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1 January 1537: Although she is in ill health, James V marries Madeleine, daughter of King Francois of France, in Paris. By July her health has worsened and she dies at Holyrood Palace.
1 January 1651: Charles II is crowned King of Scots at Scone, before touring those parts of Scotland not under English occupation.
1 January 1660: General George Monck, the Military Governor of Scotland, leads troops based in Coldstream south to London to restore Charles Stewart - Charles II - to the throne.
1 January 1766: James Francis Edward Stuart, also known as James VIII/III or "The Old Pretender", dies in exile in Rome.
1 January 1783: The constitution is drafted for the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, making it the oldest in Britain.
1 January 1800: Robert Owen takes over the running of the cotton mills at New Lanark from David Dale.
1 January 1862: The birth in Galloway of Andrew Blain Baird, who in 1910, while working as a blacksmith in Rothesay, made the first flight by an entirely Scottish designed and built aeroplane.
1 January 1919: The troop ship Iolaire sinks in the entrance to Stornoway harbour, killing over 200 islanders returning from World War One.
1 January 1923: The Railways Act 1921 comes into force, leading to the creation of the London and North-Eastern Railway and the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.
2 January 1877: The death in Kirkintilloch of Alexander Bain, an instrument maker, an inventor and a clockmaker best known for inventing the fax machine and the electric clock.
2 January 1971: 66 football fans are killed and over 200 more are injured at in a crush as they try to leave Ibrox Park, the ground of Rangers F.C. in Glasgow.
2 January 2008: The death in the Isle of Man of George MacDonald Fraser, an author known both for his fiction and his non fiction, and and probably best remembered as the author of the "Flashman" series of historical novels.
3 January 642: The birth in Ireland of Saint Maelrubha, a monk who founded a monastery at what is now Applecross.
3 January 1670: The death of General George Monck, Cromwell's Military Governor in Scotland and the man responsible for the restoration of Charles II.
3 January 1959: The death of Edwin Muir, one of Scotlands best 20th Century poets.
4 January 1803: The launch at Grangemouth of the world's first practical steamboat, the "Charlotte Dundas", designed by William Symington.
4 January 1973: Biggar Gasworks ceases production. It subsequently becomes a museum.
5 January 1867: The death near Edinburgh at the tragically early age of 37 of Alexander Smith, a Scottish poet who is best remembered for some of the prose he wrote.
5 January 1899: The first electric-powered tram in Glasgow begins the replacement of the horse-drawn service.
5 January 1993: The oil tanker MV Braer runs aground on the coast of Shetland, leading to large-scale environmental damage.
6 January 1156: Somerled defeats the Norse at the Battle of Epiphany (probably off Islay) and subsequently becomes King of the Isles, leader of a Gaelic state centred on Finlaggan on Islay.
6 January 1978: The death in Shetland of Thomas Fraser, a fisherman who, since his death, has become internationally famous as a country and western singer.
6 January 1980: The author A.J. Cronin, creator of Dr Finlay, dies in Switzerland.
7 January 1451: The University of Glasgow is founded.
7 January 1758: The death in Edinburgh of the poet Allan Ramsay the Elder.
7 January 1912: The death of the pioneering woman doctor and champion of medical education for women, Sophia Jex-Blake.
7 January 1933: The death in London of Margaret Macdonald, the artist whose work helped define "The Glasgow Style" and who married Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
8 January 1107: Alexander, Edgar's younger brother, succeeds to the throne of Scotland on Edgar's death as Alexander I.
8 January 1707: Sir John Dalrymple, 1st Earl of Stair, and the man who as Secretary of State for Scotland was behind the 1692 Glencoe Massacre, dies.
8 January 1746: Stirling surrenders to the Jacobite forces.
9 January 1716: James Francis Edward Stuart arrives in Perth to find that the 1715 Jacobite uprising is effectively already over.
9 January 1811: The first women's golf tournament anywhere in the world is held at Musselburgh.
9 January 1861: The death in London of Macgregor Laird, the Scottish merchant who did much to open up the River Niger in Africa as a trade route.
10 January 1543: Cardinal David Beaton appoints himself Chancellor of Scotland.
10 January 1826: Explorer Alexander Gordon Laing sets off from Salah to complete his journey across the Sahara Desert to Timbuktu.
10 January 1918: The death in Inverness of the Scottish architect James Robert Rhind.
11 January 1815: Sir John Alexander Macdonald, the future first Prime Minister of Canada, is born in Glasgow.
11 January 1841: Scottish inventor Alexander Bain is awarded a patent for the electric clock.
11 January 2000: The Kirkcudbright based fishing vessel Solway Harvester sinks off the coast of the Isle of Man with the loss of her seven crew.
12 January 1682: The Presbyterians become an underground movement of resistance to the crown and government. Sporadic violence continues on both sides.
12 January 1777 : The death of Brigadier-General Hugh Mercer, the Scottish-born American revolutionary general.
12 January 1932: The death in India of Isabel Kerr, a doctor and missionary who pioneered the treatment of leprosy in India.
13 January 614: St Mungo or St Kentigern dies, and is buried at his church in Clas-gu which later becomes Glasgow.
13 January 1796: The death of John Anderson, founder the Anderson Institute, the forerunner of the University of Strathclyde.
13 January 1915: The missionary Mary Slessor dies in Calabar in south-eastern Nigeria.
14 January 1529: After a long legal dispute, Euphemia Leslie secures her position as Prioress of Elcho near Perth.
14 January 1831: The death in Edinburgh of Henry Mackenzie, a novelist and a leading member of the city's literary scene in the decades either side of 1800.
14 January 1872: The death of Greyfriars Bobby, the Skye Terrier who is said to have spent 14 years tending his master's grave in Greyfriars kirkyard in Edinburgh.
15 January 1968: A hurricane strikes Strathclyde leaving 2,000 people homeless and killing 20.
15 January 1973: The death at the age of 81 of the influential highland author, Neil M. Gunn.
15 January 1990: Strathclyde Regional Council applies for 250,000 summary warrants against residents refusing to pay the highly controversial "Poll Tax", introduced in Scotland in 1989.
16 January 1707: The Scottish Parliament agrees the Treaty of Union by 110 votes to 67. The debate preceding it is carried out against a backdrop of growing anti-union unrest across Scotland. The outcome is driven by economic necessity, by overt compensation for Scotland's national debts and the losses of Darien investors, and, allegedly, by covert bribes for key participants.
16 January 1809: The death of Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore at the Battle of Corunna.
16 January 1902: The birth in China of Eric Liddell, the missionary and athlete often called the "Flying Scotsman", whose life became the subject of the 1981 film "Chariots of Fire".
17 January 1284: Alexander III's eldest son, also named Alexander, dies aged 20 without children. Alexander III's younger son had died in 1281, and his daughter, Margaret, in 1283, leaving him with an infant granddaughter, also called Margaret, living in Norway. Alexander's wife Margaret had died in 1275.
17 January 1746: A large Jacobite army defeats government forces at the Battle of Falkirk Muir. Charles Edward Stuart, increasingly drunk since Derby, fails to take advantage. Amongst the casualties on the Government side is Sir Robert Munro.
17 January 1883: The author if "Whisky Galore", Compton Mackenzie, is born in Hartlepool in North-East England.
17 January 1795: Duddingston Curling Society is established, becoming one of the oldest curling clubs in existence.
18 January 2009: Just a few weeks before the completion of a £4m restoration project, Raasay House is severely damaged by fire.
19 January 1644: A Scottish Covenanter army of 20,000 men under the command of Alexander Leslie moves south to support the Parliamentary Army.
19 January 1736: The birth in Greenock of the engineer and inventor James Watt, whose improvements to the steam engine are fundamental in bringing about the industrial revolution.
20 January 1356: Edward Balliol relinquishes his claim to the Scottish Crown to King Edward III of England in exchange for an English pension.
20 January 1936: King George V dies. He is succeeded by King Edward VIII, who abdicates 325 days later in order to marry Mrs Simpson.
20 January 1994: The death of Sir Matt Busby, the football player and manager best remembered for his management of Manchester United.
21 January 1840: The birth of the pioneering woman doctor and champion of medical education for women, Sophia Jex-Blake.
21 January 1890: Two 1,000ft long test trains, each comprising a locomotive and 50 wagons, and each weighing 900 tons, roll onto the newly-built Forth Bridge side by side from the south.
21 January 1919: The birth in Leith of Captain Eric Brown, who goes on to become a renowned naval aviator and test pilot and who holds a record unlikely ever to be beaten for the largest number of different aircraft types flown by a single person, 487. In later life he was widely acknowledged by others as "the greatest pilot ever".
22 January 1689: An English convention declares that James VII/II has in practice abdicated; and sets out the basis on which his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange can succeed to the throne. This includes their accepting the primacy of Parliament and the stipulation that no Roman Catholic or spouse of a Roman Catholic can take the crown.
22 January 1788: The Romantic poet George Gordon Byron, later to become 6th Baron Byron, is born in London.
22 January 1901: Queen Victoria dies of a cerebral hemorrhage while staying at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.
22 January 1924: Ramsay MacDonald becomes Britain's first Labour Prime Minister, the first Prime Minister from a working-class background, and one of very few without a university education.
23 January 1570: The Regent, the Earl of Moray, is shot and killed at Linlithgow by an assailant hiding in the home of the Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews.
23 January 1871: The death in New Zealand of Thomas Burns, the Presbyterian church minister from Ayrshire who became an early European settler and religious leader in New Zealand.
24 January 1446: The "Battle of Arbroath" takes place over who will succeed to the post of "Bailie of the Regality" at Arbroath Abbey. As many as 600 people are said to have been killed.
24 January 1502: A "Treaty of Perpetual Peace" is agreed between King James IV of Scotland and King Henry VII of England. The peace turns out to be considerably shorter than "perpetual".
25 January 1759: The birth of Robert Burns.
25 January 1784: The death in Edinburgh of Alexander Webster, a writer and church minister who is best remembered for the country's first census.
25 January 1817: The Scotsman newspaper publishes its first edition in Edinburgh.
25 January 2012: First Minister Alex Salmond launches a consultation on the SNP Government's proposals for a referendum on Scottish independence, which they hope to hold in the autumn of 2014.
26 January 1861: The One O'Clock Gun is fired at Edinburgh Castle for the first time.
26 January 1878: The death of Kirkpatrick Macmillan, the blacksmith credited by many as the inventor of the rear-wheel driven bicycle.
26 January 1908: The 1st Glasgow Scout Group becomes the first scout troop to be officially registered.
26 January 1926 : John Logie Baird gives the first public demonstration of the television transmission of the picture of a human face to members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times in his lab at 22 Frith Street, Soho.
27 January 1783: The newspaper the Glasgow Herald is published for the first time.
27 January 1860: The death in Largs of Sir Thomas Brisbane the successful soldier who went on to become Governor of New South Wales.
28 January 1290: The death of Devorgilla, Lady of Galloway.
28 January 1822: The birth near Perth of Alexander Mackenzie, who would become the second Prime minister of Canada.
28 January 1829: William Burke is executed for the murder of the 17 victims of the West Port Murders in Edinburgh. His partner in crime, Willam Hare, is released.
29 January 1850: The birth in Muthill of Helen Gloag, who through a series of remarkable events went on to become the Empress of Morocco.
29 January 1820: King George III dies: he is succeeded by King George IV.
29 January 1928: The death of Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, British commander in the First World War.
30 January 1647: The Scottish Covenanters march north and back to Scotland having handed Charles I over to the English in return for a payment of £200,000.
30 January 1649: Charles I is executed in London despite protests from the Scots.
30 January 1886: Betty Mouat sets sail from Grutness in Sheltand for Lerwick aboard the Columbine. She is washed ashore in Norway nine days later.
31 January 1716: The Jacobites abandon Perth in the face of reinforced government forces.
31 January 1762: The birth on the island of Ulva of Major General Lachlan Macquarie, CB, who later becomes Governor of New South Wales and is often described as "The Father of Australia."
31 January 1788: The death in exile in Rome of Charles Edward Stuart, better remembered as "Bonnie Prince Charlie" or "The Young Pretender".
31 January 1918: The "Battle of May Island" takes place. This is the name given to a series of accidents between Royal Navy ships and submarines in the Firth of Forth that cost 104 men their lives.
31 January 1919: Riots culminating in the "Battle of George Square" take place in Glasgow against rent levels and in favour of a shorter working week. The government responds by moving the army into the city.
31 January 1953: The early roll-on/roll-off ferry, MV Princess Victoria, sinks in a storm while en route from Stranraer to Larne with the loss of 133 lives.
31 January 1953: 66 members of the crew of the SS Clan Macquarrie are rescued after it runs aground near Borve on the Isle of Lewis in a storm.
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