Timeline Scotland
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The Picts drank a heather ale and fought the
Romans
in Scotland.
(Hem., 8/96, p.113)
Dunnottar Castle. Located just off the mainland of Scotland,
Dunnottar Castle played Elsinore in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Much of the
original
castle still stands, though some of the roofs were replaced for the
filming
of Hamlet.
(HNQ, 10/19/01)
St. Andrew’s Day (Nov. 30): People of Scotland celebrate the
achievements of their country and their forefathers.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.A29)
355Mil BC-344Mil BC In 2002 it was
reported that a 1971 fossil from Scotland, initially believed to be an
extinct fish, was actually a tetrapod, one of the earliest creatures to
have walked on land. It was identified as a member of the
Whatcheeriidae family and named Pederpes finneyae.
(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A3)
350Mil BC Time of the Caledonian orogeny in Scotland.
(DD-EVTT, p.135)
50Mil BC A sheet of ice 2 miles thick covered
Scotland.
(Econ, 9/9/06, p.11)
3200BC-2200BC The Orkney Island village of Skara Brae
was inhabited during this period. A huge storm in 1850 revealed its
ruins. Inhabitants were settled farmers who ate sheep, cattle, grain
and fish.
(www.orkneyjar.com/history/skarabrae/)(SFEC,
3/23/97, p.T3)
3000-2000BC The Clava cairns, a mile from Culloden,
are 3 sizable stone burial chambers encircled by stone monoliths.
(SFEC,12/797, p.T4)
2500BC-2000BC Scotland’s Ring of Brogar in Orkney’s
West Mainland dates to about this time. In 2005 36 of the original 60
stones remained standing. The original stones stood in a perfect circle
340 feet in diameter.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T3)(SSFC, 11/13/05, p.F10)
122AD Jun, Emp. Hadrian visited
Britain as part of a tour of the northern frontiers. He ordered a wall
built to protect the Romans from the Picts of Scotland.
(AM, 7/01, p.17)
c140AD Emperor Antoninus Pius ordered Hadrian’s Wall
to be abandoned and a more northerly defense to be established 80 miles
up. Remnants could later be seen of the Antonine Wall around Falkirk,
Scotland. Roman troops advanced northwards into the Scottish lowlands,
driving the barbarians back before them and establishing a new frontier
called the Antonine Wall, named for the new Emperor, Antoninus Pius.
The Antonine Wall was later abandoned, reoccupied, and abandoned a
second and final time under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
(NG, 12/97, forum)(HNQ, 9/9/00)(AM, 11/00, p.13)
c160AD The Romans abandoned their garrison at
Cramond, Scotland, and retreated to Hadrian’s Wall.
(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.14)
c197AD The sculpture of a lioness devouring a man
made about this time was found in 1997 in the mud of the Almond River
near Edinburgh, Scotland.
(SFC, 1/22/97, p.A9)(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.14)
297 The Roman poet Eumenius first
mentioned the Picts. The 2 most important Pictish groups were the
Verturiones and the Caledones.
(AM, 7/01, p.46)(AM, 11/04, p.41)
c400AD People from the chiefdom Dal Riata in northern
Ireland crossed the Irish Sea and settled along the Scottish coast of
County Argyll.
(AM, 7/01, p.46)
410 Rome abandoned its British
provinces.
(AM, 11/04, p.41)
c500-600 In England the 6th century Gildas was the
only historian whose work survived. He made no mention of King Arthur.
He described the Picts as “Loathsome hordes, dark swarms of worms that
emerge from the narrow crevices of their holes when the sun is high,
preferring to cover their villainous faces with hair rather than their
private parts and surrounding areas with clothes.
(WSJ, 3/27/98, p.W10)(AM, 11/04, p.41)
c500-600 The Picts of Scotland developed a script
about this time made up of 30 symbols. In 2005 it still defied
interpretation.
(AM, 11/04, p.43)
542 The St. Columbas monastery was
founded on Iona. [see 563]
(SSFC, 8/12/01, p.T8)
563 The Irish Catholic monk
Columba (Colum Cille) arrived on the Scottish island of Iona. [see 542]
(SFC, 2/10/99, p.A10)(AM, 7/01, p.51)
700-800 Vikings began arriving to the Orkney Islands.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T3)
729 Apr 24, Egbertus (89), English
bishop, St. Egbert, died in Iona.
(MC, 4/24/02)
794 Jan 8, Vikings attacked
Lindsfarne Island.
(MC, 1/8/02)
802 Vikings stage their 1st raid
of Iona.
(AM, 7/01, p.50)
804 Vikings returned to Iona and
killed 68 of the monastic community.
(AM, 7/01, p.50)
839 The Stone of Scone was first
believed to be used in the coronation of a Scottish king at the village
of Scone in southeast Scotland.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A11)
844 The Scotti and Picts united
under Cinaed (Kenneth) mac Ailpin. The Pict language disappeared
following the union.
(AM, 7/01, p.46)
878 Monks packed up their shrine
of Collum Cille at Iona and moved to Kells, Ireland.
(AM, 7/01, p.50)
1040 Aug 15, In Scotland Donnchad
led an army into Moray, where he was killed by Mac Bethad at Pitgaveny
near Elgin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth_of_Scotland)
1040-1057 Macbeth ruled over Scotland. He succeeded
King Duncan.
(WSJ, 5/23/96, p.B-1)
1057 Aug 15, Macbeth, the King of
Scotland, was mortally wounded at the Battle of Lumphanan, by Malcolm
Canmore, the eldest son of King Duncan I, who was killed by Macbeth 17
years earlier.
(AP,
8/15/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth_of_Scotland)
1124 Apr 27, Alexander I, king of
Scotland (1107-24), died.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1128 The Royal High School in
Scotland was founded by a group of Edinburgh Friars.
(SFC, 4/22/98, p.A10)
1138 Aug 22, English defeated
Scots at Cowton Moor. Banners of various saints were carried into
battle which led to its being called Battle of the Standard.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1140 Somerled first appeared in
historical chronicles as the regulus, or King, of Kintyre (Cinn
Tìre) when he marries Raghnailt the daughter of Olaf (or
Amhlaibh), King of Mann and the Scottish Isles.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerled)
1153 May 23, David I (~68), king
of Scotland (1124-53), died.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1153 May 24, Malcolm IV became
king of Scotland.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1164 Somerled, military and
political leader of the Scottish Isles, assembled an army to repel the
Stuarts. He advanced to the centre of the their territory at Renfrew,
where a great battle was fought. Much confusion surrounds the manner of
the battle, and indeed whether a battle occurred at all, but what is
certain is that Somerled was assassinated, after which his army
retreated from the area. DNA evidence later suggested that Somerled was
of Viking descent.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerled)(AM, 7/05,
p.14)
1165 Dec 9, Malcom IV (24), king
of Scotland (1153-65), died.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1200-1300 Urquhart Castle was originally built to
guard the strategically important route along the western shores of
Loch Ness. It is now used by tourists hoping to spy the Loch Ness
Monster. The most conspicuous of the ruins visible today actually rest
upon the even older remains of an iron-age stone and timber fort. The
castle has historically been the setting for conflict since at least
the 13th century and Edward I's invasion of Scotland. Its defenses were
improved over the centuries until the late 17th century, when advances
in artillery signaled an end to such fortifications.
(HNQ, 7/7/01)
1263 Oct 2, At Largs, King
Alexander III of Scotland repelled an amphibious invasion by King
Haakon IV of Norway.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1274 Jul 11, Robert the Bruce,
King of Scotland (1306-1329), was born in Turnberry, Scotland.
(HN, 7/11/01)(MC, 7/11/02)
1288 Feb 29, Scotland made it
legal for women to propose to men. The Scottish Parliament passed a
Leap Year Act whereby women could propose to men. The tradition had
begun in 5th century Ireland.
(SFEC, 6/8/97, Z1 p.6)(SFC, 2/29/00, p.A1)
1291 May 10, Scottish nobles
grudgingly recognized the authority of English king Edward I.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1296 Apr 27, England’s King Edward
I defeated the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar. He deposed King John and
exiled him to France.
(HN, 4/27/99)
1296 King Edward I of England
stole the 458-pound Stone at Scone from Scotland. It was returned to
Scotland in 1996.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A11)
1297 Sep 11, Scots under William
Wallace "Braveheart" defeated the English army at Stirling Bridge,
Scotland. The 1995 epic film Braveheart dramatized the life of
13th-century Scot William Wallace. While many Scots and others praised
the film for reviving the legend of the Scottish hero, just as many
people criticized the film for its numerous historical inaccuracies.
For instance, the Battle of Stirling Bridge is an excellent example of
Wallace's military genius and what led him to being knighted in the
film and real life. However, in the film, the battle takes place on an
open field. (Reportedly, when a local asked actor/director Mel Gibson
why the battle was being filmed with such an obvious discrepancy,
Gibson explained that the bridge got in the way. The local responded,
"Aye. That's what the English found!") In addition, one of the film's
most intriguing twists is pure Hollywood invention. A calendar puts the
lie to the tale of Wallace's affair with Princess Isabella, wife of
Prince Edward II, and his fathering of her child. Isabella and Edward
II married in 1307, two years after Wallace's execution. Her son,
Edward III, was born in the years that followed.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)(HN, 9/11/98)(HNQ, 3/19/01)
1298 Jul 22, King Edward I
combined bowmen and cavalry to defeat William Wallace's Scots at
Falkirk.
(HN, 7/22/98)
c1300s The Dunrobin Castle in the northern Highlands
dates top the early 1300s.
(SFEM, 1/31/99, p.6)
1305 Aug 23, Scottish patriot
William Wallace was hanged, drawn, beheaded, and quartered in London.
(HN, 8/23/98)(SFEC, 4/11/99, Z1 p.8)
1306 Mar 25, Robert the Bruce
(1274-1329) was crowned king of Scotland as the successor to King John.
(HN, 7/11/01)(ON, 2/08, p.6)
1306 English forces defeated
Scottish forces under Robert Bruce at Methven near Perth. Bruce escaped
to Rathlin Island.
(ON, 2/08, p.6)
1307 May 10, Forces under Robert
Bruce of Scotland defeated the English at Loudoun Hill. Over the next
few years Bruce gained control over much of the Scottish countryside.
(ON, 2/08, p.6)
1308 Nov 8, John Duns Scotus (42),
Scottish-born theologian and philosopher, died in Germany. Scotus and
his adherents came under attack by critics in the 16th century, giving
rise to the term "dunce."
(AP,
11/8/08)(www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintj55.htm)
1310 English forces under Edward
II crossed into Scotland to regain control of the territory.
(ON, 2/08, p.6)
1312 Scots under Robert Bruce
attacked Perth, held by the English, and gained control of the city and
castle.
(ON, 2/08, p.6)
1314 Jun 24, King Robert I (Robert
the Bruce) of Scotland with 6,000 men and 500 horses routed English
King Edward II with his army of 20,000 at Bannockburn. Bruce secured
Scotland’s independence from England and ruled until his death in 1329.
A film "The Bruce" was made in 1995 on a $500,000 budget.
(AP,
6/24/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bannockburn)(ON, 2/08,
p.7)
1316 Mar 2, Robert II the Steward,
King of Scotland (1371-90), was born.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1324 Mar 5, David II Bruce, king
of Scotland (1331-71), was born.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1329 Jun 7, Robert Bruce (b.1274),
King of Scotland (1306-1329), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_I_of_Scotland)
1332 Aug 12, Battle of Dupplin
Moor; Scottish dynastic battle.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1346 Oct 17, English forces
defeated the Scots under David II during the Battle of Neville's Cross,
Scotland.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1371 Feb 22, David II Bruce (46),
king of Scotland (1331-1371), died.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1385 Aug 31, English King Richard
the Second invaded Scotland with a force estimated at 80-thousand men.
(MC, 8/31/01)
c1392 Sir Jean Froissart authored
"The Chronicles of England, France and Scotland."
(ON, 4/00, p.6)
1402 In Scotland the Duke of
Rothesay, son of King Robert III and heir apparent, died under
mysterious circumstances while in the custody of Robert Stewart, the
1st Duke of Albany. Stewart had built Duane Castle at the end of the
14th century.
(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.C6)
1406 Apr 4, Robert III, King of
Scotland (1390-1406), died.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1420 Scotland's Duke of Albany
died. The governorship of Scotland and Doune Castle passed to his son,
Murdoch.
(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.C6)
1424 James I returned from exile
and was crowned King of Scotland. He tried but failed to ban golf. He
wanted his troops to practice more archery.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.C6)
1446 In Scotland Sir William St.
Clair, a grand master in the Knights Templar, founded the Rosslyn
Chapel. It was built in the shape of a cross in the Pentland Hills
outside Edinburgh. It became famous as part of the Dan Brown’s 2003
thriller “The Da Vinci Code.”
(SFC, 5/25/06, p.E2)
1449 The giant Scottish bombard
known as Mons Meg was built. It was retired from active service in
1680, after splitting her barrel while firing a ceremonial shot. She
can still be seen in Edinburgh castle.
(HNQ, 6/20/02)
1457 King James II of Scotland
(James of the Fiery Face) banned "Futeball" on the grounds that it
threatened national defense by drawing young men away from archery
practice. He banned "Golfe" for the same reason. "Nocht usit and
utterlie cryit doun."
(SFC, 8/10/96, p.E4)(Hem., 1/97, p.47)
1473 James IV, King of Scotland
(1488-1513), was born.
(Internet)
1473 The game of golf was played
in Scotland at the Old course at St. Andrews.
(SFC, 6/25/95, p.T-7)
1482 The border town of
Berwick-upon-Tweed ended up in English hands after changing hands 13
times in wars between England and the Scots.
(WSJ, 7/8/08, p.A14)
1488 Jun 11, James III, king of
Scotland, died in the battle of Sauchieburn, Scotland.
(SC, 6/11/02)(PC, 1992, p.157)
1494 The earliest report of Scots
making whiskey was made. [see 1495]
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1495 Jun 1, The first written
record of Scotch Whiskey appeared in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland.
Friar John Cor was the distiller. The later J&B brand stood for
Justerini and Brooks. [see 1494]
(DT internet 6/1/97)(SFEC,12/28/97, Z1 p.2)
1495 Nov 27, Scottish king James
IV received Perkin Warbeck (21), a pretender to the English throne.
James gave Warbeck, a Walloon, Lady Catherine Gordon in marriage.
(MC, 11/27/01)(PCh, 1992, p.160)
1497 Henry VII defeated the
Cornishmen at Blackheath. An insurrection in Cornwall had developed
over taxes to support English defenses against Scottish invasion
forces.
(PCh, 1992, p.161)
1497 The Declaration of Education
Act required children to go to school.
(SFEC, 12/27/98, Z1 p.8)
1498 The Shore Porters’ Society
was founded as a semi-public body controlled by the town of Aberdeen,
Scotland.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.104)
c1500-1600 Rob Roy was forced to become a highland
fugitive.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.D7)
1512 Apr 10, James V, king of
Scotland (1513-42), was born.
(PCh, 1992, p.167)(MC, 4/10/02)
1513 Sep 9, James IV (40), King of
Scotland (1488-1513), was defeated and killed by English at the Battle
of Flodden Field. The Scottish navy was sold to France.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.10)(HN, 9/9/98)(MC, 9/9/01)
1522 England declared war on
France and Scotland. Holy Roman Emp. Charles V visited Henry VIII and
signed the Treaty of Windsor. Both monarchs agreed to invade France.
(TL-MB, p.12)
1524 Jul 26, James I became king
of Scotland at age 12.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1542 Nov 24, The English defeated
the Scots under King James at the Battle of Solway Moss, in England.
(HN, 11/24/98)(MC, 11/24/01)
1542 Dec 7, Mary Stuart, Queen of
Scotland (1560-1587), was born. [see Dec 8]
(MC, 12/7/01)
1542 Dec 8, Mary, Queen of
Scotland (1542-67), was born. She became the Queen of England when she
was a week old, but was forced to abdicate her throne to her son
because she became a Catholic. She was executed for plotting against
Elizabeth I. [see Dec 7]
(HN, 12/8/00)
1542 Dec 14, James V (b.1512),
king of Scotland (1513-42), died.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1543 Jul 1, England and Scotland
signed the peace of Greenwich.
(HN, 7/1/98)
1543 Sep 3, Cardinal Beaton
replaced Earl Arran as regent for Mary of Scotland.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1543 Sep 9, Mary, Queen of Scots,
was crowned Queen of England.
(HN, 9/9/01)
1544 May 17, Scot earl Matthew van
Lennox signed a secret treaty with Henry VIII.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1547 Sep 10, The Duke of Somerset
led the English to a resounding victory over the Scots at Pinkie
Cleugh. This was the last battle to be fought between English and
Scottish royal armies and the last in which the longbow was used
tactically en masse.
(HN, 9/10/98)(WSJ, 11/4/04, p.D10)
1548 Aug 15, Mary Queen of the
Scots (6), who was engaged to the Dauphin, landed in France.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.17)(MC, 8/15/02)
1550 Mar 24, France and England
signed the Peace of Boulogne. It ended the war of England with Scotland
and France. France bought back Boulogne for 400,000 crowns.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.18)(MC, 3/24/02)
1557 Dec 3, The 1st Covenant of
Scottish protestants formed.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1558 Apr 24, Mary, Queen of
Scotland, married the French dauphin, Francis.
(HN, 4/24/98)
1559 May 10, Scottish Protestants
under John Knox rose against Queen Mary. Knox preached an inflammatory
sermon at Perth and incited the Protestants lords to rise. They
captured Edinburgh and sacked religious houses in other cities.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.19)(MC, 5/10/02)
1559 Jul 10, Henry II of France
died following a wound to the head by a tournament lance on June 30.
This allegedly fulfilled a prophecy by Nostradamus. Gabriel de Lorges
de Montgomery, captain of the Scottish Guards, accidentally killed
Henry II as they jousted in front of the Hotel Royal des Tournelles.
The widowed queen, Catherine de Medicis (d.1589), had the royal
residence demolished.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.19)(SFEM, 3/15/98, p.16)
1561 Aug 19, Mary Queen of Scots
arrived in Leith, Scotland, to assume the throne after spending 13
years in France.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1565 Jul 29, Mary Queen of Scots
married her cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.21)(MC, 7/29/02)
1567 Jul 24, Mary, Queen of Scots,
was imprisoned and forced to abdicate her throne to her 1-year-old son
James VI.
(HN, 7/24/98)
1560 The Church of Scotland was
founded. The Presbyterian branch of Protestant Christianity was started
in Scotland and the British Isles by John Knox.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.20)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A11)
1563-1727 In Prestonpans, Scotland, 81 people were
convicted and executed for being witches. In 2004 they were officially
pardoned.
(WSJ, 9/15/06,
p.A10)(http://forejustice.org/wc/sp/scottish_pardons.html)
1566 Jun 19, King James I (d.1625
at 59), son of Mary Queen of Scots, was born. James, aka King James VI
of Scotland ruled Scotland from 1567-25 and England from 1603-25.
(WUD, 1994, p.763)(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A13)(DT internet
6/19/97)(HN, 6/19/99)
1567 Feb 9, Henry Stuart, earl of
Darnley, Lord Darnley, the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, was
murdered in his sick-bed in a house in Edinburgh when the house blew
up. In 2003 Alison Weir authored "Mary, Queen of the Scots, and the
Murder of Lord Darnley."
(HN, 2/9/99)(MC, 2/9/02)(WSJ, 5/1/03, D10)
1567 May 15, Mary, Queen of Scots
married James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1567 Jun 11, At Borthwick Castle a
thousand Scottish nobles cornered Mary, Queen of Scots, who fled the
castle by jumping out the window, disguised as a pageboy. The nobles
cornered the newly-wed Mary and her third husband, the dubious James
Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. They demanded Bothwell's head and Mary's
renunciation of the Earl and his influence. Bothwell, a suspect in the
murder of Queen Mary's second husband, Lord Darnley, just a few months
before, fled the castle's sheltering 110-foot towers and the asylum
offered by the 6th Lord Borthwick, leaving his wife and queen behind.
(HNQ, 4/13/01)
1567 Jun 16, Mary, Queen of Scots,
was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle in Scotland.
(AP, 6/16/98)
1567 Jul 24, Mary, Queen of Scots,
was imprisoned and forced to abdicate her throne to her 1-year-old son
James VI.
(HN, 7/24/98)
1567 Mary, Queen of Scots, played
one of the 1st recorded games of golf at Seton Castle. In 2005 the
14-bedroom castle was put on the market asking $27 million.
(SFC, 8/31/05, p.C2)
1568 May 13, Mary Queen of Scots
was defeated by English at battle of Langside.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1568 May 16, Mary Queen of
Scotland fled to England.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1568 May 19, Defeated by the
Protestants, Mary, Queen of Scots, fled to England where Queen
Elizabeth imprisoned her.
(HN, 5/19/99)
1572 Nov 24, John Knox (67),
Scottish preacher, died.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1583 Nov, Francis Throckmorton,
who was born in 1554, was arrested. He made a full confession of the
Throckmorton Plot for the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth I and the
restoration of papal authority in England after being tortured on the
rack. He was tried and then executed on July 20, 1584. Throckmorton was
the central figure in the conspiracy involving France and Spain, which
called for a French invasion of England and the release from prison of
Mary, Queen of Scots.
(HNQ, 10/8/98)
1585 Dec 13, William Drummond
(d.1649), Scottish poet and laird of Hawthornden, was born. His chief
collection, "Poems," appeared in 1616. "He, who will not reason, is a
bigot; he, who cannot, is a fool; and he, who dares not, is a slave."
(HN, 12/13/99)(AP, 6/22/00)
1586 Oct 14, Mary, Queen of Scots,
went on trial in England, accused of committing treason against Queen
Elizabeth the First. Mary was beheaded in February 1587.
(AP, 10/14/06)
1587 Feb 1, Elizabeth I, Queen of
England, signed the Warrant of Execution for Mary Queen of Scots.
(HN, 2/1/99)
1587 Feb 8, Mary Stuart, Queen of
Scots (1560-67), was beheaded at age 44 in Fotheringhay Castle for her
alleged part in the conspiracy to usurp Elizabeth I. In 2004 Jane Dunn
authored "Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens." In 2006 studies
identified an oil painting of Mary as the only one made of Mary as
queen.
(HN, 2/8/99)(PCh, 1992, p.203)(USAT, 2/5/04,
p.5D)(SFC, 8/18/06, p.E2)
1588 Aug 18, A storm struck the
remaining 60 ships of the Spanish Armada under the Duke of Medina
Sidonia after which only 11 were left. Many of the ships went to
Ireland where most of the Spaniards were killed by the English. 600
Spaniards wrecked in Scotland were later returned to Spain.
(ON, 3/02, p.6)
1600 Dec 12, John Craig, Scottish
church reformer and James VI's court vicar, died.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1603 Mar 24, Tudor Queen Elizabeth
I (69), the "Virgin Queen," died. She had reigned from 1558-1603.
Scottish King James VI, son of Mary, became King James I of England in
the union of the crowns. In 2006 Leanda de Lisle authored “After
Elizabeth.”
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A13)(HN, 3/24/99)(WSJ, 2/4/06, p.P9)
1603-1625 King James I (1566-1625) ruled over
England and Scotland.
(WUD, 1994, p.763)(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A13)
1606 Apr 12, England's King James
I decreed the design of the original Union Flag (also referred to as
the Union Jack), which combined the flags of England and Scotland.
(HN, 4/12/98)(AP, 4/12/06)
1616 The collection, "Poems," by
William Drummond (b.1585), laird of Hawthornden, appeared.
(HN, 12/13/99)
1617 Apr 4, John Napier, Scottish
mathematician, inventor (logarithms), died.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1617 James VI of Scotland, aka
James I of England, made a homecoming to Edinburgh Castle.
(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T3)
1625 Mar 27, James I (VI), Stuart
king of Scotland (1567), England (1603-25), died. He was described as
the “wisest fool in Christendom.”
(www.jesus-is-lord.com/kingbio.htm)(Econ, 12/18/04,
p.130)
1625 Mar 27, Charles I (d.1649)
became the English king. He was King of England, Ireland and Scotland
until he was beheaded.
(AP, 3/27/97)(WSJ, 6/13/96, p.A12)
1633 Oct 14, James II Stuart, king
of England and Scotland (James VII) (1685-88), was born.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1638 Feb 28, Scottish
Presbyterians signed the National Covenant at Greyfriars, Edinburgh.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1641 Oct 21, A Catholic uprising
took place in Ulster. Thousands of English and Scots were killed. [see
Oct 23]
(MC, 10/21/01)
1641 Oct 23, Catholics in Ireland,
under Phelim O'Neil, rose against the Protestants and cruelly massacred
men, women and children to the number of 40,000 (some say 100,000).
[see Oct 21]
(HN, 10/23/98)
1646 May 5, King Charles I
surrendered at Scotland.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1647 Jan 23, Scottish
Presbyterians sold captured Charles I to English Parliament.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1650 Apr 27, Scottish general
Montrose was defeated.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1650 May 21, James, Marquis of
Montrose, Scottish general, was hanged.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1650 Jun 28, Lord Cromwell set off
for Scotland at the head of an army of 16,354 men.
(HNQ, 8/8/00)
1650 Sep 3, The English under
Cromwell defeated a superior Scottish army under David Leslie at the
Battle of Dunbar.
(HN, 9/3/98)
1650 Charles II (20) arrived in
Scotland.
(ON, 12/00, p.1)
1651 Jan 1, Charles II (Stuart)
was crowned king of Scotland at Scone.
(PC, 1992, p.243)
1651 Sep, Charles II led the Scots
Covenanters to a disastrous defeat at the battle of Worcester.
(WSJ, 2/28/00, p.A36)(ON, 12/00, p.1)
1653 Dec 16, Oliver Cromwell took
on dictatorial powers with the title of lord protector" of England,
Scotland and Ireland. He served as dictator of England to 1658.
(CFA, '96, p.44)(AHD, p.315)(AP, 12/16/97)(HN,
12/16/98)
1654 Apr 12, England, Ireland and
Scotland united.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1661 May 27, Archibald Campbell
(~53), Scottish politician, was beheaded.
(MC, 5/27/02)
1667 Apr 29, John Arbuthnot
(d.1735), Scottish mathematician, was born. With Alexander Pope,
Jonathan Swift, John Gay and Thomas Parnell he founded the Scriblerus
Club in 1714, whose purpose was to satirize bad poetry and pedantry.
The club was short-lived.
(http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Arbuthnot.html)
(MC, 4/29/02)
1671 John Law (d.1729), later
financier and gambler, was born. His story was told in 2000 by Cynthia
Crossen in "The Rich and How They got That Way."
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.B1,4)
1679 Jun 1, Battle at Bothwell
Bridge on Clyde: Duke of Monmouth beat the Scottish. (MC, 6/1/02)
1685 Feb 2, Charles II (54), King
of England, Scotland, Ireland (1660-85), died. He made a deathbed
conversion to the Roman Catholic faith. He had earlier ordered
Christopher Wren to build an observatory and maritime college at
Greenwich. In 2000 Stephen Coote authored the biography: "Royal
Survivor."
(WSJ, 2/28/00,
p.A36)(www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon49.html)
1685 Jun 30, Archibald Campbell
(~55), Scottish politician, was beheaded.
(MC, 6/30/02)
1689 Apr 21, William III and Mary
II were crowned joint king and queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.
(HN, 4/21/98)
1689 Jul 27, Government forces
defeated the Scottish Jacobites at the Battle of Killiecrankie.
(HN, 7/27/98)
1692 Feb 13, In the Glen Coe
highlands of Scotland, thirty-eight members of the MacDonald clan, the
smallest of the Clan Donald sects, were murdered by soldiers of the
neighboring Campbell clan for not pledging allegiance to William of
Orange. Ironically the pledge had been made but not communicated to the
clans. The event is remembered as the Massacre of Glencoe.
(HN, 2/13/99)(HNQ, 8/18/01)
1699 Apr 17, Robert Blair,
Scottish poet (Grave), was born.
(MC, 4/17/02)
1700 Sep 11, James Thomson,
Scottish poet and songwriter, was born. He wrote the song "Rule
Britannia."
(HN, 9/11/00)(MC, 9/11/01)
c1700-1800 William Cullen, an 18th century Scottish
physician, thought emotional and mental problems were at the root of
almost all human sickness. He coined the words "neurosis" and
"paranoia."
(SFEC, 7/11/99, Z1 p.8)
1700-1800 In 2003 James Buchan authored "Crowded With
Genius," a history of 18th century Edinburgh, and how the Scottish city
rose to produce leading lights of classically liberal philosophy and
economics.
(WSJ, 12/2/03, p.D10)
1702 Mar 19, On the death of
William III of Orange, Anne Stuart, sister of Mary, succeeded to the
throne of England, Scotland and Ireland.
(HN, 3/19/99)
1706 The Treaty of Union between
Scotland and England was set up. Daniel Defoe worked as a British agent
in Scotland and sent back reports on agitation against the yielding of
autonomy.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A12)
1707 Jan 16, Scotland ratified the
Treaty of Union by a majority of 110 votes to 69. The Acts created a
new state, the Kingdom of Great Britain, by merging the Kingdom of
England and the Kingdom of Scotland together.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707)
1707 Apr 29, English-Scottish
parliament accepted Act of Union and formed Great Britain. [see May 1]
(MC, 4/29/02)
1707 May 1, Effective on this day
Scotland and England, which already included Wales, were united by an
act of Parliament to form Great Britain.
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A13)(AP, 5/1/07)
1707 Oct 23, The first Parliament
of Great Britain, created by the Acts of Union between England and
Scotland, held its first meeting.
(AP, 10/23/07)
1709 Feb 2, British sailor
Alexander Selkirk was rescued after being marooned on a desert island
for 5 years. His story inspired "Robinson Crusoe." [see Feb 12]
(MC, 2/2/02)
1709 Feb 12, Alexander Selkirk,
the Scottish seaman whose adventures inspired the creation of Daniel
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, was taken off Juan Fernandez Island after more
than four years of living there alone. [see Feb 2]
(HN, 2/12/99)
1711 Apr 26, David Hume (d.1776),
Scottish historian and philosopher, was born. His work included the
“Treatise of Human Nature” and the 6-volume “History of England.” Use
of the new calendar puts his birthday on May 7.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume)
1711 May 7, David Hume (d.1776),
Scottish historian and philosopher, was born. His work included the
“Treatise of Human Nature” and the 6-volume “History of England.”
The old style calendar puts his birthday on April 26.
(http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/hume/index.html)
1715 Sep 6, A pro-James III
uprising took place in Scotland.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1715 May 4, A French manufacturer
debuted the first folding umbrella.
(HN, 5/4/98)
1718 May 23, William Hunter
(d.1783), obstetrician, surgeon, anatomy teacher, was born near
Glasgow, Scotland. In 1768 he opened a medical school. The Glasgow
Hunterian Museum opened in 1807.
(MC,
5/23/02)(http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/index.html)
1719 Jun 11, Scottish rebels,
aided by Spanish troops, who are defeated at Glenshiels surrendered.
(AP, 6/11/03)
1721 Mar 19, Tobias George
Smollett, Scottish satirical author and physician (Roderick Random,
Humphrey Clinker), was born (baptized).
(HN, 3/19/01)(MC, 3/19/02)
1723 Jun 5, Economist Adam Smith
(d.1790) was baptized in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. He was the author of "An
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." Smith
studied at the Univ. of Glasgow, and then went to Balliol College,
Oxford. He then returned to the Univ. of Glasgow as a Prof. of logic
and then of moral philosophy. He promoted Laissez faire economics and
wrote "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations."
His most famous statement is: "It is not from the benevolence of the
butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from
their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their
humanity, but to their self-love." He also wrote the Theory of Moral
Sentiments in 1759. In 1995 Ian Simpson Ross wrote a biography of Smith
titled: The Life of Adam Smith. Smith also wrote "The Theory of Moral
Sentiments." In 1999 Charles L. Griswold wrote "Adam Smith and the
Virtues of Enlightenment.
(WSJ, 11/30/95, p.A-20) (AP, 6/5/97) (WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R20) (WSJ, 2/09/99, p.A20)(MC, 6/5/02)
1723 Jun 20, Adam Ferguson,
Scottish man of letters, philosopher, historian, and patriot, was born.
He wrote "Principals of Moral and Political Science."
(HN, 6/20/99)
1726 Jun 3, James Hutton, Scottish
geologist, was born. He founded the science of geology and wrote "A
Theory of the Earth."
(HN, 6/3/99)
1727 The Royal Bank of Scotland
(RBS) was founded.
(Econ, 1/31/09, p.74)
1728 Apr 16, Joseph Black,
Scottish chemist and physicist, was born.
(HN, 4/16/01)
1729 Mar 21, John Law, Scottish
gambler and financier (57 or 58), died in Venice. An inventory of his
wealth included 488 paintings with works by Titian, Raphael,
Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. His story was told in 2000 by
Cynthia Crossen in "The Rich and How They got That Way."
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.B4)(MC, 3/21/02)
1736 Jan 19, James Watt, Scottish
inventor of the steam engine who gave his name to a unit of power, was
born. [see 1705]
(AP, 1/19/98)(HN, 1/19/99)
1740 Oct 29, James Boswell, Samuel
Johnson's biographer, was born in Scotland.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1740-1790 The period that approximates the years of
the Scottish Enlightenment. Centered in the intellectual environment of
Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland, men such as Adam Smith and David Hume
produced work that greatly influenced James Madison and Alexander
Hamilton. This environment is well described in The Life of Adam Smith
by Ian Simpson Ross in 1995.
(WSJ, 11/30/95, p.A-20)
1744 Mar 13, David Allan, Scottish
painter, was born.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1745 Feb 18, Bonnie Prince
Charlie's troops occupied Inverness, Scotland.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1745 Feb 20, Bonnie Prince
Charlie's troops occupied Fort August, Scotland.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1745 Jul 23, Charles Stuart
(1720-1788), the Younger, and 7 companions landed at Eriskay Island, in
the Hebrides.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Edward_Stuart)
1745 Aug 16, Skirmish at Laggan:
Glengarry beat the Royal Scots.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1745 Aug 20, Bonnie Prince Charlie
reached Blair Castle, Scotland.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1745 Sep 21, A Scottish Jacobite
army commanded by Lord George Murray routed the Royalist army of
General Sir John Cope at Prestonpans. At the Battle at Preston Pans
Bonnie Prince Charles beat the English army.
(HN, 9/21/98)(MC, 9/21/01)
1745 Sep 22, Bonnie Prince
Charlie's army returned to Edinburgh.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1745 Sep 28, Bonnie Prince Charlie
became "king" of Scotland.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1745 Nov 11, Bonnie Prince
Charlie's army entered England.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1745 Dec 6, Bonnie Prince
Charlie's army retreated to Scotland.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1745 Dec 17, Bonnie Prince
Charlie's army retreated to Scotland. [see Dec 6]
(MC, 12/17/01)
1745 Dec 31, Bonnie Prince
Charlie's army met with de Esk.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1745 During the Jacobite uprising
some prisoners captured by the Jacobites were kept at Doune Castle,
Scotland. These included John Witherspoon, who later moved to the
American colonies, became president of Princeton, a delegate to the
Continental Congress and a signer of the American Declaration of
Independence.
(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.C6)
1746 Jan 8, Bonnie Prince
Charlie's troops occupied Stirling.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1746 Jan 17, Charles Edward
Stuart, the young pretender, defeated the government forces at the
battle of Falkirk in Scotland.
(HN, 1/17/99)
1746 Feb 20, Bonnie Prince Charlie
occupied the Castle of Inverness. [see Mar 3]
(MC, 2/20/02)
1746 Mar 3, Bonnie Prince Charlie
occupied the Castle of Inverness. [see Feb 20]
(SC, 3/3/02)
1746 Mar 5, Jacobin troops left
Aberdeen, Scotland.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1746 Mar 8, Cumberland's troops
occupied Aberdeen, Scotland.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1746 Apr 16, Bonnie Prince Charles
was defeated at the battle of Culloden, the last pitched battle fought
in Britain. King George II won the battle of Culloden. Bonnie Prince
Charlie used English rifleman and virtually annihilated the
sword-wielding, rebellious, Highlander clans of Scotland at Culloden.
It was the last major land battle fought on British soil. The Battle of
Culloden was a crushing defeat for Bonnie Prince Charlie and the
Highlander clans that backed him.
(PCh, 1992, p.297)(SFC, 6/25/95, p.T-7)(SFC,
12/4/96, p.B1)(SFEC,12/797, p.T4)(HN, 4/16/99)
1746 Sep 20, Bonnie Prince Charlie
fled to France from Scotland. [see Oct 1]
(MC, 9/20/01)
1746 Oct 1, Bonnie Prince Charlie
fled to France. [see Sep 20]
(MC, 10/1/01)
1746 William, the Duke of
Cumberland, led an English military force into Scotland to defeat the
rebels there.
(SFC, 10/14/00, p.B3)
1747 Jul 6, John Paul Jones, naval
hero of the American Revolution, was born near Kirkcudbright, Scotland.
As a US naval commander he invaded England during the American War of
Independence.
(HN, 7/6/98)(MC, 7/6/02)
1747 A Scottish chemist found out
that beets contained sugar.
(SFC, 4/22/00, p.E3)
1748 Mar 10, John Playfair,
clergyman, geologist, mathematician, was born in Scotland.
(MC, 3/10/02)
c1750-1880s The period of the Clearances. The
peasants were swept aside to allow clan chiefs to raise sheep on clan
lands until protests on the isle of Skye led to legal reform for the
Highlands.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.T9)
1759 Jan 25, Robert Burns
(d.1796), poet and song writer, who wrote "Auld Lang Syne" and "Comin’
Thru the Rye," was born in Alloway, Scotland. He took traditional
Scottish songs and fiddle tunes, and improved upon existing words, or
added verses where they had been lost. "Should auld acquaintance be
forgot, and never brought to mind, should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne. For old lang syne, my dear, for old lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet, for old lang syne."
(EMN, 1/96, p.4,6)(HN, 1/25/99)(SFC, 12/30/99,
p.A13)(MC, 1/25/02)
1759 Economist Adam Smith
(1723-1790), Glasgow professor on moral philosophy and pioneering
economist, authored "The Theory of Moral Sentiments."
(WSJ, 11/13/02,
p.D10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Moral_Sentiments)
1761 James Macpherson (1736-1796),
Scottish poet, announced the discovery of an epic on the subject of
Fingal (related to the Irish mythological character Fionn mac
Cumhaill/Finn McCool) written by Ossian (based on Fionn's son
Oisín). He then published poems by Ossian, the blind 3rd century
poet, which became very popular and later exposed as a fraud.
(WSJ, 7/26/08,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Macpherson)
1764 In Scotland the St. Andrew’s
golf course remodeled and cut its hole number from 22 to 18. The 40
yard fairways were also enlarged.
(SFEC, 8/10/97, Z1 p.4)
1765 Scotsman James Watt further
refined Thomas Newcomen’s piston system steam engine innovation by
adding a separate condenser. Watt took out a patent on his improved
engine in 1769.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
1768 William Smellie, a young
Edinburgh botanist, was given the task of editing the first edition of
the Encyclopedia Britannica.
(NH, 5/96, p.3)(WSJ, 4/22/99, A1)
1771 Aug 15, Sir Walter Scott
(d.1832), Scottish novelist who wrote "Ivanhoe" and "Rob Roy," was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.1281)(HN, 8/15/98)
1773 Apr 6, James Mill (d.1836),
English philosopher, historian (Hist of British India) and economist,
was born in Scotland.
(V.D.-H.K.p.253)(WUD, 1994 p.909)(MC, 4/6/02)
1773 Jul 20, Scottish settlers
arrived at Pictou, Nova Scotia (Canada).
(MC, 7/20/02)
1774 A Scottish printer finally
overturned a copyright monopoly that had allowed English booksellers to
lock up the works of Shakespeare and other authors for nearly 2
centuries.
(WSJ, 3/26/04, p.W6)
1776 Dec 29, Charles Macintosh,
patented waterproof fabric, was born in Scotland.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1776 David Hume, Scottish
philosopher, died. He was the first prominent European atheist. Hume
said "the overriding force in all our actions is… the desire for
self-gratification. In order to survive, society has to devise
strategies to channel our passions in constructive directions." "The
most unhappy of all men is he who believes himself to be so."
(WSJ, 5/10/96, p.A-8)(SFC, 3/20/99, p.B4)(WSJ,
12/14/01, p.W14)
1777 Jul 27, Thomas Campbell,
Scottish writer (The Pleasures of Hope), was born.
(HN, 7/27/01)
1780 Mar 17, Thomas Chalmers, 1st
moderator (Free Church of Scotland 1843-47), was born.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1781 Dec 11, David Brewster,
physicist and inventor (kaleidoscope), was born in Scotland.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1782-1854 Susan Edmonstone Ferrier, Scottish
novelist: "There are plenty of fools in the world; but if they had not
been sent for some wise purpose, they wouldn't have been here; and
since they are here they have as good a right to have elbow-room in the
world as the wisest."
(AP, 10/3/97)
1786 Scotsman Gregor MacGregor
(d.1845), later known as His Serene Highness Gregor I, Prince of
Poyais, was born in Scotland. [see 1811]
(SSFC, 1/18/04, p.M2)(WSJ, 1/30/04, p.W9)
1786 Robert Burns published his
first book of poetry in Kilmarnock.
(SFC, 9/30/98, Z1 p.3)
1786 The National Lighthouse Board
was created to minimize the dangers of the seacoast to ships. In 1999
Bella Bathurst authored "The Lighthouse Stevensons," an account of the
family that built 97 lighthouses between 1790 and 1940.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, BR p.3)
1788 May 18, Hugh Clapperton,
African explorer, was born in Annan, Scotland.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1789-1793 Alexander Mackenzie, Scottish-born fur
trader, became the 1st European to cross the North American continent.
(SFC, 1/31/04, p.D12)
1790 Jul 17, Economist Adam Smith
(b.1723), Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political
economy, died. In 2001 Emma Rothschild authored "Economic Sentiments:
Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment." In 2002 Peter J.
Dougherty authored "Who’s Afraid of Adam Smith."
(WSJ, 6/21/01, p.A16)(WSJ, 11/13/02,
p.D10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith)
1792 In Scotland gas lighting was
developed.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.4)
1795-1881 Thomas Carlyle, English (Scot) essayist,
critic and historian, friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson. "A man doesn’t
know what he knows, until he knows what he doesn’t know." "No great man
lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great
men."
(V.D.-H.K.p.400)(SFEC, 6/28/98, Z1 p.8)(AP, 7/2/98)
1796 Feb 17, James Macpherson
(b.1736), Scottish poet, died. In 1761 he had announced the discovery
of an epic on the subject of Fingal written by Ossian (based on Fionn's
son Oisín). He then published poems by Ossian, the alleged blind
3rd century poet, which became very popular and later exposed as a
fraud.
(WSJ, 7/26/08,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Macpherson)
1796 Jul 21, Robert Burns
(b.1759), Scottish poet and a lyricist (Auld Lang Syne), died. In 2009
Robert Crawford authored “The Bard: Robert Burns.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns)(SSFC,
1/25/09, Books p.3)
1799 Some 70 ships were lost in
the Firth of Tay.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, BR p.3)
1801 French artist Girodet
depicted Ossian, the mythical 3rd century blind Scottish poet, before
the story was exposed as a fraud.
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.W8)
1807 Aug 18, Robert Stevenson
(1772-1850) began work on the 117-foot Bell Rock lighthouse at the
mouth of Scotland’s Firth of Forth based on a proposal he submitted in
1800. The lighthouse began operating on Feb 1, 1811.
(ON, 5/06, p.6)
1809 Sibbet House of Georgian
design in Edinburgh, Scotland was constructed.
(SFC, 7/7/96, T8)
1811 Feb 1, Scotland’s Bell Rock
lighthouse, at the mouth of Scotland’s Firth of Forth, began
operations. Robert Stevenson (1772-1850) had begun work on the
lighthouse in 1807.
(ON, 5/06, p.8)
1811 Scotsman Gregor MacGregor
(1786-1845), later known as His Serene Highness Gregor I, Prince of
Poyais, received a commission from Simon Bolivar in Venezuela to serve
in the Army of Liberation. After he returned to London in 1820, he
began selling land in the fictional kingdom of Poyais. He served 8
months in jail after English and French expeditions revealed the hoax.
In 1839 he returned to Venezuela. In 2004 David Sinclair authored "The
Land That Never Was: Sir Gregor MacGregor and the Most Audacious Land
Fraud in History."
(SSFC, 1/18/04, p.M2)(WSJ, 1/30/04, p.W9)
1812 Dec 23, Samuel Smiles
(d.1904), doctor and writer, was born in Scotland. He later
authored “Self-Help” 1859), a classic work on self-improvement.
(Econ, 4/24/04, p.86)
1813 Mar 19, David Livingston,
explorer found by Stanley in Africa, was born in Scotland.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1813 The Clark family of Paisley,
Scotland, began manufacturing cotton thread. By the 1840s members of
the family moved to the US and in 1866 developed a twisted cotton
thread for sewing machines, which they named O.N.T. (Our New Thread).
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.G3)
1814 Jul 7, Sir Walter Scott's
(1771-1832) novel "Waverly" was published anonymously so as not to
damage his reputation as a poet.
(HN, 7/7/01)(WUD, 1994 p.1281)
1815 Jan 11, Sir John A.
Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada, was born in Glasgow,
Scotland.
(AP, 1/11/98)
1817 John Bradbury, Scottish
naturalist, authored "Travels in the Interior of America in the Years
1809, 1810 and 1811."
(ON, 10/99, p.6)
1819 Aug 25, Allan Pinkerton
(d.1884) was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He fled Scotland in 1842 to
avoid capture for his involvement with the revolutionary group called
the Chartists. He later founded a Chicago detective agency and worked
as Abe Lincoln's bodyguard.
(www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters2/pinkerton/)
1821 William Playfair, Scottish
engineer, political economist and scoundrel, published a visual chart
that displayed the “weekly wages of a good mechanic” along with the
price of a “quarter of wheat” with the reigns of monarchs displayed
along the top.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.74)
1822 In Scotland the 31-mile Union
Canal was built to connect the Forth and Clyde Canal with Edinburgh.
The 2 canals linked at Falkirk and required 11 locks to bridge a
115-foot difference.
(WSJ, 1/7/06, p.P14)
1823 Oct 12, Charles Macintosh of
Scotland began selling raincoats (Macs).
(MC, 10/12/01)
1826 The first exhibition of
Clydesdale horses for show occurred at the Glasgow Exhibition. The
horses had been bred for hauling coal.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, Z1 p.2)
1826 Major Gordon Laing, Scottish
explorer, became the 1st European to enter Timbuktu, Mali, where some
12,000 people lived. He was killed by a Tuareg nomad spear when he
tried to leave. In 2005 Frank T. Kryza authored “The Race for Timbuktu:
In Search of Africa’s City of Gold.”
(SSFC, 4/11/04, p.D6)(SSFC, 1/1/06, p.M2)(Econ,
1/7/06, p.75)
1827 Apr 13, Hugh Clapperton,
Scottish traveler and explorer of West and Central Africa, died in
Sokoto, Nigeria, of dysentery.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Clapperton)
1828 Nov 1, Balfour Steward,
Scottish physicist and meteorologist, was born.
(HN, 11/1/00)
1829 Jan 28, In Scotland William
Burke was hanged for murder following a scandal in which he was found
to have provided extra-fresh corpses for anatomy schools in Edinburgh.
His partner William Hare had turned king’s witness. The scandal led to
the 1832 Anatomy Act.
(Econ, 11/15/08,
p.99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Burke)
1830 Apr 5, Alexander Muir, poet
(Maple Leaf Forever), was born in Lesmahagow, Scotland.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1830-1867 Alexander Smith, Scottish poet and
essayist: "Christmas is the day that holds all time together."
(AP, 12/24/97)
1831 Mar 31, Archibald Scott,
Scottish chemist, was born.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1831 Patrick Matthew, a Scottish
landowner, provided a description of natural selection in an appendix
to a book about growing the best trees to make warships.
(Econ, 2/7/09, p.73)
1832 Feb 6, There was an
appearance of cholera at Edinburgh, Scotland.
(MC, 2/6/02)
1832 Sep 21, Sir Walter Scott
(b.1771), Scottish novelist who wrote "Ivanhoe" and "Rob Roy," died at
Abbotsford near Melrose in the Scottish Borders. Scott was later
credited with inventing the genre of historical fiction.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scott)(SSFC,
3/11/07, p.G3)
1834 Nov 14, William Thomson
entered Glasgow Univ. at 10 yrs 4 months.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1835 Nov 25, Andrew Carnegie
(d.1919), American industrialist, was born to a poor weaver in
Dunfermline, Scotland. He emigrated to the US in 1848 and worked as a
superintendent for the Pennsylvania Railroad. In invested in iron
manufacturing, railroad cars and oil and moved into the steel business
by 1873 where he improved quality and lowered costs. He sold his
interests at age 65 and retired to Scotland. He donated $5 million to a
pension fund for his workers and gave away an estimated $350 million
over the next 2 decades for public libraries, church organs and other
causes: There is no idol more debasing than the worship of money."
(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)(AP, 11/25/99)
1835 James Hogg (b.1770), Scottish
writer, died. His novels included “The Private Memoirs and Confessions
of a Justified Sinner” (1824).
(www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/arts/writingscotland/writers/james_hogg/)
1837 Feb 7, Sir James Augustus
Henry Murray, Scottish lexicographer and editor, was born. He created
the Oxford Dictionary.
HN, 2/7/01)(MC, 2/7/02)
1837 Fife Pottery in Kirkcaldy was
purchased by Mary and Robert Heron. They developed a new style of
decoration for pottery and called the pieces Wemyss Ware. the pottery
was decorated on the clay before it was glazed. the factory closed in
1920 and rights were purchased by a pottery in Devon.
(SFC, 9/2/98, Z1 p.6)
1838 Apr 21, John Muir (d.1914),
naturalist, was born in Dunbar, Scotland.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, DB p.23)(SFC, 2/2/00, p.A21)
1839 Apr 11, John Galt (59),
Scottish writer (Last of the Lairds), died.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1843 May 18, United Free Church of
Scotland formed.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1843 Sep, James Wilson
(1805-1860), a Scottish hat maker, founded “The Economist” in London,
England, a magazine devoted to free trade and laissez-faire principles
from its very beginning.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist)(WSJ,
6/6/95, p.A-14)(Econ, 6/28/03, p.13)
1843 Alexander Bain, Scottish
inventor, received a British patent for “improvements in producing and
regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces and in
electric printing and signal telegraphs.” His fax machine evolved from
the telegraph technology.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfax.htm)
1847 Mar 3, The inventor of the
telephone, Alexander Graham Bell (teacher of the deaf, inventor:
telephone; founder of Bell Telephone Company), was born in Edinburgh,
Scotland. For two generations the family of Alexander Graham Bell was
recognized as leading authorities on elocution and speech correction.
Graham's father, Alexander Melville Bell's Standard Elocutionist went
through nearly 200 editions in English.
(SFEM, 1/11/98, p.12)(AP, 3/3/98)(HC, Internet,
3/3/98)(HNQ, 12/20/98)
1849 Feb, Thomas Carlyle
(1795-1881), Scottish essayist, anonymously authored the article:
"Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question," in which he 1st used the
phrase "the dismal science" to describe political economics: It is “not
a gay science… no, a dreary, desolate, and indeed quite abject and
distressing one; what we might call, by way of eminence, the dismal
science." Carlyle himself argued in this essay for the reintroduction
of slavery into the West Indies. In 2001 David M. Levy authored "How
the Dismal Science Got Its Name."
(WSJ, 12/10/01,
p.A15)(http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/texts/carlyle/carlodnq.htm)
1850 May 10, Thomas Johnstone
Lipton, yachtsman, tea magnate (Lipton Tea), was born in Glasgow.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1850 Nov 13, Robert Lewis
Stevenson (d.1894), novelist, was born in Scotland. His books included:
"Treasure Island" and "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." In
1996 R.C. Terry edited and published “Robert Louis Stevenson:
Interviews and Recollections."
(Smith., 8/95, p.54)(SFC, 9/1/96, Par. p.12)(HN,
11/13/98)
1850-1860 John Cameron was a clockmaker in Kilmarnock
during this time.
(SFC, 12/30/98, Z1 p.2)
1852 James Young (1811-1883),
Scottish chemist, took out a US patent for the production of paraffin
oil by distillation of coal. Both the US and UK patents were
subsequently upheld in both countries in a series of lawsuits and other
producers were obliged to pay him royalties.
(WSJ, 12/6/08,
p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Young)
1855-1905 Fiona MacLeod (William Sharp), Scottish
author and poet: "My heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely
hill."
(AP, 9/15/98)
1859 Mar 8, Kenneth Grahame,
Scottish author who created the children’s classic "The Wind in the
Willows," was born.
(HN, 3/8/99)
1859 Mar 21, The Scottish National
Gallery opened in Edinburgh.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1859 May 22, Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle (d.1930), author of the Sherlock Holmes series, was born in
Edinburgh, Scotland. He wrote 4 novels featuring Sherlock Holmes.
"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly
recognizes genius." In 1999 Daniel Stashower published the biography:
"Teller of Tales."
(AP, 6/17/97)(HN, 5/22/98)(WSJ, 4/12/99, p.A21)
1859 Samuel Smiles (1812-1904),
Scottish doctor and writer, authored “Self-Help.” It became a classic
work on self-improvement.
(Econ, 4/24/04, p.86)
1860 May 9, James Matthew Barrie
(d.1937), novelist (Margaret Ogilvy, Peter Pan), was born in
Kirriemuir, Scotland.
(www.angus.gov.uk)
1860 The British Open was 1st held
at the Old Course in St. Andrew’s. The prize was a red leather belt
with a silver buckle. The belt was retired in 1872 and replaced with a
silver claret jug.
(WSJ, 7/21/00, p.W9)
1860-1937 Sir James Matthew Barrie, Scottish
dramatist-author: "The life of every man is a diary in which he means
to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when
he compares the volume as it is with what he hoped to make it."
(AP, 8/6/97)
1861 Nov 10, Robert T.A. Innes,
astronomer (Proxima Centauri), was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1861 Dr. Joseph Lister, British
surgeon, was appointed head of the surgical wards at the Glasgow Royal
Infirmary.
(ON, 7/00, p.8)
1864 Composer Eugen D'Albert was
born in Glasgow. He considered himself a German and set only German
text in his works, which included his Cello Concerto and the operas
"Tiefland" and "Die Toten Augen" (The Dead Eyes).
(SFEC, 1/30/00, DB p.33)
1865 The Killiechassie House, near
Aberfeldy, was built by a Scottish general. In 2001 it was purchased by
J.K. Rawling, author of the Harry Potter books.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.C15)
1867 British surgeon Joseph
Lister, Professor of Surgery at Glasgow University, published the
results of his antiseptic system in the Lancet medical journal.
(ON, 7/00, p.8)
1867 Scottish physicist James
Clerk Maxwell first imagined an atom-size device dubbed Maxwell's Demon.
(Reuters, 1/31/07)
1868 The ship Balclutha was built
in Glasgow, Scotland. It was named in Gaelic for Clyde’s rock. For 16
years it sailed from the British Isles with a load of coal around Cape
Horn to SF where it picked up grain and returned to Europe. It was
later preserved at the National Maritime Museum in San Francisco. [1st
source said 1860]
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.A15)(SFEC,11/23/97, p.D1)
1868-1952 Norman Douglas, Scottish [British] author:
Justice is too good for some people and not good enough for the rest.
"You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements."
(AP, 11/3/97)(AP, 5/22/99)
1869 Aug 18, Dr. Joseph Lister,
British surgeon, was appointed head of Clinical Surgery at the Univ. of
Edinburgh.
(ON, 7/00, p.9)
1869 In Scotland the tea clipper
Cutty Sark was launched. The name referred to the Scottish word for
short shift or dress.
(SSFC, 6/19/05, p.E6)
1872 The 1st place golf prize for
the British Open at the Old Course in St. Andrew’s, a red leather belt
with a silver buckle, was retired and replaced with a silver claret jug.
(WSJ, 7/21/00, p.W9)
1872 A police raid in Glasgow
found only 2 pubs in 30 serving real Scotch whiskey.
(WSJ, 1/4/02, p.A7)
1874 Feb 20, Mary Garden, opera
star, was born in Aberdeen, Scotland.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1875 Aug 26, John Buchan (d.1940),
Lord Tweedsmuir, was born in Perth, Scotland. He became a writer and
governor general of Canada (1935), and was famous for his spy story
"The Thirty-Nine Steps" (1915). "There may be Peace without Joy, and
Joy without Peace, but the two combined make Happiness."
(HN, 8/26/99)(WSJ, 12/9/06, p.P12)(AP, 1/7/98)
1875 Stuart Cranston, Scottish tea
merchant, setup the world’s first tea room in Glasgow.
(WSJ, 4/7/07, p.P14)
1878 The 266-foot square-rigger
Falls of Clyde was built in Glasgow, Scotland. From 1899-1922 the
Matson shipping line used it to haul molasses to California and back to
Hawaii with kerosene. The ship was then demasted and sent to Alaska
where it became a floating fuel dock. In 1963 enthusiasts towed the
ship back to Hawaii, where it later came under the ownership of the
Bishop Museum. In 2008 new owners hoped to save an renovate the ship.
(SSFC, 10/19/08, p.A11)
1879 Robert Louis Stevenson
(1850-1894), the future author of "The Amateur Emigrant" and other
works, authored “Travels with a Donkey.” It covered 12 days spent
trekking in the Cevennes Mountains in France with the donkey,
Celestine. He embarked this year on a 6,000-mile journey from his
native Scotland to see his ailing-and married-lover in California.
Stevenson, the author of "Treasure Island," must have realized the
recklessness of this venture. There was no guarantee that the object of
his affection-Frances (Fanny) Vandegrift Osbourne, would abandon her
comfortable life and run off with the then-little-known author. Yet he
seemed compelled to make the appeal, telling a friend that "No man is
of any use until he has dared everything." The pair married on May 19,
1880.
(HNQ, 9/6/98)(WSJ, 9/23/06, p.P8)
1879 Dec 28, The new Tay Bridge in
Scotland, opened in 1877 over the Firth of Tay, collapsed during a
storm as a train was crossing. Some 75 people were killed.
(AFP,
5/16/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Rail_Bridge)
1880-1954 B.C. Forbes, Scottish journalist: "You have
no idea how big the other fellow's troubles are."
(AP, 12/17/98)
1881 Feb 5, Thomas Carlyle
(b.1795), Scottish essayist and historian, died in London.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/carlyle.htm)
1881 Aug 6, Alexander Fleming
(d.1955), British (Scottish) bacteriologist who co-discovered
penicillin in [1928] 1929, was born. He won the Nobel Prize in 1954.
(AHD, 1971, p.501)(WUD, 1994, p.542)(HN, 8/6/98)(MC,
8/6/02)
c1881-1927 Mary Webb, Scottish religious leader: The
more anybody wants a thing, the more they do think others want it. "The
well of Providence is deep. It's the buckets we bring to it that are
small."
(AP, 7/7/97)(AP, 12/9/98)
1883 Jun 2, Four gentlemen
departed London on velocipedes and spent the next 2 weeks bicycling 800
miles to John O’Grouts in Scotland.
(ON, 1/00, p.5)
1883 Jul 3, SS Daphne sank on
Clyde River in Scotland and 195 died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1883 Oct 18, The weather station
at the top of Ben Nevis, Scotland, the highest mountain in Britain, was
declared open.
(HN, 10/18/98)
1887 The Earl of Lovelace built a
shooting lodge that was later converted to the Loch Torridon Hotel.
(SFEC,12/797, p.T5)
1888 Feb 22, John Reid of Scotland
demonstrated golf to Americans at Yonkers, NY. Reid converted his lawn
to six hole for golf in Yonkers N.Y., the first golf course in the US.
(SFEC, 7/18/99, Z1 p.8)(MC, 2/22/02)
1888 Aug 13, John Logie Baird,
inventor (father of TV), was born in Scotland.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1889 John Alexander MacWilliam,
Scottish physiologist, discovered that he could restore heart rhythms
in cats using a metronome and a needle electrode. His work went
unrecognized until his paper on the subject resurfaced in 1972.
(Econ, 3/7/09, TQ p.25)
1892 Aug 11, Hugh MacDiarmid,
founder of the Scottish Nationalist Party , was born.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1896 Jul 19, A.J. Cronin, Scottish
novelist (The Citadel, The Keys of the Kingdom), was born.
(HN, 7/19/01)
1898 Apr 28, William Soutar,
Scottish poet, was born.
(HN, 4/28/01)
1900 Jan 31, Scottish peer Sir
John Sholto Douglas (56), 8th Marquis of Queensberry, died. He
supervised the formulation by John Graham chambers of the rules of
boxing, which became known as the Queensberry Rules. In 1895 Irish
writer Oscar Wilde had unsuccessfully sued the Marquis for libel
following allegations of a homosexual relationship with Queensberry’s
son Lord Alfred Douglas, allegations which ultimately led to Wilde’s
imprisonment in Reading Gaol, England.
(HC, 2003, p.64)
1900 Aug 4, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
(d.2002), later known as the Queen Mum (mother of Queen Elizabeth II),
was born in Scotland as the daughter of Lord Glamis, who became the
14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. She later became the wife of
King George VI.
(SFC, 8/4/00, p.A18)(SFC, 8/5/00, p.A12)(WSJ,
8/10/00, p.A16)(MC, 8/4/02)
1901 William James presented his
Gifford Lectures at the Univ. of St. Andrews in Scotland. They were
published in 1902 as "The Varieties of Religious Experience." In 1999
it was rated the 2nd best work of non-fiction in the English language
by the Modern Library.
(WSJ, 11/11/97, p.A16)(SFC, 4/29/99, p.C5)(WSJ,
12/24/01, p.A9)
1902 Sep 29, William McGonagall
(b~1825), poet, died in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was mocked by literary
critics and had food thrown at him during public readings. He died
penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave. Critics later awarded
him the "world's worst" label because of the crashing lack of subtlety
in terms of rhyme, imagery, vocabulary or repetition. His most famous
poem is about the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879, in which 75 people died.
In 2008 35 broadsheets of his original poems were auctioned for $13,200.
(AFP,
5/16/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McGonagall)(WSJ, 5/17/08,
p.A1)
1902 J.M. Barrie featured Peter
Pan as a minor character in his book “The Little White Bird.”
(USAT, 9/2/04, p.2D)
1903 Aug 23, William Primrose,
violist (Method for Violin & Viola), was born in Glasgow, Scotland.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1906 W.D. McKay authored “The
Scottish School of Painting.”
(McKay, 1906, 369pp)
1907 Mar 16 The British cruiser
Invincible, the world's largest, was completed at Glasgow shipyards.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1908 Kenneth Grahame (1859-1952)
of Edinburgh, Scotland, wrote the classic British children’s book "Wind
in the Willows." It was made into a movie in 1997.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.D3)(WSJ, 11/24/07, p.W8)
1909 Mar 1, David Niven, actor
(Casino Royale, Eye of the Devil), was born in Kirriemuir Angus,
Scotland.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1909 Nov 3, James "Scotty" Reston,
New York Times reporter, editor and columnist, was born in Clydebank,
Scotland.
(HN, 11/3/00)(MC, 11/3/01)
1910 Oct 4, Scottish surgeon
Joseph Bell died. He was the real-life model for Arthur Conan Doyle's
character Sherlock Holmes.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1914 Jun 6, The 1st air flight out
of sight of land was made from Scotland to Norway.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1914 Jul 15, Gavin Maxwell,
Scottish writer and naturalist (Ring of Bright Water), was born.
(HN, 7/15/01)
1914 The British Royal Navy's
Grand Fleet moved to a new base in Scapa Flow, in Scotland’s Orkney
Islands. They needed a safe place to take on a German Fleet based in
the Baltic.
(www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/eastmainland/churchill/)
1915 May 22, Near Gretna,
Scotland, a passenger train collided with a troop train, killing 227
people.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1916 Mar 10, James Herriot
(d.1995), Scottish writer and country veterinarian (All Creatures Great
and Small), was born as James Alfred Wight, in Sunderland, England.
[See Oct 3]
(HN, 3/10/01)
1916 Oct 3, James Herriot
(d.1995), Yorkshire veterinarian and author, was born in Sunderland,
England. His books include "All Creatures Great and Small." [see Mar 10]
(HN, 10/3/00)
1917 Jul 9, British warship
"Vanguard" exploded at Scapa Flow killing 804.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1917 D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
(1860-1948), Scottish classicist, mathematician and biologist, produced
his work "On Growth and Form," the first formal attempt to
analyze patterns and shapes in nature. His work also included "A
Glossary of Greek Birds" and "A Glossary of Greek Fishes."
(NH, 12/98, p.10)(Econ, 3/7/09, p.92)
1919 Jun 21, German sailors under
Admiral von Reuter scuttled 72 warships at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys
even though Germany had surrendered. It was the greatest act of
self-destruction in modern military history.
(HN, 6/21/98)(Camelot, 6/21/99)(MC, 6/21/02)
1922 Aug 2, Alexander Graham Bell
(b.1847), Scottish-US physicist (telephone), died in Nova Scotia. He
and Gardiner Hubbard, his father-in-law, were the founders of the
National Geographic Society.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell)(ON, 1/03, p.5)
1922 Scotland joined the United
Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A13)
1926 Apr 22, James Stirling,
Scottish D-day-parachutist, architect, knight, was born.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1927-1989 R.D. Laing, Scottish psychiatrist: "We live
in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to
see the present only when it is disappearing."
(AP, 1/31/99)
1928 Feb 8, Scottish inventor J.
Blaird demonstrated color TV.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1928 Sep 15, Scottish
bacteriologist Alexander Fleming discovered, by accident, that the mold
penicillin has an antibiotic effect. [see 1929,1941]
(V.D.-H.K.p.354)(HN, 9/15/99)
1928 Dec 10, Charles Rennie
Mackintosh (b.1868), Scottish architect and designer, died. He designed
the walls of Kate Cranston’s first tea rooms in Glasgow (1903). His
watercolors included "The Rock" (1927).
(WSJ, 1/29/97,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rennie_Mackintosh)(WSJ,
4/7/07, p.P14)
1929 Dec 31, Guy Lombardo and his
Royal Canadians played "Auld Lang Syne" as a New Year’s Eve song for
the first time. Scottish poet Robert Burns is credited with writing the
song, although a similar poem by Robert Ayton (1570-1638), not to
mention even older folk songs, use the same phrase, and may well have
inspired Burns. The literal translation means "old long since" which
less literally meant "days gone by."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne)(WSJ,
12/29/06, p.W10)
1929 Sir Alexander Fleming
co-discovered penicillin. [see 1928,1941]
(WUD, 1994, p.541)
1930 Aug 21, Princess Margaret
Rose (d.2002), sister to Elizabeth, was born to King George VI and
Queen Elizabeth at Glamis Castle, Scotland.
(WSJ, 8/10/00, p.A16)(SSFC, 2/10/02, p.A12)
1930 Aug 25, Sean Connery,
Scottish actor famous for playing the character James Bond in the Ian
Flemming movie series, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Connery is well
noted actor as James Bond in many of the Bond movies. He has
acted in more serious film roles since retiring from the 007 series
which won him great accolades including an Oscar (Academy Award-winning
actor: The Untouchables [1987]; The Rock, First Knight, The
Hunt for Red October, Highlander, Rising Sun, Outland, The
Longest Day; "Bond. James Bond.": Dr. No, From Russia with Love,
Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds are
Forever)
(HN, 8/25/98)(MC, 8/25/02)
1930 In Scotland’s Outer Hebrides
the human population of the St Kilda archipelago was removed. In 1931
St Kilda was sold to the Marquess of Bute, a keen ornithologist. He
bequeathed them to The National Trust for Scotland in 1957.
(SFC, 2/9/08, p.B6)(www.kilda.org.uk/frame1.htm)
1933 May 22, Loch Ness Monster was
1st "sighted" by John Mackay.
(SFEC,12/797, p.T4)(MC, 5/22/02)
1935 Mar 16, John J.R. Macleod
(58), Scottish-Canadian physiologist (Nobel 1923), died.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1935 Apr 28, Alexander Campbell
Mackenzie (87), Scottish composer, died.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1935 John Buchan (1875-1940),
Scottish novelist and Unionist politician, became Governor General of
Canada and was created Baron Tweedsmuir. Canadian PM William Lyon
Mackenzie King had wanted him to go to Canada as a commoner, but King
George V insisted on being represented by a peer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Buchan)
1937 Apr 28, Jean Redpath,
Scottish folk singer, was born.
(HN, 4/28/01)
1937 Jun 19, James M. Barrie
(b.1860), Scottish writer (Dear Brutus, Peter Pan), died. In 2004 the
film "Finding Neverland," was based on Barrie’s life.
(www.angus.gov.uk)(AP, 9/5/04)
1938 Sep 27, Ocean liner Queen
Elizabeth was launched at Glasgow. The RMS Queen Elizabeth, the
largest passenger liner built to that date, boasted a
200,000-horsepower engine and beautiful art deco style. The elegant
ocean liner was named to honor Queen Elizabeth, a consort of King
George VI of England and mother to Queen Elizabeth II.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1938 Karl Barth, Swiss theologian,
presented his Gifford Lectures at the Univ. of St. Andrews in Scotland.
He held that our existence and the existence of the universe testified
best to the truths of Christianity.
(WSJ, 12/24/01, p.A9)
1939 Oct 14, The German U-47,
commanded by Kapitan Gunther Prien, sank the British battleship HMS
Royal Oak at Scapa Flow, Scotland, and 833 people were killed. This
prompted Churchill to order the creation of concrete barriers at the
eastern entrance of Scapa Flow.
(SFEM, 10/10/99,
p.49)(http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/hoy/scapa/)
1939 Reinhold Niebuhr presented
his Gifford Lectures at the Univ. of St. Andrews in Scotland. The
purpose of religion for him shifted from salvation to economic and
scientific progress on earth.
(WSJ, 12/24/01, p.A9)
1941 Feb 5, The SS Politician
wrecked off the coast of the Isle of Eriskay in the Hebrides. It
carried some 20,000 cases of whisky, which the natives hid from customs
agents. The story was told in the 1947 book “Whisky Galore” by Compton
Mackenzie. The book was made into a film in 1949.
(http://heritage.scotsman.com/timelines.cfm?cid=1&id=40422005)
1941 May 10, Rudolf Hess (d.93), a
deputy of Adolf Hitler, parachuted into Scotland to see the Duke of
Hamilton on what he claimed was a peace mission. Hess ended up serving
a life sentence at Spandau prison until 1987, when he apparently
committed suicide.
(AP, 5/10/97)(ON, 4/02, p.7)
1941 Nov 22, Tom Conti, actor
(Reuben Reuben, American Dreamer), was born in Paisley, Scotland.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1941 Penicillin was discovered by
Dr. Alexander Fleming. [see 1928,1929]
(TMC, 1994, p.1941)
1942 Oct 22, The 1st ships of
invasion fleet for Oran (Algeria) left Scotland.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1942 Nov 3, The 12th day of battle
at El Alamein (Egypt): Scottish assault.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1942 In Scotland the testing of
anthrax was sanctioned on the island of Gruinard amid fears the Germans
might attack the UK with biological or chemical weapons. A film was
made of their work and it remained classified until 1997.
(AH, 6/03,
p.46)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/1457035.stm)
1943 May 10, Donovan Leitch,
guitarist, folk singer (Mellow Yellow), was born in Scotland.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1944 Sep 12, A US submarine patrol
that included the USS Pampanito, the Growler and the Sealion II, came
upon a Japanese convoy carrying war material. The Japanese transport
Kachidoki Maru, carrying over 900 British soldier, was sunk by the
Pampanito. Much of the convoy was sunk including most of some 2,000
Allied prisoners of war. The subs after chasing stragglers of the
convoy returned to find 159 British and Australian survivors clinging
to wreckage [see Sep 14]. Some 1000 POWs from Australia were on the
Japanese freighter Enoura Maru sunk by the USS Sealion. Alistair
Urquhart of Scotland, a prisoner on the Kachidoki Maru, was picked up 5
days later by a Japanese whaling ship and taken to Japan, where he was
forced to work in a coal mine. Kachidoki Maru had been captured earlier
in the war as the President Harrison home ported in SF. The Pampanito
was later berthed as a visitor attraction in SF. In 2008 Urquhart (89)
visited the Pampanito.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A17)(SFC,12/5/97, p.C3)(SFC,
9/17/08, p.B1)
1944 Sep 14, The submarine USS
Pampanito picked up 73 allied prisoners left adrift following the Sep
12 submarine attack on a Japanese convoy that included the transport
ship Rakuyo Maru.
(SFC, 3/18/09, p.B2)
1945 May 12, The Churchill
Barriers were formally opened by the first Lord of the Admiralty. They
were built to protect Scapa Flow from enemy submarines. The 5 causeways
linked Orkney’s Mainland to South Ronaldsay and marked a dividing line
between the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Thousands of Italian
prisoners of war carried out the project and left behind their
decorated Italian Chapel.
(SSFC, 11/13/05,
p.F10)(www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/eastmainland/churchill/)
1946 May 10, Donovan, rocker
(Mellow Yellow), was born as Donovan Leitch in Scotland.
(http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:0ifqxqe5ldhe~T1)
1947 Aug 10, Ian Anderson, rocker
(Jethro Tull-Bungle in the Jungle), was born in Scotland.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1947 In Scotland the Edinburgh
International Festival (EIF) was started as an antidote to war-time
austerity. Accompanying the EIF when it first opened was the Edinburgh
Festival Fringe. The Fringe started life as a more accessible and less
highbrow accompaniment to the "main" festival, literally on the fringe
of it.
(Econ, 5/5/07, SR
p.15)(www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/edinburgh/festival/index.html)
1950 Dec 25, Scottish nationalists
stole the Stone of Scone from the British coronation throne in
Westminster Abbey. The 485 pound stone was recovered in April 1951.
(HN, 12/25/98)
1953 Aug 3, Ian Bairnson,
guitarist (Alan Parsons Project, Pilot), was born in Shetland Isles,
Scotland.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1953 The Scottish film "Rob Roy,
The Highland Rogue" starred Ian MacNaughton as Callum MacGregor.
(SFC, 1/4/03, p.A15)
1956 Sep 24, The first
transatlantic telephone cable system from Newfoundland to Scotland
began operation.
(HN, 9/24/98)(MC, 9/24/01)
1956 The Scottish sci-fi film "X
the Unknown" starred Ian MacNaughton.
(SFC, 1/4/03, p.A15)
1957 Construction began on
Scotland’s Hunterston A nuclear power plant. The 1st of its 2 reactors
began supplying power in 1964.
(www.britishnucleargroup.com/content.php?pageID=269)
1959 May 29, Mel Gaynor, rock
drummer (Simple Minds-Water Front), was born in Glasgow,
Scotland.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1960 Mar 28, In Glasgow, Scotland,
a factory exploded burying 20 fire fighters.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1964 Peter Higgs of the Univ. of
Edinburgh proposed the existence of a particle to account for why some
bosons have no mass. The Higgs mechanism, a way that the massless gauge
bosons in a gauge theory get a mass by interacting with a background
Higgs field, was proposed in 1964 by Robert Brout and Francois Englert,
independently by Peter Higgs and by Gerald Guralnik, C. R. Hagen, and
Tom Kibble. It was inspired by the BCS theory of superconductivity,
vacuum structure work by Yoichiro Nambu, the preceding Ginzburg–Landau
theory, and the suggestion by Philip Anderson that superconductivity
could be important for relativistic physics. Physicist’s search for the
Higgs boson continued in 2007 with the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva,
Switzerland.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A6)(Econ, 3/10/07,
p.77)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_mechanism)
1967 Jan 3, Mary Garden (b.1874),
Scottish opera star, died in Inverurie, Scotland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Garden)
1967 Sep 20, The 963-foot
passenger ship Queen Elizabeth II was launched. The RMS Queen Elizabeth
2 was christened by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Clydebank, Scotland.
(www.cunard.co.uk)(AP, 9/20/07)
1967 Construction began on
Scotland’s Hunterston B nuclear power plant. It was commissioned in
1976.
(www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/features/featurefirst2011.html)
c1970 Peter Higgs of the Univ. of
Edinburgh postulated the Higgs boson, a particle responsible for mass.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A6)
1975 Apr 3, Mary Ure (b.1933),
Scottish actress (Sons & Lovers, Where Eagles Dare), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ure)
1976 The Isle of Eigg, Scotland,
was sold to Keith Schellenberg, an industrial heir, for $375,000. He
sold it in 1995 for $2.3 million to the German artist Marlin
Eckhardt. Eckhardt put the isle up for sale in 1996 as he was in
debt and unable to sell his "pictures from the world beyond matter,"
produced by igniting paint on a fireproof canvas.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A14)
1977 Tam Dalyell, British MP for
the Scottish constituency of Linlithgow, posed the so-called West
Lothian question during the debate on Scottish and Welsh devolution.
(Econ, 7/8/06,
p.52)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lothian_question)
1980 Construction began on
Scotland’s Torness nuclear power plant. It was commissioned in 1988.
(www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/features/featurefirst274.html)
1988 Dec 21, Pan Am Flight 103 was
downed over Lockerbie, Scotland by a terrorist bomb. 270 people were
killed aboard the Boeing 747. Libya was accused of responsibility for
the bombing, which killed 259 people onboard and 11 on the ground. Two
Libyan operatives, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and A-Amin Khalifa Fahimah,
were indicted in 1991 and thought to be in hiding in Libya. They were
sent to the Netherlands for trial in 1999 and implicated Mohammed Abu
Talb, a Palestinian terrorist jailed in Sweden. In 2000 Ahmad Behbahani
(32) told a 60 Minutes journalist from a refugee camp in Turkey that he
proposed the Pan Am operation and coordinated the 1996 bombing of the
Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. He also claimed that Iran was behind the
1994 bombing in Argentina that killed 86 people. Behbahani was later
called a fraud by the CIA and FBI. In 2001 a Scottish court convicted
Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, of murder
in the 1998 bombing of Pan am Flight 103. A 2nd Libyan, Lamen Khalifa
Fhimah, was acquitted. The conviction was upheld in 2002. In 2003 Libya
set up a $2.7 billion fund for families of 270 people killed.
(WSJ, 12/18/95, p.A-9)(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-8)(SFC,
6/7/97, p.A4)(AP, 12/21/97)(WSJ, 4/6/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/25/99,
p.A14)(SFC, 6/5/00, p.A9)(SFC, 6/6/00, p.A10)(SFEC, 6/11/00,
p.A20)(SFC, 1/31/01, p.A11)(SFC, 3/15/02, p.A9)(AP, 8/15/03)
1988 Dec 25, Christmas services
were held in Lockerbie, Scotland, where residents mourned the loss of
270 lives in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 with relatives of the
victims.
(AP, 12/25/98)
1988 Dec 26, Another body from the
bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 was found, bringing the confirmed death
toll to 240.
(AP, 12/26/98)
1988 Dec 27, Hundreds of residents
of Lockerbie, Scotland, paid silent tribute to five of the Americans
killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, as coffins containing
victims' remains began the journey home.
(AP, 12/27/98)
1988 Dec 28, British authorities
investigating the explosion that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over
Lockerbie, Scotland, concluded that a bomb caused the blast aboard the
jumbo jet.
(HN, 12/28/98)
1989 Feb 16, Investigators in
Lockerbie, Scotland, said a bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player
was what brought down Pan Am Flight 103 the previous December, killing
all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground.
(AP, 2/16/99)
1989 Dec, Reactor 2 of Scotland’s
Hunterston A nuclear power plant was shut down. Reactor 1 was shut down
the following March.
(www.britishnucleargroup.com/content.php?pageID=269)
1991 Luke Cresswell and Steve
McNicholas introduced their dance and rhythm ensemble show at the
Edinburgh Festival.
(SFEC, 2/2/97, DB. p.27)
1991 In Margate, Scotland, Vicky
Hamilton (15) was last seen. In 2007 her skeleton was discovered at a
house where handyman Peter Tobin used to live. Her remains were found
during a search for another missing teenager, Dinah McNicol (18) from
the county of Essex, eastern England, who was last seen returning from
a 1991 music festival. The remains of McNicol were found a few days
after the Hamilton find. Tobin (61) was charged with the murders.
(AP, 11/16/07)(AFP, 11/17/07)
1993 Jan 5, The Braer, a
Liberian-registered tanker, ran aground in Scotland's Shetland Islands,
spilling some 26 million gallons of light crude oil.
(AP, 1/5/98)(SFC, 11/20/02, p.A14)
1994 James Kelman won the Booker
Prize for his novel "How Late It Was, How Late." He was the first Scot
to be awarded the prize.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, p.C17)
1996 Mar 13, Thomas Hamilton (43)
killed 16 kindergarten children, a teacher and himself in a classroom
in Dunblane, Scotland.
(WSJ, 3/14/96, p.A-1)(AP, 3/13/01)
1996 Apr 13, George Mackay Brown
(b.1921), Scottish poet and novelist, died in his hometown of
Stromness, on the Orkney Mainland. In 2006 Maggie Ferguson authored
“George Mackay Brown: The Life.”
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.81)(http://tinyurl.com/fdgky)
1996 Jul 5, A cloned lamb, named
Dolly (d.2003) after Dolly Pardon, was born in Edinburgh Scotland. The
event was not announced until Feb 23, 1997 when it was made public that
researchers under Dr. Ian Wilmut at Edinburgh, Scotland, created a
clone lamb from adult sheep DNA. In 2001 it was reported that Dolly
suffered from arthritis, a sign of premature aging.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.C1)(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A2)(SFC,
2/15/03, p.A2)
1996 Residents of the island of
Eigg organized the purchase of the 7,400-acre island for $2.4 million.
It had been in private hands since 1828.
(Hem., 6/98, forum)
1997 Jan 20, An 1800-year-old
sculpture of a lioness devouring a man was found in the mud of the
Almond River near Edinburgh.
(SFC, 1/22/96, p.A9)
1997 Feb 23, It was announced that
researchers under Dr. Ian Wilmut at Edinburgh, Scotland, created a
clone lamb from adult sheep DNA. The lamb was born in Jul, 1996, and
named Dolly after Dolly Pardon. Dolly was put down Feb. 14, 2003, after
a short life marred by premature aging and disease.
(SFEC, 2/23/97, p.C1)(AP, 2/23/98)
1997 Sep 11, In Scotland voters
went to the polls on a referendum for a separate Scottish Parliament.
They approved the referendum by a 63% vote.
(SFC, 9/11/97, p.A10)(SFC, 9/12/97, p.A12)
1998 Apr 21, It was reported that
the US and Britain had begun a secretive removal of nuclear materials
near Tbilisi. Britain volunteered to accept the material and had
already taken 270 pounds. The unused highly enriched uranium was to be
processed by a Scottish plant.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A18)(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A16)
1998 Aug 19, In Scotland Campbell
Aird was to be fitted with a new bionic arm developed by the
Prosthetics Research and Development Team at Princess Margaret Rose
Orthopedic Hospital. It was to have the first fully powered electrical
shoulder.
(SFC, 8/20/98, p.A17)
1998 Aug 24, The United States and
Britain agreed to allow two Libyan suspects in the bombing of Pan Am
flight 103 to be tried by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands.
A former Libyan intelligence agent was later convicted of murder; the
other suspect was acquitted.
(AP, 8/24/08)
1998 The film "My Name Is Joe" was
directed by Ken Loach and set in working-class Glasgow.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, DB p.50)
c1998 Fried candy bars began to
show up at US fairs, imported from the fish-and-chip shops of Scotland.
(WSJ, 10/21/03, p.A1)
1999 Apr 5, Libya handed over to
UN officials 2 men accused in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103.
They were then flown to the Hague to be tried under Scottish law. UN
Sec. Gen'l. Kofi Annan immediately suspended economic sanctions on
Libya.
(SFC, 3/20/99, p.A8)(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A1)
1999 May 6, In Scotland elections
for the 129-member Edinburgh parliament were scheduled. Its powers
would include control over taxes, health, transport, education, legal
affairs, sports and the arts. Reversing decades of overwhelming loyalty
to Britain's governing Labor Party, Scottish and Welsh voters elected
strong nationalist oppositions to their first separate assemblies of
modern times. The Scottish National Party won 56 of 129 seats, the
Liberal Democrats won 17 and the Conservatives won 18.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, p.A28)(SFC, 5/8/99, p.A10)(AP, 5/6/00)
1999 Jul 1, Scotland celebrated
the opening of its 129-member Parliament.
(SFC, 7/2/99, p.A13)
2000 Mar 23, It was reported that
John MacLeod, the 29th chief of the MacLeod clan, offered for sale the
35-sq. mile Cuillin mountain range on the Isle of Skye for $16 million.
The land was held by the clan for some 1200 years and the proceeds were
to be used for the repair of Dunvegan Castle.
(SFC, 3/23/00, p.D2)
2000 Oct 11, Donald Dewar, the 1st
Minister of the new Parliament, died at age 63.
(SFC, 10/12/00, p.C2)
2001 Jan 31, In the Netherlands a
Scottish court sentenced Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan
intelligence officer, to life in a Scottish prison for the 1998 bombing
of Pan Am Flight 103. A second Libyan was acquitted.
(SFC, 1/31/01, p.A11)(SFC, 2/1/01, p.A1)(WSJ,
2/1/01, p.A1)(AP, 12/19/03)
2001 Mar 26, Two US Air Force F15C
fighter jets were lost during training. The body of one pilot, Lt. Col.
Kenneth John Hyvonen, and F15 wreckage was found the next day.
Wreckage of the 2nd F15 was found after 2 days. The body of Capt. Kirk
Jones was found Mar 30.
(SFC, 3/27/01, p.F1)(SFC, 3/28/01, p.A10)(SFC,
3/29/01, p.A11)(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A14)
2001 Jun 17, Cardinal Thomas
Winning, leader of Scotland’s Roman Catholics, died at age 76. He had
called homosexuality a disorder and supported the Pro-Life Initiative.
(SFC, 6/18/01, p.A15)
2001 Arthur Herman authored "How
the Scots Invented the Modern World."
(WSJ, 12/14/01, p.W14)
2001 Stanley Hauer was delivered
the 2001 Gifford Lectures at the Univ. of St. Andrews in Scotland. The
lectures were published as "With the Grain of the Universe." He said
modern economic and scientific progress have created a warped the
understanding of man and god.
(WSJ, 12/24/01, p.A9)
2002 Feb 13, The Scottish
Parliament outlawed fox hunting with dogs.
(SFC, 2/14/02, p.A8)
2002 May, In Scotland the Falkirk
Wheel, the world’s 1st rotating boat lift, opened to connect boats on
the Union Canal with the Forth and Clyde Canal. The 2 canals were
separated by a height of 115 feet.
(WSJ, 1/7/06, p.P14)
2002 Scotland named the 720 square
miles of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs as its 1st national park.
(SSFC, 12/7/03, p.C8)
2003 Feb 14, Dolly (b.1996), the
world’s 1st clone sheep and mother of 6 lambs, was put to sleep by
veterinarians in Scotland after they failed to cure her of a severe
lung infection.
(AP, 2/15/03)(SFC, 2/15/03, p.A2)
2003 Aug, A $65 million da Vinci
painting was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle in southern Scotland after
two men join a public tour and overpower a guide. It was recovered four
years later.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2003 Scotland named the 1,467
square miles of Cairngorms as its 2nd national park.
(SSFC, 12/7/03, p.C8)
2004 Jan 7, In Scotland Stephen
Gough (44) was convicted of breaching the peace and sentenced to three
months in jail for trying to walk the length of Britain naked to
promote public nudity.
(AP, 1/7/04)
2004 Jan 31, In southern Scotland
a fire broke out at nursing home, killing 10 residents and injuring six
others.
(AP, 1/31/04)
2004 May 11, In Scotland an
explosion destroyed part of a plastics factory in Glasgow. 7 people
were killed and 44 injured. 2 remained missing.
(AP, 5/11/04)(AP, 5/12/04)
2004 May 16, It was reported that
a Scottish bus firm had begun issuing DNA “spit kits” to help drivers
verify assault charges on passengers spitting at drivers.
(SSFC, 5/16/04, p.A2)
2004 Jul 26, Banco Santander
Central Hispano of Spain, with the help of Royal Bank of Scotland,
announced a deal to acquire Abbey National Bank in the UK. The $16
billion deal created the tenth largest bank in the world.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_(bank))
2004 Jul 27, In Prestonpans,
Scotland, Baron Gordon Prestoungrange granted posthumous pardons to 81
people convicted and executed for being witches from 1563-1727.
(WSJ, 9/15/06,
p.A10)(http://forejustice.org/wc/sp/scottish_pardons.html)
2004 Aug 7, The Edinburgh Festival
Fringe, a three-week cultural jamboree, began this weekend. This year's
event featured 1,700 shows, a big jump on last year's 1,541.
(AP, 8/7/04)
2004 Nov 10, The Scottish cabinet
voted to ban smoking in public.
(Econ, 11/13/04, p.61)
2004 Scotland’s new ₤431 million
Parliament building opened in Edinburgh.
(Econ, 5/20/06, p.27)
2004 James Robertson became the
Scottish Parliament’s first writer in residence. In 2007 he authored
his novel “The Testament of Gideon Mack.”
(WSJ, 4/21/07, p.P11)
2005 Jun 18, In Scotland a couple
was wed in Britain's first legally recognized humanist ceremony. 12
members of the Humanist Society of Scotland were granted the right to
legally conduct marriages by the country's registrar general starting
June 1.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jul 2, In Scotland tens of
thousands of protesters clad in white streamed through the cobbled
streets of Edinburgh, demanding that the leaders of the world's richest
nations act to better the lives of the poorest.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 4, In Edinburgh,
Scotland, police scuffled with black-clad anarchists and
antiglobalization protesters, and 450 demonstrators sat down in the
road blocking an entrance to a naval base for nuclear submarines.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 6, In Scotland G-8
leaders scaled back goals for relieving African poverty and combating
global warming under US opposition to British PM Tony Blair's ambitious
objectives.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 6, In Scotland riot
police with attack dogs beat back demonstrators as thousands marched
near the site of the Group of Eight summit, demanding action from the
world's leaders on poverty reduction and climate change.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 7, In Scotland world
leaders united in a show of solidarity to condemn the deadly bombings
in London as an attack on all nations and vowed to defeat the
terrorists responsible.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 8, In Scotland G8 world
leaders concluded an economic summit shaken by terrorism, offering an
"alternative to the hatred," a $50 billion aid package for Africa and
up to $3 billion in additional support for the Palestinians. They
pledged new joint efforts against terrorism in response to the deadly
London bombings the day before.
(AP, 7/8/05)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.74)
2005 Aug 21, In Scotland Rory
Blackhall (11), from Livingston in West Lothian, was found asphyxiated.
(AFP, 8/23/05)
2005 Sep 22, In Scotland a judge
sentenced a British lord to 16 months in prison for causing a fire at a
hotel. Lord Mike Watson (56) admitted to setting fire to a curtain
after having several drinks at the Scottish Politician of the Year
awards ceremony in Edinburgh on Nov. 12.
(AP, 9/22/05)
2005 Michael Fry authored “Wild
Scots: Four Hundred Years of Highland History.”
(Econ, 9/3/05, p.74)
2005 Allan Massie authored “The
Thistle and the Rose: Six Centuries of Love and Hate Between the Scots
and the English.”
(Econ, 9/3/05, p.74)
2006 Mar 26, A smoking ban in
enclosed public places took effect in Scotland, although a poll showed
that a fifth of all Scottish smokers planned to ignore the new law.
(AP, 3/26/06)
2006 Apr 6, Britain's national
farming union said tests have confirmed a dead swan found in Scotland
had the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Aug 6, In Scotland the Fringe
Festival kicked off when an estimated 100,000-strong crowd turned out
on the streets of Edinburgh to watch a parade by 3,000 performers from
the Fringe and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.
(AFP, 8/7/06)
2006 Sep 29, In Scotland police
found the body of Angelika Kluk (23), a missing Polish student, at
Saint Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in the Anderston area of Glasgow.
(AFP, 9/30/06)
2007 Apr 12, A Norwegian oil rig
support vessel carrying 15 people capsized off northern Scotland and
five crew members were missing.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 25, Royal Bank of
Scotland, Fortis, a Belgian-Dutch lender and Santander of Spain
launched a blockbuster 72-billion-euro takeover battle for Dutch group
ABN Amro, outgunning by far an agreed offer by Barclays.
(AFP, 4/25/07)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.85)(Econ, 7/19/08,
p.84)
2007 May 3, Scotland held
parliamentary elections. Labor was knocked out of the top spot for the
1st time in 50 years by the Scottish National Party. The SNP supported
a future referendum on independence.
(AFP, 5/3/07)(Econ, 5/12/07, p.61)
2007 May 16, Scottish National
Party leader Alex Salmond was elected to become first minister of the
devolved Edinburgh parliament, after the pro-independence party's
historic election victory this month.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, Indian company United
Spirits bought Scottish liquor maker Whyte and Mackay for more than one
billion dollars, emphasizing India's growing economic clout abroad.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 Jun 29, British police
thwarted a devastating terrorist plot, discovering two Mercedes loaded
with nails packed around canisters of propane and gasoline set to
detonate and kill possibly hundreds in London's crowded theater and
nightclub district. On Dec 16, 2008, Bilal Abdulla (29), an Iraqi
doctor who claimed he intended only to frighten Britons, was convicted
of conspiracy to murder with car bombs in London and Scotland.
(AP, 6/30/07)(AP, 12/16/08)
2007 Jun 30, In Scotland a
four-wheel-drive Jeep rammed into the main terminal at Glasgow airport
and exploded in flames; the attack came a day after two cars rigged as
bombs were found in London. Police arrested two men for the attack, one
of them under guard in the hospital after being engulfed in flames when
the Jeep crashed into the airport. The driver was later identified as
Kafeel Ahmed (28), an Indian aeronautical engineer.
(Reuters, 6/30/07)(AP, 7/1/07)(SFC, 7/9/07,
p.A8)(AP, 6/30/08)
2007 Jul 1, Britain police
arrested two people, a 26-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman, on a
major highway in Cheshire, northern England, in a joint swoop by
officers from London and Birmingham, Scotland Yard said in London in
relation to the attack in Glasgow and 2 car bombs in London. A fifth
suspect was arrested in Liverpool. 2 more arrests in the failed car
bombings brought the total to 7.
(AP, 7/1/07)(AP, 7/2/07)
2007 Jul 5, British media reported
that a Scottish house had been used as a makeshift bomb factory to
carry out the terror attacks in London and Scotland. Three
"cyber-jihadis" who used the Internet to urge Muslims to wage holy war
on non-believers were jailed for between six-and-a-half and 10 years in
the first case of its kind in Britain.
(AP, 7/5/07)(AFP, 7/5/07)
2007 Jul 16, The University of
Edinburgh confirmed that it had withdrawn an honorary doctorate awarded
to Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe in 1984, because of concern over
his human rights record.
(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Aug 2, Kafeel Ahmed (27), the
suspect who was critically burned in a botched car bomb attempt at
Glasgow Airport, died after 5 weeks in hospital from burns to 90% of
his body.
(AP, 8/3/07)
2007 Aug 28, Organizers in
Scotland said the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's biggest arts
festival, this year broke its attendance record by selling 1.7 million
tickets.
(AFP, 8/28/07)
2007 Sep 15, Former world rally
champion Colin McRae (39) and his five-year-old son were among four
people killed in a helicopter crash in southern Scotland.
(AFP, 9/16/07)
2007 Sep 17, In Scotland a jury at
Glasgow's High Court found Mohammed Atif Siddique (21) guilty of four
terrorism offenses and also of causing a disturbance by telling fellow
students he planned to become a suicide bomber.
(AP, 9/18/07)
2007 Oct 23,
Mohammed Atif Siddique (21), a British-born Muslim student,
described at his trial as a "wannabe suicide bomber", was jailed in
Scotland for 8 years after being convicted of promoting Islamist
extremism on the Internet.
(AFP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct, The first commercial
wave farm was set up off the coast of Portugal. The system was created
at Pelamis Wave Power, a firm based in Scotland.
(Econ, 6/7/08, TQ p.22)
2007 Dec 29, The Scottish
government said a new case of bluetongue has been detected for the
first time in Scotland.
(AFP, 12/29/07)
2008 Apr 1, A woman's severed head
was found on a Scottish beach. She was later identified as Jolanta
Bledaite (35) from Alytus, Lithuania. On April 4 police arrested two
Lithuanian men in connection with the murder.
(AP, 4/4/08)
2008 Apr 22,
The Royal Bank of Scotland announced a record share issue of 12
billion pounds to shore up its finances after huge subprime-related
writedowns and the blockbuster takeover of Dutch giant ABN Amro.
(AP, 4/22/08)
2008 Apr 27, Hundreds of workers
at Scotland's only oil refinery began a 48-hour strike. This forced BP
PLC to shut a pipeline system that delivers almost a third of Britain's
North Sea oil.
(AP, 4/27/08)
2008 Apr 29, Workers returned to
the Grangemouth refinery in central Scotland after a 48-hour strike
that forced the closure of a major North Sea pipeline system.
(AP, 4/29/08)
2008 Jun 4, Scientists issued
warnings about the puffin’s future as the population of the
orange-beaked seabird off Scotland's east coast has dropped by nearly a
third in less than five years.
(AP, 6/5/08)
2008 Jul 25, British PM Gordon
Brown suffered another serious blow to his leadership after Scottish
nationalists won a longtime Labour seat in Glasgow.
(AFP, 7/25/08)(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 3, In Scotland the Int’l.
Primatological Society Congress opened a 6-day conference. On August 5
scientists released a report saying the nearly half of the world’s 634
types of primates are in danger of becoming extinct due to human
activity.
(SFC, 8/5/08, p.A3)
2008 Nov 3, The Scottish
government approved controversial plans by US tycoon Donald Trump to
build a huge luxury golf resort on the country's east coast.
(AFP, 11/3/08)
2008 Dec 29, Scottish police
charged Justice Ngema (35) with attempting to murder Magdeline Makola
(38), a nurse who was found locked in the trunk of her car, where
police say she may have been kept for up to 10 days. Makola had been
reported missing after she failed to show up for work at the Edinburgh
Royal Infirmary on Dec. 18. She was last seen Dec. 15.
(AP, 12/29/08)
2008 “The Invention of Scotland”
by Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003), English historian, was published
posthumously.
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.W8)
2009 Feb 26, The Royal Bank of
Scotland posted a 2008 loss of 24.1 billion pounds, the largest in
British corporate history, because of the credit crunch and the
mis-timed takeover of ABN Amro. The British government has meanwhile
agreed to insure RBS "toxic" assets worth 325 billion pounds in its
Asset Protection Scheme (APS) and will cover 90 percent of losses
stemming from such holdings. Sir Fred Goodwin (50), head of RBS for a
decade, insisted that he is entitled to his full pension of over
£700,000 ($980,000) a year. In March Goodwin received a $4
million tax-free advance as part of his negotiated pension package.
(AFP, 2/26/09)(Econ, 3/7/09, p.22)(SFC, 3/18/09,
p.A2)
2009 Mar 25, In Edinburgh,
Scotland, vandals attacked the home of former Royal Bank of Scotland
head Fred Goodwin, smashing windows at the house of the ex-CEO whose
700,000 pound ($1.2 million) annual pension has prompted public outrage.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Apr 1, A helicopter returning
to Aberdeen with 16 people from an oil platform crashed in the North
Sea. The Bond Super Puma helicopter went down off the northeast coast
of Scotland. 8 bodies were recovered and the others were presumed dead.
7 bodies were later found inside the wreckage of the helicopter.
(AFP, 4/1/09)(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 May 23, The Church of
Scotland voted in favor of appointing an openly gay minister, the
latest case involving sexuality to create a division in the Anglican
Communion. The church's ruling body voted 326 to 267 to support the
appointment of the Rev. Scott Rennie (37), who was previously married
to a woman and is now in a relationship with a man.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 30, Susan Boyle (48),
Scottish singing sensation, was been beaten in the televised finals of
"Britain's Got Talent," by the street dance group "Diversity," who
jumped, kicked and shook their way to victory against her. "Diversity"
mesmerized audiences with a frenetic but perfectly choreographed dance
routine.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 Jun 18, The Bank of Scotland
said Fred Goodwin, its disgraced former boss, has agreed to take a 40%
pension cut, after widespread pressure to do so. He will see his annual
pension reduced to 342,500 pounds from 555,000 pounds. The agreement
was condemned by trade unions who said it did not go far enough.
(AFP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jul 10, Earl Haig (91),
Scottish artist and son of WWI Field Marshal Douglas Haig, died. He
developed his gift for painting as a prisoner of war in World War II.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2009 Aug 2, Stanley Robertson
(69), the last of Scotland’s traveling storytellers, died. He had spent
47 years filleting fish for a living.
(Econ, 9/5/09, p.94)
2009 Aug 13, Scottish officials
said they were considering early release for the Lockerbie bomber,
leading to sharp debate among victims' relatives in the US and Britain
over whether he should be allowed to return home to Libya. British
media said Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi could soon be freed on
compassionate grounds because he is terminally ill with cancer.
(AP, 8/13/09)
2009 Aug 20, Kenny MacAskill,
Scotland’s justice secretary, freed Abdel Baset al-Megrahi (57), former
Libyan intelligence agent and alleged Lockerbie bomber (Dec 21, 1988),
on compassionate grounds after eight years in jail allowing him to go
home to Libya to die. Al-Megrahi has terminal prostate cancer and has
been given less than three months to live.
(AP, 8/20/09)(Econ, 8/29/09, p.48)
2009 Nov 6, In Scotland finance
ministers from the world's leading rich and developing countries to
begin the difficult negotiations over how to even out the imbalances
weighing on the world economy.
(AP, 11/6/09)
2009 Colin Kidd authored “Union
and Unionisms: Political Thought in Scotland 1500-2000.
(Econ, 1/10/09, p.74)
2011 The Hunterston B nuclear
power station in Ayrshire, Scotland, was set to close in 2011. Torness,
in East Lothian, will last until 2023.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4541055.stm)
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Subject = Scotland
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