On This Day

[Altobelli]

22 NOVEMBER

1497 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounds Cape of Good Hope on way to first voyage from Europe to reach India

1594 The death of Sir Martin Frobisher, the English seaman who made three voyages to the New World to look for the Northwest Passage. His knighthood was awarded for service in repelling the Spanish Armada in 1588.

1718 Edward Teach, the English pirate who sailed under the name of Blackbeard, was killed in battle off the coast of North Carolina, with a boarding party led by Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard..

1764 History credits James Hargreaves with inventing the first Spinning Jenny, but it had been designed and built years before by an obscure artisan from Leigh called Thomas Highs.

1774 Robert Clive, English soldier often referred to as 'Clive of India', died, possibly from an overdose of opium. It may have been suicide, but suicide was regarded as a sin, and if this had been admitted by his family he would not have been allowed a church burial. As it is, his grave was unmarked and remains so.

1808 Birth of Thomas Cook, the English travel agent. He began his pioneering tour business, Thomas Cook & Son, when he organized the first publicly advertised railway excursion from Leicester to a temperance meeting at Loughborough (11 miles away) on 5th July 1841. This statue of Thomas Cook is outside Leicester Railway Station, on London Road.

1819 The birth, in Nuneaton, of Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot. She was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era.

1869 The clipper Cutty Sark was launched In Dumbarton, Scotland. She was one of the last clippers ever built, and is the only one still surviving today. She is preserved as a museum ship, located near the centre of Greenwich, in south-east London.

1926 Imperial Conference ends, giving autonomy inside British Commonwealth

1935 Flying boat "China Clipper" takes off from Alameda, California, carrying 100,000 pieces of mail on 1st trans-Pacific airmail flight

1943 World War II: Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek met in Cairo, to discuss ways to defeat Japan.

1946 The first Biro ballpoint pen went on sale, invented by Hungarian Laszlo Biro and manufactured by a British company.

1954 The Humane Society of the United States is founded

1955 RCA Records make its best investment paying $35,000 to Sun Records for Elvis Presley's contract

1963 The death of the author Aldous Huxley, best known for his novels including Brave New World.

1963 In Dallas, Texas, US President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. Suspect Lee Harvey Oswald is later captured and charged with the murder of the President

1968 The Beatles release The Beatles (known popularly as The White Album).

1969 Isolation of a single gene announced by scientists at Harvard University

1971 Five teenagers, all from Ainslie Park School in Edinburgh, and their female instructor died in one of Scotland's worst mountaineering accidents.

1977 1st three nodes of the ARPAnet are connected, in what eventually becomes the Internet

1977 The world's first supersonic airliner, Concorde, was given permission to fly into New York's Kennedy Airport following an agreement over noise levels.

1986 Mike Tyson defeats Trevor Berbick to become youngest Heavyweight champion in boxing history

1987 Two Chicago television stations are hijacked by an unknown pirate dressed as Max Headroom

1988 In Palmdale, California, the first prototype B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is revealed

1990 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher withdrew from the Conservative Party leadership election, confirming the end of her premiership that had begun in 1979

1995 Britain's most prolific female serial killer, Rosemary West, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 10 young women and girls.

1995 Toy Story is released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery

1997 Michael Hutchence, the lead singer of Australian rock band INXS and partner of British television star Paula Yates, was found dead in a hotel in Sydney.

2002 In Nigeria, more than 100 people are killed at an attack aimed at the contestants of the Miss World contest

2003 England's rugby team won the World Cup, beating Australia 20-17 in a nail biting final in Sydney.

2005 Angela Merkel becomes the first female Chancellor of Germany

2013 Police arrested 63 year old Paul Flowers, former chairman of the Co-operative Bank, in connection with an ongoing drugs supply investigation that plunged the group into crisis.

Famous Birthday's

Abigail Adams
(1744 - 1818)

Thomas Cook (British founder and CEO of Thomas Cook & Son travel agency Cook Travel Bureau)
(1808 - 1892)

Charles de Gaulle
(1890 - 1970)

Floyd Sneed (rock drummer, Three Dog Night-Joy to the World)
75th Birthday

Terry Gilliam
77th Birthday



Ron McClure (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
76th Birthday

Billie Jean King
74th Birthday



Jamie Lee Curtis
59th Birthday

Boris Becker
50th Birthday

Scarlett Johansson
33rd Birthday

Marouane Fellaini
30th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Robin Hood, dies
1247

Edward Teach or Edward Thatch (Blackbeard, dies in battle at 38)
1718

George Washington Gale Ferris (inventor, Ferris wheel, dies)
(1859 - 1896)

Aldous Huxley
(1894 - 1963)

John F. Kennedy
(1917 - 1963)

Mae West
(1893 - 1980)

C. S. Lewis
(1898 - 1963)



Michael Conrad, (actor, Hill Street Blues, dies of cancer at 58)
(1925 - 1983)

Bill Bixby, US actor (My Favorite Martian), dies from cancer at 59
(1934 - 1993)

Famous Weddings

1964 Actress Rosemary Clooney weds actor José Ferrer for the second time in Los Angeles, California

1965 Bob Dylan weds Sara Lowndes

1997 "The Lord of The Rings" actor Sean Bean (38) weds actress Abigail Cruttenden (29)

1998 "Titanic" actress Kate Winslet (23) weds assistant film director Jim Threapleton (25) at All Saints Church in Reading, England

2003 Actress Carmen Electra (31) weds rocker Dave Navarro (36) at the St. Regis Hotel in Los Angeles, California

Famous Divorces

2011 Singer-songwriter and actress Ashlee Simpson (27) divorces rock band Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz (33) due to irreconcilable differences after two and a half year of marriage

[Altobelli]

25 NOVEMBER

1120 Henry I's only legitimate son, William, was drowned when The White Ship (la Blanche-Nef) carrying him from Normandy to England sank off Barfleur. This set up a conflict, known as the Anarchy, for the English crown between Stephen and Henry's daughter, Matilda.

1177 Battle of Montgisard: Baldwin IV of Jerusalem defeats Saladin and a larger Ayyubid force

1703 The Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, reached its intensity which it maintained through to 27th November. Winds gusted up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people died.

1783 Britain evacuates New York city, its last military position in United States

1823 The first pleasure pier, The Chain Pier at Brighton, opened. It closed in 1896 and was destroyed in a storm in the same year.

1835 Birth of Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-born US industrialist and philanthropist who rose from telegraph boy to iron and steel multimillionaire. He devoted his vast wealth to libraries and universities including the Carnegie Hall in New York which opened in 1891.

1839 Cyclone slams south eastern India with high winds and a 40 foot storm surge, destroying city of Coringa. Storm waves sweep inland, destroying 20,000 ships and killing an estimated 300,000 people

1867 Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel patents dynamite

1896 William Marshall became the first person in Britain to receive a parking summons after leaving his car in Tokenhouse Yard in the City of London, but the case was dismissed.

1932 British Equity, the actors' union, voted for a 'closed shop' to begin operating in 1933.

1937 An inter-regional spelling competition became the first British quiz programme to be broadcast.

1940 World War II: The first flight of the deHavilland Mosquito aircraft. The Mosquito was one of the few operational, front-line aircraft to be constructed almost entirely of wood and, as such, was nicknamed 'The Wooden Wonder' or Mossie to its crews. When it entered production in 1941 it was one of the fastest operational aircraft in the world.

1952 The play, The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie, opened in London, at the Ambassador's Theatre where it remained for 21 years. By Saturday 12th April 1958 it had become the longest running production of any kind in the history of British Theatre.

1953 Hungary, led by their talented footballer Ferenc Pushkas, beat England 6-3 at Wembley to become the first foreign team to achieve an away win at Wembley.

1969 John Lennon returned his MBE in protest against British involvement in Biafra and British support of US involvement in Vietnam.

1981 The inquiry into the Brixton riots in April blamed serious social and economic problems affecting Britain's cities.

1983 World's greatest robbery; 26 million pounds (sterling) worth of gold, diamonds and cash stolen from Brink's-Mat warehouse at Heathrow Airport, England

1984 Band Aid rock stars gathered at Sarm Studios in London to record 'Do They Know It's Christmas', to aid famine relief in Ethiopia.

1991 Winston Silcott became the first of the 'Tottenham Three', convicted for the 1985 killing of a policeman in Tottenham, North London, to have his conviction overturned.

2005 Former football star George Best died in hospital at the age of 59 after suffering multiple organ failure. He was a talented and charismatic player and became one of the first celebrity footballers. Best's subsequent extravagant lifestyle led to various problems, most notably alcoholism, which he suffered from for the rest of his adult life. A common description of his place in football history is summed up by the quote 'Maradona good; Pelé better; George Best.'

2012 34 year old former two-weight world champion Ricky Hatton announced his retirement from boxing following his loss to Vyacheslav Senchenko in Manchester. Quote by Hatton "A fighter knows and I know it isn't there any more. I have got to be a man and say it is the end of Ricky Hatton."

2013 It was announced that Clare's Law, which enables people to check the police record of their partners, would be expanded (in March 2014) to cover all of England and Wales. The policy is named after Clare Wood, who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend George Appleton at her Salford home in February 2009

Famous Birthday's

Karl Benz
(1844 - 1929)



Joe DiMaggio
(1914 - 1999)

John F. Kennedy Jr.
(1960 - 1999)

Famous Death's



Upton Sinclair
(1878 - 1968)



Anthony Burgess
(1917 - 1993)

Fidel Castro
(1926 - 2016)

Famous Weddings

1795 US President William Henry Harrison (22) weds Anna Symmes (20) in North Bend, Ohio

1908 Vaudeville performer Will Rogers (29) weds Betty Blake

1913 28th US President Woodrow Wilson's daughter Jessie marries in The White House

1923 Film director Frank Capra (26) weds actress Helen Howell in San Francisco, California

1961 Racing car driver Mario Andretti (21) weds high school sweetheart Dee Ann Hoch (19)

Famous Divorces

2002 Academy Award-winning actor Nicolas Cage (38) divorces "Princess of Rock and Roll" Lisa Marie Presley (34) due to irreconcilable differences after 3 months of marriage

[Altobelli]

27 NOVEMBER

27 November is Lancashire Day

1095 Pope Urban II preaches 1st Crusade

1295 English King Edward I calls what later became known as "The Model Parliament" extending the authorities of its representatives

1582 William Shakespeare, aged 18, married Anne Hathaway. They had a daughter in 1583 and a twin boy and girl in 1585. The boy died aged 11. Anne Hathaway's cottage .

1811 The death of Andrew Meikle, a mechanical engineer credited with inventing the threshing machine to remove the outer husks from grains of wheat.

1835 James Pratt and John Smith are hanged in London; they are the last two to be executed for sodomy in England

1874 The birth of Chaim (Azriel) Weizmann, first president of Israel, who was a chemistry professor in Geneva where he became active in the World Zionist Movement. After settling in Britain in 1904 he assisted the British munitions industry during the First World War when he devised a way of extracting acetone (needed for cordite) from maize. In return, the British government promised to help his cause and establish a Jewish state in Palestine.

1895 At the Swedish–Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he dies

1897 The death of James Bateman, British landowner and accomplished horticulturist. He created the famous themed gardens at Biddulph in Staffordshire. The garden is a rare survival of the interim period between the Capability Brown landscape garden and the High Victorian style. Bateman was also responsible for laying out the Arboretum at Derby, the first public park in England.

1914 Miss Mary Allen and Miss E F Harburn became the first two trained policewomen to be granted official status in Britain when they reported for duty at Grantham, Lincolnshire.

1920 The birth of Harry "Buster" Merryfield, English actor best known for starring as Uncle Albert in the BBC comedy series Only Fools and Horses.

1920 "The Mask of Zorro" directed by Fred Niblo and starring Douglas Fairbanks is shown in New York - 1st American superhero film

1924 In New York City, the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held

1925 Ernie Wise, 'straight man' to comedian Eric Morecambe, was born.

1943 Conference of Tehran (Churchill-Roosevelt-Stalin)

1944 Between 3,500 and 4,000 tons of explosives stored in a cavern beneath Staffordshire detonated, killing 68 people and wiping out an entire farm. The explosion was heard over 100 miles away in London, and recorded as an earthquake in Geneva.

1965 1st French satellite launched; France becomes 3rd nation in space

1966 The first Lancashire Day to commemorate the day in 1295 when Lancashire first sent representatives to Parliament, to attend the Model Parliament of King Edward I. The county has two AONBs (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty) - The Forest of Bowland and Arnside/Silverdale

1967 President de Gaulle said ‘Non’ to British entry into the Common Market.

1975 Ross McWhirter, TV presenter and co-editor of The Guinness Book of Records, was assassinated by two Provisional IRA gunmen after he had offered a £50,000 reward for information leading to a conviction for several high-profile bombings.

1976 The four millionth 'Mini' car left the production line.

1987 A young man in Somerset tried seven times to kill himself following a row with his girlfriend. He threw himself in front of four cars, and jumped under the wheels of a lorry. He tried to strangle himself and jumped from a window. The real victims were a driver of one car who suffered a heart attack, a policeman who injured his back trying to restrain the man, and a doctor who was kicked in the face when the struggling man reached hospital.

1990 John Major won his second ballot for leadership of the Conservative Party and became Prime Minister. (Mrs. Thatcher had resigned as Prime Minister 5 days previously.)

2000 A 10-year-old schoolboy, Damilola Taylor, died after being stabbed in the leg by a gang of hooded attackers near his home in Peckham, south London.

2005 President El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, in power since 1967 and the longest-serving head of state in the world, is re-elected to his third consecutive seven-year term

2005 The first partial human face transplant is completed in Amiens, France

2008 The Queen Elizabeth II liner (the QE2) retired from active Cunard service. It was planned for her to begin conversion to a floating hotel; however, she remains moored at Port Rashid (Dubai) facing an uncertain future.

2012 Police admitted that the late Sir Cyril Smith, former MP for Rochdale, was a *** abuser of boys in the late 1960s. Despite not being charged, after inquiries in 1970, 1998, and 1999, the CPS stressed that changes in procedure meant a prosecution would be pursued today.

2013 The death of actor, Lewis Collins, aged 67. He was the quintessential British hard man, best known as Bodie in the TV the series 'The Professionals'.

2014 A new treatment for bladder cancer was shown to completely cure some people, in the first significant breakthrough in the disease for 30 years. Scientists from Queen Mary University of London discovered that an antibody allowed cancer cells to be picked up by the immune system and eradicated before they could spread.

2014 A consortium made up of 'Stagecoach' and 'Virgin' won the franchise to run the East Coast mainline rail route. The firms promised to invest £140m in the route over eight years, and to pay the government £3.3bn for the contract.

2014 Australian Test batsman Phillip Hughes died aged 25, two days after being struck on the top of the neck by a ball during a domestic match in Sydney. He also played for Hampshire, Middle*** and Worcestershire. His final innings score was adjusted to show him being 63 not out, after an update from Cricket Australia.

2014 The American wife of London financier Sir Chris Hohn was awarded £337m by a High Court judge in a divorce case. The sum was thought to be the biggest of its kind made by a judge in England. The couple separated following 17 years of marriage.

2014 The car registration plate "25 O" was sold at auction for £518,000, setting a new British record.

2014 The death, aged 94, of the acclaimed British crime writer PD James. Her books Her books (e.g Death Comes To Pemberley) sold millions of copies around the world during her 50-year career, with many made into television films.

Famous Birthday's

Anders Celsius
(1701 - 1744)

Ernie Wise
(1925 - 1999)

Bruce Lee
(1940 - 1973)

Jimi Hendrix
(1942 - 1970)

Trevor Leonard Ward-Davies 'Dozy', (English musician, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
(1944 - 2016)

John Alderton
77th Birthday


Matthew Taylor
36th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Horace
(65 BC - 8 BC)

Ada Lovelace
(1815 - 1852)

Alan Freeman
(1927 - 2006)

Lewis Collins
(1946 - 2013)

Gary Speed
1969 - 2011)



Len Shackleton
(1922 - 2000)

Harvey Milk
(1930 - 1978)


Famous Weddings

1960 Actress Lana Turner marries for the 6th time to Frederick May

1971 MLB center fielder Willie Mays (40) weds Mae Louise Allen in Mexico City

1980 British playwright (Nobel prize for literature 2005) Harold Pinter (50) marries 2nd wife British writer and historian Antonia Frazer (48)

1993 Actress Teri Garr (44) weds building contractor John O'Neil (42) at the Twin Dolphins Hotel in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

2010 US Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell (25) weds Melanie Juneau in Texas

Famous Divorces

2006 "Baywatch" actress Pamela Anderson (39) divorces singer Kid Rock (36) due to irreconcilable differences only 4 months after getting married

2006 Actress Selma Blair (34) divorces actor-rocker Ahmet Zappa (32) due to irreconcilable differences after more than 2 years of marriage

2013 Actor Ashton Kutcher (35) divorces actress Demi Moore (51) due to irreconcilable differences after 8 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

02 DECEMBER

1697 The rebuilt St Paul’s Cathedral, the work of Sir Christopher Wren, was opened. The previous cathedral had been destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.

1755 The second Eddystone Lighthouse (located off the coast of Devon) was destroyed by fire. Four lighthouses have been built on the site. The light was lit on the fourth, (Douglass's lighthouse, designed by James Douglass) in 1882 and it is still in use.

1763 Dedication of the Touro Synagogue, in Newport, Rhode Island, the first synagogue in what will become the United States

1769 Britain's first cremation took place, in St. George's burial ground, London.

1804 Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Emperor of France in Paris

1816 The Spa Fields Riots. A large crowd, who had gathered to demand political reform, decided to march on London.

1823 President James Monroe declares his "Monroe Doctrine", a US foreign policy regarding Latin America

1823 Monroe Doctrine: U.S. President James Monroe proclaims U.S. neutrality in future European conflicts, and warns Europe not to get involved in U.S. affairs

1845 Manifest Destiny: US President James K. Polk announces to Congress that the United States should aggressively expand into the West

1867 At Tremont Temple in Boston, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States

1899 Sir John Barbirolli, English conductor with the 'Halle Orchestra', was born.

1899 John Cobb, British racing driver was born. He made money as a director of fur brokers and could therefore afford to specialise in large capacity motor-racing. He was born and lived in Esher, Surrey, near the Brooklands race track. He broke the land speed record at Bonneville on August 23, 1939, achieving 367.91 mph. Without this being beaten he raised the record to 394.19 mph in 1947. He died in 1952, attempting to break the world water speed record on Loch Ness in the jet speedboat Crusader at a speed in excess of 200 mph.

1907 The Professional Footballer’s Association was formed, after a meeting at the Imperial Hotel, Manchester.

1917 World War I: Russia and the Central Powers sign an armistice at Brest-Litovsk, and peace talks leading to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk begin

1927 Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile

1927 1st Model A Ford sold, for $385

1929 Britain’s first 22 public telephone boxes came into service. They were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott and installed as part of a new scheme for policing and were made available for general use in the Barnes, Kew and Richmond Districts. The red K6 phone boxes have become a British icon and many can be found in tourist cities, such as these boxes at Cambridge. Note:- The 100,000 BT phone box was installed at Dunsop Bridge in the "exact centre of Great Britain and 401 associated islands".

1929 First skull of Peking man found, 50 km out of Peking at Tsjoe Koe Tien

1939 New York City's LaGuardia Airport opens

1943 The first Bevin Boys, aged between 18 and 25 were directed into the mining industry. Many miners had been called up to the armed forces, resulting in a grave shortage of coal.

1961 In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist–Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism

1966 The Mini skirt, the symbol of the Swinging Sixties, was banned from the Houses of Parliament at Westminster.

1976 Fidel Castro becomes President of Cuba, replacing Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado

1982 The film Gandhi received its premiere in London. It won 8 Oscars.

1982 At the University of Utah, Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart

1993 Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is shot and killed in MedellÃ*n

1995 28 year old Nick Leeson was sentenced for financial dealings which contributed to the fall of Barings Bank, Britain's oldest merchant bank. He admitted to a judge in Singapore two charges of fraud connected with Baring's £860m ruin.

1997 Representatives of 41 countries met in London to discuss the whereabouts of gold and other valuable assets seized by the Nazi government from Jews in Germany and other occupied countries before and during World War II.

1997 Former wrestler Big Daddy (real name Shirley Crabtree) died in Halifax, aged 67. He was often partnered against Giant Haystacks (Martin Ruane), who died in 1998, aged 52.

1998 Conservative leader William Hague sacked his leader in the House of Lords, Lord Cranborne, for going behind his back to negotiate a deal with the Labour Government over the scrapping of Hereditary Peers.

1999 The United Kingdom devolved political power in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Executive.

2001 Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

2012 Under a Freedom of Information request a draft report from Transport for London (TfL) showed that the Hammersmith Flyover, used by 90,000 vehicles a day, could have experienced a "sudden and catastrophic collapse". Salt water from repeated gritting had rotted internal steel cables yet the road remained open for several more weeks.

Famous Birthday's

Georges Seurat
(1859 - 1891)

Gianni Versace
(1946 - 1997)

Monica Seles
44th Birthday

Britney Spears
36th Birthday

Famous Deaths



John Brown (American abolitionist and revolutionary (Harpers Ferry), hanged at 59)
(1800 - 1859)

Aaron Copland
(1900 - 1990)

Philip Larkin
(1922 - 1985)

Shirley Crabtree, (British professional wrestler )
(1930 - 1997)



Anthony Valentine
(1939 - 2015)

Pablo Escobar
(1949 - 1993)

Famous Weddings

1886 26th US President Theodore Roosevelt (28) weds second wife Edith Kermit Carow (25) in London

1926 Film director and producer Alfred Hitchcock (27) weds director Alma Reville (27) at Brompton Oratory in London

1933 1st transatlantic telephone wedding (Bertil Clason-Sigrid Carlson)

1965 Comedian Tony Hancock (40) weds publicist Freddie Ross (35)

2000 Mexican singer Thalia (29) weds co-owner of Casablanca Records Tommy Mottola (51) at St. Patrick

[Altobelli]

I'm pleased its still keeping you happy Chalky, I was a bit worried when you went awal, glad you are back fella

[chalky_ncfc]

I'm pleased its still keeping you happy Chalky, I was a bit worried when you went awal, glad you are back fella

Its always an interesting read Altobelli...

1864 is so sad to read,I wonder what made that poor woman take such tragic and devastating action,the answer is probably lost in the time

[Altobelli]

Here you go Chalky

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-coroner-rules

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...us-case-review

[Altobelli]

11 DECEMBER

1282 The death of the last native Prince of Wales - Llewelyn ap Gruffydd, prince of Gwynedd.

1620 103 Mayflower pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock (12/21 NS)

1688 James II fled to France, never to return and was forced to abdicate after William of Orange had landed in England on 5th November.

1769 Venetian blinds were patented (in London) by Edward Beran.

1792 France's King Louis XVI goes on trial, accused of high treason and crimes against the state

1877 English photographer Eadweard Mubridge won a long standing bet for a millionaire by proving that a horse's four feet are all off the ground simultaneously once every stride. He used multiple cameras around the track, each taking a single frame via a series of trip wires.

1895 The death, at Much Wenlock in Shropshire of William Penny Brookes. He was an English surgeon, magistrate, botanist, and educationalist especially known for inspiring the modern Olympic Games, the Wenlock Olympian Games and for his promotion of physical education and personal betterment. He was born at this house in Much Wenlock, was buried in the graveyard at Holy Trinity Church where there is this plaque and a memorial to him.

1903 The first wildlife preservation society was formed in Britain to protect fauna. It was called the Society for the Preservation of Wild Fauna of the Empire.

1913 "Mona Lisa" recovered 2 years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum

1914 The Royal Flying Corps, which later became the RAF, adopted the red, white and blue roundel to identify its aircraft more easily during World War I. See the roundel on a static WWII Spitfire F Mk IX - BS435 : F-FY at the Southport Woodvale Rally.

1914 In the Battle of the Falklands, all British ships survived whilst four German cruisers were sunk.

1917 13 black soldiers hanged for participation in Houston riot

1931 Statute of Westminster gives complete legislative independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland (Free State), and Newfoundland (not then part of Canada)

1936 After ruling for less than one year, Edward VIII becomes the first English monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne. Edward planned to marry divorcee Mrs. Wallis Simpson and, before he left for France, he made a final radio broadcast to the nation. He was succeeded by his brother, George, who became George VI.

1946 UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) established (Nobel 1965)

1952 Derek Bentley, aged 19, and 16 year old Christopher Craig, were found guilty of the murder of a policeman in south London. Because of his age, Craig was sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure, while Bentley, who did not fire the gun, was sentenced to hang. Despite a public outcry, the sentence was carried out on 27th January 1953.

1967 Concorde, the world's first supersonic airliner, was rolled out of its hangar for public viewing for the first time.

1967 Beatles' Apple Music signs its 1st group - Grapefruit

1975 An Icelandic gunboat opened fire on unarmed British fishery support vessels in the North Atlantic Sea, heightening the 'Cod War'.

1981 Muhammad Ali's 61st & last fight, losing to Trevor Berbick

1997 Delegates from 150 industrial nations attending a UN climate conference in Kyoto, Japan, reach agreement to control heat-trapping greenhouse gases

1979 Rhodesia reverted to British rule after Parliament passed a bill to end 14 years of illegal independence from Britain.

1986 Church leaders condemned a radio campaign about Aids for 'condoning promiscuity'.

1987 Charlie Chaplin’s famous memorabilia were sold at Christie’s in London. His cane and bowler went for £82,500 and his boots for £38,500.

1990 The Government set aside £42M to British haemophiliacs who became infected with the HIV virus after being treated with contaminated Factor VIII

2005 A huge fire continued to burn at Buncefield oil depot near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire. It was the largest of its kind in peacetime Europe and the noise of the explosions could be heard as far away as the Netherlands.

2012 HSBC bank settles with US authorities to pay $1.9 billion for drug cartel money laundering

2014 Ray Teret, a 73 year old DJ friend of *****phile Jimmy Savile, was jailed for 25 years for a catalogue of historical *** offences against young girls. He was convicted of seven rapes and 11 indecent assaults against schoolgirls in the 1960s and 1970s

2014 World's 1st ***** transplant procedure by a team from Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa (THINGS MIGHT BE LOOKING GOOD FOR YOU ALF)

Famous Birthday's

Leo X
(1475 - 1521)

Annie Jump Cannon
(1863 - 1941)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
(1918 - 2008)

David Gates, (rock vocalist, Bread-Baby I'm A Want You), born in Tulsa, Oklahoma
77th Birthday



Donna Mills
77th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Bettie Page
(1923 - 2008)



Ravi Shankar
(1920 - 2012)

Keith Chegwin
(1957 - 2017)

Famous Weddings

1924 Photographer Alfred Stieglitz (60) marries artist Georgia O'Keeffe (37) in Cliffside Park, New Jersey

1946 "Bill Haley & His Comets" rock and roll musician Bill Haley (21) weds Dorothy Crowe

1993 Canada's PM Stephen Harper (34) weds Laureen Teskey (30)

1999 Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane marries Rhona Gemmell

2010 "Good Charlotte" lead vocalist Joel Madden (31) weds fashion designer and actress Nicole Richie (30) at Beverly Hills, California


50 Years ago Album and Single # 1s

No Change This Week:

THE SOUND OF MUSIC ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK

BABY NOW THAT I'VE FOUND YOU FOUNDATIONS

[Altobelli]

18 DECEMBER

218 BC Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia - Hannibal's Carthaginian army heavily defeat Roman forces on Italian soil

1271 Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan" (元 yuán), marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of China

1559 Queen Elizabeth I of England sent aid to the Scottish Lords to drive the French from Scotland.

1603 First fleet of the Dutch East India Compnay under Admiral Steven van der Haghen departs for the East-Indies

1707 The birth at Epworth, Lincolnshire, of Charles Wesley, English hymn writer of more than 6,000 hymns. He was an evangelist like his brother John, who was the founder of Methodism. Their father was an Anglican cleric and they lived here . This window in Epworth Methodist Church features the two brothers. Charles ministered for part of his life in The New Room Chapel in Bristol, which is the oldest Methodist Chapel in the world (originally built in 1739) and the cradle of the early Methodist movement.

1779 The birth, in London, of Joseph Grimaldi, English creator of the original white faced clown. He was introduced to the stage at Drury Lane at the age of three and began to appear at the Sadler's Wells theatre. As Music Hall became popular, he introduced the pantomime dame to the theatre and was responsible for the tradition of audience participation.

1787 New Jersey becomes 3rd state to ratify US constitution

1792 Radical political writer Thomas Paine was tried for treason, in his absence, for publishing 'The Rights of Man' in which he supported the French Revolution and called for the abolition of the British Monarchy.

1852 George Hamilton-Gordon becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after the downfall of the Conservative government of Edward Smith-Stanley

1892 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet "Nutcracker Suite" premieres

1912 The Piltdown Man was discovered in Sus*** by Charles Dawson. It was claimed to be the fossilized skull and remains of the earliest known European, but in 1953 it was proved to be a hoax. The skull was that of an orang-utan.

1916 The Battle of Verdun, the longest engagement of World War I, ended after 10 months and massive loss of life. 23 million shells had been fired and 650,000 were killed.

1919 Pioneering aviator John Alcock, a Captain in the RAF, died in an aircraft accident whilst flying the new Vickers Viking amphibian to the Paris airshow. Alcock and Lt. Arthur Whitten-Brown were the first to make a non-stop transatlantic flight. A few days after the flight both Alcock and Brown were honoured with a reception at Windsor Castle during which King George V knighted them and invested them with their insignia as Knight Commanders of the Order of the British Empire, but after Alcock's death, Brown never flew again.

1946 Clement Atlee's Labour government won the vote on state ownership. It led to the nationalizing of the railways, ports and mines. Labour MPs triumphantly sang 'The Red Flag'.

1956 Israeli flag hoisted on Mount Sinai

1957 World's 1st full scale nuclear power plant begins to generate electricity, at the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania

1964 "The Pink Panther" cartoon series premieres (Pink Phink)

1964 During funeral service held for soul singer Sam Cooke, fans cause damage to funeral home

1971 US dollar devalued 7.9% in Holland ($1=Ÿ3,245)

1971 Three members of the Irish Republican Army die when the bomb they were transporting explodes prematurely in King Street, Magherafelt, County Derry.

1974 The Government said that it would pay £42,000 compensation to relatives of the 13 men killed in the Bloody Sunday riots in Londonderry (30th January 1972).

1980 IRA's Sean McKenna becomes critically ill, ends hunger strike

1987 Ivan Boesky, the former US ‘King of Arbitrage’ was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for insider stock exchange dealings. Some of Boesky’s revelations led to the investigation by the Department of Trade and Industry in Britain into Guinness’s takeover of Distillers.

1989 The Labour Party abandoned its policy on trade union 'closed shops' in line with European legislation.

1997 A bill giving Scotland its own parliament for the first time in three centuries was unveiled in Glasgow. Work commenced in June

1999 on the Scottish Parliament Building. It was built at a cost :- £414 million (ten times over the original budget).

2002 Fashion designer Calvin Klein announces he is selling his company to shirt-maker Phillips-Van Heusen for $430 million

2011 The last US troops withdraw from Iraq, formally ending the Iraq War

2012 The Queen attended a historic cabinet meeting at Downing Street, the first monarch to do so since 1781. Later, Foreign Secretary William Hague announced that the southern part of the British Antarctic Territory, an unnamed area almost twice the size of the UK would be called Queen Elizabeth Land.

2012 Comet stores closed their doors for the last time, bringing the electrical retailer's 79 year history to an end.

2012 4 people are killed and 11 are injured after an apartment block collapses in Palermo, Italy

2012 6 health workers dispensing polio vaccinations are gunned down in Pakistan

2013 The death, aged 84, of the criminal Ronnie Biggs who was part of the gang which escaped with £2.6m from the Glasgow to London mail train on 8th August 1963. Biggs was given a 30-year sentence but escaped from Wandsworth prison in 1965. In 2001 he returned to the UK seeking medical helpp, but was sent to prison. He was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 after contracting pneumonia. Coincidentally Biggs' death occurred hours before the first broadcast of a two-part BBC television series 'The Great Train Robbery'.

2013 The Bank of England announced its plans to press ahead with switching to plastic banknotes, starting with the new Sir Winston Churchill £5 note in 2016. The decision will mark the beginning of the end of 320 years of paper notes from the Bank.

2015 The closure of Kellingley Colliery in North Yorkshire, the last remaining deep coal mine in Britain.

Famous Birthday's


Attachment 7606
1779 Joseph Grimaldi, English pantomimist and the "greatest clown in history", born in London (d. 1837)


Attachment 7607
1856 J. J. Thomson, English physicist who discovered the electron (Nobel 1906), born in Manchester, England (d. 1940)

Franz Ferdinand
(1863 - 1914)

Joseph Stalin
(1878 - 1953)

Ty Cobb
(1886 - 1961)


Attachment 7605
1916 Betty Grable, great legs/actress (Gay Divorcee), born in St. Louis, Missouri (d 1973)

1934 John Bingham, Lord Lucan, British peer suspected of murdering his nanny who disappeared, born in London (presumed dead)

Keith Richards
74th Birthday

Steven Spielberg
71st Birthday

Ray Liotta
63rd Birthday

Brad Pitt
54th Birthday

Robson Green
53rd Birthday

Christina Aguilera
37th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Bobby Jones
(1902 - 1971)

Joseph Barbera
(1911 - 2006)

1919 John Alcock, English pilot (1st non-stop flight across Atlantic Ocean), dies in crash at 27

Václav Havel
(1936 - 2011)

2010 James Pickles was an English barrister and circuit judge and who later became a tabloid newspaper columnist. He became known for his controversial sentencing decisions and press statements (b 1925)

2016 Zsa Zsa Gabor [Sari Gabor], Hungarian-born actress (Queen of Outer Space), dies at 99

Famous Weddings

1915 28th US President Woodrow Wilson, widowed the year before marries second wife Edith Bolling Galt, a descendant of native American Pocahontas

1926 Actor George Murphy (24) weds ballroom dancing partner Juliette Henkel

1932 Civil rights activist Rosa Parks (19) weds Raymond Parks (29) in Montgomery, Alabama

1962 Pop singer Little Eva (19) weds James Harris

1966 Actor Strother Martin (47) weds Helen Meisels

Famous Divorces

1923 Jazz musician Louis Armstrong (22) divorces Daisy Parker after 5 years of marriage

Attachment 7604
1968 Actor Peter Sellers (43) divorces actress Britt Ekland after 4 years of marriage


50 Years ago Album and Single # 1s

THE SOUND OF MUSIC - ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK

​HELLO GOODBYE - BEATLES