On This Day

[Altobelli]

09 NOVEMBER

1494 Family de' Medici become rulers of Florence

1620 Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower sight land at Cape Cod, Massachusetts

1799 Napoleon Bonaparte pulls off a coup and becomes the dictator of France under the title of First Consul

1841 The birth of Edward VII, the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He married Princess Alexandra of Denmark in 1863 and they had three sons and three daughters. This statue of King Edward VII was unveiled by his father King George V in 1912 during a visit to Huddersfield with Queen Mary.

1847 In Edinburgh, Dr James Young Simpson delivered Wilhelmina Carstairs while chloroform was administered to her mother, the first child to be born with the aid of anaesthetics.

1857 The Atlantic is founded in Boston, Massachusetts

1887 The United States receives rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

1888 At 3:30 a.m. in London's Whitechapel, 25-year-old Mary Kelly became Jack the Ripper's last known victim. The 'Ripper' was never caught, but the nature of the murders and of the victims drew attention to the poor living conditions in the East End of London and galvanised public opinion against the overcrowded, unsanitary slums. In the two decades after the murders, the worst of the slums were cleared and demolished.

1906 Theodore Roosevelt is the first sitting President of the United States to make an official trip outside the country. He did so to inspect progress on the Panama Canal

1907 The Cullinan Diamond, the largest rough gem-quality diamond yet found, was presented by the Transvaal to King Edward VII, on his birthday. The largest polished gem from the stone is named Cullinan I or the Great Star of Africa. It was the largest polished diamond in the world until 1985. Cullinan I is now mounted in the head of the Royal Sceptre which was originally made for the coronation of King Charles II in 1661, but was redesigned after the discovery of the Cullinan Diamond.

1908 Britain's first woman mayor, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, was elected at Aldeburgh. She died on17th December, 1917 and was buried in Aldeburgh churchyard, Suffolk.

1915 The first Women's Institute (WI) meeting in England was held in the main bar of 'The Fox Goes Free' public house at Singleton in West Sus***.

1938 Nazi diplomat Ernst vom Rath dies from the gunshot wounds of Jewish resistance fighter Herschel Grynszpan, which the Nazis used as an excuse to instigate Kristallnacht

1940 The death of Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister at the outbreak of World War II.

1953 Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet, died in New York, aged 39. His heavy drinking and wild living contributed to his early demise. He had a long affinity with Laugharne, (Carmarthenshire) spending the last four years of his life in the Boathouse. He is buried in the over-spill graveyard of St. Martin's Church, Laugharne and his grave is marked with a white cross. His wife, Caitlin, is buried in the same grave and her name appears on the reverse side of the cross.

1960 Robert McNamara is named president of Ford Motor Co., the first non-Ford to serve in that post. A month later, he resigned to join the administration of John F. Kennedy

1961 Brian Epstein went to a lunchtime session at The Cavern in Liverpool to see for himself why his record shop was receiving so many requests for records by a group that had apparently made none. He later became their manager.

1967 The first issue of Rolling Stone magazine is published

1979 Four men were found guilty of killing paperboy Carl Bridgewater. Eighteen years later their convictions were quashed.

1980 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declares holy war against Iran

1985 Garry Kasparov, 22, of the Soviet Union becomes the youngest World Chess Champion by beating Anatoly Karpov, also of the Soviet Union

1989 Communist-controlled East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall allowing its citizens to travel to West Germany

1992 Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Dr Michael Stroud set out on their unassisted crossing of the Antarctic. For 97 days they fought pain, starvation and snow blindness until they were eventually airlifted out after completing the first and the longest, unsupported journey in Polar history. They walked more than 1,350 miles across some of the most hostile terrain in the world, averaging more than 14 miles a day at temperatures as low as -45°C.

1992 The opening of the Victoria Shopping Centre in Harrogate. Described by Bill Bryson, in his book Notes from a Small Island as “heartbreakingly awful, the worst kind of pastiche architecture – a sort of Bath Crescent meets Crystal Palace with a roof by B&Q. The figures perched along the top look as if two dozen citizens of various ages are about to commit mass suicide.

1994 Chemical element Darmstadtium discovered at GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research near Darmstadt, German

1998 Brokerage houses are ordered to pay 1.03 billion USD to NASDAQ investors to compensate for price-fixing - largest civil settlement in US history

1999 Pop singer Gary Glitter was charged with seducing and ***ually humiliating a 14-year-old girl. He was cleared on those charges but was jailed for downloading thousands of items of child ****ography. 7 years later a Vietnamese court found him guilty of committing obscene acts with minors and he was sentenced to 3 years in prison. In October 2012, Glitter was taken from his London home into custody for questioning about the *****phile allegations surrounding the late Jimmy Savile and was released on bail.

2012 The death of the 71 year old actor Bill Tarmey, who played Jack Duckworth in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street for more than 30 years.

Famous Birthday's

Benjamin Banneker
(1731 - 1806)

Hedy Lamarr
(1914 - 2000)

Mary Travers
(1936 - 2009)

Tom Fogerty
(1941 - 1990)

Jill Dando
(1961 - 1999)

Phil May
73rd Birthday

Famous Deaths



Neville Chamberlain
(1869 - 1940)



Charles de Gaulle
(1890 - 1970)

Art Carney
(1918 - 2003)

Bill Tarmey
(1941 - 2012)

Famous Weddings

1887 Painter Grandma Moses (27) weds Thomas Salmon Moses in New York

1899 US Admiral of the Navy George Dewey (61) weds Mildred McLean Hazen at the rectory St. Paul's Catholic Church in Washington, D.C.

1931 Actress Gloria Swanson (32) weds Michael Farmer

1935 "Magnificent Obsession" actress Jane Wyatt (24) weds investment broker Edgar Bethune Ward in Santa Fe, New Mexico

1968 Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant (19) weds Maureen Wilson (19)

Famous Divorces

1931 Actress Gloria Swanson (32) divorces aristocrat Henri de la Falaise (33) after 6 years of marriage

1968 Serial killer John Wayne Gacy (26) divorces first wife Marlynn Myers after 4 years of marriage

2004 Hotel heiress and fashion model Nicky Hilton (21) divorces businessman Todd Andrew Meister (33) due to bi-coastal relationship after nearly 3 months of marriage