NOW & THEN
30 MARCH
1772: Robert Clive defended his administration of Bengal, in India, at a hearing in the House of Commons.
1820: Duc de Richelieu reestablished censorship in France.
1842: Ether was used as an anaesthetic for the first time, by American surgeon Doctor Crawford Long, of Jefferson, Georgia, when he removed a cyst after administering sulphuric ether on a towel.
1855: Treaty of Peshawar, whereby Britain and Afghanistan formed alliance against Persia.
1855: End of Taiping rebellion in China.
1856: The Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Crimean War.
1863: Denmark incorporated Schleswig Holstein.
1863: Poland was divided into provinces by Russia.
1867: Alaska was bought by America from Russia for $7.2million. The 375 acres worked out at less than 2 cents an acre, and included rights to fur, fish, timber, minerals and gold.
1912: Sultan of Morocco signed a treaty making Morocco a French protectorate.
1940: Japan established a puppet government in occupied China.
1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg found guilty in America’s first atom bomb spy trial. They were subsequently executed.
1964: The seaside resort of Clacton was the scene of pitched battles by gangs of mods and rockers.
1966: United States embassy in Saigon was blown up by the Vietcong with the loss of 13 lives.
1967: The tanker Torrey Canyon, which had gone aground on the Pollard Rock between the Isles of Scilly and Land’s End on 18 March, was bombed and destroyed.
1972: William Whitelaw became secretary of state for Northern Ireland as the province came under direct rule from London.
1974: Chinese airliner arrived in New York in what was described as the first civilian flight from Chinese mainland to the United States.
1981: United States president Ronald Reagan was wounded in an assassination bid outside Washington’s Hilton Hotel.
1987: Sunflowers, by Vincent van Gogh, was sold at auction by Christie’s for £24,750,000.
1988: Sikh militants killed 15 people in overnight attacks in
northern Indian state of Punjab.
1990: Estonia’s parliament declared the Soviet Union an occupying power and pledged to seek full independence.
1992: The United Nations voted to impose sanctions on Libya for failing to hand over two Lockerbie bombing suspects.
1994: United Kingdom P rime M inister John Major dismissed the IRA’S announcement of a post-easter three-day ceasefire as “self-serving and cynical”.
2006: The UK Terrorism Act 2006 became law.
2010: Scotland was battered by severe storms that forced the closure of several main road and rail arteries.
2012: Two men were convicted of plotting to send parcel bombs designed to cause severe injury to Celtic manager Neil Lennon and two high-profile fans.