On This Day

[Altobelli]

19 DECEMBER

1154 Henry II was crowned, at Westminster Abbey.

1606 English entrepreneurs set sail in the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery to establish a colony at Jamestown, Virginia, the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States.

1776 Thomas Paine publishes his 1st "American Crisis" essay beginning"These are the times that try men's souls" (date disputed)



1783 William Pitt the Younger became the youngest British Prime Minister, at the age of 24 years, 6 months and 21 days.



1843 "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens is published, 6,000 copies sold

1848 Emily Brontë, English author of Wuthering Heights, died of tuberculosis at the tender age of 30. This commemorative plaque is in St Michael and All Angels church - Haworth. Emily is buried in the Bronte family vault in the church. Find out more about Haworth and the Brontës.

1851 The renowned artist, Joseph Turner, died. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner was also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting.



1900 General Horatio Kitchener offers protections to all Boers who will surrender and asks the Dutch community of Pretoria to convey this offer, leaders in the field refuse to surrender

1915 World War I: British, Australian and New Zealand troops began their withdrawal from Gallipoli after failing to defeat the Turks.

1924 The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost was sold, in London.The Silver Ghost is considered the most valuable car in the world. In 2005 its insured value was placed at more than £22 million. By 2011 it was valued at almost £37 million.

1932 The BBC World Service began broadcasting, as the BBC Empire Service.

1941 Hitler takes complete command of German Army

1941 World War II: Limpet mines placed by Italian divers sank the HMS Valiant (launched 1914) and HMS Queen Elizabeth (launched 1913) in Alexandria harbour.

1946 War breaks out in Indochina as Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi

1950 Tibet's Dalai Lama flees Chinese invasion

1958 1st radio broadcast from space, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower Christmas message "to all mankind, America's wish for peace on Earth and goodwill to men everywhere"

1960 Fire aboard USS Constellation, under construction at Brooklyn (50 die)

1971 Stanley Kubrick's X-rated film "A Clockwork Orange" based on the book by Anthony Burgess and starring Malcolm McDowell premieres

1972 Ugandan leader General Idi Amin gave British workers an ultimatum; to accept reduced pay or be expelled.

1972 Frank O'Farrell lost his job as manger of Manchester United, following a 5–0 defeat to Crystal Palace. George Best, once again, announced his retirement, on the same day. Not a good week for United.

1975 Ron Wood joined The Rolling Stones

1978 Indira Gandhi ambushed in India

1979 "Kramer vs Kramer" directed by Robert Benton and starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep is released (Best Picture 1980)

1981 The 8 man crew of the Penlee Lifeboat all lost their lives attempting to rescue the crew of the coaster Union Star that was wrecked in violent seas off the coast of Cornwall.

1984 Britain and China signed an agreement in Beijing, in which Britain agreed to transfer full sovereignty of Hong Kong to China in 1997.

1991 Boris Yeltsin takes control of the Kremlin

1994 Rolls-Royce announces its future cars will feature V12 engine which will be produced by BMW

1997 Former Conservative party leader William Hague married his fiancée Ffion Jenkins at a ceremony in Westminster.

2003 Libyan leader Gaddafi agreed to allow weapons inspectors into Libya 'immediately and unconditionally' to oversee the elimination of its arsenal of chemical weapons.

2006 Steve Wright, was arrested, charged and remanded in custody, accused of murdering five prostitutes over a six week period. The bodies of all five women were found dumped in remote locations around Ipswich in Suffolk, sparking a massive police investigation.

2012 The verdict of accidental death of the 96 victims who died in the 1989 Hillsborough stadium football disaster was quashed in the High Court, clearing the way for a new inquest into the deaths. New medical evidence commissioned by the attorney general revealed that 58 victims "definitely or probably" had the capacity to survive beyond the 3.15pm cut-off point imposed by the original coroner. In a further 12 cases, the cause of death remained unclear. The Chair of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, Anne Williams (who died of cancer on 18th April 2013) and whose 15-year-old son Kevin died in the tragedy was at the hearing.

2012 UBS bank is fined $1.5 billion for its role in manipulating the Libor rate

2013 Michael Adebolajo (29) and Michael Adebowale (22) were found guilty of murdering soldier Lee Rigby outside Woolwich barracks in south-east London in May. Fusilier Rigby was struck with a car before hacked to death. Adebolajo had claimed he was a 'soldier of Allah' and the killing was an act of war. Adebolajo was given a whole-life term and Adebowale was jailed for a minimum of 45 years. This bronze plaque and drum commemorating Lee Rigby were unveiled on 29th March 2015 at the Middleton Memorial Gardens, in his home town of Middleton, Greater Manchester.

2013 Ornate plasterwork at the Apollo Theatre in London fell from the ceiling during a performance and after a flash flood thunderstorm. The collapse brought down a lighting rig and a section of balcony, trapping 2 people and injuring around 88, including 7 with serious injuries.

2014 The death (aged 70) of Mandy Rice-Davies, famous for her role in the 1960s 'Profumo affair' that almost toppled the British government in 1963.

2016 At least 48 people die after drinking bath lotion in Irkutsk, Siberia, thinking it contained alcohol

2016 Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead at an art gallery in Ankara by Turkish gunman

2016 Truck driven into a Christmas market in Berlin kills 12, injures 48

2016 US electoral collage votes 304 to 227 to nominate Donald Trump for President over the objections of seven faithless electors

Famous Birthday's

1902 Ralph Richardson, English actor (Anna Karenina, Doctor Zhivago), born in Cheltenham, England (d. 1983)

Leonid Brezhnev
(1906 - 1982)

1922 Eamonn Andrews, Irish-born television presenter (d. 1987)

1923 Gordon Jackson, Scottish actor (d. 1990)

Edith Piaf
(1915 - 1963)

1941 Maurice White, singer-songwriter (Earth, Wind & Fire), born in Memphis, Tennessee (d. 2016)



1943 Sam Kelly [Roger Michael Kelly], English actor ('Allo 'Allo!, Porridge), born in Manchester, England (d. 2014)

Robert Urich
(1946 - 2002)

Gary Cahill
32nd Birthday

Jake Gyllenhaal
37th Birthday

Ricky Ponting
43rd Birthday

Richard Hammond
48th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Emily Brontë
(1818 - 1848)

Robert A. Millikan
(1868 - 1953)

1993 Michael Clarke, drummer (Byrds), dies of liver failure at 49

1997 Jimmy Rogers, American blues musician (Muddy Waters' Band) dies at 73

James Bevel
(1936 - 2008)

Famous Weddings

1895 Poet Robert Frost (21) weds Elinor Miriam White in Lawrence, Massachusetts

1912 Author Colette (39) weds "Le Matin" newspaper editor Henri de Jouvenel

1919 Composer and songwriter Cole Porter (28) weds socialite Linda Lee Thomas (36)

1931 Propagandist Joseph Goebbels (34) weds Magda Ritschel (30) at Günther Quandt's farm in Mecklenburg, Germany

1975 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin (45) weds Beverly Zile

Famous Divorces

1995 Queen Elizabeth askes Prince Charles & Diana to divorce

[Altobelli]

30 DECEMBER

1460 The Wars of the Roses: The defeat and death of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and claimant to the English throne, at the Battle of Wakefield.

1703 Tokyo hit by Earthquake; about 37,000 die

1850 The birth of John Milne, British geologist and mining engineer. He invented the horizontal seismograph that enabled him to detect different types of earthquake waves, and estimate their velocities. Along with two other British scientists he founded the Seismological Society of Japan.

1851 The artist JMW Turner, who died on 19th December was buried, at his own request, in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, next to Sir Joshua Reynolds, the English portrait artist.

1865 Author Rudyard Kipling was born, in India, but was taken by his family to England when he was five years old. His best known fictional works are Jungle Book and Just So Stories. He celebrated British imperialism with tales and poems of British soldiers in India and in 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1879 The first performance of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, 'The Pirates of Penzance', at the Royal Bijou Theatre, Paignton, Devon.

1887 A petition, signed by more than 1 million women in Britain, was sent to Queen Victoria calling for public houses to be closed on Sundays.

1896 Filipino nationalist José Rizal is executed by firing squad in Manila by the Spanish

1906 The All India Muslim League is founded in Dacca, East Bengal, British India Empire, later laid down the foundations of Pakistan

1918 John E Hoover decides to be called J. Edgar Hoover

1919 Lincoln's Inn, one of four 'Inns of Court' in London to which barristers belong and where they are called to the Bar, admitted its first female students.

1922 Creation of the USSR formally proclaimed in Moscow from the Bolshoi Theatre, Soviet Union organized as a federation of RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Belorussian SSR & Transcaucasian SSR

1924 Astronomer Edwin Hubble formally announces existence of other galactic systems at meeting of the American Astronomical Society

1932 The completion of the electrification of the London to Brighton railway line.

1932 Bradman out for a duck v England at cricket MCG

1937 Gordon Banks, English goal keeper, was born, in Sheffield. The International Federation of Football History & Statistics named Banks the second best goalkeeper of the 20th century, after the Russian Lev Yashin. On 22nd October 1972 Banks lost the sight in his right eye in a motoring accident and announced his retirement in August 1973. He was a member of the England team that won the 1966 World Cup. His consistent performances in goal led to the re-wording of a common English phrase to 'As safe as the Banks of England.'

1939 Bradman scores 267 SA v Vic, world record 34th double cricket century

1942 The birth of Guy Edwards, former racing driver. He is most renowned for being one of the drivers who saved Niki Lauda from his burning car during the 1976 German Grand Prix. Edwards was later awarded a Queen's Gallantry Medal for his bravery.

1946 Football league players threatened to strike over the proposed maximum wage of £11 a week.

1950 Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia become Independent states within the French Union

1954 British athlete Chris Chataway became the first winner of the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year award.

1956 The last passenger train service ran on the Liverpool Overhead Railway. It had been in operation for 63 years.

1968 -48°F (-44°C), Mazama & Winthrop, Washington (state record)

1974 Beatles are legally disbanded (4 years after suit was brought)

1979 Rock group, Emerson, Lake & Palmer break up

1986 According to new plans by the government, more than 200 canaries would be 'phased out' of Britain's mining pits. New electronic devices would replace canaries as detectors of harmful gasses, because they were said to be cheaper in the long run and more effective.

1987 Premier Mugabe elected President of Zimbabwe

1988 Former Soviet President Brezhnev's son-in-law sentenced to 12-yr (bribery)

1988 Mercedes-Benz pays $20.2-M fine failed to meet '86 government fuel standard

1995 Lowest ever UK temperature recorded of -27.2°C iat Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands, equaling the record set at Braemar, Aberdeenshire on February 11, 1895 and January 10, 1982

2013 Forestry Commission figures showed that more than five million trees had been felled in Scotland since Alex Salmond came to power in 2007, to make way for wind farm developments, with fewer than 1.6 million planted to replace them. Findings showed that there were almost as many wind turbines north of the Border as in all the rest of the UK. You cannot appreciate their enormity until you see the sections being transported by road!

2014 Tommie Rose, a 15year old schoolboy, who made £14,000 from his school tuck-shop to pay future university fees for a business studies degree was threatened with suspension, as his shop breached the school's healthy-eating guidelines.

Famous Birthday's

Titus
(39 - 81)

1865 Rudyard Kipling, English author (Jungle Book, Gunga Din-Nobel 1907), born in Bombay, British India (d. 1936)

1945 Davy Jones, singer (Monkees-Last Train to Clarksville), born in Manchester, England (d. 2012)




Gordon Banks
80th Birthday

1947 Jeff Lynne, rocker (ELO-Telephone Line, Travelling Wilburys)
70th Birthday

1959 Tracey Ullman, Slough England, singer/actress (Tracey Ullman Show)
58th Birthday

Tiger Woods
42nd Birthday

LeBron James
33rd Birthday

Famous Deaths

Vincent Massey
(1887 - 1967)



Sonny Liston
(1932 - 1970)



Saddam Hussein
(1937 - 2006)

Famous Weddings

1816 English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (24) marries 2nd wife writer "Frankenstein" Mary Godwin (19) and daughter of early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft

1852 Future US President Rutherford B. Hayes (30) weds teetotaler and abolitionist Lucy Webb (21)

1857 Confederate army cavalry battalion commander John S. Mosby (24) weds Pauline Clarke in Nashville

1879 Composer John Philip Sousa (25) weds Jane van Middlesworth Bellis

1896 Filipino Nationalist Jose Rizal (35) weds girlfriend Josephine Bracken (20) before his execution in Fort Santiago, Manila

Famous Divorces

1955 Actor Gregory Peck (39) divorces real estate broker Greta Kukkonen (44) after 13 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

11 JANUARY

1857 Jockey Fred Archer was born. He won his first race at the age of 12 and was a Champion Jockey for 13 consecutive years until 1886. He won 2748 races during his career, including five Derby winners. In 1885 he rode 246 winners, a record that wasn't broken until Gordon Richards' 1933 season. Archer committed suicide, aged 29, by shooting himself, following depression after the death of his wife.

1858 The birth of Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr., the American retail magnate who founded the London-based department store Selfridges. At the height of his success, Selfridge leased Highcliffe Castle in Hampshire. He is buried at St. Mark's Church in Highcliffe.

1954 George Cowling, a 34-year-old meteorologist, gave the first televised weather broadcast.

1973 The first 867 graduates from the Open University were awarded their degrees after two years studying from home.

1980 Nigel Short, age 14, from Bolton, Lancashire, became the youngest International Master in the history of chess. Participating in four World Junior Championships, from 1980–1983, Short achieved his best result during his first attempt, in which he was placed second to Garry Kasparov. He was awarded the Grandmaster title in 1984, aged nineteen, the world's youngest grandmaster at that time.

1984 French farmers hijacked British lorries in a dispute against meat imports.

1993 British Airways was forced into an embarrassing climb-down in relation to a campaign of 'dirty tricks' it had launched against rival airline Virgin Atlantic. BA was forced to pay damages to both Virgin Atlantic and its boss Richard Branson.

2015 The Muslim Charities Forum, that was given a £250,000 taxpayer-funded contract to run a major faith project, was stripped of state funding after links were uncovered to a group alleged to fund Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood political movement.

Famous Birthday's

Alexander Hamilton
(1755 - 1804)

John A. Macdonald
(1815 - 1891)

Alice Paul
(1885 - 1977)

1930 Rod Taylor, Australian actor (The Birds, Time Machine), born in Sydney, New South Wales (d. 2015)

Arthur Scargill, Socialist Labour Party (UK) leader.
80th Birthday

Gérson
77th Birthday

Tony Kaye, rocker (Yes)
72nd Birthday

Bryan Robson
61st Birthday

Mary J. Blige
47th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Ambrose Bierce
(1842 - 1914)



Edmund Hillary
(1919 - 2008)



1928 Thomas Hardy, English novelist (Far from the Madding Crowd) and poet, dies near Dorchester at 87



1978 Michael Bates, English actor (Clockwork Orange, Salt & Pepper), dies of Cancer at 57

2003 Mickey Finn, English drummer (T. Rex) (b. 1947)

2009 David Vine, British sports broadcaster (b. 1936)



Anita Ekberg
(1931 - 2015)

Famous Weddings

1892 Painter Paul Gauguin marries Teha'amana, a 13-year-old Tahitian girl

1911 Actress Hattie McDaniel (16) weds pianist Howard Hickman (30)

1924 Novelist Hermann Hesse (36) weds singer Ruth Wenger

1941 Comedian Stan Laurel and actress Virginia Ruth Rogers remarry for the 2nd time

1976 NBA player Pete Maravich (27) weds college sweetheart Jackie Elliser in Metairie, Louisiana

Famous Divorces

1971 1st "Quickie" Divorce granted in UK

[Altobelli]

21 JANUARY

1807 Streets in London were first illuminated by gaslight when Pall Mall was lit up.

1846 The publication of the first edition of the Daily News, edited by Charles Dickens. It merged with the Daily Chronicle to form the News Chronicle in 1930, and was ultimately absorbed by the Daily Mail in 1960.

1903 Harry Houdini escapes from Halvemaansteeg police station in Amsterdam

1908 New York City regulation makes it illegal for a woman to smoke in public

1919 The birth, in Leith, of Captain Eric "Winkle" Brown, former Royal Navy officer and test pilot who flew more types of aircraft than anyone else in history. He is also the Fleet Air Arm’s most decorated pilot and holds the world record for aircraft carrier landings - around 1,500 deck landings on 22 different aircraft carriers.

1925 The birth of the comedian Benny Hill, in Southampton, Hampshire. One of his biggest fans was the silent film star, Charlie Chaplin.

1941 The British communist newspaper, the Daily Worker, was suppressed in wartime London.

1944 447 German bombers attack London

1944 649 British bombers attack Magdeburg

1950 The British writer George Orwell died after a three year battle against tuberculosis. His books included 1984 and Animal Farm. They were controversial and 1984, like Animal Farm, was widely viewed as an attack on the Communist system.

1966 The Monte Carlo rally ended in uproar over the disqualification of the British cars expected to fill the first four places. They were all ruled out of the prizes, along with six other British cars, for alleged infringements of regulations about the way their headlights dipped.

1966 'Beatle', George Harrison, married Patti Boyd who he met in the film 'A Hard Day's Night'.

1976 The first Concorde jets carrying commercial passengers simultaneously took off, at 11:40 a.m. from Heathrow Airport and Orly Airport outside Paris. The London flight was to Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, and the Paris flight was to Rio de Janeiro. Nearly 3 hours was knocked off the normal flying time to Bahrain by the British Concorde but the Air France Concorde arrived 38 minutes late.

1987 B.B. King donates his 7,000 record collection to the University of Mississippi

1994 Lorena Bobbitt found temporarily insane when she cut off her husband's *****

1997 More than 80 people were named as child abusers in statements to a North Wales inquiry into claims of abuse of children in care in Clwyd and Gwynedd over20 years.

2008 Black Monday on the world's stock markets saw the FTSE 100 have its biggest ever one-day fall. European stocks closed with their worst result since 11th September 2001, and Asian stocks dropped as much as 14%.

2008 The Eyak language in Alaska becomes extinct as its last native speaker dies

2014 Pub chain JD Wetherspoon opened a new £1m pub, at junction 2 of the M40 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, in spite of fierce criticism from road safety and alcohol campaigners. The Hope and Champion became Britain's first pub ever to be opened at a motorway service area.

2017 More than 2 million people protest worldwide in the 'Women's March' against Donald Trump, with 500,000 marching in Washington D.C.

Famous Birthday's

Stonewall Jackson
(1824 - 1863)

Christian Dior
(1905 - 1957)



1922 Telly Savalas, American actor (Kojak), born in Garden City New Jersey, (d. 1994)



1924 Benny Hill [Alfred Hawthorn Hill], British comedian (The Benny Hill Show), born in Southampton, Hampshire, England (d. 1992)

Jack Nicklaus
78th Birthday

Billy Ocean, [Leslie S Charles], Trinidad, singer (Caribbean Queen)
67th Birthday

Famous Weddings

1966 Beatle George Harrison marries model Patti Boyd

1973 Actress Jane Fonda weds activist Tom Hayden

1975 Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor (57) weds toy inventor Jack Ryan (48) (div. 1976)

1989 "Falcon Crest" actor Lorenzo Lamas (31) weds actress Kathleen Kinmont (23) at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas

2015 "One Tree Hill" star Chad Michael Murray (33) weds actress Sarah Roemer (30)

Famous Divorces

2011 Actress Jaime Pressly (35) divorces entertainment lawyer Simran Singh (33) due to irreconcilable differences after more than 1 year of marriage

Famous Deaths

Louis XVI
(1754 - 1793)



Vladimir Lenin
(1870 - 1924)



George Orwell
(1903 - 1950)

1959 Cecil B. DeMille, American filmmaker (The Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah), dies of heart failure at 77

1984 Jackie Wilson, American soul singer-songwriter and performer (I Get the Sweetest Feeling), dies at 49

1997 Colonel Tom Parker, manager (Elvis Presley), dies at 87

1998 Jack Lord, American actor (Hawaii FIVE-O), dies at 77

2008 Marie Smith Jones, last native speaker of the Eyak language (b. 1918)

2013 Michael Winner, English film director and producer (Death Wish), dies at 77

2015 Pauline Yates, English actress (The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin), dies at 85