On This Day

[Altobelli]

08 NOVEMBER

November 8th is 'The Feast of the Four Crowned Ones', still marked by some English freemasons. It commemorates four masons martyred by Emperor Diocletian for refusing to sculpt a pagan god.

392 Roman Emperor Theodosius declares Christian religion the state religion

1519 1st meeting of Moctezuma II & Hernán Cortés in Tenochtitlan, Mexico

1602 The Bodleian Library at Oxford University was opened to the public. It is second in size to the British Library.

1605 Robert Catesby, the ringleader of the Gunpowder Plotters, was killed by gunshot, along with other conspirators at Holbeche House, on the border of Staffordshire. He was buried close by but the bodies of Catesby and fellow conspirator Percy were exhumed and decapitated and Catesby's head was placed on the side of the Parliament House.

1656 The birth of Edmond Halley, English astronomer and mathematician best known for the comet named after him and for his work predicting its orbit. He also produced the first meteorological chart.

1674 The death of John Milton, blind English poet of Paradise Lost.

1701 William Penn presents Charter of Priviliges

1734 Vincent la Chapelle, master cook to various nobility and royalty, forms Free Masons Lodge in Netherlands

1745 Charles Edward Stuart invaded England with an army of 5000 that would later participate in the Battle of Culloden (16th April 1746).

1802 The birth of Sir Benjamin Hall, commissioner of works at the time of Big Ben’s installation in the tower at the Houses of Parliament. The famous 13 ton bell is named after him.

1847 Bram Stoker, Irish author remembered for the classic, 'Dracula', was born. Whitby has associations with the Dracula novel.

1866 Herbert Austin, later Baron Austin, English motor car manufacturer, was born.

1895 German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen produces and detects electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today known as X-rays or Röntgen rays

1917 The People's Commissars give authority to Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin

1920 Rupert Bear made his first appearance in the Daily Express. Rupert Bear Annuals have been produced since 1936 and are still in production today. The Rupert Annual is still one of the top three Annual titles sold worldwide.

1923 Beer Hall Putsch: In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government

1933 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than 4 million unemployed

1937 The Nazi exhibition Der ewige Jude ("The Eternal Jew") opens in Munich

1957 A report into a fire at Windscale nuclear power plant in Cumbria blamed the accident on human error, poor management and faulty instruments. The fire caused an unspecified amount of radioactive iodine vapour - iodine 131 - to escape into the atmosphere.

1957 Britain conducted its first successful hydrogen bomb test, over Kiritimati in the Pacific.

1958 Melody Maker published the first British album charts.

1960 John F. Kennedy defeats Richard Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the twentieth century to become the 35th president of the United States


1965 The bill abolishing the death penalty became law.

1966 Movie actor Ronald Reagan elected Governor of California

1967 BBC Radio Leicester (the first of the new breed of BBC Local Radio stations) began broadcasting at 12.45 p.m. from a transmitter located on Gorse Hill above the city centre.

1972 HBO launches its programming, with the broadcast of the 1971 movie Sometimes a Great Notion, starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda

1973 The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper together with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay US$2.9 million

1974 Covent Garden ceased to be the location of London’s famous flower and vegetable market as it moved across the Thames, leaving the old warehouses and Floral Hall.

1974 Britiish peer the Earl of Lucan disappears and is never seen again after his nanny is found murdered in London

1987 An IRA bomb exploded shortly before a Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, killing 11 people.

1990 The Republic of Ireland elected its first woman president, Mary Robinson. The mother-of-three had been a member of the Irish Senate for more than 20 years.

2002 Iraq disarmament crisis: UN Security Council under Resolution 1441 unanimously approves a resolution on Iraq, forcing Saddam Hussein to disarm or face "serious consequences"

2003 The Countess of Wes*** (wife of Prince Edward) gave birth to her first child - Lady Louise Windsor, a month early at Frimley Park hospital in Surrey. The baby weighed just 4lbs 9oz (2 kg).

2016 Republican Donald Trump is elected President of The United States of America, defeating democrat Hillary Clinton despite Clinton receiving 2.9 million more votes

Famous Birthday's

Vlad the Impaler
(1431 - 1476)

Bram Stoker
(1847 - 1912)

Margaret Mitchell
(1900 - 1949)

Edmond Halley
(1656 - 1742)

Herbert Austin
(1866 - 1941)

Minnie Ripperton
(1947 - 1979)

Ken Dodd
90th Birthday



Alain Delon
82nd Birthday

Martin Peters
74th Birthday

Roy Wood
70th Birthday

Alan Curbishley
60th Birthday

Gordon Ramsay
51st Birthday

Famous Deaths



Doc Holliday
(1851 - 1887)

Ramsay MacDonald
(1866 - 1937)

Betty Nuthall
(1911 - 1983)

Eddie Charlton
(1929 - 2004)

Famous Weddings

1766 Future Prime Minister William Cavendish-Bentinck (28) weds Dorothy Cavendish (16)

1975 NBA legend Larry Bird (18) weds highschool sweetheart Janet Condra

1985 Author Ken Follett (36) weds politician Barbara Hubbard (42)

1997 Bluegrass musician Alison Krauss marries Pat Bergeson

2006 Malaysian actress Sazzy Falak (25) weds co-founder of LVG Consultants and LVG MoneySkool Nazril Idrus

Famous Divorces

1968 Cynthia Lennon is granted a divorce from Beatle member John

1970 "Easy Rider" director and actor Dennis Hopper (34) divorces singer Michelle Phillips (26) only 8 days after getting married