On this day: Eagle lunar module landed on the Moon
National day of Colombia.
1304: King Edward I of England took Stirling Castle, the last rebel stronghold of the Wars of Scottish Independence.
1651: At the Battle of Inverkeithing, the royalist force supporting Charles II failed to stop the advance of Oliver Cromwell’s army towards Perth.
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Hide Ad1654: British-Portuguese Treaty placing Portugal under British control was signed.
1705: An Act of the Scottish Parliament established herring fishing in and around Scotland.
1712: The Riot Act came into effect in Britain.
1773: Scottish settlers arrived in Pictou, Nova Scotia.
1836: Charles Darwin climbed Green Hill on Ascension Island.
1837: London’s first railway station, Euston, opened.
1881: Sioux indian chief Sitting Bull surrendered to US federal troops.
1890: Gibbons Stamp Monthly began publication.
1914: Armed resistance against British rule began in Ulster.
1917: Finland declared independence from Russia.
1926: A convention of the Methodist Church voted to admit women priests.
1933: Vatican state secretary signed an accord with Hitler.
1933: Half a million people took part in an anti-Semitic march in London.
1938: Finland was awarded the 1940 Olympic Games after Japan withdrew as hosts.
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Hide Ad1940: Singles-record charts were first published in America, by Billboard. I’ll Never Smile Again by Tommy Dorsey was the first No 1.
1944: An assassination attempt on Hitler was made by a German staff officer, Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg. He and 1,000 others implicated in the plot were executed.
1945: US flag raised over Berlin as US troops prepared to take part in occupation government.
1946: The Peace Conference began in Paris.
1951: Jordan’s King Abdullah was assassinated in Jerusalem.
1956: Great Britain refused to lend money to Egypt to help build the Aswan Dam.
1957: At a meeting in Bradford, prime minister Harold Macmillan said: “Let’s be frank about it. Most of our people have never had it so good.” He later repeated it in the House of Commons.
1960: Sirima Bandaranaike became premier of Ceylon and the world’s first female head of government.
1967: Race riots rook place in Memphis, Tennessee.
1968: Jane Asher broke off her engagement to Paul McCartney.
1969: Eagle, the lunar module of Apollo 11, landed on the Moon, on the Sea of Tranquillity.
1974: Turkey invaded Cyprus.
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Hide Ad1976: Viking 1, the American unmanned spacecraft, touched down on Mars after an 11-month journey and began sending back clear pictures.
1980: Tom Watson won the Open Championship at Muirfield.
1982: IRA bombs killed ten soldiers and seven army horses at Hyde Park and Regents Park, London. Fifty-three were injured.
1989: The government of Burma placed author Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
1992: Nick Faldo won the Open Championship at Muirfield.
1993: The king of Thailand pardoned Patricia Cahill and Karyn Smith, two British women convicted of heroin smuggling in 1990 and jailed for 18 years and 25 years respectively.
2005: Canada legalised same-sex marriages, the fourth country in the world to do so.
2012: A gunman opened fire at the premiere of movie The Dark Knight at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring 59 others.
BIRTHDAYS
Dame Diana Rigg, actress, 77; Gisele Bündchen, supermodel, 35; Kim Carnes, singer, 70; Paul Cook, drummer (Sex Pistols), 59; Jacques Delors, president, European Commission 1985-95, 90; Sally Ann Howes, actress, 85; Roger Hunt MBE, footballer, 77; John Lodge, bassist (Moody Blues), 70; Charlie Magri, former WBC British flyweight boxing champion, 59; Jonathon Morris, actor, 55; Jeff Rawle, actor, 64; Carlos Santana, musician, 68; Sandra Oh, actress, 44; Stone Gossard, musician, 49; Terri Irwin, author and TV naturalist (widow of Steve), 51.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 356 BC Alexander the Great, king of Macedon; 1889 Lord Reith, first director-general of the BBC; 1919 Sir Edmund Hillary, first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest; 1920 6th Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair, artist and critic; 1938 Natalie Wood, actress.
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Hide AdDeaths: 1819 John Playfair, Scottish geologist and mathematician; 1923 Pancho Villa, revolutionary leader; 1937 Guglielmo Marconi, physicist and wireless telegraphy pioneer; 1945 Paul Valéry, poet, essayist and philosopher;1962 George Macauley Trevelyan, historian; 1970 Iain MacLeod Chancellor of the Exchequer; 1973 Bruce Lee, kung-fu actor; 2011 Lucian Freud artist.