July 24: On This Day in World History … briefly

1567:   Mary Queen of Scots abdicates after defeat by the Protestants at Carberry Hill.

1704:   Britain captures Gibraltar from Spain.

1847:   Mormons find their place

Mormon leader Brigham Young and his party of 147 members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints reach the safety of the Salt Lake valley. The exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, to a ‘land that nobody wanted’ began in early 1846. The hazardous journey claimed many lives, despite Young’s excellent organisation and preparation. Crops were already planted on the day they arrived. The Mormon appetite for hard work did not win them acceptance in any community, nor did their doctrinaire interpretation of God’s word. They could make this new land their own, however, and all who entered it would have to conform to the Mormon way of life.

1883:   Captain Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the Channel, drowns while trying to swim above the rapids at Niagara Falls.

1923:   Turkey and Greece end territorial dispute

The Treaty of Lausanne signed by Turkey and Greece concludes the peace settlement begun at the end of the Great War but aborted by Kemal Ataturk’s nationalist overthrow of the Ottoman dynasty. Acceptance of the original Treaty of Sevres would have reduced Constantinople extending 25 miles (40km) into Europe, and Anatolia (excluding Smyrna). Ataturk surrendered all claim to territories of the Ottoman Empire occupied by non-Turks and confirmed Greece in possession of all Adriatic islands (except Imbros and Tenedos), which were to be returned to Turkey). These concessions were made so that the ancient commercial port and religious centre of Smyrna, and Eastern Thrace, could be restored to Turkey.

1925:   The first successful insulin treatment is carried out on a six-year old girl at Guy’s Hospital in London.

1936:   In Spain, General Mola sets up a Falangist government at Burgos.

1965:   British champion boxer and former nightclub owner Freddie Mills is found shot dead in his car in London’s Soho.

1967:   The Times carries a full-page advertisement advocating the legalisation of marijuana signed by, among others, all four Beatles.

1973:   Jigme Singye Wangchuk becomes King of Bhutan.

1974:   Death of Sir James Chadwick, British physicist who discovered the neutron in 1932 and won the Nobel Prize in 1935.

1980:   Peter Sellers dies of a heart attack

British comic actor Peter Sellers dies in a London hospital after suffering a massive heart attack. He was 55. Sellers had stopped over in London for a reunion supper with fellow Goons Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe en route to Los Angeles where he was to undergo an important heart operation. Sellers began his 30-year career as a comic on radio, starring in ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ and, most famously, ‘The Goon Show’. International stardom beckoned when he made the transition to the big screen in the late 50s. The ‘Inspector Clouseau’ films ‘The Pink Panther’ and ‘A Shot in the Dark’ brought him a steady stream of lucrative screen roles. It is arguable however, whether his genius as a mimic and creator of illusion was best suited to this medium.

1987:   Archer awarded half a million pounds damages

Multi-millionaire author Jeffrey Archer wins L500 000 ($920 000) in damages against ‘Star’ newspaper, the highest amount ever awarded in a British libel action. The jury at the Royal Courts of Justice in London took four hours and 20 minutes to decide that Archer had not, as paper alleged, paid prostitute Monica Coghlan L70 ($129) for sex. Archer was deputy chairman of the Conservative Party at the time of the alleged transaction. He resigned from the post in October 1986 when he admitted to paying Coghlan L2 000 (3 680) to avoid possible scandal, but denied paying her for sex.

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