On This Day

[Altobelli]

17 JANUARY

1773 Captain Cook's ship and his crew, aboard 'Resolution', became the first Europeans to sail below the Antarctic Circle. Cook also surveyed, mapped and took possession for Britain of South Georgia. He almost encountered the mainland of Antarctica, but turned back north towards Tahiti to resupply his ship, then resumed his southward course in a second fruitless attempt to find the continent.

1784 The birth, in Todmorden - West Yorkshire of John Fielden British industrialist and Radical Member of Parliament for Oldham. John Fielden despaired that the concerns of the poor would never be given adequate attention and he and Lord Ashley passed 'The Ten Hours Act' to ensure that women and children only worked up to 10 hours a day in factories.

1820 The birth, at this house in Thornton, West Yorkshire of the poet and novelist Anne Brontë. She was the youngest of six children of Patrick and Maria Brontë. The Brontës moved to Haworth, West Yorkshire on 20th April 1820. The Brontë Museum is in the former parsonage at Haworth. Anne wrote two novels. Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. She died from pulmonary tuberculosis when she was just 29 years old.



1863 The birth, in Chorlton-on-Medlock, near Manchester, of David Lloyd George, Welsh politician. In 1909 he introduced old-age pensions, followed in 1911 by health and unemployment insurance. In 1916 he became Prime Minister of a coalition government. After the First World War he was re-elected with a huge majority, and held office until 1922. The tiny village of Llanystumdwy was his childhood home. This building, in Llanystumdwy, is one of the very few museums in Britain which celebrates the life of a former Prime Minister.

1896 The Daimler Motor Company (Coventry) was registered as the first British car manufacturer.

1899 The birth of the author Nevil Shute. Before becoming famous as an author, he was part of the aeronautical engineering team that created the R100 airship. He worked at RNAS Howden, East Yorkshire, under Barnes Wallis and lived at this house on 78 Hailgate, Howden. A plaque is now fixed to the house to commemorate this.

1907 Alfred Wainwright, whose books for walkers did much to popularise the Lake District, was born, in Blackburn, Lancashire. In 1952, he began the task of walking every fell in Lakeland and recording his walks with pen and ink drawings. It took him 13 years to climb the 214 fells, travelling on foot or by public transport from his Kendal home, as he never learnt to drive. His ashes are scattered on Haystacks, Cumbria.

1912 Captain Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole, only to find that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him by one month.

1945 The Nazis began the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces closed in. Nearly one and a half thousand British prisoners of war were sent to the Auschwitz death camps.

1968 The motor manufacturer British Leyland was formed; from the merger of British Motor Holdings Ltd. and Leyland Motor Corp. Ltd.

1986 The Royal yacht Britannia evacuated Britons and other foreign nationals from Aden during their civil war.

1994 Actress Elizabeth Taylor released from the hospital after hip treatment

2008 British Airways Flight 38 crash landed just short of London Heathrow Airport with no fatalities. It was the first complete hull loss of a Boeing 777, the world's largest twin jet aircraft.

2014 Cambridge City Council said that apostrophes on new street signs would be abolished, a decision that was condemned by language traditionalists. The naming policy also banned street names which would be "difficult to pronounce or awkward to spell" and any that "could give offence" or would "encourage defacing of nameplates". After an intervention by cabinet minister Eric Pickles, local people in Cambridge started to edit street signs, adding apostrophes if they were necessary.

Famous Birthday's

1863 David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister (Liberal: 1916-22), born in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Lancashire, England (d. 1945)



Benjamin Franklin
(1706 - 1790)



Al Capone
(1899 - 1947)

1927 Eartha Kitt, singer/actress (Catwoman-Batman), born in North, South Carolina (d. 2008)

1928 Vidal Sassoon, hair stylist/CEO (Vidal Sasson), born in London, England (d. 2012)



Muhammad Ali
(1942 - 2016)

Mick Taylor, rock guitarist (Rolling Stones-Brown Sugar)
69th Birthday

Paul Young, rock vocalist/keyboardist (Every Time You Go Away)
62nd Birthday

Jim Carrey, Canadian-American actor (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Dumb & Dumber, The Mask), born in Ontario Canada
56th Birthday

Famous Weddings

38 BC Roman Republican Leader Octavian, later Augustus 1st Roman Emperor, marries Livia Drusilla.

1827 Religious leader Joseph Smith Jr (21) weds church group movement leader Emma Smith (22) in South Bainbridge, New York

1926 Comedian George Burns marries comedienne Gracie Allen

1946 Actor John Wayne (38) weds actress Esperanza Baur in Long Beach, California

1955 Murderer Charles Manson (20) weds waitress Rosalie Jean Willis (17)

Famous Divorces

1990 NFL coach Jimmy Johnson (46) divorces Linda Kay Cooper after 26 years of marriage

Famous Deaths

Rutherford B. Hayes
(1822 - 1893)

Juliette Gordon Low
(1860 - 1927)

Bobby Fischer
(1943 - 2008)

50 Years Ago Album & Single # 1s

NO CHANGE:

VAL DOONICAN ROCKS BUT GENTLY - VAL DOONICAN

HELLO GOODBYE - BEATLES

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