On This Day

[Altobelli]

10 NOVEMBER

1619 René Descartes has the dream that inspires his "Meditations on First Philosophy"

1674 Dutch formally cede New Netherlands (New York) to the English

1683 The birth of George II, King of England from 1727 to 1760.

1697 William Hogarth, painter, best known for his series, 'The Rake's Progress', was born.

1810 The birth of George Jennings, an English sanitary engineer and plumber who invented the first public flush toilets. He specialised in designing toilets that were 'as perfect a sanitary closet as can be made'.

1847 The passenger ship Stephen Whitney was wrecked in thick fog off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 92 of the 110 on board. The disaster resulted in the construction of the Fastnet Rock lighthouse.

1871 Henry Morton Stanley, (Welsh journalist and explorer) having been sent out to Africa by his newspaper to find the Scottish missionary David Livingstone, finally made contact with him at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika with the immortal words, ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?' Henry Stanley was born John Rowlands. His mother abandoned him as a very young baby and he was eventually sent to St. Asaph Union Workhouse for the Poor. A memorial plaque to him has been erected in St. Asaph Cathedral, reputed to be the smallest ancient cathedral in Great Britain. This bronze statue of Stanley was unveiled in March 2011, in Denbigh, the town of his birth. It caused controversy because of Stanley's inhumanity and racist views. The sculpture shows the outstretched hand, the moment when Henry Morton Stanley finally met up with Livingstone.

1885 German engineer Gottlieb Daimler unveils the world's first motorcycle

1913 Battersea elected the first coloured mayor in London, John Archer, born in Liverpool of Jamaican parents. The honour of Britain's first black mayor goes to Allen Glaser Minns (Dr. Allan Glaisyer Minns?) who was elected Mayor of Thetford, Norfolk in 1904.

1918 Western Union Cable Office in North Sydney, Nova Scotia receives a top-secret coded message from Europe stating on November 11, 1918 all fighting would cease on land, sea and in the air

1925 Richard Burton, legendary Welsh actor, was born, at Pontrhydyfen, This Richard Burton sculpture is on the Richard Burton Trail in the Afan Forest Park in Neath - Port Talbot.

1942 Buoyant after the desert victory at El Alamein, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said: 'This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.'

1944 The birth of Tim Rice, best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, and additional songs for the 2011 West End revival of The Wizard of Oz.

1954 U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicates the USMC War Memorial (Iwo Jima memorial) in Arlington National Cemetery

1958 The Hope Diamond is donated to the Smithsonian Institution by New York diamond merchant Harry Winston

1958 British speed enthusiast Donald Campbell broke the water speed record of 248mph on Coniston Water. He died in 1967 (also on Coniston Water) and is buried in the new parish churchyard at Coniston.

1960 Bookshops all over England sold out of Penguin's first run of 200,000 copies of the controversial novel Lady Chatterley's Lover.

1968 England and Yorkshire fast bowler Fred Trueman announced his retirement. This bronze statue of him is in the canal basin at Skipton, North Yorkshire, the town where he lived for many years.

1980 Outspoken left wing MP Michael Foot defeated Denis Healey in a shock result to become the new leader of the Labour party.

1983 Bill Gates introduces Windows 1.0

1984 The first Breeders' Cup takes place at Hollywood Park Racetrack

1986 The legendary jockey, Sir Gordon Richards, died aged 82.

1989 Germans begin demolishing the Berlin Wall

1997 Louise Woodward, British child-minder, was freed from jail in the United States after her conviction for murdering a baby was reduced to manslaughter. Her sentence was cut to 279 days, the exact length of time she had already spent in jail.

2002 Viewers of the UK music channel VH1 voted 'I Will Always Love You' as the most romantic song ever.

2010 Tens of thousands of people protested against plans to treble tuition fees and cut university funding in England. The Conservative Party headquarters were stormed and outside, placards and banners were set on fire and missiles were thrown.

2012 The BBC's director general, George Entwistle, resigned in the wake of a Newsnight child abuse broadcast which wrongly implicated ex-senior Tory Lord McAlpine.

2014 The first UK TV adverts featuring the use of an electronic cigarette (vaping) were shown. While e-cigarette adverts have been on television for some time, showing the device itself was banned until a change in advertising rules which came into force 'On This Day'.

Famous Birthday's

George II
(1683 - 1760)

Martin Luther
(1483 - 1546)

John Thompson
(1845 - 1894)

Jane Froman
(1907 - 1980)

Roy Scheider
(1932 - 2008)



Greg Lake
(1947 - 2016)

Tim Rice
72nd Birthday

Famous Deaths

Arthur Rimbaud
(1854 - 1891)



Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
(1881 - 1938)

Leonid Brezhnev
(1906 - 1982)

Pat Eddery
(1952 - 2015)

Famous Weddings

1926 Belgium crown prince Leopold weds princess Astrid Bernadotte of Sweden

1963 Actress Doris Roberts (33) weds novelist William Goyen (48)

1965 Netherlands 2nd Chamber accept marriage of Princess Beatrice & Claus von Amsberg

1973 Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully (45) weds Sandra Hunt

1977 Actor Bryan Cranston (21) weds writer Mickey Middleton

Famous Divorces

1975 Journalist Ben Bradlee (54) divorces Antoinette Pinchot after 19 years of marriage

2004 Talk show host Ricki Lake and Rob Sussman divorce after 10 years of marriage