SWINDON...
1957: An appeal for the postponement of H Bomb testing was sent to the Prime Minister and Soviet Embassy by the Penhill Section of the Swindon Constituency Labour Party. They also called upon the constituency’s executive to call a special meeting to support their action.
1977: The Lord Mayor of Salzgitter, Swindon’s German twin town, was due to arrive in Swindon. Mayor Willi Blune was accompanied by a party of five councillors and the town official Oberrat Berger. The visit started with a reception at the Civic Offices.
2013: Red and white were the colours of choice as Swindon celebrated St George’s Day with a parade through the town centre and a much-anticipated charity concert in the council chamber. A 20ft-high figure of England’s patron saint proudly paraded through the town centre to commemorate the Feast of St George.
THE WORLD...
1500: Navigator Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovered Brazil and claimed it on behalf of Portugal.
1838: The British packet steamer Sirius became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic to New York from England.
1884: A major earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter Scale hit Colchester and parts of East Anglia.
1915: Germany first used poison gas at Ypres as a chemical weapon.
1930: The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States signed the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding.
1943: The printing of British £1,000 notes was discontinued.
1969: Yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston sailed into Falmouth to complete his 312-day, non-stop, round-the-world voyage.
1989: Archaeologists unearthed a 2,000-year-old mummy in a gold-covered coffin in the Egyptian oasis, Fayoum. She was wrapped in linen and dried flowers and had a child beside her.
2005: Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologised for Japan's war record.
2013: A memorial service marks the 20th anniversary of the death of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.
BORN...
1870: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), Russian revolutionary leader
1899: Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-American author
1923: Bettie Page, American model and actress
1925: George Cole, English actor
1937: Jack Nicholson, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1960: Gary Rhodes, English chef
1963: Sean Lock, English comedian and actor
DIED...
1933: Frederick Henry Royce, co-founder of Rolls-Royce car company
1994: Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States
2005: Norman Bird, English actor
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