On This Day

[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