On This Day

[Altobelli]

16 SEPTEMBER



1387 King Henry V was born at Monmouth Castle. He went on to win the Battle of Agincourt against the French on St Crispin’s Day.

1400 Owain Glyndŵr, Welsh ruler and the last native Welshman to hold the title Prince of Wales, instigated the Welsh Revolt against the rule of Henry IV of England. This statue of Owain Glyndŵr was unveiled in Corwen, the town where he was born, on 13th September 2007.

1485 The Yeoman of the Guard, the bodyguard of the English Crown - popularly known as 'Beefeaters' - was established by King Henry VII.

1701 James Francis Edward Stuart, sometimes called the 'Old Pretender', became the Jacobite claimant to the thrones of England and Scotland.

1795 British capture Capetown, South Africa, from the Dutch

1810 Mexico issues Grito de Dolores, calling for the end of Spanish rule (Mexican Independence Day)

1785 Birth of Thomas Barnes, editor of The Times. Barnes took over the editorship in 1817 and did much to improve it. The newspaper was nicknamed ‘the Thunderer’ because of the forcefulness of its content.

1810 Mexico issues Grito de Dolores, calling for the end of Spanish rule (Mexican Independence Day)

1847 The United Shakespeare Company bought the house in which playwright William Shakespeare was born at Stratford Upon Avon in Warwickshire for £3,000.It became the first building in Britain to be officially preserved.

1848 Slavery abolished in all French territories

1859 British explorer Dr. David Livingstone discovered Lake Nyasa - now Lake Malawi, in central Africa. He was from humble beginnings and was born in Blantyre, eight miles south east of Glasgow. His mother, father and four brothers and sisters lived in a single room in a tenement known as Shuttle Row, which they shared with 23 other families. Shuttle Row is now part of the David Livingstone Centre.

1861 The Post Office Savings Banks opened in Britain.

1888 Walter Bentley, British car designer, was born.

1906 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen discovers the Magnetic South Pole

1915 The opening of Britain’s first Women’s Institute, (regularly referred to as simply the WI) at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio gogogoch, Anglesey, Wales. Its two aims were to re*****ise rural communities and to encourage women to become more involved in producing food during the First World War. It is now the largest women’s voluntary organisation in the UK.

1945 World War II: Japanese troops in Hong Kong surrendered. The surrender was accepted by Royal Navy Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt.

1947 John Cobb set a world land speed record of 394.2mph.

1947 The birth of Russ Abbot, musician, comedian and actor who first came to public notice during the 1970s as the singer and drummer with the British comedy showband the Black Abbots. He later forged a solo career as a television comedian with his own weekly show on British television.

1960 Donald Campbell destroyed Bluebird in a crash at 350mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats in north west Utah. He was only slightly hurt.

1963 Federation of Malaysia formed by Malaya, Singapore, British North Borneo (Sabah) and Sarawak

1968 Britain introduced a 'two tier' postal system - First and Second Class. Letters and parcels bearing the more expensive 1st class stamps would be given priority of delivery.

1978 25,000 die in 7.7 earthquake in Tabar, Iran

1981 Two British political parties - the SDP and the Liberals - voted for an alliance.

1992 Black Wednesday, when the GB Pound Sterling was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism by currency speculators and was forced to devalue against the German mark.

1997 Apple Computer Inc names co-founder Steve Jobs interim CEO

2000 Cyclist Jason Queally claimed Britain's first medal of the Sydney Olympics.

2002 The world's first self cleaning glass was launched after being developed by scientists at the leading glass company of Pilkington's in St Helens.

Famous Birthday's

Karl Dönitz
(1891 - 1980)

B.B. King
(1925 - 2015)

Tim Raines
58th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Louis XVIII
(1755 - 1824)

Mary Travers
(1936 - 2009)

Edward Albee
(1928 - 2016)

Famous Weddings

1862 Liliuokalani, Queen of Hawaii (1891-93) marries John Owen Dominis

1936 Actor Henry Fonda (31) weds socialite Frances Ford Seymour (28) at Christ Church, New York City

1967 Comedic actor Bob Denver (32) weds second wife Jean Webber

1968 Actress Sally Field weds Steven Craig

1989 Singer Natalie Cole marries record producer Andre Fisher

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17 SEPTEMBER

642 Arab forces under Amr ibn al-'As conquer Alexandria

1683 Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is the first to report the existence of bacteria

1701 King James II of England died whilst in exile in France.

1745 Prince Charles Edward Stewart or 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' as he was better known, arrived in Edinburgh and declared his father to be the rightful King of Scotland. He could not capture Edinburgh Castle (see ©BB picture) so he set up his Court in Holyrood Palace.

1827 'Wides' in cricket were first scored in the Sus*** v Kent game at Brighton.

1862 Battle of Antietam [Battle of Sharpsburg], bloodiest day in the American Civil War 23,110 die in first battle on Union soil

1877 William Henry Fox Talbot, English photographic pioneer, died. He made the earliest known surviving photographic negative in the late summer of 1835, with a photograph of the oriel window at his home at Lacock Abbey.

1900 Commonwealth of Australia proclaimed

1901 The birthday of Sir Francis Chichester, British yachtsman and aviation pioneer. He made a solo circumnavigation of the world at the age of 65 in his yacht Gipsy Moth IV.

1916 The Red Baron [Manfred von Richthofen], WWI flying ace of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France

1929 Stirling Moss, English racing driver, was born.

1939 World War II: A German U-boat U 29 sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous. She sank in 20 minutes with the loss of 519 of her crew.

1944 The start of the Battle of Arnhem, part of Operation Market Garden, an attempt to secure a string of bridges through the Netherlands, in and around the Dutch town of Arnhem. Down Ampney church in Gloucestershire has a stained glass window in commemoration of the men who flew from RAF Down Ampney to Arnhem.

1944 Blackout regulations eased in Britain to allow lights on buses, trains and at railway stations for the first time since the beginning of World War II in 1939.

1961 Police made 1,314 arrests during sit-down demonstrations by CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) members in Trafalgar Square, London.

1978 Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Camp David Accords, frameworks for peace in the Middle East and between Egypt and Israel

1985 The death, aged 60, of Laura Ashley, Welsh designer and fabric retailer.

1993 The British National Party won its first council seat in a by-election in East London, provoking fear in the local Asian community.

1998 There was chaos in Staffordshire, when animal rights activists release around 6,000 animals from a mink farm. Mink are now devastating British wildlife, so it was not a particularly wise or humanitarian move!

2000 Paula Yates, television personality and former wife of Bob Geldof, was found dead in bed from a suspected drug overdose. She was 40 years old.

2001 The opening of the Gateshead Millennium Bridge that spans the River Tyne between Gateshead's Quays arts quarter on the south bank, and the Quayside of Newcastle upon Tyne on the north bank. The bridge is sometimes referred to as the 'Blinking Eye Bridge' due to its shape and its tilting method to let tall ships pass underneath.

2007 Worried savers continued to flock to some Northern Rock bank branches to withdraw their savings when the bank applied to the Bank of England for emergency funds. Chancellor Alistair Darling appealed for calm, nevertheless £2bn was withdrawn from Northern Rock accounts in just 3 days.

2012 Italy's Chi magazine pushed ahead with its plan to publish a series of topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge, complete with a curt dismissal of the protests raised by the royal family.

2013 A wedding service at Holy Cross Church in Sherston, Wiltshire, was delayed for an hour when an owl that was bearing the wedding rings fell asleep in the church roof.

2014 A businessman gambled £900,000, the biggest amount of money ever staked on a political event, on Scotland staying in the United Kingdom. He called it an ‘investment’ rather than a gamble, with a profit of £193,333.33 in the event of a 'No' vote, and it was!

Famous Birthday's

Hank Williams
(1923 - 1953)

Anne Bancroft
(1931 - 2005)

Phil Jackson
72nd Birthday

Famous Deaths

Dred Scott
(1777 - 1858)

William Henry Fox Talbot
(1800 - 1877)

Karl Popper
(1902 - 1994)

Famous Weddings

1918 Abbott and Costello's Bud Abbott (22) weds Betty Smith

1937 Economist John Kenneth Galbraith (29) weds author Catherine A****er (24) at the Reformed Church of North Hempstead in New York

1942 Ice hockey player Maurice Richard (20) weds Lucille Norchet (17)1954 Film and theater actress Shirley MacLaine (20) weds Steve Parker in New York City

1957 Italian actress Sophia Loren (22) weds Carlo Ponti

Famous Divorces

1994 Princess Christina separates

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18 SEPTEMBER

1685 The Taunton Assize trials came in the aftermath of the Battle of Sedgemoor, which ended the Monmouth Rebellion in England. The trials were led by Lord Chief Justice George Jeffreys. They took place in the Great Hall of Taunton Castle (now the home of the Museum of Somerset. Of more than 500 prisoners brought before the court, 144 were hanged and their remains displayed around the county.

1709 Dr Samuel Johnson, English writer and compiler of the first English dictionary was born. Published in 1755, Johnson’s dictionary was the definitive reference for over a century.

1809 The Royal Opera House opened, in Covent Garden, Central London. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House The current building is the third theatre on the site following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1857.

1811 British expeditionary army conquers Dutch Indies

1812 Great Fire of Moscow burns out after 5 days, 75% of the city destroyed and 12,000 killed

1873 Government bond agent Jay Cooke & Co collapses, causing panic on Wall St, the start of the panic of 1873 and the Long depression


1911 Britain's first twin-engined aeroplane, the Short S.39, was test flown.

1914 The Irish Home Rule Act (intended to provide self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) became law, but was delayed until after World War I.

1931 To create a pretext for the invasion of Manchuria, China, a railway explosion is faked by the Japanese

1939 William Joyce, whose upper-class accent earned him the nickname Lord Haw-Haw, made his first Nazi propaganda broadcast from Germany to the UK.

1942 The order for 'extermination asocials through labour' is approved by Otto Thierack, Nazi minister of justice

1944 World War II: The British submarine HMS Tradewind torpedoed Junyō Maru, a Japanese cargo ship used to transport prisoners. It was the world's greatest sea disaster at the time with 5,620 dead. 723 survivors were rescued, only to be put to work in conditions similar to those of the Burma Railway where death was commonplace.

1949 The British pound was devalued by 30% by Chancellor Sir Stafford Cripps.

1949 Mo Mowlam, former Northern Ireland Secretary and Labour MP, was born. She was the Member of Parliament for Redcar from 1987 to 2001 and her time as Northern Ireland Secretary saw the signing, in 1998 of the historic Good Friday Peace Agreement. She died in 2005, aged 55, from a brain tumour.

1972 The first Ugandan refugees fleeing the persecution of the country's military dictatorship arrived in Britain.

1976 Mao Zedong's funeral takes place in Beijing

1994 Warwickshire became the first side to win the County Cricket Championship, the Benson and Hedges Cup and the Sunday League title in one season.

2000 Survivors of the Southall and Ladbroke Grove rail crashes that killed 39 and injured more than 650, accused Railtrack of putting costs before safety.

2012 Two unarmed female police officers PC Nicola Hughes (23) and PC Fiona Bone (32) were killed in a gun and grenade ambush attack in Mottram - Greater Manchester. It led to the arrest of a wanted man Dale Cregan. Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy said it was one of the force's 'darkest days'.

2014 A referendum was held in Scotland, with one single question on the ballot paper - "Should Scotland be an independent country?" The "No" side won, with 2,001,926 (55.3%) voting against independence and 1,617,989 (44.7%) voting in favour. The turnout of 84.6% was the highest recorded for an election or referendum in the United Kingdom

2014 The world famous golf club, the Royal & Ancient at St. Andrews, voted overwhelmingly to end its 260-year ban on female members, with immediate effect.

Famous Birthday's

Greta Garbo
(1905 - 1990)

James Gandolfini
(1961 - 2013)

Lance Armstrong
46th Birthday



Domitian
(51 - 96)

Leonhard Euler
(1707 - 1783)

Jimi Hendrix
(1942 - 1970)

Famous Weddings

1907 Author Arthur Conan Doyle (48) weds Jean Elizabeth Leckie

1920 Tennis player champion Molla Mallory (36) weds stock broker Franklin Mallory

1922 Nurse Margaret Sanger (43) weds James Noah Henry Slee in Bloomsbury, London

1955 Actress-singer Debbie Reynolds (23) weds singer Eddie Fisher (27)

1955 Argentine Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara (27) weds Peruvian economist Hilda Gadea (34) in Mexico

Famous Divorces

1969 Actor Rod Taylor (39) divorces model Mary Hilem after 5 years of marriage

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19 SEPTEMBER

1356 Led by Edward, the Black Prince, the English defeated the French, and captured the French king, John II at the Battle of Poitiers in the Hundred Years' War. The battle resulted in the second of the three great English victories of the Hundred Years' War, the other two being Crécy, and Agincourt.

1839 Birth of George Cadbury, the chocolate manufacturer. A Quaker, he believed in taking care of the welfare of his workforce, and he created a model village for his employees at Bournville, Birmingham.

1851 Birth of William Hesketh Lever. He changed the process of soap manufacture by using vegetable oils instead of tallow. Like George Cadbury he cared about the welfare of his workers, and established the new town of Port Sunlight Merseyside, to house them.

1870 Siege of Paris by Prussian Forces begins (lasts until January 28 1871)

1879 The famous illuminations in Blackpool were switched on for the first time, a month before electricity was generally available in London. The first display was known as 'Artificial sunshine', and consisted of just eight Arc lamps which bathed the Promenade.

1893 New Zealand becomes the first country to grant all women the right to vote

1905 Thomas John Barnardo, British philanthropist (Barnardo's Children's Homes), died.

1934 The birth of Brian Epstein, best known for being the manager of The Beatles until his death in 1967. Decca declined to sign the Beatles to a contract and after approaching nearly all of the major recording companies in London and being rejected, Epstein met a record producer, George Martin, who offered a contract on behalf of EMI's small Parlophone label.

1945 The Nazi propaganda broadcaster William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) was sentenced to hang for treason.

1946 The Council of Europe was founded following a speech by Winston Churchill at the University of Zurich. It promotes co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation.

1949 The birth of the model Twiggy. She became an icon of the 'swinging sixties' and in 1966 was voted British Woman of the Year.

1952 The United States prevented the English born film legend Charlie Chaplin from returning to his Hollywood home until he was investigated by the Immigration Services.

1960 The new traffic wardens issued the first 344 parking tickets in London. Britain's first parking ticket was issued to Dr. Thomas Creighton, who had parked his car outside a London hotel while treating a patient.

1970 The first Glastonbury Festival was held at Michael Eavis's farm in Glastonbury, starring T. Rex. The first festivals in the 1970s were influenced by hippie ethics and the free festival movement. Glastonbury Tor is at the focal point of the many mysteries that have surrounded the area for millennia.

1975 The first episode of comedy show Fawlty Towers was broadcast by the BBC.

1985 8.1 earthquake in Mexico City kills an estimated 10,000 and leaves 250,000 homeless

1986 US Federal health officials announce AZT will be available to AIDS patients

1986 Two passenger trains crashed in Staffordshire, killing two people and injuring almost a hundred more.

1997 An Intercity 125 ploughed into a freight train in Southall, west London, killing six and injuring more than 150.

1998 Robbie Williams scored his first solo UK No.1 single with Millennium.

2000 Chancellor Gordon Brown rejected a 60-day deadline to reduce petrol tax set by fuel price protesters.

2014 Alex Salmond stood down as Scotland's First Minister and Scottish National Party leader after Scotland voted 'No' to becoming an independent country.

Famous Birthday's

Antoninus Pius
(86 - 161)

Jeremy Irons
69th Birthday

Jimmy Fallon
43rd Birthday

Famous Deaths

James Garfield
(1831 - 1881)

Guy Gibson
(1918 - 1944)

Orville Redenbacher
(1907 - 1995)

Famous Weddings

1945 Actress Shirley Temple (17) weds actor John Agar (24) in an Episcopal ceremony at Wilshire Methodist Church

1959 Academy award winning actor Rod Steiger (34) weds stage and film actress Claire Bloom (28) in Los Angeles, California

1964 Author Peter Benchley (24) weds Winifred B. Wesson

1998 "Full House" actor John Stamos (35) weds supermodel Rebecca Romijn (25) at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California

1999 Chinese martial artist Jet Li (36) weds actress Nina Li Chi (37) in Los Angeles

Famous Divorces

1972 Actor Phil Hartman (23) divorces Gretchen Lewis after 2 years of marriage
2016 Actress Angelina Jolie (41) files for divorce from fellow actor Brad Pitt (52) citing irreconcilable differences

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20 SEPTEMBER

451 Roman General Flavius Aetius defeats Attila the Hun at The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (Chalons-sur-Marne), halting Hun invasion of Roman Gaul

622 Islamic Prophet Muhammed/Abu Bakr arrives in Jathrib (Medina)


1066 The Battle of Fulford, Yorkshire. Harald III Hardrada of Norway defeated the Northern Saxon Earls Edwin and Morcar.

1258 The consecration of Salisbury Cathedral. The cathedral has the tallest church spire in the United Kingdom at 123m/404 ft. It also has the largest cloister and the largest cathedral close in Britain, the world's oldest working clock (from AD 1386) and the best surviving of the four original copies of Magna Carta.

1519 Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan sets off on the 1st successful circumnavigation of the globe (Magellan killed on route)

1643 The First Battle of Newbury (English civil war). King Charles I's forces were beaten by a parliamentary army led by the Earl of Es*** and Philip Stapleton.

1854 The Russian army was defeated by the British and French at the Battle of Alma, considered to be the first battle of the Crimean War. The first six Victoria Crosses to be awarded to the British Army for acts of bravery during the fighting were won at this battle.

1860 The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) visited the United States. It was the first tour of North America by an heir to the British throne. The four-month tour throughout Canada and the United States considerably boosted Edward's self-esteem, and had many diplomatic benefits for Great Britain.

1906 The Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania was launched at the Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard in Newcastle upon Tyne. At the time, she was the largest and fastest ship in the world. She captured the Blue Riband for the fastest transatlantic crossing during her 1907 inaugural season and held the speed record for twenty-two years.

1911 White Star Line's RMS Olympic collided with British warship HMS Hawke. Olympic was the lead ship of the White Star Line's trio of Olympic-class liners, that also consisted of the Titanic and Britannic. The fact that Olympic endured such a serious collision and stayed afloat, appeared to vindicate the design of the Olympic-class liners and reinforced their 'unsinkable' reputation.

1917 The first RSPCA animal clinic was opened, in Liverpool.

1930 Edward Elgar's Fifth Pomp and Circumstance March was performed for the first time.

1931 Devaluation set in when Britain came off the gold standard to prevent foreign speculation against the pound. It sparked off strikes, and in Scotland the crews of 15 navy ships nearly mutinied.

1932 Four branches of Methodism in England united to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain and Ireland. These were the Wesleyan Methodists, the Primitive Methodists, the United Methodist Free Churches and the United Methodists.

1964 The Beatles' first US tour ended with a charity concert in New York.

1967 The liner Queen Elizabeth II (QE2) was launched at Clydebank, Scotland by ...... Queen Elizabeth II. The ship's anchor was donated to Southampton by Cunard in March 2010.

1978 Police launched a massive manhunt for the killers of 13 year paperboy Carl Bridgewater. He had been shot in the head at close range at an isolated farmhouse near Stourbridge in Staffordshire.

1990 Both East and West Germany ratify reunification

1997 Elton John started a six week run at No.1 in the UK singles chart with "Candle in the Wind '97'' as a tribute to Princess Diana. It became the best-selling single of all time.

2001 The Government was considering 'targeted support' for airlines after British Airways axed 7,000 jobs in the wake of the US terrorist attacks.

2004 Legendary former Nottingham Forest and Derby County boss Brian Clough died from stomach cancer at the age of 69.

2012 Apple's new mapping service for iPhone users was launched, with many errors. It relocated London - England to London - Ontario, Paddington station vanished and Dublin was gifted a previously undiscovered airport on a 35 acre working farm. Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon, was nowhere to be found while the Welsh town of Pontypridd was transplanted six miles north-west and placed where Tonypandy should have been.

2013 The RAF's last Vickers VC10 jetliners completed their final mission after 47 years of service when they took off from RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, at 10:00 BST

2014Dr. Michael Ramscar and a team of scientists suggested that the brains of older people only appear to slow down because they have so much information to compute, much like a full-up hard drive. “The brains of older people do not get weak. On the contrary, they simply know more.”

Famous Birthday's

Upton Sinclair
(1878 - 1968)

Red Auerbach
(1917 - 2006)

Sophia Loren
83rd Birthday

Famous Deaths

Jacob Grimm
(1785 - 1863)

Eduard Wirths
(1909 - 1945)

Famous Weddings

1997 "CHiPs" actor Erik Estrada (48) weds Nanette Mirkovich

2002 "Matrix" actor Laurence Fishburne (41) weds actress Gina Torres (33) at The Cloisters museum in New York City

2002 "The Monkees" lead vocalist Micky Dolenz (57) weds Donna Quinter in Calabasas, California

2003 "Will & Grace" actress Megan Mullally (44) weds actor Nick Offerman (32) in Los Angeles

2012 Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah's daughter Princess Hajah Hafizah Sururul Bolkiah (32) weds Pengiran Haji Muhammad Ruzaini (29) at the Throne Hall of Istana Nurul Iman palace in Brunei

Famous Divorces

1951 Actor Jackie Coogan (36) divorces Ann McCormack after 5 years of marriage

1983 Actor James Woods (36) divorces costume designer Kathryn Morrison after 3 years of marriage

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21 SEPTEMBER

1327 Deposed King Edward II of England was murdered, with a red hot poker in Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire by order of his wife, to ensure the succession of his son Edward III.

1411 The birth of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and claimant to the English throne. Although he never became king he ultimately governed the country as Lord Protector during Henry VI's madness. His conflicts with Henry's court were a leading factor in the political upheaval of mid-fif****th-century England, and a major cause of the Wars of the Roses.

1621 King James I of England gives Sir Alexander Sterling royal charter for colonisation of Nova Scotia

1745 Bonnie Prince Charles and his Jacobite army defeated the English at the Battle of Prestonpans, in Scotland.

1746 After a short siege the French, under Admiral La Bourdonnais, captured Madras, India, from the English.

1756 John Loudon McAdam, the engineer who invented and gave his name to macadamised (tarmac) roads, was born in Ayr, Scotland.

1776 Part of New York City was burned shortly after being occupied by British forces.

1832 The death of Sir Walter Scott, Scottish historical novelist, playwright and poet. His works include classics such as Ivanhoe and Rob Roy. The Scott Monument in Edinburgh is the largest monument to a writer in the world.

1866 H G Wells, English writer, was born. His books included The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds.

1874 The birth, at 4 Clarence Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire of the composer Gustav Holst, most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets. His house is now a museum

1898 Empress Dowager Cixi seizes power and ends the Hundred Days' Reform in China, imprisoning the Guangxu Emperor

1915 Stonehenge was sold at auction to Mr C H Chubb for £6,600 as a present for his wife. Mr Chubb presented it to the nation three years later as his wife didn't think it suited her.

1922 US President Warren G. Harding signs a joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine

1949 The Republic of Ireland beat England 2-0 at Goodison Park - England's first home defeat by a foreign football team.

1949 Chinese Communist leaders proclaim People's Republic of China

1955 The Admiralty announced that Britain had formally claimed uninhabited Rockall, a rocky islet 300 miles west of Scotland, to stop the Soviets spying on missile tests.

1962 Bamber Gascoigne's University Challenge was screened for the first time.

1964 Malta became independent from Britain. The island became a republic in 1974, but retained membership of the Commonwealth.

1965 BP found oil in the North Sea.

1972 The birth of Liam Gallagher (born William John Paul Gallagher) musician and singer-songwriter. He was formerly the frontman of the rock band Oasis until the band split up in 2009 and he formed Beady Eye.

1979 An RAF Harrier plane crashed onto houses in a Cambridgeshire town, killing two men and a young boy.

1984 Police and miners clashed at a pit in Maltby, South Yorkshire, in one of the biggest pickets since the miners' strike began.

1985 Madonna scored her first UK No.1 album with Like A Virgin, ten months after its release.

1986 Prince Charles admitted that he talked to his plants.

2012 50 year old Jessica Harper, a former Lloyds Bank worker in charge of online security was jailed for five years for fraud. She submitted 93 false and doctored invoices to pay herself £2,463,750, giving large sums to friends and her three brothers to invest in property.

Famous Birthday's

Kwame Nkrumah
(1909 - 1972)

Bill Murray
67th Birthday

Faith Hill
50th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Flavius Aetius
( - 454)

Charles V
(1500 - 1558)

Jacqueline Susann
(1918 - 1974)

Famous Weddings

1945 Publisher Malcolm Forbes (26) weds Roberta Remsen Laidlaw

1996 Supermodel Christie Brinkey marries for 4th time to Peter Cook

1996 Elder son of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and magazine publisher John F. Kennedy Jr. (35) weds Caroline Bisset (30) at the wood-frame Brack Chapel of the First African Baptist Church in Cumberland Island, Georgia

2013 US billionaire investor and active supporter of liberal political causes George Soros (83) weds health care and education consultant Tamiko Bolton (42) at his estate in Bedford, New York

2013 Golden Globe-winning actor Andy Samberg (35) weds singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom (31) at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur, California

Famous Divorces

1995 Actor and host Wayne Brady (23) divorces Diana Lasso after almost 2 years of marriage

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22 SEPTEMBER

1515 Anne of Cleves, 4th wife of Henry VIII, was born.

1598 The English playwright Ben Jonson, a contemporary of William Shakespeare, killed an actor in a duel and was put on trial for manslaughter. Jonson pleaded guilty but was released by benefit of clergy, a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reciting a brief bible verse, forfeiting his 'goods and chattels' and being branded on his left thumb.

1692 The last people were hanged for witchcraft in Britain's North American colonies.

1735 Sir Robert Walpole became the first prime minister to occupy 10 Downing Street.

1761 The coronation of George III. In the later part of his life, George III suffered from mental illness. After a final relapse in 1810, a regency was established, and George III's eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, ruled as Prince Regent until his father's death in 1820.

1791 Michael Faraday, English chemist and physicist, was born. He was the inventor of the dynamo, the transformer and the electric motor. The Unit of capacitance - Farad - was named after him.

1792 French First Republic formed by the National Convention, stripping French king of his powers

1896 Queen Victoria surpassed her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history. The record stood until 9th September 2015 when Queen Elizabeth II became the longest serving monarch of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand

1910 The Duke of York's Picture House opened in Brighton. It is now the oldest continually operating cinema in Britain.

1914 Three British cruisers, Aboukir, Hogue, and Cressy, were torpedoed and sunk by German U-boats, killing more than 1,400.

1934 The worst pit disaster in Britain for 21 years killed more than 260 miners in an explosion and fire at the Gresford Mine in Wales.

1955 Independent Television (ITV) began operating. Only six minutes of advertisements were allowed each hour and there was no Sunday morning TV permitted. The first advertisement screened was for Gibbs SR toothpaste.

1967 The liner Queen Mary began her 1000th and last Atlantic crossing. A New York docks strike meant that passengers had to carry their own luggage aboard.

1980 Iraq invades Iran in an attempt to control the Shatt al-Arab waterway

1986 Surgeons at Harefield Hospital performed a heart & lung transplant operation on the world's youngest patient - a10 week old baby.

1989 An IRA bomb attack on the Royal Marines School of Music killed 11 people, (10 of them young soldiers) and injured twelve of the bandsmen.

1991 Bryan Adams made chart history when his song - Everything I Do, I Do It For You, had its twelfth consecutive week as the UK No.1.

1999 Screaming Lord Sutch's Official Monster Raving Loony Party honoured his memory with a two minute scream at a pub in Ashburton, Devon. The singer, born David Sutch, hanged himself on 16th June 1999.

1999 Singer Diana Ross was arrested on Concorde after an incident at Heathrow Airport. The singer claimed that a female security guard had touched her breasts when being frisked, and she retaliated by rubbing her hands down the security guard.

2011 CERN scientists announce their discovery of neutrinos breaking the speed of light

2013 Sir Bradley Wiggins added the Tour of Britain title to his collection after sealing an emphatic victory in London. Wiggins, who won the Tour de France and Olympic time trial in 2012, had led since winning the third stage and began stage eight with a 26-second advantage.

2014 Tesco suspended four senior executives and called in investigators following the discovery that its profits had been artificially inflated by £250m. More than £2bn was wiped off the value of Tesco's shares.

Famous Birthday's

Anne of Cleves
(1515 - 1557)

Charlotte Cooper
(1870 - 1966)

Andrea Bocelli
59th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Nathan HaleNathan Hale
(1755 - 1776)

Irving Berlin
(1888 - 1989)

Yogi Berra
(1925 - 2015)

Famous Weddings

1794 Physicist Alessandro Volta (49) weds Teresa Peregrini

1940 "Adventures of Superman" actor George Reeves (26) weds Ellanora Needles at the Church of Our Savior in San Gabriel, California

1958 Film director Sydney Pollack (24) weds actress Claire Bradley Griswold (22)

1973 Cartoonist Charles M. Schulz (50) weds Jean Forsyth Clyde

1984 Brussels Princess Astrid marries Archduke Lorenz of Austrian-Este at Church of Our Lady of "De Zavel

Famous Divorces

2000 Actress Patsy Kensit (32) divorces Oasis singer Liam Gallagher (28) due to unreasonable behaviour after 3 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

23 SEPTEMBER

1122 Concordat of Worms agreed between Pope Calixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V

1338 The first naval battle of the Hundred Years' War between England and France took place On This Day. It was the first naval battle using artillery, as the English ship Christofer had three cannons and one hand gun.

1459 In the first major 'Wars of the Roses' battle, the Yorkists, in spite of being heavily outnumbered by 2 to 1, defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Blore Heath, Staffordshire.

1641 The Merchant Royal, a 17th century English merchant ship was lost at sea off Land's End. On board were at least 100,000 pounds of gold (nearly one billion pounds in today's money), 400 bars of Mexican silver and nearly 500,000 pieces of eight and other coins, making it one of the most valuable wrecks of all times. The wreck remains undiscovered.

1779 During the American Revolution, John Paul Jones on board the USS Bonhomme Richard beat British forces at the Battle of Flamborough Head (Yorkshire). It became one of the most celebrated naval actions of the American War of Independence.

1817 Spain signed a treaty with Britain to end slave trade.

1821 Fall of Tripolitsa, Greek forces massacre 30,000 Turks during Greek War of Independence

1884 American Herman Hollerith patents his mechanical tabulating machine, the beginning of data processing

1889 Nintendo Koppai (Later Nintendo Company, Limited) founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce and market the playing card game Hanafuda.


1940 The George Cross and the George Medal for civilian acts of courage were instituted.

1942 The 'Manhattan Project' commences, under the direction of US General Leslie Groves: its aim - to deliver an atomic bomb

1951 Crowds gathered outside Buckingham Palace for news of King George VI following an operation to remove part of his lung.

1952 The star of the silent movies, Charlie Chaplin, returned to his native England after 21 years in the US.

1955 Quizmaster Michael Miles first invited contestants to 'Open the box' in the long running show Take Your Pick.

1961 The Shadows debut album 'Shadows' started a four week run at No.1 on the UK charts.

1974 The world's first Ceefax teletext service was begun by the BBC.

1976 A fire on one of the Royal Navy's latest guided missile destroyers (HMS Glasgow) killed eight men.

1986 England and Yorkshire batsman Geoff Boycott was controversially sacked from Yorkshire Cricket Club after playing for the county side for 24 years.

1987 An Australian court lifted the ban on the publication of Peter Wright's autobiography, Spycatcher.

1987 Britain ended arms sales to Iran.

1996 London police raided several suspected IRA hideouts across the city, seizing around 10 tons of homemade explosives and killing one suspected IRA member.

2000 British rower Steve Redgrave won his fifth consecutive gold medal at the Sydney Olympic Games, a feat surpassed only by Sir Chris Hoy at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Redgrave is the third most decorated British Olympian with six medals, after the seven of Hoy and the seven of cyclist Bradley Wiggins.

Famous Birthday's

Augustus Caesar
(63 BC - 14)

Typhoid Mary
(1869 - 1938)

Aldo Moro
(1916 - 1978)

Famous Deaths

Sigmund Freud
(1856 - 1939)

Pablo Neruda
(1904 - 1973)

Famous Weddings

1666 Princess Maria of Orange-Nassau marries Mauritius earl of Simmeren

1862 Russian novelist and author of "War and Peace" Leo Tolstoy (34) marries Sophia Andreevna Behrs (18) daughter of a physician

1933 Gangster Sam Giancana (25) weds Angeline De Tolve

1989 Tennis Ace Zina Garrison (25) weds businessman Willard Jackson (25) at the Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston

1996 Actor-comedian Jim Carrey (35) weds "Dumb and Dumber" actress Lauren Holly (33) in Malibu

Famous Divorces

1915 Film producer Samuel Goldwyn (33) divorces first wife Blanche Lasky after 5 years of marriage

2011 Actress Lisa Linde (39) divorces "Xmen" actor James Marsden (38) due to irreconcilable differences after 11 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

24 SEPTEMBER

1180 Manuel I Komnenos, last Emperor of the Komnenian restoration dies. The Byzantine Empire slips into terminal decline.

1564 The birth, in Gillingham, of William Adams, the English navigator who travelled to Japan and is believed to be the first Englishman ever to reach the country. Adams was the inspiration for the character of John Blackthorne in James Clavell's best selling novel Shōgun.

1645 The Battle of Rowton Heath took place some 2 miles to the south-east of Chester. The Parliamentarian victory over a Royalist army, commanded in person by King Charles, prevented Charles from relieving the Siege of Chester. It is alleged that King Charles stood on Phoenix Tower in Chester and saw his army defeated in battle.

1776 The oldest of the British classic horse races, the St Leger, was run for the first time at Doncaster Racecourse.

1789 US Federal Judiciary Act is passed & creates a six-person Supreme Court

1842 Bramwell Bronte, brother of the Bronte sisters, died of drugs and drink. He was the model for the drunkard Hindley Earnshaw in Wuthering Weights.

1853 Liverpools' Northern Daily Times became England's first provincial daily newspaper.

1869 Black Friday; Wall St panic after Gould & Fisk attempt to corner gold

1877 Battle of Shiroyama, decisive victory of the Imperial Japanese Army over the Satsuma Rebellion

1916 A local policeman rounded up and took into custody the crew of the German Zeppelin LZ-76 that had been forced down near Colchester.

1931 The birth of Anthony Newley, actor, singer and songwriter. He won the 1963 Grammy Award for Song of the Year for 'What Kind of Fool Am I?' He also wrote songs that others made hits including the title song for the James Bond film 'Goldfinger'.

1942 The birth of Gerry Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers. In 1963 he reached the UK No.1 with his record 'You'll Never Walk Alone', now the anthem of Liverpool Football Club. We saw him perform at Great Yarmouth in 2009. Ah ..... nostalgia!

1950 "Operation Magic Carpet" sees all Jews from Yemen move to Israel

1957 President Eisenhower orders US troops to desegregate Little Rock schools

1957 BBC Television for schools began.

1967 The two 'Queens' of the Cunard Line, the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth, passed each other in the Atlantic for the last time.

1971 Over 100 Russian diplomats were expelled from Britain for spying, following revelations made by a Soviet defector.

1975 The world's highest mountain, Mount Everest, was successfully scaled for the first time via its southwest face by British climbers Dougal Haston and Doug Scott.

1976 The Rhodesian Government agreed to introduce black majority rule to the country within two years. Prime Minister Ian Smith was not happy with the conditions.

1991 In Beirut, the British hostage Jackie Mann was freed by the Shi'ite Muslim Revolutionary Justice Organisation after spending more than two years in captivity. He had been kidnapped in May 1989.

1992 David Mellor resigned as heritage minister, blaming his departure on a constant barrage of hostile stories in the tabloid press.

2009 The UK's largest haul of Anglo-Saxon treasure was discovered buried in a field in Staffordshire. Terry Herbert, who found it on farmland using a metal detector, said that it was a metal detectorist's dream. Experts said that the collection of 1,500 gold and silver pieces, which may date to the 7th Century, was unparalleled in size and worth "a seven-figure sum".

2014 Radical preacher Abu Qatada, the subject of a near decade-long battle by the UK government to be deported to the Middle East to face terrorism charges, was acquitted in a Jordanian court.

Famous Birthday's

F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald
(1896 - 1940)

Ayatollah Khomeini
(1902 - 1989)

Phil Hartman
(1948 - 1998)

Famous Deaths

Paracelsus
(1493 - 1541)

Dr. Seuss
(1904 - 1991)

Famous Weddings

1487 Founder of Sikhism Guru Nanak marries Mata Sulakkhani in Batala

1948 American Major League Baseball outfielder Ty Cobb (61) weds Frances Cass (40)

1953 Singer Dick Haymes (35) weds Hollywood actress Rita Hayworth (34) at The Sands hotel-casino in Las Vegas

1964 Actress Jayne Mansfield (31) weds film producer and director Matt Cimber in Mulege, Baja California Sur, Mexico

1993 Beverly Hills 90210 star Shannen Doherty (Brenda) weds Ashley Hamilton

[Altobelli]

25 SEPTEMBER

1066 England's King Harold II defeated the King of Norway (Harald Hardrada), at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire. After a horrific battle, Hardrada and most of the Norwegians were killed. Although Harold repelled the Norwegian invaders, his victory was short-lived and he was defeated and killed by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings less than three weeks later.

1513 Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crosses the Panama Isthmus becoming first European to see the Pacific Ocean

1687 Sir Isaac Newton published his theories on gravitation. Newton was born at Woolsthorpe Manor near Grantham and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

1789 US Congress proposes the Bill of Rights

1818 The first blood transfusion using human blood took place at Guy's Hospital in London.

1852 Birth of Field Marshal Sir John French. From 1914-15 he was the supreme commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France; after that, of the Home Forces.

1885 It snowed in London - the earliest recorded winter fall despite reports that on 12th June 1791 snow was sighted over the capital.

1897 The start of Britain’s first motorized (as opposed to horse-drawn) bus service, in Bradford.

1906 Leonardo Torres Quevedo successfully demonstrates the Telekino at Bilbao before a great crowd, guiding a boat from the shore, considered the birth of the remote control

1929 Comedian Ronnie Barker was born. TV programmes included - Porridge, Open all Hours and The Two Ronnies.

1944 World War II: Surviving elements of the British 1st Airborne Division withdrew from Arnhem in the Netherlands, thus ending the Battle of Arnhem and Operation Market Garden. It was the largest airborne operation up to that time.

1956 A Transatlantic telephone service was inaugurated. It consisted of 4,500 miles of cable, laid in waters up to 2.5 miles deep between Gallanach Bay, near Oban and Clarenville, Newfoundland and initially carried 36 telephone channels.

1967 Britain, France and West Germany signed an agreement to co-operate on an 'airbus' airliner, intended to rival American production.

1977 In Britain, independent airline owner Freddie Laker took on the main commercial airlines with his first 'Skytrain' service between London and New York.

1983 Thirty eight republican prisoners, armed with 6 handguns, hijacked a prison meals' lorry and smashed their way out of the Maze prison in County Down, Northern Ireland, considered one of the most escape-proof prisons in Europe. The escape was the biggest in British history, and the biggest in Europe since World War II when 76 Allied POW's managed to escape from German Stalag Luft III.

1996 The last of the 'Magdalene Asylums' closed in Waterford, Ireland. The asylums, for 'fallen women' and others believed to be of poor moral character, such as prostitutes, operated for much of the 19th and well into the 20th century.

1997 The British Thrust SCC car, driven by RAF pilot Andy Green, set a new world record land speed record of 714.44 mph at Black Rock Desert in Nevada. On October 15th in the same year, Thrust SSC became the first land vehicle to exceed the speed of sound when it achieved 763 mph (Mach 1.020), also at Black Rock Desert, Nevada. Thrust SSC remains the world’s first and only supersonic car.

2010 Ed Miliband won the Labour leadership after narrowly beating brother David in a dramatic run-off vote ahead of the party's conference.

2012 In what was claimed to be a world first, the Tullibardine whisky distillery in Perthshire signed a deal to turn by-products from their distillery into butanol to power cars.

Famous Birthday's

Ethel Rosenberg
(1915 - 1953)

Christopher Reeve
(1952 - 2004)

Will Smith
49th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Coco the Clown
(1900 - 1974)

Mary Astor
(1906 - 1987)

Arnold Palmer
(1929 - 2016)

Famous Weddings

1845 Confederate army Nathan Bedford Forrest (24) weds Presbyterian minister's daughter Mary Ann Montgomery (18) in Hernando, Mississippi

1873 Frontiersman and gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok supposedly marries Calamity Jane according to the later's daughter (disputed)

1889 Prime Minister of Canada Robert Borden (34) weds Laura Bond

1926 Outlaw Bonnie Parker (15) weds Roy Thornton

1940 "Sullivan's Travels" actress Veronica Lake (18) weds American motion picture art director and set designer John S. Detlie (31)