On this day: R34 Airship lands in New York after crossing from East Lothian

1919, an R34 Airship lands at Mineola, New York, after crossing the Atlantic from East Fortune airfield in East Lothian

1854: United States Republican Party established in Wisconsin.

1859: Queensland, Australia, became a colony in its own right, separate from New South Wales.

1875: Institute of Bankers in Scotland formed – the first such body in the world.

1885: Louis Pasteur successfully treated a subject with anti-rabies vaccine.

1912: Fifth Olympic Games opened in Stockholm.

1916: David Lloyd-George was appointed War Secretary.

1919: The first transatlantic flight by an airship, from East Fortune, East Lothian to Mineola, New York, took 108 hours.

1923: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formed.

1928: The first all-talking feature film, Lights Of New York, opened in America.

1942: Ann Frank’s family went into hiding in Amsterdam.

1946: The Young Conservatives’ was founded.

1950: The frontier between East Germany and Poland was declared the Oder-Neisse Line.

1964: Malawi, formerly Nyasaland, became an independent state within the Commonwealth, having been a British protectorate since 1891.

1967: Civil war began in Nigeria.

1968: Billie Jean King became Wimbledon Women’s Singles champion.

1988: 167 workers died in the Piper Alpha oil platform explosion in the North Sea.

1989: Time and date digits were in sequence at 01.23.45 6-7-89. This would not happen again for 100 years.

1989: Collett’s bookshop in Charing Cross Road, London, was fire-bombed in protest at sale of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.

1991: United Nations nuclear inspection team arrived in Iraq to test President Saddam Hussein’s promise of full co-operation, while second team witnessed destruction of Iraq’s last known long-range missiles.

2003: The Eupatoria Planetary Radar sent messages to five stars; the message sent to the furthest will arrive in 2049.

2006: The Nathula Pass between India and China, sealed during the Sino-Indian War, reopened for trade after 44 years.

BIRTHDAYS

Dalai Lama (born Tenzin Gyatso), exiled Tibetan leader, 80; Vladimir Ashkenazy, Russian-Icelandic pianist and conductor, 78; George W Bush, 43rd US president (2001-9), 69; Geraldine James OBE, actress, 65; John Makepeace OBE, designer and furniture maker, 76; Dame Mary Peters DBE, Olympic pentathlon champion and athletics administrator, 76; Sir Jonathon Porritt CBE, 2nd Baronet, environmentalist and writer, 65; Nancy Reagan, actress, former US first lady, 94; Geoffrey Rush, actor, 64; Jennifer Saunders, actress and writer, 57; Eva Green, actress, 35; 50 Cent (Curtis James Jackson II), rapper, 40; Sylvester Stallone, actor, 69; Kate Nash, singer-songwriter, 28.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1747 John Paul Jones, Scottish-born American naval commander; 1755 John Flaxman, Wedgwood pottery designer; 1755 Alexander Wilson, Scottish poet, ornithologist and naturalist; 1781 Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, British statesman and founder of city of Singapore; 1785 Sir William Jackson Hooker, British botanist; 1868 Princess Victoria of Wales, daughter of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra; 1887 Marc Chagall, artist; 1890 Andy Sandham, English cricketer, first player to score a triple Test century; 1906 Elizabeth Lutyens, composer; 1925 Bill Haley, rock’n’roll musician; 1925 Merv Griffin, TV host, media mogul and creator of TV game shows; 1927 Janet Leigh, actress; 1936 Dave Allen, Irish comedian; 1939 Jet Harris (born Terence Harris) MBE, musician (The Shadows); 1947 Richard Beckinsale, actor.

Deaths: 1189 King Henry II of England; 1535 Sir Thomas More, statesman and Lord Chancellor (executed for high treason); 1553 King Edward VI of England and Ireland; 1813 Granville Sharp, English abolitionist; 1932 Kenneth Grahame, author of Wind in the Willows; 1946 Horace Pippin, African-American painter; 1950 Fats Navarro, jazz musician and pioneer of bebop; 1960 Aneurin Bevan, politician responsible for National Health Service; 1962 William Faulkner, Nobel Prize-winning author; 1971 Louis Armstrong, jazz trumpeter and singer; 1973 Joe E Brown, actor and comedian; 1979 Van McCoy, singer-songwriter and record producer; 1993 Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy OBE, grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales; 1994 Cameron Mitchell, actor (The High Chaparral); 1998 Roy Rogers, singer and cowboy actor; 2003 Kathleen Raine, poet; 2003 Buddy Ebsen, actor and dancer; 2005 Claude Simon, Nobel Prize-winning author; 2006 Tom Weir MBE, Scottish climber, author and broadcaster (Weir’s Way).