On This Day

[Altobelli]

04 DECEMBER

1154 The only Englishman to become a pope, Nicholas Breakspear, became Adrian IV.

1534 Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent occupies Baghdad

1586 Queen Elizabeth I conferred the death sentence on Mary Queen of Scots after discovering a plot to assassinate her and bring about a Roman Catholic uprising. Queen Mary stayed at this house in Jedburgh in 1566 to hold a Circuit Court. She fell gravely ill and almost died there. As her later troubles closed in, she is said to have remarked "Would that I had died in Jedburgh."

1619 38 colonists from Berkeley Parish, England disembark in Virginia and give thanks to God. Considered by many the first Thanksgiving in the Americas.

1791 The Observer, Britain’s oldest Sunday newspaper, was first published.

1795 The birth of Thomas Carlyle at this house in Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire. The philosopher, writer, historian and teacher was considered one of the most important social commentators of his time.

1798 British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger announced the introduction of Income Tax to help finance the war against France.

1865 Birth of Edith Cavell at Swardeston ( 4 miles south of Norwich). An English nurse in Brussels 1914-15, she was accused of helping Allied soldiers escape occupied Belgium over the Dutch border and was executed by the Germans. There is a statue of her outside Norwich Cathedral.

1872 Crew from the British brigantine Die Gratia boarded a deserted ship drifting in mid Atlantic. The captain's table was set for a meal aboard the US ship Marie Celeste but the Captain, crew and passengers were all missing.

1829 Britain outlaws "suttee" in India (widow burning herself to death on her husband's funeral pyre)

1930 Ronnie Corbett, comedian partnered with Ronnie Barker, was born.

1937 The first issue of the Dandy comic. With a fan club of over 350,000, Desperate Dan proved a durable character. A copy of this first edition is worth between £850 and £1,000. The closure, on 4th December 2012, coincided with its 75th anniversary and the final print edition included a pullout reprint of the very first edition of the comic.

1948 George Orwell completed the final draft of the book Nineteen Eighty Four which was published on 8th June 1949.

1952 At least 4,000 people died in a week, from breathing difficulties, during a severe London smog.

1956 The Million Dollar Quartet (Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash) get together at Sun Studios for the first and last time

1961 Birth control pills became available on the NHS.

1971 The Montreux Casino in Switzerland is set ablaze by a flare gun set off during a Frank Zappa concert, mentioned in Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water".


1976 Benjamin Britten, considered to be Britain's leading composer, died aged 63. He had been fighting ill health after a heart operation in 1973. This memorial window to him is in Aldeburgh Parish Church, Suffolk. The Aldeburgh Festival of music was started in 1948 by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears. Every year the Aldeburgh Festival has many of its concerts at the Snape Maltings Concert Hall, 5 miles from Aldeburgh where Britten and Pears lived.

1980 English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbanded, following the death of drummer John Bonham on 25th September.

1997 Europe's health ministers voted to ban tobacco advertising throughout the European Union although they agreed that motor-racing, which relied heavily on sponsorship and advertising by tobacco companies, should be exempt for another 8 years.

2008 The Bank of England cut interest rates by one percentage point, from 3% to 2% - the lowest level since 1951. The move followed a dramatic cut in November in an attempt to help the slowing economy.

2008 Karen Matthews, the mother of nine-year-old Shannon, was convicted of kidnapping her own daughter. Matthews, 33, and her co-accused Michael Donovan, 40, were found guilty of kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice. The trial at Leeds Crown Court heard that the pair kept Shannon 'drugged, subdued and hidden from the public' so that they could claim £50,000 in reward money.

2012 The highest lottery prize ever to remain unclaimed (£63.8m) eventually went to good causes as the winer did not come forward by the deadline of 23:00 GMT.

2013 One of Edinburgh’s new trams (No. 264) completed the first test run along Princes Street, flanked by teams of engineers. It was the first time since 1956 that a tram had run on Princes Street. Council bosses said that it was another indication that they were back in control of the troubled project.

2014 Knutsford council, in Cheshire, approved plans to widen the town's pavements. 220 years previously, spinster Lady Jane Stanley had paid for narrow pavements to be laid in the town, to prevent lovers from strolling arm in arm.

2014 The death, aged 85, of Jeremy Thorpe, former Liberal partyleader.

Famous Birthday's



Crazy Horse
(1840 - 1877)



Edith Louisa Cavell
(1865 - 1915)

Francisco Franco
(1892 - 1975)

Ronnie Corbett
(1930 -2016)

Dennis Wilson (Photo at foot of post)
(1944 - 1983)

Jay-Z
48th Birthday

Jeff Bridges
68th Birthday

Pamela Stephenson
68th Birthday

Paul McGrath
58th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Thomas Hobbes
(1588 - 1679)

Robert Jenkinson
(1770 - 1828)

Hannah Arendt
(1906 - 1975)

Frank V Zappa
(1940 - 1993

Famous Weddings

1878 Novelist Bram Stoker (31) weds Florence Balcombe (20) in Dublin, Ireland

1973 NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle (47) weds activist Carrie Cooke

1976 Actress Elizabeth Taylor (44) marries for the 7th time to politician John Warner (49)

1979 Liza Minnelli's 3rd marriage (Mark Gero)

1999 Philippe, Duke of Brabant and heir apparent to Belgium throne marries the honourable Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz

Famous Divorces

2015 Actors Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas divorce after 19 years of marriage


50 Years ago Album and Single # 1s

THE SOUND OF MUSIC - ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK

BABY NOW THAT I'VE FOUND YOU - FOUNDATIONS

[Altobelli]

08 DECEMBER

1542 The birth of Mary Queen of Scots, Scottish Queen who ascended to the throne when she was just 6 days old and was crowned nine months later. A rebellion led to her abdication and later Elizabeth I imprisoned her for a plot to restore the Roman Catholic religion and to take the throne from her. After 19 years in custody, Mary was tried and executed for treason.

1863 Abraham Lincoln issues his Amnesty Proclamation and plan for Reconstruction of the South

1863 The world’s first heavyweight boxing championship took place at Wadhurst, Kent, between Tom King (England) and John C Heenan (US). The fight lasted for 24 rounds and King was the champion. Heenan was America's heavyweight champion under the London Prize Ring, or bare-knuckle rules, but retired after his defeat by the English heavyweight.

1864 The opening of the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the River Avon at Bristol, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel when he was aged just 24. A plaque on the bridge commemorates Brunel's work. There have been over 500 suicides since the bridge was opened, including the tragic death of Charlotte Bevan and her new-born baby Zaani Tiana, whose bodies were discovered at the foot of the gorge on 3rd and 4th of December 2014 respectively.



1874 Jesse James gang takes train at Muncie Kansas

1914 Battle of the Falkland Island: British Royal Navy destroys a German battle squadron

1915 John McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields" appears anonymously in "Punch" magazine

1941 The US, Britain and Australia declared war on Japan following the Pearl Harbour attack the previous day. The attack sank 9 ships of the American fleet and 21 ships were severely damaged. The overall death toll reached 2,403, including 68 civilians.

1941 President Roosevelt delivers "Day of Infamy" speech to US Congress a day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor

1941 The birth of Sir Geoff Hurst, English footballer. He made his mark in World Cup history as the only player to have scored a hat-trick in a World Cup final. His three goals came in the 1966 final for England in their 4–2 win over West Germany at the old Wembley stadium.

1952 Her Majesty the Queen announced that she would permit her coronation to be televised.

1955 Turkish government of Menderes forms

1963 Frank Sinatra Jr is kidnapped

1965 The new Race Relations Act came into force making racial discrimination unlawful in public places.

1965 Pope Paul VI signs 2nd Vatican council

1966 US & USSR sign treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons in outer space

1967 The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" album is released in UK

1980 Annie Leibovitz has a photo-shoot with John Lennon, the last person to professionally photograph him before his death

1980 John Lennon, former member of the Liverpool group The Beatles, was shot dead by Mark David Chapman who opened fire outside the musician's New York apartment.

1981 Arthur Scargill became leader of 'The National Union Of Mineworkers'. Scargill’s last official connections with his old union expired at the end of 2011. His honorary presidency of the NUM was terminated and so was his last remaining paid employment, as an adviser to the NUM’s Yorkshire and Lancashire Area Trust Funds.

1983 The House of Lords voted in favour of allowing live broadcasts from its chamber.

1993 Daisy Adams of Church Gresley, Derbyshire, thought to be Britain's oldest person at the time, died aged 113 years and 161 days.

1993 Storm hits western Europe, 11 killed in England

1995 Head teacher Philip Lawrence, aged 48, died after being stabbed outside his west London school while protecting a pupil who was being assaulted.

2004 The Cuzco Declaration is signed in Cuzco, Peru, establishing the South American Community of Nations

2011 Defence Secretary Philip Hammond announced an end to the ban on women serving on submarines. Female officers would begin serving on Vanguard class nuclear-powered submarines towards the end of 2013 and on the new Astute class submarines from 2015.

2013 Northumberland National Park and the adjoining Kielder Water and forest park, were declared Europe's largest "dark sky park". The award recognises the profound darkness that makes nearly 580 square milesof the county an ideal territory from which to stare up at the night sky.

2014 A £6,000 diamond and sapphire band engagement ring, stolen from a handbag on Caroline Marshall's wedding day in West Sus***, was replaced by Ashraf Ahmed (a Dubai-based jeweller), who was so moved that he gave the bride an identical ring.

Famous Birthday's

Mary Stuart
(1542 - 1587)

Eli Whitney
(1765 - 1825)

Lee J Cobb
(1911 - 1976)



Samuel "Sammy" Davis Jr
(1925 - 1990)



David Carradine
(1936 - 2009)

Jim Morrison
(1943 - 1971)

Gregg Allman, guitarist/vocalist (Allman Brothers Band), born in Nashville, Tennessee (guitarist/vocalist, Allman Brothers Band), born in Nashville, Tennessee
(1947 - 2017)

James Galway
78th Birthday

Bobby Elliott (rock drummer, The Hollies), born in Burnley, Lancashire
76th Birthday

Bill Bryson
66th Birthday



Teri Hatcher
53rd Birthday

Sinéad O'Connor
51st Birthday

Geoff Hurst
76th Birthday

Amir Khan
31st Birthday

Raheem Sterling
23rd Birthday

Famous Deaths

Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr.
(1935 - 1967)

John Lennon
(1940 - 1980)

John Glenn
(1921 - 2016)

Famous Weddings

1872 Religious leader Brigham Young (71) weds his fifty-fifth wife Hannah Tapfield in Salt Lake City, Utah

1950 NBA player Bob Cousy (22) weds his college sweetheart Missie Ritterbusch

1953 Prime Minister of Canada John Diefenbaker (58) weds second wife Olive Palmer (51) at Park Road Baptist Church in Toronto, Canada

2007 "Happy Days" actor and legendary bachelor Scott Baio (46) weds longtime girlfriend Renee Sloan at a luxury high-rise in Los Angeles

2007 Backstreet Boys member Howie Dorough (34) weds longtime girlfriend Leigh Boniello at St. James Cathedral in Orlando, Florida

Famous Divorces

2010 "Heart" rock singer Nancy Wilson (56) divorces "Almost Famous" and "Elizabethtown" director Cameron Crowe (53) due to irreconcilable differences after 24 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

13 DECEMBER

1577 Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth with his flagship Pelican, plus 4 other ships and 160 men, on an expedition to the Pacific. His other ships were lost or returned home shortly after the voyage began but the Pelican, renamed the Golden Hind, pushed on alone up the coast of Chile and Peru. Continuing northwards, the California coast was claimed in the name of Queen Elizabeth. He crossed the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and eventually returned to Plymouth on September 26th 1580 with treasure worth £500,000. He became the first Englishmen to sail around the world and the Queen knighted him aboard his ship at Deptford, on the river Thames.

1774 First incident of American Revolution - 400 attack Ft William and Mary, New Hampshire


1833 HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin arrive in Port Deseado, Patagonia

1847 Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (under the pseudonym Ellis Bell) was published, as was Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë (under the pseudonym Acton Bell). In choosing to write under pseudonyms, the sisters drew an immediate veil of mystery around them, and people speculated as to the true identity of Currer Bell (i.e. Charlotte Brontë), and Ellis and Acton Bell. Find out more about Haworth and the Brontës on the Beautiful Britain website.

1867 Twelve people were killed when Irish terrorists blew up the outer wall of Clerkenwell Prison, London in an attempt to rescue a jailed colleague.

1904 The first electric train came into service on London's Metropolitan Railway.

1909 The British Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton was knighted by King Edward VII.

1937 Japanese troops conquer and plunder Nanjing (Nanjing Massacre)

1939 The Battle of the River Plate, the first naval battle in the Second World War and the only episode of the war developed in South America. Action by Royal Navy cruisers HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles of the New Zealand Division, drove the great German battleship Admiral Graf Spee to seek shelter off Montevideo in Uruguay for repairs to its fuel system. Captain Hans Langsdorff of the Graf Spee scuttled his damaged ship rather than face the overwhelmingly superior force that the British had led him to believe was awaiting on his departure. On 19th December, he committed suicide, over the Graf Spee's ensign, as a symbolic act of going down with his ship.

1950 James Dean begins his career with an appearance in a Pepsi commercial

1961 The Beatles sign a formal agreement to be managed by Brian Epstein

1961 "The Young Ones" directed by Sidney J. Furie, starring Cliff Richard, Robert Morley and Carole Gray premieres in London

1963 Capital records signs right of first refusal agreement with The Beatles



1966 Test debut of Clive Lloyd, v India Bombay, 82 & 78

1972 More than 300 British victims of the Thalidomide drug were offered a compensation deal said to be worth £11.85m. A year later the 11 year battle over Thalidomide compensation ended with a £20 million court settlement.

1973 The British Government ordered a 3 day working week following an Arab oil embargo and industrial action by the country's miners.

1976 Longest non-stop passenger airflight (Sydney to SF 13h14m)

1976 The first oil was brought to Britain, by tanker, from the North Sea Brent Oil Field , located 116miles north-east of Lerwick in the Shetland Islands.

1989 A deaf choir from South Wales gave what was claimed to be the first concert using sign language. Performed in unison with a leading male voice choir, it enabled members of the audience who were deaf, to enjoy the concert at the Gwyn Town Hall in West Glamorgan.

1995 Hundreds of black and white youths went on the streets of Brixton, in south London attacking police, ransacking shops and burning cars after the death of a black man (Wayne Douglas, aged 26. ) in police custody.

1995 Christopher Reeve released from physical rehab center after his fall from his horse in a riding competition

2002 The enlargement of the European Union. It was announced that Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia would become members from 1st May 2004.

2003 Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit, during Operation Red Dawn by US forces

2004 Former Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet is put under house arrest, after being sued under accusations over 9 kidnapping actions and manslaughter. The house arrest is lifted the same day on appeal.

2013 Prince Harry and his 'Walking With the Wounded' team reached the South Pole. Among those was Sgt Duncan Slater who lost both his legs in a blast in Afghanistan in 2009. The expedition's director said 'We came down here, determined to get 12 men and women, all injured in conflict, to the South Pole, and this is what we have done. The feeling is incredible.'

2014 Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London, a conference and events venue since 1887, closed for the last time. The final concert was by the Bombay Bicycle Club, an indie rock band from London.

Famous Birthday's

Henry IV of FranceHenry IV of France
(1553 - 1610)

Lillian Board
(1948 - 1970)

Dick Van Dyke
92nd Birthday

Christopher Plummer
88th Birthday

Paula Wilcox
68th Birthday

John Francome
65th Birthday


Steve Buscemi
60th Birthday

Taylor Swift
28th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Samuel Gompers
(1850 - 1924)



Grandma Moses
(1860 - 1961)

Alice Marble
(1913 - 1990)

Famous Weddings

862 Boudouin Iron Arm & Count of Flanders, elopes with Princess Judith, daughter King Charles of West Francia

1951 British PM Margaret Thatcher (26) weds businessman Denis Thatcher (36) at Wesley's Chapel in City Road, London

2003 Italian operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti (68) weds Nicoletta Mantovani at Modena Italy's Teatro Comunale

Famous Divorces

2001 Oscar winning-actress Kate Winslet (26) divorces assistant film director Jim Threapleton (28) due to unreasonable behavior after 3 years of marriage

2010 "Dexter" actress Jennifer Carpenter (31) divorces actor Michael C. Hall (40) due to irreconcilable differences after 2 years of marriage

[chalky_ncfc]

Thank you Altobelli

[Altobelli]

21 DECEMBER

1118 The birth, in London's Cheapside, of Thomas Ã* Becket, Lord Chancellor of England, Archbishop of Canterbury and martyr.

1620 The Pilgrim Fathers arrived at Plymouth Rock , Massachusetts aboard The Mayflower. Passengers & crew increased to 103 after 2 births on the voyage from Plymouth, England. They had originally set sail from Southampton on 5th August but were beset with problems.

1804 The birth of Benjamin Disraeli, first Earl of Beaconsfield and British Prime Minister. He became the first Conservative Prime Minister in 1868, but was defeated at the next election. He was Prime Minister again in 1874 with a substantial majority.

1842 Pentonville Prison, Islington, was opened. Pentonville became the model for British prisons. A further 54 were built to the same design over six years, and hundreds more were built throughout the British Empire.

1844 At 8:00 p.m. On This Day, the Rochdale Pioneers commenced business at their co-operative, now this museum on Toad Lane, Rochdale, thus starting the Co-operative movement, often referred to simply as the Co-op.

1846 Robert Liston, Scottish surgeon, used anaesthetic (ether) for the first time in a British operation, at University College Hospital, London, to perform an amputation of a leg. Liston was known as 'the fastest knife in the West End' at a time when speed was essential to reduce pain and improve the odds of survival of a patient.

1872 The Challenger expedition, when HMS Challenger, commanded by Captain George Nares, sailed from Portsmouth. The scientific exercise covered almost 70,000 nautical miles, laid the foundation of oceanography and more than 4,000 previously unknown species were discovered. The expedition was hailed as 'the greatest advance in the knowledge of our planet since the celebrated discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.'

1880 An act passed by the House of Keys on the Isle of Man granted women the vote, provided they were widows or spinsters with a property rated annually at £4 or over. The first opportunity to vote was in April, the following year. In 1901, Norwegian women were allowed to vote, but in local elections only.

1891 1st game of basketball, based on rules created by James Naismith, played by 18 students in Springfield, Massachusetts

1898 French Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium

1913 1st crossword puzzle (with 32 clues) printed in NY World

1914 1st feature-length silent film comedy "Tillie's Punctured Romance" released starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand and Charlie Chaplin



1919 J. Edgar Hoover deports anarchists/feminist Emma Goldman to Russia

1929 Coco the Clown first appears for Bertram Mills Circus in Manchester, England

1933 Fox Films signs Shirley Temple, 5, to a studio contract

1937 The first full-length animated feature film and the earliest in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", premieres at the Carthay Circle Theatre

1941 German submarine U-567 sinks

1961 Gangster Joe Gallo is sentenced to 7 to 14 years in state prison for extortion

1962 President Kennedy and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan agreed that the UK would buy nuclear missiles from the US to form a multilateral NATO nuclear force.

1963 Under soil heating was used for the first time, at the Leeds Rugby League ground for their match against Dewsbury.

1963 Sir Jack Hobbs, English cricketer, died. He is widely regarded as cricket's greatest-ever opening batsman.

1968 David Crosby, Stephen Stills & Graham Nash premiere together in Calif

1969 Diana Ross final TV appearance as a Supreme (Ed Sullivan Show)

1977 The Trades Union Congress General Council narrowly voted to reject firemen's demands for a public campaign against a 10% limit on wage increases. The union decided by 20 votes to 17 not to support the firemen who were in their sixth week of strike action.

1988 A Pan American jumbo jet bound for New York was blown out of the sky by a terrorist bomb and crashed onto the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 passengers and 11 people on the ground. It remains the deadliest aviation incident ever to take place in the United Kingdom. The Garden of Remembrance are at Dryfesdale Cemetery, Lockerbie.

1990 In a German television interview, Saddam Hussein declared that he would not withdraw from Kuwait by the UN deadline.

1991 Soviet Union formally dissolves as 11 of 12 republics sign treaty forming Commonwealth of Independent States

1995 The city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control.

2012 The youngest female drivers faced 'significant increases in their insurance costs' after a ban on different car insurance prices for men and women. A European court ruling the previous year found that gender discrimination in insurance was against the law.

2103 A poll showed that 1 in 10 people aged 25 to 34 in Britain thought that Father Christmas was mentioned in the Biblical account of the birth of Jesus.

2013 The death, aged 87, of former BBC sports broadcaster David Coleman. He first appeared on air for the BBC in 1954, covering 11 Olympic Games - from Rome in 1960 to Sydney 2000 and six football World Cups. Coleman presented some of the BBC's leading sporting programmes, including Grandstand and Sportsnight and was the host of Question of Sport for 18 years.

2014 A former senior military intelligence officer disclosed that a British soldier was investigated for touching a Taliban fighter on the nose with a sheet of paper during a routine interrogation as he had broken rules concerning the touching of detainees during questioning. The £31 million inquiry, chaired by Sir Thayne Forbes, a former High Court judge, listed several instances of what was judged to be 'ill-treatment during questioning'.

Famous Birthday's

Walter Hagen
(1892 - 1969)

1916 John Boon, publisher (Mills and Boon), born in King's Lynn, Norfolk (d. 1996)



1940 Frank Zappa, rocker (Mothers of Invention, Catholic Girls), born in Baltimore, Maryland (d. 1995)

1946 Carl Wilson, rock vocalist and guitarist (Beach Boys), born in Hawthorne California (d. 1998)

Samuel L. Jackson
69th Birthday

Jane Fonda
80th Birthday



Chris Evert
63rd Birthday

Famous Deaths

Frank Kellogg
(1856 - 1937)

F. Scott Fitzgerald
(1896 - 1940)

George S. Patton
(1885 - 1945)

2000 Alfred J. Gross, American inventor (invented the walkie-talkie), dies at 82



2014 Billie Whitelaw, English actress, dies at 82

Famous Weddings

1762 British Explorer Captain James Cook marries Elizabeth Batts

1886 Founder of Girl Scouts of the USA Juliette Gordon Low (26) weds William Mackay Low in Savannah, Georgia

1947 Actress Estelle Getty (24) weds Arthur Gettleman

1958 Actress Ingrid Bergman (43) weds producer Lars Schmidt

1959 Shah of Persia Mohammed Reza Pahlavi marries Farah Pahlavi Diba

Famous Divorces

1945 American author and journalist "The Old Man and the Sea" Ernest Hemingway and journalist Martha Gellhorn divorce after 5 years of marriage.

2010 "The Lord of The Rings" actor Sean Bean (51) divorces actress Georgina Sutcliffe (32) due to irreconcilable differences after 2 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

01 JANUARY

1660 Samuel Pepys began writing the Diary which he kept for nine years, writing in an early form of shorthand.

1772 The London Credit Exchange Company issued the first traveller’s cheques, accepted in 90 cities and guaranteed against theft.

1781 The first all-iron bridge in the world, Iron Bridge in Shropshire was opened to traffic. The bridge was built by Abraham Darby III, from a design by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard.

1833 Britain claimed sovereignty of the Falkland Islands

1894 The opening of the Manchester Ship Canal linking Manchester to the River Mersey. Queen Victoria later formally opened the canal, on 21st May 1894. After the dockyards closed in 1982, Manchester Docks was transformed into Salford Quays, now the home to the Lowry theatre , retail outlets, the Imperial War Museum North and Media City UK, home to the BBC and ITV studios.

1923 Britain's Railways are grouped into the Big Four: LNER, GWR, SR, and LMSR.

1948 British railways are nationalised to form British Rail.

1951 The first episode of the BBC’s radio serial The Archers - farming folk of Ambridge. It is the world's longest running radio 'soap'. By 18th December 2011 it had reached 16,600 episodes.

1960 Johnny Cash plays first of many free concerts behind bars

1962 The Beatles had an audition for Decca Records, who turned them down and signed Brian Poole and the Tremeloes instead.

1964 Jimmy Savile presented the very first Top of the Pops, the longest running music show in the world. He also co-hosted the last, on 30th July 2006. After Savile's death in October 2012, numerous allegations were made that he had ***ually abused hundreds of young people, dating back to 1958. Police also confirmed that Savile had been questioned over allegations of child *** abuse in 2007. His gravestone at Scarborough was removed at the request of Savile's family and plaques and statues of him in other locations were removed to prevent further defacement.



1965 Stanley Matthews was knighted, the first professional footballer to receive this honour.

1973 The UK became a fully-fledged member of the European Economic Community.

1985 Michael Harrison, the son of former Vodafone chairman Sir Ernest Harrison, made the first ever mobile phone call in Britain. He called his father from London's Parliament Square on the newly-launched Vodafone network using an 11lb (5kg) Transportable Vodafone VT1, which boasted around 30 minutes of talk time. A few days later, a crowd gathered at St Katherine's Dock in London to watch comedian Ernie Wise make the first public mobile phone call using the same device. All were far from portable and cost around £2,000 - equivalent to roughly £5,000 today.

1995 Fred West, the 53 year old Gloucestershire builder charged with 12 murders, was found dead in his prison cell.

2009 61 die in nightclub fire in Bangkok, Thailand.

2014 Right wing newspapers gathered at airports to interrogate an expected influx of millions of unemployed Romanians and Bulgarians after transitional controls were lifted. They were greeted by two new entrants, both of whom already had jobs.

Famous Birthday's

Paul Revere
(1735 - 1818)

1879 E. M. Forster, English writer and novelist (Howards End, Passage to India), born in Marylebone, Middle*** (d. 1970)

J. Edgar Hoover
(1895 - 1972)

Hank Greenberg
(1911 - 1986)



1912 Kim Philby, British spy and Soviet mole who was a member of the "Cambridge Five", born in Ambala, Punjab, India (d. 1988)



1919 J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, American novelist (Catcher in the Rye), born in NYC, New York (d. 2010)

Jack Wilshere
25th Birthday

Famous Deaths



Hank Williams
(1923 - 1953)

1949 Malcolm Campbell, English cyclist (world speed-record), dies at 63

Grace Hopper
(1906 - 1992)

Cesar Romero
(1907 - 1994)

2013 Patti Page [Clara Ann Fowler], American pop singer, dies at 85


Famous Weddings

414 King Ataulf of Narbonne marries emperor Honorius sister Galle Placidia

1772 US founding father Thomas Jefferson (30) marries Martha Wayles Skelton (23)

1811 Writer James Fenimore Cooper (21) weds Susan Augusta de Lancey in Mamaroneck, New York

1824 US President James Knox Polk (28) weds Sarah Childress (20) in Murfreesboro

1888 55th UK Prime Minister David Lloyd George (25) weds first wife Margaret Owen

[Altobelli]

15 JANUARY

1759 The opening of the British Museum, at Montague House, London. Access often depended on who you were and who you knew. Permission had to be given by the librarian and only 10 people an hour were allowed in. Its permanent collection numbers some eight million works and is amongst the finest, most comprehensive, and largest in existence. It illustrates and documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present day.

1790 Fletcher Christian, eight fellow mutineers from the ship Bounty, six Tahitian men and 12 women, landed on the remote Pacific island of Pitcairn following the mutiny led by Christian. They stripped the Bounty of all that could be floated ashore before setting it on fire.

1797 The first top hat was worn by John Hetherington, a London haberdasher. He was fined £50 the first time he wore his new creation, 'for causing a disturbance'.

1863 1st US newspaper printed on wood-pulp paper, Boston Morning Journal

1867 Crowds flocked onto the frozen surface of the lake in London’s Regent's Park during a severe frost. The ice broke, and 40 people died.

1870 Britain's first woman doctor, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, passed the final exam of the Medical Faculty of the Sorbonne and became a fully qualified MD. She had connections with Aldeburgh in Suffolk.

1880 The London Telephone Company published the first directory, listing 255 subscribers.

1927 BBC radio broadcast the first live commentary of a rugby match. Captain Teddy Wakelam narrated the match at Twickenham, between Wales and England. The following Saturday Wakelam provided the first football commentary from Highbury, where Arsenal was playing Sheffield United.

1934 While robbing the First National Bank in East Chicago, Indianapolis, Dillinger is shot several times by officer William O'Malley, but survives because he is wearing a bullet proof vest.

1962 The centigrade, or Celsius, scale was used in the British Meteorological Office weather forecasts for the first time, more than 200 years after the death of the Swedish scientist who invented it.

1965 Rock group Who releases first album "I Can't Explain"

1971 George Harrison releases "My Sweet Lord"

1981 "Hill Street Blues" premieres on NBC-TV

1987 Police officer who mistakenly shot and paralysed an innocent woman in Brixton, UK, is cleared of all criminal charges

1994 Queen Elizabeth falls off her horse & breaks her left wrist

2001 Wikipedia a free Wiki or content encyclopedia is launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger

2011 The death of Nathaniel (Nat) Lofthouse, OBE, English professional footballer who played for Bolton Wanderers for his whole career. He was capped 33 times for the England national football team between 1950 and 1958, scoring 30 goals and having one of the greatest goals per game ratios of any player to represent England at the highest level.

2014 The death, aged 69, of actor Roger Lloyd-Pack, who played Trigger in Only Fools And Horses. He appeared in dozens of TV shows and films, including Dr Who, The Vicar Of Dibley, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire.

2015 The death of Ethel Lang, aged 114. At the time of her death she was the oldest person in Britain and the last living British person to have been born during the reign of Queen Victoria. She lived to see six UK monarchs and 22 prime ministers.

2018 The construction giant, Carillion, went into liquidation. The company employed 43,000 people including almost 20,000 in the UK. Carillion also used thousands of smaller companies to help provide its services.

Famous Birthday's



Joan of Arc
(1412 - 1431)



1913 Lloyd Bridges, American comedic actor (Sea Hunt, Roots, Airplane!), born in San Leandro, California (d. 1998)



Martin Luther King Jr.
(1929 - 1968)

Charo
67th Birthday

Famous Weddings

1930 Businesswoman Estée Lauder (23) weds businessman Joseph Lauder

1953 Cricketer Richie Benaud (22) weds Marcia Lavender at the Wesley Church in Sydney, Australia

1955 Film director Stanley Kubrick (26) weds theatrical designer Ruth Sobotka (29)

2011 PGA golfer Hunter Mahan (28) weds former Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Kandi Harris in Dallas, Texas

2013 "Gomer Pyle" actor Jim Nabors (82) weds retired performer Stan Cadwallader (64) at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle

Famous Deaths

Elizabeth Short
(1924 - 1947)

Meyer Lansky
(1902 - 1983)

Seán MacBride
(1904 - 1988)



1990 Gordon Jackson, actor (Hamlet), dies after a short illness at 66

1994 Harry Nilsson, rock vocalist (Everybody's Talkin'), dies at 52

2011 Nat Lofthouse, English Footballer (b. 1925)

Dolores O'Riordan
(1971 - 2018)

[Altobelli]

20 DECEMBER

1192 Richard the Lion-Heart was captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after signing a treaty that ended the Third crusade.

1522 Suleiman the Magnificent accepts surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually settle in Malta and become known as the Knights of Malta.

1606 Virginia Company settlers leave London to establish Jamestown, Virginia

1699 Russian Tsar Peter the Great ordered Russian New Year changed from Sept 1 to Jan 1

1780 Britain declares war on Holland

1803 French flag lowered in New Orleans to mark the formal transfer of the Louisiana Purchase from France to USA for $27M

1805 Thomas Graham, the Scottish chemist who discovered the principle of dialysis, was born.

1812 "Grimm's Fairy Tales" by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is published

1830 Great Britain, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia recognize Belgium



1879 Thomas Edison privately demonstrated incandescent light at Menlo Park

1891 Strongman Louis Cyr withstands pull of 4 horses

1910 The British General Election produced a tied vote, with the Liberal Party and the Tory Party each winning 272 seats.

1917 Cheka formed - Soviet state security force and forerunner to the KGB, under Felix Dzerzhinsky after decree by Lenin

1920 An English born comedian named Leslie Townes, who later changed his name to Bob Hope, became an American citizen on this day. He had lived in the United States since 1908 and became one of America's true ambassadors for show business and charity.

1924 Adolf Hitler freed from jail early

1926 The birth of Sir Geoffrey Howe, British politician. He was Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving Cabinet minister, successively holding the posts of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary, and finally Leader of the House of Commons and Deputy Prime Minister. His resignation on 1st November 1990 was widely considered to have precipitated Thatcher's own downfall three weeks later.

1928 Harry Ramsden started his fish and chip restaurant in a hut at White Cross - Guiseley, near Bradford in West Yorkshire. It soon became the most famous fish and chip restaurant in the world. In 2012 the restaurant was acquired by the fish and chip chain 'Wetherby Whaler' and they gave this name to the new restaurant.

1928 The England cricket team scored a record 636 against Australia in Sydney, including 251 scored by Walter Hammond. England won the Test match by eight wickets.

1943 "Internationale" is no longer USSR National Anthem

1955 Cardiff was officially named the capital of Wales.

1957 Elvis Presley receives his draft notice to join the US Army for National Service

1960 Auschwitz commandant Richard Bar arrested in German FR

1960 The National Liberation Front, better known as the Viet Cong, is officially formed in South Vietnam

1963 Berlin Wall opens for 1st time to West Berliners

1967 474,300 US soldiers in Vietnam



1967 Ian Anderson & Glenn Cornick form rock group Jethro Tull

1969 Rolf Harris had the Christmas No.1 of 1969 and the last No.1 of the 1960s with 'Two Little Boys'. The song stayed at No.1 for six weeks. On 4th July 2014 84 year old Harris was jailed for 5 years 9 months for 12 indecent assaults against four girls - including one aged 'just seven or eight'. He was also stripped of his CBE and his OA (Order of Australia).

1979 The introduction of Britain's Housing Bill - forcing local councils to sell their houses to any tenants who wished to buy them.

1984 The Summit tunnel fire; the largest underground fire in history, as a freight train carrying over 1 million litres of petrol derailed near the town of Todmorden, in West Yorkshire. The tunnel, is 1.6 miles (2.6 km) in length, was built in the late 1830s and is located between Littleborough and Walsden. When completed in 1841, it was the longest railway tunnel in the world.

1988 Animal rights terrorists fire bombed Harrod's department store in London.

1990 The Maerdy Colliery, employing 320 men, closed. It was the last remaining coal mine in the Rhondda Valley, an area which once produced 9 million tonnes a year, and where more than 50,000 miners had worked in 54 pits.

1995 The Queen urged Prince Charles and Princess Diana to seek 'an early divorce'.

2004 A gang of thieves stole £26.5 million worth of currency from the Donegall Square West headquarters of the Northern Bank in Belfast, Northern Ireland, one of the largest bank robberies in UK history.

2007 Elizabeth II became the oldest ever monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years, 7 months and 29 days.

2012 Mayan prophecies predicted that the world would end on Saturday morning 22nd December 2012.

Famous Birthday's

Harvey Firestone
(1868 - 1938)

Robert Menzies
(1894 - 1978)

Uri Geller
71st Birthday



1946 Dick Wolf, American television series creator (Miami Vice, Law & Order), born in NYC, New York
71st Birthday

Jenny Agutter
65th Birthday

Jonah Hill
34th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Moss Hart
(1904 - 1961)

John Steinbeck
(1902 - 1968)

Max Robinson
(1939 - 1988)

1993 Sam Wanamaker, actor (Pvt Benjamin), dies from cancer at 74


2001 Foster Brooks, American actor and comedian (b. 1912)

2010 Brian Hanrahan, British journalist (b. 1949)

Famous Weddings

1832 Inventor William Henry Fox Talbot (32) weds Constance Mundy

1919 Actress Gloria Swanson (20) weds businessman Herbert K. Somborn

1949 "Gone with the Wind" actor Clark Gable (48) weds socialite Sylvia Ashley (45)

1964 Fashion designer Ralph Lauren (25) weds Ricky Anne Loew-Beer in NYC, New York

1989 Business magnate Richard Branson (39) weds Joan Templeman in British Virgin Islands

Famous Divorces

1984 Actress Kate Jackson (36) divorces business executive David Greenwald after 2 years of marriage

2005 Actress Renee Zellweger (36) annuls her marriage to country-music singer Kenny Chesney (37) citing fraud, after 4 months of marriage

2007 "Hot in Cleveland" actress Valerie Bertinelli (47) divorces guitarist Eddie Van Halen (52) due to irreconcilable differences after 25 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

31 December

31st December - (New Year’s Eve, and Hogmanay in Scotland)

406 80,000 Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine at Mainz, beginning invasion of Gallia

1384 The death of John Wycliffe, the first translator of the Bible into the English language. He was rector of St. Mary's Church, Lutterworth for the 10 years prior to his death. This monument to him is in the church.

1695 The window tax was imposed in Britain. It resulted in many being bricked up, evidence which remains to this day. An example is here at the house in Market Weighton where William Bradley, the world's tallest Englishman was born -. The story goes that Bradley, a typicaly frugal Yorkshireman, did not want to pay extra window tax, so he had the windows painted on the outside of the building. As for the house, it was specially built for Bradley, with extra high rooms and doorways.

1720 The birth, in Rome, of Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles Edward Stuart), also known as the ‘Young Pretender’. He landed in Scotland, with his followers, in 1745, capturing Edinburgh and setting up court at the Palace of Holyrood. His decision to march on London brought him head on with an army led by the Duke of Cumberland, and defeat at Culloden.

1738 The birth of Charles Cornwallis, the British soldier whose surrender to George Washington (1781) ended the War of Independence.

1744 English astronomer James Bradley announces discovery of Earth's nutation motion (wobble)

1759 Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and started brewing Guinness at the St. James's Gate Brewery, Dublin. Ten years later Guinness exported his ale for the first time, when six and a half barrels were shipped to Britain.

1775 Battle of Quebec in American Revolutionary War; Americans defeated trying to take British stronghold

1781 Bank of North America, 1st US bank opens

1783 Import of African slaves banned by all of the Northern US states

1857 Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa as new capital of Canada

1861 22,990mm of rain falls in Cherrapunji Assam in India in 1861, a world record

1890 Ellis Island (NYC) opens as a US immigration depot

1892 The first hostel for homeless men, Rowton House, opened in Bond Street, Vauxhall. There was strict discipline, with rules against cooking, card playing, etc.

1897 Brooklyn's last day as a city, it incorporates into NYC (1/1/1898)

1904 First New Year's Eve celebration held in Times Square (then Longacre Square), in New York City

1911 Marie Curie receives her 2nd Nobel Prize

1923 The chimes of Big Ben were broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC.

1937 Sir Anthony Hopkins, Welsh actor, was born. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 for services to the arts.

1938 Dutch national debt hits ƒ3,986,629,805.70

1939 Dutch national debt hits ƒ4,218,553,180.99

1942 Football manager Alex Ferguson was born, in Glasgow. With 25 years as manager of Manchester United, he was the longest serving manager in their history and also the longest serving of all the current League managers. He stepped down as manager of Manchester United on 8th May 2013 after 27 seasons. Under his leadership the team won 38 trophies, including 13 league titles, two Champions Leagues, five FA Cups and four League Cups.

1948 Malcolm Campbell, British racing driver, died, after a series of strokes. He was one of the few land speed record holders of his era to die of natural causes. Campbell broke nine land speed records between 1924 and 1935. He set his final land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah on 3rd September 1935, becoming the first person to drive an automobile at more than 300mph.

1955 The General Motors Corporation becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over $1 billion USD in a year.

1958 Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista tells his Cabinet he is fleeing the country

1960 The British coin, the farthing, in use in Britain since the 13th Century, ceased to be legal tender at midnight.

1961 Beach Boys play their debut gig under that name

1964 Donald Campbell broke the world water speed record, (at Dumbleyung Lake, Western Australia, 276.33 mph), the only man to break both land and water speed records in the same year. He remains the world's most prolific breaker of water speed records.

1970 Paul McCartney files a lawsuit to disolve The Beatles

1973 The three-day week began in Britain as a result of power strikes. It led to the downfall of Prime Minister Edward Heath and his government.

1973 Johan Cruyff chosen European Football Player of theYear

1974 Lindsey Buckingham & Stevie Nicks join Fleetwood Mac

1977 Ted Bundy escapes from jail in Colorado

1984 Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen loses his arm in a car crash

1987 A total of 31 people received New Year's Honours for helping to save an estimated 350 passengers when the Herald of Free Enterprise capsized, near Bruges, on 6th March, claiming 193 lives. The George Medal, one of the highest civilian awards for gallantry, was awarded to head waiter Michael Skippen who died trying to get passengers to safety.

1999 Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as acting President

2014 Neil Brittlebank (from Redditch) and Kevin Beresford (from East Ardsley in Yorkshire) won the dubious honour of being two of the dullest men of the year, as awarded by the Dull Men's Club. Mr Beresford produces books and calendars about roundabouts, while Mr Brittlebank, collects bricks.

2014 Same *** marriage came into effect in Scotland earlier in December and the first weddings were held at 00:01 on Hogmanay. (Note:- Following the usual 15-day notice period for marriages, Hogmanay (New Year's Eve) was the first day that same-*** weddings could take place.)

2014 The death (aged 99) of Arthur Valerian Wellesley, the 8th Duke of Wellington, whose ancestor won the Battle of Waterloo. His death came a day before the bicentenary year of the Battle of Waterloo.

Famous Birthday's

Jacques Cartier
(1491 - 1557)

George Marshall
(1880 - 1959)

1892 Jason Robards Sr, American actor (Acapulco, Isle of the Dead), born in Hillsdale, Michigan (d. 1963)

1929 Peter May, English cricketer (dashing batsman of 50's), born in Reading (d. 1994)



John Denver
(1943 - 1997)



1948 Donna Summer, singer (Love to Love You Baby, On the Radio), born in Boston, Massachusetts (d. 2012)

Anthony Hopkins
80th Birthday

Alex Ferguson
76th Birthday

Andy Summers, English rock guitarist (Police-Roxanne), born in Blackpool, Lancashire
75th Birthday

Ben Kingsley
74th Birthday

Alex Salmond
63rd Birthday

Val Kilmer
58th Birthday

Heather McCartney, British artist and daughter of Paul McCartney
55th Birthday

Donald Trump Jr., American businessman and son of Donald Trump and Ivana Trump, born in NYC, New York
40th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Commodus
(161 - 192)

Roberto Clemente
(1934 - 1972)

1948 Malcolm Campbell, English race driver, dies at 63



Natalie Cole
(1950 - 2015)

Famous Weddings

1910 Editor Maxwell Perkins (26) weds Louise Saunders at Holy Cross Episcopal Church in North Plainfield, New Jersey

1940 Actress Bette Davis (32) weds New England innkeeper Arthur Farnsworth at 15,000-acre ranch in Lake Montezuma, Arizona

1950 Heavyweight boxing champ Rocky Marciano (27) weds Barbara Cousins in Brockton

1955 Actor Gregory Peck (39) weds philanthropist Veronique Passani (23)

1973 MLB executive Tony La Russa (29) weds Elaine Coker



My 62nd Birthday

[chalky_ncfc]

Here's a fact about today for you Altobelli

Today is the only day when all the children in the world was born in the 21st century and all of the adults was born in the 20th century