On This Day

[Altobelli]

15 NOVEMBER

1492 Christopher Columbus notes 1st recorded reference to tobacco

1577 English explorer and navigator Sir Francis Drake began his voyage to sail around the world.

1688 The Glorious Revolution began when William of Orange landed at Brixham to overthrow King James II of England (James VII of Scotland and James II of Ireland).

1708 William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham and British Prime Minister, was born. The Burton Pynsent monument. at Curry Rivel, Somerset was designed by Capability Brown and erected by Pitt as a monument to Sir William Pynsent. Pysent left his entire estate to Pitt in gratitude for Pitt opposing a ten shilling tax on a hogshead of cider which would have affected Pysent's business.

1837 Isaac Pitman introduces his shorthand system

1859 The first modern revival of the Olympic Games takes place in Athens, Greece

1884 European Colonization and trade in Africa is officially regulated at the international Berlin Conference, formalizing European powers "Scramble for Africa"

1897 The birth of Aneurin Bevan, often known as Nye Bevan, Welsh Labour Party politician who was the Minister for Health in the post-war Attlee government. He spearheaded the establishment of the National Health Service, to provide medical care free at point-of-need to all Britons.

1899 The SS St. Paul became the first ship to receive radio messages, transmitted from the Needles wireless station off the Isle of Wight.

1899 Winston Churchill was captured by the Boers while covering the war as a reporter for the Morning Post. He escaped a few weeks later.

1904 King C. Gillette patents the Gillette razor blade

1922 Children's Hour was first broadcast on the radio. It established a tradition of drama and story-telling and built up a devoted audience of over three million at its peak.

1926 The NBC radio network opens with 24 stations

1928 The RNLI Lifeboat Mary Stanford capsized in Rye Harbour with the loss of the entire 17 man crew, practically the whole male fishing population of the small town of Rye.

1932 The birth of Petula Clark, singer, actress, and composer which a career spanning seven decades.

1939 In Washington, D.C., US President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial


1942 World War II: The first flight of the German Heinkel He 219 took place. Had it been available in quantity, it might have had a significant effect upon the strategic night bombing offensive of the Royal Air Force. Only 294 of all models were built by the end of the war and they saw only limited service.

1948 Mackenzie King retires after 22 years as Prime Minister of Canada

1949 Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte are executed for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi

1968 The liner Queen Elizabeth completed her final passenger voyage when she landed at Southampton. She was sold to a US group who planned to moor her in Florida as a tourist attraction. She was replaced by the new liner the QE2.

1969 ATV (Midland) screened the first colour TV commercial in Britain; for Birds Eye Peas. It cost £23 for the off peak 30 second slot.

1969 An estimated 2 million people take part in the Vietnam War Moratorium demonstration across the United States

1969 Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea

1971 Intel releases the world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004

1977 The birth of Peter Phillips, son of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips.

1985 Britain and the Republic of Ireland signed a deal giving Dublin a role in Northern Ireland for the first time in more than 60 years. Unionists accused Mrs. Thatcher of treachery.

1991 In the wake of increased sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, Britain called up 1,400 reserve troops for full-time active duty.

1994 The launch of Britain's first Internet newspaper, The Electronic Telegraph.

1998 Britain and America called back their fighter planes after Iraq agreed to allow UN weapons inspectors back into the country.

2002 Moors murderer Myra Hindley, the woman who came to personify evil , died in prison, aged 60.

2014 Pensioner Kelvin Sibthorpe got his hopes up when he discovered he'd been the victim of pension mis-selling, which meant he could be entitled to a 'windfall'. The windfall entitled him to only an extra 18p a month in pension payments. It would consist of seven years of back payments, coming to a grand total of £10.08.

Famous Birthday's

William Pitt the Elder
(1708 - 1778)

William Herschel
(1738 - 1822)

Gerhart Hauptmann
(1862 - 1946)

Erwin Rommel
(1891 - 1944)

Edward Asner
88th Birthday

Petula Clark
85th Birthday

Alexander O'Neal
64th Birthday

Gustavo Poyet
50th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Justinian I
( - 565)

Johannes Kepler
(1571 - 1630)

Lionel Barrymore
(1878 - 1954)

Myra Hindley
(1942 - 2002)

Cynthia Payne
(1932 - 2015)

Famous Weddings

1986 Golfer Byron Nelson (74) weds advertising copy writer Peggy Simmons (42)

1997 TV host and actor William Shatner (66) weds former Ford model Nerine Kidd (38) in Pasadena, California

2005 Emperor Akihito's daughter Princess Sayako (36) weds Yoshiki Kuroda (40) at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan

Famous Divorces

2010 "Single White Female" actress Jennifer Jason Leigh (48) divorces writer Noah Baumbach (41) due to irreconcilable differences after 5 years of marriage

[chalky_ncfc]

Someone still living in the 19th Century Chalky, when the coffers are full and its not your money it will always be wasted especially by Government, Who the hell rakes leaves nowadays ?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30055912

They have employed contractors to look after the trees and gardens,presumably its a contract for a couple of years or more it just seems like whoever is in charge is just being a complete pain in the arse,145 trees to pick the leaves off is going to take ages,just let them drop like they have for millions of years ffs

[Altobelli]

16 NOVEMBER

534 Second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus published

1272 Whilst travelling during the Ninth Crusade, Prince Edward became King of England upon the death of Henry III, but he would not return to England for almost two years to assume the throne.

1532 Francisco Pizarro captures Inca Emperor Atahualpa after a surprise ambush at Cajamarca

1724 Jack Sheppard, Stepney born highwayman, was hanged at Tyburn in front of 200,000 spectators.

1776 British troops capture Fort Washington during American Revolution

1811 John Bright son of a Quaker cotton spinner, was born in Rochdale, Lancashire. He was an MP for Durham, Birmingham and Manchester and as a Quaker and pacifist he was opposed to slavery and to the Crimean War. He campaigned to abolish the Corn Laws (1846) and was also a campaigner for free trade. The John Bright Group employed thousands of Rochdale people in the textile industry for more than 180 years.

1822 American Old West: Missouri trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail.

1848 Frédéric Chopin gave his last public performance at London’s Guildhall. He played on, despite illness and an uninterested audience who spent most of the evening in the refreshment areas.

1849 A Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoyevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his sentence is later commuted to hard labor

1857 Twenty four Victoria Crosses were awarded in the Second Relief of Lucknow (British India). It was the most awarded in a single day.

1896 Birth of Oswald Mosley, English politician who was successively a Conservative and Labour Member of Parliament before forming the British Union of Fascists. Provocative marches through the Jewish East End of London prior to the Second World War led to major confrontations. He was interned during the war and later lived in exile in France.

1904 English engineer John Ambrose Fleming received a patent for the thermionic valve (vacuum tube). It drove the expansion and commercialisation of radio broadcasting, television, radar, sound recording, large telephone networks, and analogue and digital computers until the invention of the transistor.

1907 Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania, sister ship of RMS Lusitania, set sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York City.

1914 The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens

1920 Qantas, Australia's national airline, is founded as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited

1928 In London, obscenity charges were brought against Radclyffe Hall for her crusading lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness.

1934 The death of Alice Hargreaves (nee Liddell) who inspired Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. She was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and her ashes were buried in the graveyard of the church of St Michael and All Angels Lyndhurst and the plaque

1938 Willie Hall of Tottenham Hotspurs scored five goals for England against Ireland with his three goals in 3 minutes, setting a record for the fastest ever in an international match.

1938 LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) is first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland

1940 New York City's "Mad Bomber" George Metesky places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison

1940 World War II: In response to the heavy bombing of Coventry two days previously, the Royal Air Force bombed Hamburg. Much of Coventry was destroyed, including the Cathedral.

1940 Holocaust: In occupied Poland, the Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world

1942 The jockey Willie Carson was born, in Stirling. He was British Champion Jockey five times (in 1972, 1973, 1978, 1980 and 1983) and had a total of 3,828 wins, making him the fourth most successful jockey in Great Britain.

1945 Founding of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)

1948 Operation Magic Carpet - 1st plane from Yemen carrying Jews to Israel

1960 The TV personality with a reputation for outspokenness, Gilbert Harding, died as he left the BBC's Broadcasting House in London.

1961 Frank Bruno, British boxer, was born.

1973 U.S. President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline

1976 Seven men who took part in an £8m bank robbery raid at the Bank of America in Mayfair, London, received jail terms totalling nearly 100 years. Only £1/2m was recovered. The judge said the sentence ensured that the thieves would not enjoy the fruits of their haul.

1982 Space Shuttle Columbia completes its 1st operational flight

1983 More than 20 English football supporters were arrested in Luxembourg after a night of violence.

1995 The Queen Mother, aged 95, had her right hip replaced in an operation in London.

2010 Clarence House announced that Prince William (second in line to the throne) would marry long-term girlfriend Kate Middleton in 2011.

2014 A couple who had been married for 65 years died moments apart. Harry Stevenson (88) died just minutes after care home staff informed him of the death of wife, Mavis (89), at the Derby care home.

Famous Birthday's

W. C. Handy
(1873 - 1958)



Burgess Meredith
(1907 - 1997)

Joel H. Hildebrand
(1881 - 1983)

Frank Bruno
56th Birthday

Willie Carson
74th Birthday

Griff Rhys Jones
63rd Birthday

Waqar Younis
45th Birthday

Paul Scholes
42nd Birthday



Jacob Joseph Worton, twin actor (Baby's Day Out), born in Newark, Delaware
24th Birthday


Adam Robert Worton, twin actor (Baby's Day Out), born in Newark, Delaware
24th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Henry III, King of England
(1207 - 1272)

Jack Sheppard, English robber, hanged
(1702 - 1724)

Louis Riel, hanged
(1844 - 1885)

Doris Speed
(1899 - 1994)

Arthur Askey
(1900 - 1982)

Reg Varney
(1916 - 2008)

Edward Woodward
(1930 - 2009

Clark Gable
(1901 - 1960)

Cluny MacPherson
(1879 - 1966)

Famous Weddings

1683 Hendrik Casimir II of Nassau-Dietz marries Henriette Amalia

1754 British PM William Pitt the Elder (46) weds Lady Hester Grenville (34) in Argyle Street, London

1933 Ramon Magsaysay, latter President of the Philippines (26) weds Luz Banzon (18) at Lourdes church in Manila

1981 Luke marries Laura on TV soap "General Hospital" (16 million watch)

1987 Actress Lisa Bonet marries singer Lenny Kravitz

Famous Divorces

1973 Sci-fi author Isaac Asimov (53) divorces Gertrude Blugerman after 31 years of marriage

1993 James Carrey files for divorce from Melissa

2010 Singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne (25) divorces "Sum 41" lead singer and guitarist Deryck Whibley (29) due to irreconcilable differences after 3 years of marriage

2011 Second season American Idol winner Rubben Studdard (33) divorces Surata Zuri McCants due to irreconcilable differences after 3 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

17 NOVEMBER

1292 John Balliol became King of Scotland. He was stripped of all his powers by Edward I, thus earning himself the Scottish nickname 'Toom Tabard'. Toom means empty, so it was likening Balliol to an empty suit.

1558 The Elizabethan era began when Mary I, England's first queen (also known as 'Bloody Mary'), died at St James's Palace London. She was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I.

1603 The trial of Sir Walter Raleigh began. Falsely accused of treason, he had been offered a large sum of money by Lord Cobham, a critic of England’s King James I, to make peace with the Spanish and put Arabella Stuart, James’s cousin, on the throne. Raleigh claimed he turned down the offer, but Lord Cobham told his accusers that Raleigh was involved in the plot.

1800 Congress holds its 1st session in Washington D.C. in an incomplete Capitol Building

1810 Sweden declared war on its ally Britain during the Napoleonic Wars to begin the Anglo-Swedish War, although no fighting ever took place! The declaration of war was the result of an ultimatum by France to the Swedish government that France and its allies would declare war against Sweden if Sweden did not meet the French demands to declare war on Britain, confiscate all British ships and seize all British products. The war existed only on paper, and Britain was still officially allowed to station ships in the Swedish port of Hanö and trade with the Baltic nations.

1831 Ecuador and Venezuela separated from Greater Colombia

1855 David Livingstone became the first European to see the Victoria Falls in what is now present day Zambia-Zimbabwe. Livingstone was born at Blantyre on the outskirts of Glasgow, where there is also a statue to him -

1869 England’s James Moore won the first cycle road race, an 83 miles race from Paris to Rouen.

1869 In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated

1871 The National Rifle Association is granted a charter by the state of New York

1880 The first three women to graduate in Britain received their Bachelor of Arts degrees at London University.

1882 The Royal Astronomer witnessed an unidentified flying object from the Greenwich Observatory. He described it as a circular object, glowing bright green.

1887 The birth of Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, English soldier who was a painstaking planner, which contributed to his most successful battle in North Africa when he broke through Rommel’s lines during the Second World War.

1919 King George V proclaimed Armistice Day, later to be known as Remembrance Day.

1922 Britain elected its first Communist Member of Parliament, J T Walton-Newbold standing for Motherwell, Scotland. He eventually joined the Labour Party.

1922 The last sultan of the Ottoman Empire Mehmed VI is expelled to Malta on British warship

1955 Anglesey became the first authority in Britain to introduce fluoride into the water supply.

1959 Two Scottish airports, Prestwick and Renfrew, became the first to offer duty free goods in Britain. Heathrow followed soon after.

1962 President John F. Kennedy dedicates Washington Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C., region

1964 Britain said that it was banning all arms exports to South Africa.

1969 Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the US meet in Helsinki, Finland to begin SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides

1970 Stephanie Rahn became the Sun newspaper's first 'Page Three Girl'.

1970 Douglas Engelbart receives the patent for the first computer mouse

1973 Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, U.S. President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors "I am not a crook."

1982 Duk Koo Kim dies from injuries sustained during a 14-round match against Ray Mancini in Las Vegas, prompting reforms in the sport of boxing

2014 The family of murdered schoolgirl April Jones (aged 5) watched the demolition of the house owned by her killer Mark Bridger. The rented home was bought by the Welsh government in August and is where Bridger is believed to have killed and dismembered April after snatching her outside her parents’ home in Machynlleth, mid Wales, on 1st October 2012. Detectives believe that Bridger dismembered her body at the cottage and disposed of her remains at numerous locations around the countryside. At the time of her disappearance, ribbons were tied to the railings around the town's clock tower, on shop doors and pinned to trees.

2014 Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister, gave his final press conference and parliamentary speech before handing over to Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first female First Minister.

2014 According to Dutch scientists, a single 10-second kiss can transfer as many as 80 million bacteria. The research was published in the journal Microbiome.

2014 The Anglican General Synod formally enacted legislation allowing women to be nominated and appointed as bishops. The first woman bishop - the Rt. Rev. Libby Lane, was consecrated Bishop of Stockport in a ceremony at York Minster 10 weeks later, on 26th January 2015.

Famous Birthday's

Louis XVIII
(1755 - 1824)



Bernard Montgomery
(1887 - 1976)

Peter Cook
(1937 - 1995)

Martin Scorsese
75th Birthday


Gordon Lightfoot
79th Birthday

Danny DeVito
73rd Birthday

Rod Clements
70th Birthday

Terry Fenwick
58th Birthday

Jonathan Ross
57th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Thomas Pelham-Holles
(1693 - 1768)



Catherine the Great
(1729 - 1796)

Auguste Rodin
(1840 - 1917)

Calico Jack, English pirate
(1682 - 1720)

Dick Lilley
(1866 - 1929)

Jimmy Ruffin
(1936 - 2014)

Famous Weddings

1749 Founding Father of the United States Roger Sherman (28) weds first wife Elizabeth Hartwell in Massachusetts

1934 Lyndon B. Johnson marries Claudia Alta Taylor

1950 Writer Jack Kerouac (28) weds Joan Haverty

1978 Gerald Lascelles, British aristocrat and son of Princess Mary weds 2nd wife Elizabeth Collingwood in Vienna

2003 Singer Blake Shelton (27) weds Kaynette Williams in Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Famous Divorces

1995 Retired MLB player Johnny Bench (47) divorces Laura Cwikowski after nearly 8 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

18 NOVEMBER

1307 William Tell shoots an apple off his son's head

1477 Caxton’s book, the Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, was published. It was the first printed book in England bearing a date.

1626 St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated, replacing earlier basilica, world's largest Christian basilica

1836 Sir W.S. Gilbert, who collaborated with Sir Arthur Sullivan to produce light operas, was born.

1852 The state funeral of the Duke of Wellington took place at St Paul’s Cathedral. It was one of the biggest ever held in London. Known as the Iron Duke, he was Tory Prime Minister from 1828-30. His hereditary title was derived from the Somerset town of Wellington and was created for Arthur Wellesley, 1st Marquess of Wellington. The Wellington Monument is located on the highest point of the Blackdown Hills, 1.9 miles from the town of Wellington.

1883 American and Canadian railroads institute five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times

1902 Brooklyn toymaker Morris Michton names the teddy bear after US President Teddy Roosevelt

1906 Birth of Sir Alec Issigonis, born in Turkey of a Bavarian mother and a Greek father. He came to Britain in 1922 and made his way slowly in the motor industry, designing the Morris Minor in 1948, the first British car to sell more than a million. In 1959 he had his greatest triumph when he unveiled the Mini Minor which ten years later became the first British car to sell over two million.

1910 More than 100 were arrested by police when suffragettes tried to storm the House of Commons at Westminster, London.

1916 General Douglas Haig called off the first Battle of the Somme in Europe after five months of futile battle, which included the first use of tanks. The Allied advance of just 125 square miles claimed 420,000 British and 195,000 French casualties. German losses were over 650,000.

1926 George Bernard Shaw refused to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, 'I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.' The Nobel prize is awarded annually for outstanding contributions in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physiology or Medicine, and Economic Sciences.

1928 Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon. This is considered by the Disney corporation to be Mickey Mouse's birthday

1943 440 Royal Air Force planes bombed Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF lost nine aircraft and 53 air crew.

1963 The first push-button telephone goes into service

1967 A ban on the movement of farm animals across the whole of England and Wales came into effect at midnight, in a bid to curb the spread of foot and mouth disease.

1978 In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple to a mass murder–suicide that claimed 918 lives, including over 270 children

1983 The world's first all-girl ***tuplets were born, to Mrs. Janet Walton at Liverpool Maternity Hospital. They were named Hannah, Lucy, Ruth, Sarah, Kate and Jenny.

1987 The worst fire in the history of the London Underground killed 30 people. The blaze began in the machinery below a wooden escalator in King’s Cross Underground station and soon filled the tunnels with dense, choking smoke and intense heat.

1988 War on Drugs: U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill into law allowing the death penalty for drug traffickers

1991 Church envoy Terry Waite was freed by the Islamic extremists who kidnapped him in Beirut in 1987.

1993 Black & white leaders in South Africa approve new democratic constitution

1993 In the United States, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is approved by the House of Representatives

2002 United Nations weapons inspectors arrived in Iraq. It had been alleged that Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction but no evidence was ever found. Nevertheless, on 20th March 2003, an alliance of primarily U.S. and British forces invaded Iraq with the authority of President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

2003 The Local Government Act 2003, repealing the controversial anti-gay amendment Section 28, became effective. Section 28 stated that a local authority 'shall not intentionally promote homo***uality or publish material with the intention of promoting homo***uality' or 'promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homo***uality as a pretended family relationship.'

2014 Benjy, a bull branded gay, was saved by charity donations, including £5,000 from Sam Simon, the co-creator of the Simpsons. Benjy, from County Mayo, Ireland, had been destined for the abattoir after showing more interest in breeding with other bulls than cows.

2014 Tony and Jan Jenkinson were 'fined' £100 by the Broadway Hotel in Blackpool after they wrote a damning review about it on TripAdvisor. After their stay, the couple found that their credit card had been debited, as the hotel had a 'no bad review policy' included in its terms and conditions. The money was later refunded and the policy changed.

2014 Sara Payne, the mother of murdered schoolgirl Sarah Payne (murdered in 2000 by Roy Whiting ) shut her social network account after she had endured "over 10 years of online unrelenting stalking and harassment". Sara's husband Michael Payne, who had fought a battle with alcohol since the murder of his eight-year-old daughter, died in October 2014, aged just 45.

Famous Birthday's

Louis-Jacques Daguerre
(1787 - 1851)


Sojourner Truth
(1787 - 1883)



William Schwenck Gilbert.. (Gilbert & Sullivan)
(1836 - 1911)

Carrie White.. (oldest US woman )
(1874 - 1990)

Hank Ballard
(1927 - 2003)

Owen Wilson
49th Birthday

Mickey Mouse
89th Birthday



Linda Evans
75th Birthday

Kim Wilde
57th Birthday

Peter Schmeichel
54th Birthday

Luke Chadwick
37th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Chester A. Arthur
(1829 - 1886)

Niels Bohr
(1885 - 1962)

James Coburn
(1928 - 2002)

Chester A. Arthur
(1829 - 1886)

Jim Jones
(1931 - 1978)

Jonah Lomu
(1975 - 2015)

Famous Weddings

1794 2nd Earl Grey Charles Grey (30) weds only daughter of 1st Baron Ponsonby Mary Elizabeth Ponsonby

1948 KFC founder Colonel Sanders (58) weds his long-time employee Claudia Price

1952 "Rock Around The Clock" rock and roll pioneer Bill Haley (27) weds Barbara Cupchak

1962 Singer Barry White (18) weds childhood sweetheart Betty Smith

1966 MLB baseball player Hank Greenberg (55) weds actress Mary Jo Tarola

[Altobelli]

19 NOVEMBER

1530 The Recess document resulting from the Diet of Augsburg signed by Charles V and catholic princes

1600 The birth of Charles I, King of England and Scotland who believed that the king ruled by Divine Right, until his action in dissolving Parliament led to the civil war with Cromwell and his eventual execution.

1620 The ship Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod, America. Its 87 passengers were a Protestant sect, known as The Pilgrim Fathers. (Note:- The Pilgrim Fathers were thwarted in their first attempt to sail to America when they left from Havenside, near Boston, Lincolnshire in September 1607.

1805 Lewis & Clark expedition reaches the Pacific Ocean, first European Americans to cross the west

1850 Lord Tennyson became Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland. This statue of Tennyson with his Siberian wolfhound Karenina is on Cathedral Green in Lincoln, the county of his birth.

1863 US President Abraham Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg address beginning; "Four score & seven years ago..."

1895 American inventor Frederick E Blaisdell patents the pencil

1905 The SS Hilda, a steamship owned by the London and South Western Railway sank, with the loss of 125 lives when she struck ground at the entrance to Saint-Malo harbour.

1911 Doom Bar (previously known as Dunbar sands or Dune-bar) in Cornwall claimed two ships in a single day, Island Maid and Angele, the latter killing the entire crew, except the captain. There have been over 600 beachings, wrecks and capsizings at Doom Bar since records began early in the 19th century, with about 300 ships being wrecked.

1916 Samuel Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn Pictures

1924 The birth of the actor William Russell. His big break was the title role in The Adventures of Sir Lancelot on ITV in 1956. The series was sold to American NBC network and became the first UK television series to be shot in colour.

1933 The marriage of Kathleen Ferrier, English contralto singer who achieved an international reputation as a stage, concert and recording artist. Considered by many as the greatest contralto singer ever, she married Albert Wilson and shortly afterwards the couple moved to Silloth in Cumbria. Mrs. Wilson's Coffee House & Eaterie in Silloth celebrates her life, features historic photographs and is decorated as it would have been at the time.

1942 Operation Uranus: Soviet offensive begins during Battle of Stalingrad, 1 million Soviet soldiers encircle the German Sixth Army

1947 George VI created Philip Mountbatten the Duke of Edinburgh in preparation for his wedding to George's elder daughter, Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II), the following day.

1949 Dennis Taylor, Irish snooker player, was born.

1951 The white football became official.

1959 The Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel

1960 The first VTOL (vertical take off and landing) aircraft P.1127, made by the British Hawker Siddeley Company was flown, untethered, for the first time. It's first conventional flight, (i.e. a horizontal take off) was on 13th March 1961.

1967 The Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, stood by his decision to devalue the pound saying it would tackle the 'root cause' of Britain's economic problems. The Bank of England spent £200m in a single day trying to shore up the pound from its gold and dollar reserves.

1969 Association football player Pelé scores his 1,000th goal

1969 Apollo 12's Charles Conrad & Alan Bean become 3rd & 4th humans on the Moon

1976 The death of Sir Basil Spence, the Scottish architect, most notably associated with designing Coventry Cathedral.

1985 US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for first time

1985 Pennzoil wins a US$10.53 billion judgment against Texaco, in the largest civil verdict in the history of the United States

1987 A 1931 Bugatti Royale was sold for £5.5 million at an auction at the Royal Albert Hall, a record at that time for a car.

1990 Pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the Girl You Know It's True album

1994 Britain's first National Lottery draw. It had a jackpot of £7M and was shown live on BBC television. A £1 ticket gave a one in 14-million chance of correctly guessing the winning six out of 49 numbers.

1996 A fire broke out in the Channel Tunnel, injuring 34 people and disrupting rail services.

1997 McCaughey septuplets born to Bobbi McCaughey in Des Moines, Iowa. First set of septuplets to survive infancy

1997 Police confiscated indecent videos and pictures of children in a series of raids on the homes and offices of British pop star Gary Glitter. Exactly six years later, American pop star Michael Jackson was arrested in California on charges of child molestation.

1998 Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of the Artist Without Beard sells at auction for US$71.5 million

2009 Floods in Cumbria brought devastation to towns such as Cockermouth. In just 24-hours the total rainfall at Seathwaite was 31.44cm (12.4 inches); a UK record for a single location in any given 24-hour period. William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, on Main Street and his house was one of many historic houses in the region to be affected by the floods.

2012 Two snap bags of the class A drug cocaine were identified by the police officer father of children who had been trick-or-treating in the Royton area of Oldham. Magistrates heard that Donald Junior Green, 23, was mortified by his 'terrible mistake'.He was given a 12-month community order and 130 hours community work.

2012 Father Christmas was left dangling from the ceiling for 30 minutes after his beard became trapped while abseiling inside a Reading shopping centre as part of a Christmas lights switch-on show.

Famous Birthday's

Charles I
(1600 - 1649)

James Garfield
(1831 - 1881)



Indira Gandhi
(1917 - 1984)

Ray Collins (Mothers of Invention)
(1937 - 2012)

Ted Turner (Founder of CNN)
79th Birthday


Calvin Klein
75th Birthday

Dennis Taylor
68th Birthday



Meg Ryan
56th Birthday

Jodie Foster
55th Birthday

Chris Eagles
32nd Birthday

Famous Deaths

Man in the Iron Mask
(c. 1640 - 1703)


Franz Schubert
(1797 - 1828)

Emma Lazarus
(1849 - 1887)

Joe Hill (Labor leader/songwriter, executed for murder)
(1879 - 1915)

Tom Evans (English bass guitarist Badfinger)
(1947 - 1983)

Durlyn Eddmonds (murderer, executed at 45)
(1952 - 1997)

Walter Stewart (murderer, executed at 42)
(1956 - 1997)

Famous Weddings

1834 US President Franklin Pierce (30) weds Jane Pierce (28) in Amherst, New Hampshire

1923 Architect Frank Lloyd Wright (56) weds artist Maude Noel

1939 Baseball legend Joe DiMaggio (24) weds "Freshies" actress Dorothy Arnold at St. Peter and Paul Church in San Francisco

1954 Actress Vera-Ellen (33) weds millionaire Victor Rothschild at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Los Angeles

1986 Hall of Famer boxing champ Muhammad Ali (44) weds Yolanda Williams

Famous Divorces

2004 Singer Jermaine Jackson (49) divorces Alejandra Genevieve Oaziaza (35) after 9 years of marriage

Number 1 Single and Album 50 years ago.

Single: Massachusetts - Bee Gees

Album: THE SOUND OF MUSIC - ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK

[Altobelli]

20 NOVEMBER

284 Roman soldier Diocletian proclaimed Emperor by the army

762 Bögü, Khan of the Uyghurs, conquers Lo-Yang, capital of the Chinese Empire

868 St. Edmund, Saxon king of East Anglia, was martyred by the Vikings, who tied him to a tree, shot at him with arrows, then beheaded him. He gave his name to the town Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk.

1620 The birth of Peregrine White a child of William and Susanna White, Mayflower passengers. He was the first English child born in the Plymouth Colony at Cape Cod Harbour.

1695 Zumbi last leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil and ex-slave, is executed

1759 The British fleet, under Admiral Hawke, defeated the French at the Battle of Quiberon Bay, thwarting an invasion of England.

1787 Birth of Sir Samuel Cunard, a ship owner born in Nova Scotia who came to Britain in 1838 and, together with two partners, established what became the Cunard Line in 1839. Their first ship, the Britannia, set sail the following year taking 14 days and 8 hours to cross the Atlantic.

1805 Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio premieres in Vienna

1815 The Treaty of Paris was signed, following the defeat and second abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte's defeat at Waterloo in June 1815 ended his rule as Emperor of the French and marked the end of his Hundred Days return from exile on the island of Elba.

1820 An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Es*** 2,000 miles from the coast of South America. (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick is in part inspired by this story.)

1906 Charles Stewart Rolls and Frederick Henry Royce formed Rolls-Royce. In 1931, the company bought up Bentley Motors.

1908 Birth of Alistair Cooke, British-born US-based broadcaster and journalist who began his famous commentaries, Letters from America, in 1938.

1917 First successful tank use in battle (Britain breaks through German lines) at Battle of Cambrai WWI

1944 World War II: The end of the 'blackout' in London. After five years in the dark, the lights were switched back on in Piccadilly Circus, the Strand and in Fleet Street.

1945 Nuremberg trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg

1947 Princess Elizabeth (Queen Elizabeth II) married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten (Duke of Edinburgh) at Westminster Abbey. The BBC made the first tele-recording of the event, which was broadcast in the US 32 hours later.

1951 Snowdonia in Wales was designated a National Park. It was the third area to be designated 'National Park', the first being the Peak District

1962 In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation

1969 Occupation of Alcatraz: Native American activists seize control of Alcatraz Island until being ousted by the U.S. Government on June 11, 1971

1969 Brazilian soccer icon Pele scores his 1,000th goal

1969 Vietnam War: The Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam

1970 The ten-shilling note (50p) was officially withdrawn by the Bank of England.

1974 The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T Corporation. This suit later leads to the breakup of AT&T and its Bell System

1977 Egyptian President Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets Israeli Prime Minister Begin and speaks before the Knesset

1979 Anthony Blunt, the Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, was stripped of his knighthood after admitting to being a spy for Russia, thereby exposed as the Fourth Man in the Burgess, Maclean and Philby spy scandal.

1984 McDonald's makes its 50 billionth hamburger

1885 Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released

1986 World Health Organization announces first global effort to combat AIDS

1990 Margaret Thatcher failed by four votes, to gain outright victory over Michael Heseltine, for leadership of the Conservative Party.

1992 Fire severely damaged the 'Brunswick Tower', at Windsor Castle when a spotlight ignited a curtain. The castle is the largest inhabited castle in the world and one of the official residences of Queen Elizabeth II. The question of how the funds required should be found raised important issues about the financing of the monarchy, and led to Buckingham Palace being opened to the public for the first time to help to pay for the restoration.

2001 President George W. Bush dedicates the United States Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building

2007 Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 went missing. The Child Benefit data on them included the name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25 million people. Chancellor Alistair Darling said there was no evidence the data had gone to criminals - but urged people to monitor bank accounts "for unusual activity".

2012 32 year old Kweku Adoboli, a City trader who lost £1.4bn of Swiss bank UBS's money was jailed for seven years after being found guilty of two counts of fraud.It was Britain's biggest banking fraud and a 'a gamble or two away from destroying Switzerland's largest bank'.

2013 Hull was chosen as the UK's city of culture for 2017, beating off challenges from Dundee, Leicester and Swansea..

2014 Radio 2 presenter Jeremy Vine was stopped on his way to work at the BBC by a police officer holding a speed radar gun. The device showed that he had been cycling at 16mph through Hyde Park, where the limit is 5mph.

2014 The UK's first bus powered entirely by human and food waste went into service between Bristol and Bath. The 40-seat 'Bio-Bus' runs on biomethane gas generated through the treatment of sewage and food waste.

Famous Birthday's

Edwin Hubble
(1889 - 1953)

Robert F. Kennedy
(1925 - 1968)

Duane Allman
(1946 - 1971)

Bo Derek
61st Birthday

Joe Biden
75th Birthday



Veronica Hamel
74th Birthday

Famous Deaths



Tom Horn (American gunfighter and outlaw, hanged to death at 42)
(1860 - 1903)



Leo Tolstoy
(1828 - 1910)

Francisco Franco
(1892 - 1975)

Famous Weddings

1895 Businessman Harvey Firestone (26) weds composer Idabelle Smith (21)

1900 Archaeologist Hiram Bingham (25) weds Tiffany heiress Alfreda Mitchell in Honolulu, Hawaii

1932 Blues musician Muddy Waters (19) weds Mabel Berry

1937 Actor Jackie Coogan (23) weds actress Betty Grable (20) at St. Brendan Catholic Church in Los Angeles

1944 Model agency executive Eileen Ford (22) weds businessman Gerard W. Ford (20) in San Francisco, California

Famous Divorces

2007 Linda Bollea (46) divorces professional wrestler Hulk Hogan (53) after 23 years of marriage

2013 Business magnate Rupert Murdoch (82) divorces Wendi Deng (44) due to irreconcilable differences after 13 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

21 NOVEMBER

164 BC During Maccabbean revolt Judas Maccabaeus recaptures Jersusalem and rededicates the Second Temple, commemorated since as Jewish festival Hanukkah

1620 Mayflower Compact signed by Pilgrims at Cape Cod, [O.S. Nov 11]

1695 The death of Henry Purcell, English composer and organist. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest English composers and no other native-born English composer approached his fame until Edward Elgar.

1791 Colonel Napoléon Bonaparte is promoted to General and appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the French Republic.

1818 Russia's Tsar Alexander I petitions for a Jewish state in Palestine

1837 Thomas Morris of Australia skips rope 22,806 times

1840 Victoria Adelaide Marie Louise, Princess Royal and first child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, was born.

1843 Thomas Hancock patented vulcanized rubber. In 1825 he had produced the first toy balloons in Britain, consisting of a bottle of rubber solution and a condensing syringe.

1871 The first human cannonball, Emilio Onra, is fired

1877 Thomas Edison announces his "talking machine" invention (phonograph), the 1st machine to play and record sound

1905 Albert Einstein's paper, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", is published in Annalen der Physik, revealing the relationship between energy and mass

1906 China prohibits the opium trade

1913 The birth of twins Roy Boulting and John Boulting, known collectively as the Boulting brothers. They were English filmmakers who became known for their popular series of satirical comedies in the 1950s and 1960s.

1916 HMHS Britannic, the largest Olympic-class ocean liner of the White Star Line and sister ship of RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic was sunk, with the loss of 30 lives. There were a total of 1,066 people on board, with 1,036 survivors taken from the water and lifeboats, about two hours after the ship sank at 9:07 am. She was the largest ship lost during the First World War.

1918 At the end of World War I, the German Fleet was surrendered to Britain at its northern naval base at Scapa Flow.

1920 The Irish Republican Army shot and killed 31 people in Dublin in what became known as the country's first 'Bloody Sunday'. The death toll included four**** British informants, four**** Irish civilians and three Irish Republican Army prisoners.

1922 Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia takes the oath of office, becoming the first female United States Senator

1922 Ramsay MacDonald was elected leader of the Labour Party.

1936 The world's first gardening programme, 'In Your Garden, with Mr. Middleton', was broadcast by the BBC.

1945 The United Auto Workers strike 92 General Motors plants in 50 cities to back up worker demands for a 30-percent raise

1953 The British Natural History Museum announced that the 'Piltdown Man' skull, initially believed to be one of the most important fossilized skulls ever found, was a hoax.

1958 Work began on the Forth Road Bridge in Scotland. It was the longest suspension bridge outside the United States and the fourth-largest in the world at the time of its construction. It was awarded Historic Scotland's Category A, listed structure status in 2001.

1959 American DJ Alan Freed, who popularized the term "rock and roll" , is fired from WABC-AM radio for refusing to deny allegations that he'd participated in the payola scandal

1967 The number of animals slaughtered in the latest epidemic of foot and mouth disease reached a record high of 134,000.

1970 General Hafez al-Assad becomes Prime Minister of Syria following military coup

1971 Battle of Garibpur: Indian troops aided by Mukti Bahini (Bengali guerrillas) defeat the Pakistan army

1974 The IRA exploded two bombs in two Birmingham Pubs, killing 19 people and injuring 180 others. The Birmingham Six, as they were called by the media, were sentenced to life in prison for the crime but were subsequently acquitted.

1985 United States Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard is arrested for spying after being caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations

1986 National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary start to shred documents allegedly implicating them in the Iran–Contra affair

1994 Princess Anne left England for a 7 day tour of South Africa and Mozambique. It was the first official visit to South Africa by a member of the Royal Family for 50 years.

2001 UK pop mogul Jonathan King was jailed for seven years for *** attacks on five boys.

2003 An acoustic guitar on which the late Beatle George Harrison learned to play, fetched £276,000 at a London auction.

2012 Bishop Justin Welby called the rejection of women bishops a 'very grim day', as bishops prepared for an emergency meeting on the issue. The ordination of women bishops in the Church of England was passed in the Houses of Bishops and Clergy of the general synod, but failed to gain the required two-thirds majority in the House of Laity.

2014 The Normandy Veterans Association formally disbanded On This Day. At a service in St Margaret's Church, in the grounds of Westminster Abbey, the Rector accepted the National Standard of the Normandy Veterans Association into safe keeping.

2014 The Liberal Democrats registered the worst ever performance in a by-election by a governing party. In Rochester and Strood, the party's candidate, Geoff Juby, received 349 votes, just 0.87% of the total. The seat was won by Mark Reckless from the UK Independence Party (UKIP), giving them their second elected MP at Westminster.

2014 Residents and businesses on the Isles of Scilly were able to receive superfast fibre optic broadband following the completion of an project by BT and Superfast Cornwall to lay fibre on the islands, located 28 miles off the Cornish coast. Fibre has been deployed on all five of the inhabited islands, with undersea cables linking St Mary’s, Tresco and Bryher, and microwave links connecting St Agnes and St Martins.

Famous Birthday's



Voltaire
(1694 - 1778)



henrietta (Hetty) Green, (American financier, Witch of Wall Street)
(1834 - 1916)

Tom Horn
(1860 - 1903)

Stan Musial
(1920 - 2013)

Goldie Hawn
72nd Birthday

Bjork
52nd Birthday

Andy Caddick
49th Birthday

Justin Langer
47th Birthday

Famous Deaths

J. B. M. Hertzog
(1866 - 1942)

Quentin Crisp
(1908 - 1999)

Anne McCaffrey
(1926 - 2011)

Famous Weddings

1982 Singer Joni Mitchell (39) weds bassist Larry Klein in Malibu, California

1983 NY Ranger Ron Greschner marries model Carol Alt

1983 Actor Ed Harris (33) weds actress Amy Madigan (33)

1987 Actress Demi Moore weds actor Bruce Willis at The Little White Chapel in Las Vegas

2013 Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt (34) weds actor Brian Hallisay (34)

[Altobelli]

22 NOVEMBER

1497 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounds Cape of Good Hope on way to first voyage from Europe to reach India

1594 The death of Sir Martin Frobisher, the English seaman who made three voyages to the New World to look for the Northwest Passage. His knighthood was awarded for service in repelling the Spanish Armada in 1588.

1718 Edward Teach, the English pirate who sailed under the name of Blackbeard, was killed in battle off the coast of North Carolina, with a boarding party led by Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard..

1764 History credits James Hargreaves with inventing the first Spinning Jenny, but it had been designed and built years before by an obscure artisan from Leigh called Thomas Highs.

1774 Robert Clive, English soldier often referred to as 'Clive of India', died, possibly from an overdose of opium. It may have been suicide, but suicide was regarded as a sin, and if this had been admitted by his family he would not have been allowed a church burial. As it is, his grave was unmarked and remains so.

1808 Birth of Thomas Cook, the English travel agent. He began his pioneering tour business, Thomas Cook & Son, when he organized the first publicly advertised railway excursion from Leicester to a temperance meeting at Loughborough (11 miles away) on 5th July 1841. This statue of Thomas Cook is outside Leicester Railway Station, on London Road.

1819 The birth, in Nuneaton, of Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot. She was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era.

1869 The clipper Cutty Sark was launched In Dumbarton, Scotland. She was one of the last clippers ever built, and is the only one still surviving today. She is preserved as a museum ship, located near the centre of Greenwich, in south-east London.

1926 Imperial Conference ends, giving autonomy inside British Commonwealth

1935 Flying boat "China Clipper" takes off from Alameda, California, carrying 100,000 pieces of mail on 1st trans-Pacific airmail flight

1943 World War II: Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek met in Cairo, to discuss ways to defeat Japan.

1946 The first Biro ballpoint pen went on sale, invented by Hungarian Laszlo Biro and manufactured by a British company.

1954 The Humane Society of the United States is founded

1955 RCA Records make its best investment paying $35,000 to Sun Records for Elvis Presley's contract

1963 The death of the author Aldous Huxley, best known for his novels including Brave New World.

1963 In Dallas, Texas, US President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. Suspect Lee Harvey Oswald is later captured and charged with the murder of the President

1968 The Beatles release The Beatles (known popularly as The White Album).

1969 Isolation of a single gene announced by scientists at Harvard University

1971 Five ****agers, all from Ainslie Park School in Edinburgh, and their female instructor died in one of Scotland's worst mountaineering accidents.

1977 1st three nodes of the ARPAnet are connected, in what eventually becomes the Internet

1977 The world's first supersonic airliner, Concorde, was given permission to fly into New York's Kennedy Airport following an agreement over noise levels.

1986 Mike Tyson defeats Trevor Berbick to become youngest Heavyweight champion in boxing history

1987 Two Chicago television stations are hijacked by an unknown pirate dressed as Max Headroom

1988 In Palmdale, California, the first prototype B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is revealed

1990 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher withdrew from the Conservative Party leadership election, confirming the end of her premiership that had begun in 1979

1995 Britain's most prolific female serial killer, Rosemary West, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 10 young women and girls.

1995 Toy Story is released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery

1997 Michael Hutchence, the lead singer of Australian rock band INXS and partner of British television star Paula Yates, was found dead in a hotel in Sydney.

2002 In Nigeria, more than 100 people are killed at an attack aimed at the contestants of the Miss World contest

2003 England's rugby team won the World Cup, beating Australia 20-17 in a nail biting final in Sydney.

2005 Angela Merkel becomes the first female Chancellor of Germany

2013 Police arrested 63 year old Paul Flowers, former chairman of the Co-operative Bank, in connection with an ongoing drugs supply investigation that plunged the group into crisis.

Famous Birthday's

Abigail Adams
(1744 - 1818)

Thomas Cook (British founder and CEO of Thomas Cook & Son travel agency Cook Travel Bureau)
(1808 - 1892)

Charles de Gaulle
(1890 - 1970)

Floyd Sneed (rock drummer, Three Dog Night-Joy to the World)
75th Birthday

Terry Gilliam
77th Birthday



Ron McClure (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
76th Birthday

Billie Jean King
74th Birthday



Jamie Lee Curtis
59th Birthday

Boris Becker
50th Birthday

Scarlett Johansson
33rd Birthday

Marouane Fellaini
30th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Robin Hood, dies
1247

Edward Teach or Edward Thatch (Blackbeard, dies in battle at 38)
1718

George Washington Gale Ferris (inventor, Ferris wheel, dies)
(1859 - 1896)

Aldous Huxley
(1894 - 1963)

John F. Kennedy
(1917 - 1963)

Mae West
(1893 - 1980)

C. S. Lewis
(1898 - 1963)



Michael Conrad, (actor, Hill Street Blues, dies of cancer at 58)
(1925 - 1983)

Bill Bixby, US actor (My Favorite Martian), dies from cancer at 59
(1934 - 1993)

Famous Weddings

1964 Actress Rosemary Clooney weds actor José Ferrer for the second time in Los Angeles, California

1965 Bob Dylan weds Sara Lowndes

1997 "The Lord of The Rings" actor Sean Bean (38) weds actress Abigail Cruttenden (29)

1998 "Titanic" actress Kate Winslet (23) weds assistant film director Jim Threapleton (25) at All Saints Church in Reading, England

2003 Actress Carmen Electra (31) weds rocker Dave Navarro (36) at the St. Regis Hotel in Los Angeles, California

Famous Divorces

2011 Singer-songwriter and actress Ashlee Simpson (27) divorces rock band Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz (33) due to irreconcilable differences after two and a half year of marriage

[Altobelli]

23 NOVEMBER

1248 Conquest of Seville by Christian troops under King Ferdinand III of Castile after the city capitulates

1499 The Pretender to the throne, Flemish impostor Perkin Warbeck, was hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London. He had invaded England in 1497, claiming to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, the younger son of King Edward IV.

1644 Areopagitica, a pamphlet by John Milton, decrying censorship, is published

1852 Britain's first four pillar boxes came into service on the Channel Island of Jersey. The idea came from English novelist Anthony Trollope who worked for the General Post Office in London before becoming a writer.

1863 Patent granted for a process of making color photographs

1867 The Manchester Martyrs (William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, and Michael O'Brien, all members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood) were hanged in Manchester for killing a police officer whilst freeing two Irish nationalists from custody.

1869 In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched - one of the last clippers ever built, and the only one still surviving

1887 Boris Karloff, English actor famous for his roles in horror films, was born.

1889 The first jukebox goes into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco

1896 The first Royal Command Performance for the British Sovereign. The event was in the Red Drawing Room at Windsor Castle, before H.M. Queen Victoria.

1905 British Liberal Party leader Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman advocated Home Rule for Ireland, by instalments, in a controversial speech in Scotland.

1910 American born Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen was hanged at Pentonville Prison in London after being found guilty of poisoning his wife and dismembering her body.

1915 ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag’, the famous First World War song, was published, by Felix Powell and George Asaf, who were really two brothers from Wales.

1924 Edwin Hubble's scientific discovery that Andromeda is actually another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe, is first published

1936 Life magazine is reborn as a photo magazine and enjoys instant success

1942 Chinese steward Poon Lim begins 133 days arift after British ship SS Benlomond torpedoed by german U-boat and he is the sole survivor

1954 The birth of Ross Brawn, English motorsport engineer and Formula One team principal. He worked as the technical director of the championship-winning Benetton and Ferrari Formula One teams.

1959 French President Charles de Gaulle declares in a speech in Strasbourg his vision for "Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals".

1962 British surgeon John Charnley developed a technique at Wrightington Hospital Lancashire that revolutionised hip replacement operations. He was later knighted for his efforts and his work became the standard procedure across the world.

1963 The BBC broadcast the first ever episode of Doctor Who, starring William Hartnell as the Doctor, and Ann Ford as his first female companion. It is the world's longest running science fiction drama.The producer, Sydney Newman, thought the Daleks, designed by Ray Cusick, were ‘bug-eyed monsters’ and totally wrong for the series. Roath Lock studios in the Porth Teigr area of Cardiff Bay is the home of Doctor Who and its spin-off, 'Class'.

1976 British comedians Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise received the Order of the British Empire (OBE) from Queen Elizabeth II. There is a statue of Eric Morecambe on the promenade at Morecambe, Lancashire.

1976 Apneist Jacques Mayol is the first man to reach a depth of 100 m undersea without breathing equipment

1978 A Birmingham nightclub was ordered to open its doors to black and Chinese people.

1979 In Dublin, Thomas McMahon was found guilty of the murder of Lord Mountbatten, and given a life sentence.

1981 Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17, giving the CIA the authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua

1984 Almost 1,000 passengers were trapped in smoke filled tunnels for three hours after a fire at Oxford Circus underground station.

1990 The death of the author Roald Dahl. He was born in Cardiff, (to Norwegian parents). Roald Dahl Plass is a public plaza in the heart of Cardiff Bay. His notable works include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox, George's Marvellous Medicine and The BFG (Big Friendly Giant

1992 The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, is introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada

1993 English artist Rachel Whiteread won both the £20,000 Turner Prize award for best British modern artist and the £40,000 K Foundation art award for the worst artist of the year. She was the first woman to win Turner prize. and 2001 she became the third artist to provide a sculpture for the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, an inverted 11 ton resin cast of the plinth itself.

2001 The Convention on Cybercrime is signed in Budapest, Hungary

2005 Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is elected president of Liberia, the first woman to lead an African country

2014 Veteran sailor Sir Robin Knox-Johnston (aged 75) spoke of the 'warm and friendly' reception he received after claiming third place in his class of the singlehanded transatlantic Route du Rhum race, from St Malo in France to Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. Sir Robin, a grandfather of five, was the first person ever to sail single-handed and non-stop, around the world, in 1969.

2016 Thomas Mair was found guilty of the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox (16th June 2016). He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order.

Famous Birthday's

Franklin Pierce
(1804 - 1869)



Billy the Kid
(1859 - 1881)

Harpo Marx
(1888 - 1964)

Lew Hoad
(1934 - 1994)

Alan Mullery
76th Birthday

Merv Hughes
56th Birthday

Miley Cyrus
25th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Hawley Harvey Crippen [Dr Crippen] Hanged at 48 in Pentonville
(1862 - 1910)

André Malraux
(1901 - 1976)



Roald Dahl
(1916 - 1990)

Mary Whitehouse
(1910 - 2001)

Larry Hagman
(1931 - 2012)



Andrew Sachs
(1930 - 2016)

Famous Weddings

1929 Academy Award-winning Shirley Booth marries comic actor Ed Gardner

1940 RAF pilot Guy Gibson (22) weds show dancer and actress Eve Moore in Penarth’s Anglican Church

1940 Film director David Lean (32) weds actress Kay Walsh (29)

1955 Physicist William Shockley (45) weds psychiatric nurse Emmy Lanning

1963 "12 Angry Men" director Sidney Lumet (39) weds Lena Horne's daughter Gail Jones