On this day in 1460, King James II was killed during the siege of Roxburgh Castle.

James was regarded as one of the better Scottish monarchs of the period, ending the feud between the Livingstons and Crichtons, and finally defeating the rebellious Douglases. He also established many trade links on the continent and through his wife, Mary of Gueldres, and the marriages of his sisters obtained many valuable political alliances. However, James took too close an interest in the new military invention, the cannon, and met his end, at the age of only thirty, when a Scottish cannon burst its casing killing the young king outright.

On 3 August 1855 inventor George Johnstone was born at West Linton near Edinburgh.

A son of the manse, he trained as an engineer and, in 1894, became the first Scottish motorist driving an imported Daimler. By the following year he had invented his own car, "the Ghost Tram".

In 1896, he became the first person in Britain to be convicted of a motoring offence when police in Glasgow stopped him in St. Enoch's Square and he failed to convince the court that his car did not constitute a locomotive, and he incurred a fine.

Today's recipe: a cool refreshing soup for a hot summer's day.