On This Day

[Altobelli]

07 NOVEMBER

1492 Ensisheim Meteorite strikes a wheat field near the village of Ensisheim in Alsace, France. Oldest meteorite with a known date of impact.

1665 The first edition of the London Gazette was printed. It is the world's longest running journal and carried news of military appointments and engagements.

1687 The birth of William Stukeley, English clergyman, friend of Sir Isaac Newton and antiquarian who pioneered the archaeological investigation of the prehistoric monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury.

1805 The birth of Thomas Brassey, an English civil engineering contractor who was responsible for building much of the world's railways in the 19th century. By 1847, he had built one-third of the railways in Britain, and by time of his death in 1870 he had built an incredible one in every twenty miles of railway in the world. He also built the structures associated with those railways, including docks, bridges, viaducts (such as Chirk viaduct), stations, tunnels and drainage works.

1872 Cargo ship Mary Celeste sails from Staten Island for Genoa; mysteriously found abandoned four weeks later

1908 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are reportedly killed in San Vicente, Bolivia

1914 The first issue of The New Republic magazine is published

1917 [OS Oct 25] October Revolution in Russia; Lenin and the Bolsheviks seize power, capture the Winter Palace and overthrow the Provisional Government.

1929 In New York City, the Museum of Modern Art opens to the public

1931 Chinese People's Republic proclaimed by Mao Zedong

1933 Fiorello H. La Guardia is elected the 99th mayor of New York City

1935 The Royal National Institute for the Blind distributed its first Talking Books of players and records to blind & partially sighted people.

1942 The birth of Jean Shrimpton, leading English model whose face and figure, enhanced with a miniskirt, set the fashion for the 60s.

1944 Franklin D. Roosevelt elected for a record fourth term as President of the United States of America

1945 Group Captain H J Wilson became the first man to exceed 600 miles per hour (970 km/h), flying a Gloster Meteor jet fighter at Herne Bay. The aircraft was powered by two 3,500 lb thrust Rolls Royce Derwent V turbojets.

1953 The birth of Lucinda Green MBE, former champion British equestrian. She began riding at the age of four and is most well known for winning the Badminton Horse Trials a record six times, on six different horses.

1956 An official ceasefire during the Suez Crisis following the British and French invasion of Egypt after President Nasser had announced the nationalisation of the Suez Canal.

1964 The country's first drink-driving advertisement was shown on television, with the message "Drinking and driving are dangerous."

1967 British heavyweight champion Henry Cooper beat challenger Billy Walker to become the only boxer to win three Lonsdale Belts outright.

1973 US Congress overrides President Richard M. Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval

1974 Lord Lucan mysteriously disappeared following the murder of his children's nanny and a serious assault on his wife.

1978 The birth, in Peckham, London of the footballer Rio Gavin Ferdinand. He joined Manchester United in July 2002 for around £30 million, breaking the transfer fee record.

1989 David Dinkins becomes the first African American to be elected Mayor of New York City

1990 Mary Robinson became the first woman President of the Irish Republic.

1994 WXYC, the student radio station of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides the world's first internet radio broadcast

1996 A team of British, American and Australian scientists reported evidence that life on Earth originated some 350 million years earlier than previously believed.

1996 The closure of 'Butlins - Barry Island' in south Wales, Billy Butlin's last-built and smallest holiday camp. At the time of its closure it was owned by Majestic Holidays and was sold for £2.25m to Vale of Glamorgan Council who demolished the camp and sold it to Bovis Homes for housing development.

1997 Despite him being instrumental in their overnight phenomenal international success, British group 'The Spice Girls' sacked their creator and manager Simon Fuller.

1998 Families of World War 1 soldiers executed for cowardice or desertion laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in Whitehall in the first ceremony of its kind to pay tribute to the 306 servicemen who died. Those soldiers now have a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

2000 Controversial US presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore which is eventually resolved in Bush's favor by the Supreme Court

2000 Hillary Clinton is elected to the US Senate, becoming the first former First Lady to win public office in the United States, although she was actually still the First Lady

2001 Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted that his global activity for the war on terrorism did not mean that domestic issues such as crime, health and education were neglected.

2002 Iran bans advertising of United States products

2012 Actor Clive Dunn, best known for his role as Lance Corporal Jones in Dad's Army, died aged 92.

2013 A report showed that the NHS spent nearly £700 on clinical negligence cover for every live birth in England - almost a fifth of all spending on maternity.

2014 Alan Knight, a fraudster from Swansea, who pretended to be quadriplegic for two years in an attempt to evade punishment for conning an elderly and vulnerable neighbour was jailed for four and a half years.

2016 The death (aged 95) of the veteran broadcaster Sir Jimmy Young. He spent almost three decades at BBC Radio 2 and was one of the original Radio 1 DJs when the station launched in 1967.

Famous Birthday's

Agrippina the Younger
(15 - 59)



Marie Curie
(1867 - 1934)

Leon Trotsky
(1879 - 1940)

Jean Shrimpton
75th Birthday

Joni Mitchell
74th Birthday

John Barnes
54th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Butch Cassidy
(1866 - 1908)

Eleanor Roosevelt
(1884 - 1962)

Joe Frazier
(1944 - 2011)

Alfred Russel Wallace
(1823 - 1913)

Steve McQueen
(1930 - 1980)

Howard Keel
(1919 - 2004)


Leonard Cohen
(1934 - 2016)

Famous Weddings

1597 Emilia of Nassau weds Dom Emanuel of Portugal

1913 Comedian Oliver Hardy (21) marries pianist Madelyn Saloshin in in Macon, Georgia

1951 Entertainer Frank Sinatra (34) marries 2nd wife film star Ava Gardner (26)

1957 Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (23) weds Valentina Ivanovna Goryacheva

1984 FIFA soccer player Diego Maradona (24) weds long-time fiancée Claudia Villafañe in Buenos Aires

Famous Divorces

1934 Actress Gloria Swanson (35) divorces Michael Farmer after 3 years of marriage

1957 Actress Ingrid Bergman (42) divorces Roberto Rossellini after 7 years of mariage

1982 Actress Elizabeth Taylor's 7th divorce from politician John Warner