On This Day

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12 SEPTEMBER

1440 Eton College was founded by Henry VI. Prefects were warned to look out for "ill-kempt heads and unwashed faces."

1609 English explorer Henry Hudson sailed his ship 'Half Moon' into New York harbour and 150 miles further inland to Albany, along the waterway now called Hudson River.

1846 Poet Elizabeth Barrett eloped to Italy with poet Robert Browning to escape Elizabeth's domineering father who disapproved of marriage for any of his children. Mr. Barrett then disinherited Elizabeth, as he did for each of his children who married:

1852 The birth of Herbert Henry Asquith, British Liberal Prime Minister. It was Asquith who introduced old age pensions and Lloyd-George was his Chancellor of the Exchequer.

1878 Cleopatra's Needle, the obelisk of Thothmes II, was erected on London's Embankment.

1885 The Scottish football team of Arbroath beat Bon Accord (from Aberdeen) by 36 goals to nil in the first round of the Scottish Cup, making it a record breaking score for professional football. Thirteen goals were scored by centre-forward John Petrie.

1890 Salisbury, Rhodesia, was founded as a military fort by by Cecil Rhodes. They originally named the city Fort Salisbury after the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, then British prime minister.

1906 The opening of the Newport Transporter Bridge in south east Wales. Only eight such bridges remain in use worldwide and this is the oldest and largest of the three historic transporter bridges which remain in Britain. Vehicles are tranported on the 'gondola' across the River Usk.

1908 The marriage of Winston Churchill to Clementine Hozier.

1909 World's first patent for synthetic rubber granted to German chemist Fritz Hofmann

1933 Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives idea of a nuclear chain reaction

1936 Britain’s Fred Perry won the US Tennis Championships against Donald Budge, the first non-US player ever to win. Britain had to wait a further 76 years for a male singles champion and on 11th September 2012 Andy Murray won the US Open, beating Novak Djokovic.

1940 4 *****, following their dog down a hole near Lascaux France discover 17,000-year-old drawings now known as Lascaux Cave Paintings

1958 US Supreme Court orders the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas to integrate

1959 Luna 2 launched by USSR; 1st spacecraft to impact on the Moon

1960 Ministry of Transport (MoT) tests on motor vehicles were introduced in the UK.

1970 The supersonic Concorde passenger jet landed at Heathrow Airport for the first time to a barrage of complaints from nearby residents about noise.

1972 Two British trawlers were sunk by Icelandic gunboats during the 'cod war'

1987 The BBC filmed the first 'Top of the Pops' to be sold in America.

1988 Roger Hargreaves, author and creator of the Mr. Men books died.

2000 Britain was brought to a standstill as fuel tax protesters, backed by tanker drivers, caused petrol shortages.

2005 England took the Ashes from Australia for the first time since 1987.

2012 After three years reviewing 450,000 documents, including those relating to former prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Merseyside police, the Hillsborough Independent Panel published its report. The report exposed the police campaign to blame Liverpool fans for the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster which saw the death of 96 fans. It led to a new criminal inquiry into the disaster and an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

2014 The death, aged 88, of Dr. Ian Paisley, the former firebrand Democratic Unionist Party leader. For decades he was the face of opposition to compromise with the IRA in Northern Ireland. Friends and one-time foes described him as a 'colossus' and 'big man of Irish politics'.

Famous Birthday's

Henry Hudson
1575

Jesse Owens
(1913 - 1980)

Paul Walker
(1973 - 2013)

Famous Deaths

Anthony Perkins
(1932 - 1992)

Johnny Cash
(1932 - 2003)

Ray Dolby
(1933 - 2013)

Famous Weddings

1812 Revolutionary leader Jose de San Martin (33) weds MarÃ*a de los Remedios de Escalada at Buenos Aires Cathedral in Argentina

1840 Composer Robert Schumann marries Clara Wieck

1846 Poet and playwright Robert Browning (34) weds fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett (40) at Marylebone Church in London

1892 61st UK Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin (25) weds writer and activist Lucy Ridsdale (23) in Rottingdean, England

1908 Politician Winston Churchill marries Clementine Hozier

Famous Divorces

1967 Actress Rosemary Clooney divorces actor José Ferrer for the second time after she found out his affair with Stella Magee

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13 SEPTEMBER

509 BC The temple of Jupiter on Rome's Capitoline Hill is dedicated on the ides of September

335 Church of Holy Sepulchre consecrated in Jerusalem

1224 Francis of Assisi is afflicted with stigmata after a vision praying on Mount Verna


1759 British troops, under the command of General Wolfe, secured Canada for the British Empire after defeating the French at the Battle of Quebec. Wolfe and the French commander were killed during the battle.

1806 The English statesman Charles James Fox was taken ill and died at his home in London, just as he was about to introduce a bill abolishing slavery.

1847 American-Mexican war: US General Winfield Scott captures Mexico City

1894 The birth, in Manningham, Bradford, of John Boynton Priestley, the English author generally referred to as J.B. Priestley. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions (1929), as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls (1945). There is a statue to him outside the National Media Museum in Bradford.

1902 The first conviction in Britain using finger-prints as evidence was in the case against Harry Jackson by the Metropolitan Police at the Old Bailey. He had left his thumbprint in wet paint on a window sill and was tracked down through it. He was sentenced to seven years.

1916 The birth, in Cardiff, (to Norwegian parents) of the author Roald Dahl. Roald Dahl Plass is a public plaza in the heart of Cardiff Bay. The area is home to the Senedd (Welsh Assembly Building) and the Wales Millennium Centre. Some of Roald Dahl's 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).

1938 John Smith, former leader of the Labour Party was born.

1940 Buckingham Palace was hit by a bomb during 'The Blitz'.

1944 The birth of Carol Barnes, British television newsreader and broadcaster who worked for ITN from 1975 to 2004. In 1994 she was voted Newscaster of the Year at the TV and Radio Industries Club Awards

1956 IBM introduces the RAMAC 305, 1st commercial computer with a hard drive that uses magnetic disk storage, weighs over a ton

1957 The Mousetrap became Britain's longest running play, reaching its 1,998th performance.

1958 Cliff Richard made his British TV debut on Jack Good's Oh Boy, performing Move It.

1970 In Colombia, en route to the World Cup finals in Mexico, the captain of the England football team, Bobby Moore was accused of stealing a diamond bracelet from a shop. After being kept under house arrest, he was released and all charges were dropped.

1980 Hercules, the bear who went missing on Benbecula (in the Outer Hebrides) while being filmed for a Kleenex television commercial, was recaptured after 24 days 'on the run'.

1988 Medina Perez, a Cuban diplomat opened fire in a crowded London street because of an American plot to make him defect, (his government said).

1989 Britain's biggest ever banking computer error gave customers an extra £2 billion in a period of 30 minutes; 99.3 per cent of the money was reportedly returned.

1993 Public unveiling of the Oslo Accords, an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement initiated by Norway


2001 Iain Duncan Smith became the new leader of the Tory party.

2001 British defence experts said that forces could be involved in retaliatory strikes against those responsible for the US terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Centre two days previously.

2012 Jo Shuter, head teacher since 2001 of Quintin Kynaston School in St John's Wood, north-west London was suspended after an investigation into its finances. (Shuter resigned on August 28th when it was announced that she had spent £30,000 of public money on luxury hotels, flowers and her 50th birthday party.) She had earlier had been credited with turning around a school's fortunes, was named head teacher of the year at the 2007 Teaching Awards and was awarded a CBE in June 2010.

Famous Birthday's

Daniel Defoe
(1660 - 1731)

Arnold Schoenberg
(1874 - 1951)

Claudette Colbert
(1903 - 1996)

Famous Deaths

Titus
(39 - 81)

Philip II
(1527 - 1598)

Tupac Shakur
(1971 - 1996)

Famous Weddings

1893 Microbiologist Robert Koch (49) weds actress Hedwig Freiberg (20)

1975 Novelist Danielle Steel (28) weds Danny Zugelder in the prison canteen

1981 Television producer Lorne Michaels (36) weds model Susan Forristal

1998 "Spice Girls" pop singer Melanie Brown (23) weds Jimmy Gulzar in Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire

2000 Wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (35) weds WWE Diva Debra Marshall (40) at the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas

Famous Divorces

1974 Singer-composer Quincy Jones Jr (28) divorces actress Ulla Andersson (41) after 5 years of marriage

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14 SEPTEMBER

1607 The 'Flight of the Earls' from Lough Swilly, Donegal, in Ireland took place when Hugh Ó Neill (the earl of Tyrone) and about ninety followers left Ireland for mainland Europe following their earlier defeat in battle. They hoped to recruit an army for the invasion of Ireland with Spanish help, but King Philip III of Spain wanted to preserve the recent peace with England under its new Stuart dynasty so it was all to no avail. Nevertheless he persisted with the invasion plan until his death in exile in 1616.

1682 Bishop Gore School, in Swansea was founded. It is one of the oldest schools in Wales and its most famous former pupil is almost certainly the poet, playwright and author Dylan Thomas who, it is said, was not a distinguished pupil. His father was Senior English Master at the school, which was then known as Swansea Grammar School.

1741 George Frideric Handel finishes his "Messiah" oratorio after working on it non-stop for 23 days

1752 The 3rd of September became the 14th as the Gregorian Calendar was introduced into Britain. Crowds of people rioted on the streets demanding, 'Give us back our 11 days.'

1759 The earliest dated board game in England was sold on this day by its inventor John Jeffreys, from his house in Chapel Street, Westminster. The game was called 'A Journey Through Europe', or 'The play of Geography'.

1812 Napoleon occupies Moscow and the fires start, extinguished by the 19th

1852 The Duke of Wellington, victor at Waterloo, died aged 83. He was known as the Iron Duke and was Tory Prime Minister from 1828-30. 'Duke of Wellington' is a hereditary title, 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.

1868 At the Open Championships at Prestwick, the legendary Scottish golfer Tom Morris scored the first recorded hole-in-one, on the 8th hole (166 yards).

1891 The first penalty kick in an English League football game was taken by Heath of Wolverhampton Wanderers against Accrington.

1909 Peter Scott, British artist and ornithologist was born.

1910 The birth of the actor Jack Hawkins. He mostly appeared in character roles, often in epic films such as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Zulu, The Cruel Sea and Lawrence of Arabia. A 60 a day smoker, Hawkins began experiencing voice problems in the late 1950s. His entire larynx was removed and his performances were dubbed. Hawkins continued to smoke after losing his voice and died aged 62.

1939 World’s 1st practical helicopter, the VS-300 designed by Igor Sikorsky takes (tethered) flight in Stratford, Connecticut

1949 India's Constituent Assembly adopts Hindi as an official language. Celebrated today as Hindi Day.

1951 Prime Minister Clement Attlee opened the largest oil refinery in Europe, at Fawley on Southampton Water.

1956 1st prefrontal lobotomy performed in Washington, D.C.

1960 Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi-Arabia & Venezuela form Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

1964 The British daily newspaper, the Daily Herald, ceased publication and was replaced by the Sun.

1974 Two giant pandas, Chia-Chia and Ching-Ching, arrived at London Zoo.

1981 A teenage boy who fired blank shots at the Queen in June 1980, pleaded guilty to a charge under the 1848 Treason Act.

1988 A London taxi reached New Delhi with the meter showing a fare of £13,200. It was part of a six-man expedition on the way to Sydney.

1997 Pete Townshend unveiled an English Heritage Blue Plaque at 23, Brook Street, Mayfair, London to mark where Jimi Hendrix had lived in 1968-69. He was the first pop star to be commemorated with the plaque.

2001 Offices, shops and factories across the UK fell silent for three minutes as the nation mourned the victims of the US terrorist attacks.

Famous Birthday's

Alexander von Humboldt
(1769 - 1859)

Sam Neill
70th Birthday

Amy Winehouse
(1983 - 2011)

Famous Deaths

Aaron Burr
(1756 - 1836)

William McKinley
(1843 - 1901)

Grace Kelly
(1929 - 1982)

Famous Weddings

1830 Princess WFLC Marianne marries Albrecht of Prussia

1835 American leading transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (33) marries 2nd wife Lydia (Lidian) Jackson in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

1838 Newly escaped slave Frederick Douglass marries free woman Anne Murray in New York

1886 Neurologist Sigmund Freud (30) weds Martha Bernays (25) in Hamburg, Germany

1892 AP Giannini marries Clorinda Cuneo

Famous Divorces

1962 Actress Janet Leigh (35) divorces actor Tony Curtis (37) after after 10 years of marriage

1984 Film director John Carpenter (36) and actress Adrienne Barbeau (39) divorce after 5 years of marriage