapons from the ocean floor.

1984: Oxford and Cambridge Boat race took place on a Sunday for the first time.

1989: Israeli soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians in clashes with protesters in the Gaza Strip.

1991: A Commons motion by 100 MPs urged the Queen to dismiss the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Lane, over the Birmingham Six affair.

1992: South Africa’s referendum on power-sharing with black people resulted in a landslide Yes vote.

1992: Pat Clinton became the sixth Scot to hold a world boxing title when he dethroned Mexican Isidro Perez for the World Boxing Organisation flyweight crown.

1994: Bosnia’s Muslim and Croat leaders signed accord to create a federation.

1995: England beat Scotland 24-12 at Twickenham to win rugby’s grand slam, Five Nations Championship and Calcutta Cup.

2002: MPs voted 386-175 to ban hunting with dogs in England and Wales.

2003: 139 Labour MPs rebelled in a Commons vote on war with Iraq and voted against the Labour government, the biggest act of defiance in UK political history.

2003: Sign language recognised as an official British language.

2009: Unemployment in the UK rose above two million for the first time since 1997.

2009: Natasha Richardson, the stage and screen actress and daughter of Vanessa Redgrave, died at the age of 45 following a skiing accident in Canada.

BIRTHDAYS

Ron Atkinson, football manager, 76; Patrick Barlow, British actor, writer and director, 68; Luc Besson, French film director, 56; Irene Cara, US actress, 56; Brad Dourif, US actor, 65; Pat Eddery, champion jockey 11 times, 63; Timo Glock, German Formula 1 driver, 33; Queen Latifah, American actress and rap singer, 45; Kenny Lynch OBE, British singer/actor, 77; Sophia Myles, British actress, 35; Courtney Pine CBE, British jazz saxophonist, 51; Charley Pride, American singer, 77; Ingemar Stenmark, Swedish skier, 59; Vanessa Williams, American actress and singer, 52; Stuart Zender, rock musician (Jamiroquai), 41.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1837 Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th United States president; 1844 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer; 1858 Rudolf Diesel, engine inventor; 1869 Neville Chamberlain, Conservative prime minister 1937-1940; 1893 Wilfred Owen, war poet; 1932 John Updike, US novelist; 1949 Alex Higgins, snooker player.

Deaths: 978 King Edward the Martyr (murdered); 1455 Fra Angelico, artist; 1584 Ivan the Terrible; 1745 Sir Robert Walpole, Whig statesman; 1768 Laurence Sterne, clergyman and novelist; 1988 Percy Thrower, horticulturist and broadcaster; 1991 Vilma Bánky, silent actress