On this day: Birmingham six freed

Close season for trout ends.

1885: At the first night of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado at the Savoy Theatre, London, the Japanese ambassador presented a petition to have it banned for racism. It ran for two years.

1891: First submarine telephone lines laid across English Channel.

1930: The Channel Tunnel Committee in London gave approval for the building of a tunnel between Britain and France.

1947: Twenty Questions, billed as a radio parlour game, began on BBC radio with question-master Stewart Macpherson and panel members Richard Dimbleby, Anona Winn and Jack Train.

1961: New English Bible published in two phases (New Testament on this day, Old Testament on 16 March, 1970).

1962: Eric Lubbock captured Orpington for Liberals in sensational by-election, turning Tory majority of 14,760 into Liberal majority of 7,855.

1964: Jack Ruby was found guilty of killing Lee Harvey Oswald and was sentenced to death. He died of a blood clot in 1967.

1965: Israel’s Cabinet formally approved establishment of diplomatic relations with West Germany.

1968: George Brown resigned as Labour Foreign Secretary.

1978: Israeli troops invaded Lebanon on mission to root out terrorist bases.

1984: Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Fein, was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt in Belfast.

1988: Iran and Iraq unleashed missiles on each other’s capitals.

1991: Birmingham Six were freed after wrongfully serving 16 years in jail for 1974 Birmingham pub bombings.

1992: Eleven died in North Sea crash of helicopter transferring workers from Shell Cormorant Alpha platform to nearby accommodation flotel.

1993: More than 70 people were killed as hurricanes, blizzards and floods left a trail of destruction along America’s Atlantic coast.

1994: Government rejected IRA demands for talks, saying there would be no negotiations until violence stopped.

2008: A series of riots, protests, and demonstrations erupted in Lhasa and elsewhere in Tibet.

2011: Figures revealed that the number of women given prison sentences in Scotland had almost doubled in the past decade.

2012: Perth became Scotland’s seventh city after winning a UK competition marking the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

BIRTHDAYS

Jamie Bell, actor, 28; Pam Ayres MBE, poet and broadcaster, 67; Liz Burnley CBE, Chief Guide, Girlguiding UK (2006-11), 56; Sir Michael Caine CBE, actor, 81; Jasper Carrott OBE, comedian, actor and television presenter, 69; Sir Robert (Bob) Charles CBE, golfer, 78; Billy Crystal, actor, 67; Quincy Jones, composer, arranger and bandleader, 81; Tessa Sanderson CBE, athlete and broadcaster, 58; Francine Stock, writer and broadcaster, 56.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1681 George Telemann, German composer; 1804 Johann Strauss, Austrian violinist and composer; 1836 Isabella Mary Mayson (aka Mrs Beeton), author of The Book of Household Management; 1868 Maxim Gorky, Russian author; 1879 Albert Einstein, mathematical physicist; 1926 Lita Roza, singer (How Much is That Doggie in the Window?)

Deaths: 1748 General George Wade, soldier and road-builder; 1883 Karl Marx, German social philosopher and radical leader; 1932 George Eastman, photographic pioneer; 1975 Susan Hayward, film actress.