What happened this week in history

Musician Ronnie Wood celebrates his 69th birthday this week.
Musician Ronnie Wood celebrates his 69th birthday this week.

In 1495, the first written record of Scotch whisky appeared in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland. Friar John Cor was the distiller.

1533 - Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen of England.

1869 - Thomas Edison made his first invention – an electronic voting machine.

1908 - John Krohn began his walk around the perimeter of America, pushing a wheelbarrow. He completed the walk in 357 days, wearing out 11 pairs of shoes and 112 pairs of socks in the process.

1910 - Captain Robert Falcon Scott set out on his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole.

1911 - The first electric trolley buses began running in Leeds and Bradford.

1922 - The Royal Ulster Constabulary was founded.

1935 - Experimental driving tests were introduced in Britain.

1938 - Horseracing was televised for the first time.

1938 - The first issue of Action Comics was published in America, introducing the world to Superman.

1943 - British actor Leslie Howard was killed when the passenger plane he was travelling in was destroyed by German war planes.

1944 - The Mexican government decided to abolish the siesta.

1946 - Television licences were introduced in Britain.

1957 - Ernie picked the first Premium Bond winners.

1974 - An explosion at a chemical plant in Flixborough killed 28 people.

1979 - Rhodesia formally ended almost 90 years of white minority rule and declared it would be known as Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.

1983 - Lester Piggott won a record ninth Derby.

1987 - Thames television became the first British TV company to run a 24-hour service.

1999 - South African Catherine O’Dowd became the first woman to reach the top of Mount Everest from both its southern and northern slopes.

2001 - Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal shot and killed several members of his family, including his father and mother, King Birendra of Nepal and Queen Aiswarya, before turning the gun on himself.