On This Day

[Altobelli]

29 JANUARY

1801 The birth of the illegitimate daughter of Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton. She was christened Horatia Nelson Thompson. One of Nelson's last wishes was that Horatia should take the name Nelson. He left her £200 a year in his will, adding : "I desire she will use in future the name of Nelson only."

1817 Birth of John Callcott Horsley. He designed the first commercial Christmas cards in 1843.

1820 King George III died, aged 81. At the time he was the longest reigning monarch and served for more than 59 years.

1856 Queen Victoria instituted Britain’s highest military decoration, the Victoria Cross (VC). The medal is awarded to British and Commonwealth armed forces for outstanding bravery ‘on the field of battle’. The medal was originally made from the metal of cannon captured from the Russians at Sevastopol, until the supply came to an end in 1942.

1888 The death of Edward Lear, English artist, illustrator, author and poet, renowned today primarily for his limericks and his literary nonsense poems such as The Owl and the *****cat.


1916 British military tanks had their first trials, in Hertfordshire.

1928 The death of Field Marshal Douglas Haig, British senior officer during World War I. He was commander during the Battle of the Somme, the battle with one of the highest casualties in British military history. In the 1960s he became an object of criticism for his leadership during the First World War and has been dubbed "Butcher Haig", for the two million British casualties under his command.

1930 Barton Airport, Manchester's first international airport, was opened.

1942 The first broadcast of Desert Island Discs on BBC radio, devised and presented by Roy Plomley. It is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio.

1943 The birth of Tony Blackburn, English disc jockey. He broadcast on the "pirate" stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s and was the first disc jockey to broadcast on BBC Radio 1, in 1967.

1963 A French veto stopped Britain joining the European Common Market.

1966 A bill was published by the government, permitting random breath tests.

1985 Oxford University snubbed Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by refusing her an honorary degree. Academics led a campaign against honouring Mrs. Thatcher in protest against the government's cuts in funding for education.

1989 The artificial leg that had belonged to Sir Douglas Bader was catalogued for sale. His widow was selling memorabilia to raise money to buy her own house, instead of renting.

2003 Solicitor Sally Clark was cleared by the Court of Appeal of murdering her two sons after serving more than three years of a life sentence. Sadly, she never fully recovered from the effects of the appalling miscarriage of justice and was found dead at her home on 16th March 2007.

2015 Lt. Danielle Welch was presented with her 'wings' by The Duke of York. She was the first and also the last woman to become a Royal Navy Lynx helicopter pilot, as the aircraft is due to be replaced in 2017.

2015 There were tears of joy for widower Stan Beaton as he heard again the answerphone message of his late wife Ruby. The message had been accidentally deleted during an upgrade by Virgin Media, but engineers searched through thousands of recordings and eventually managed to restore the message, which he had kept on his phone for 14 years.

2016 The Land Rover Defender ceased production at 9:30am GMT (and at 8:30pm on the same day for the East Coast of Australia). Over 2 million Land Rover Series and Defender vehicleswere produced since 1948. To mark the Defender’s passing, the Sunshine Coast Land Rover Owners' Club held a gathering at the exact time that production ceased, to hold a wake and to remember the Defender.

Famous Birthday's

Thomas Paine
(1737 - 1809)

William McKinley
(1843 - 1901)

1880 W C Fields, [William Claude Dukenfield], actor (Bank Dick), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1946)



1913 Victor Mature, American actor (I Wake Up Screaming, Samson and Delilah), born in Louisville, Kentucky (d. 1999)



1930 John Junkin, actor/writer (A Hard Day's Night) (d. 2006)



Katharine Ross, American actress (Graduate, Francesca-Colbys), born in Hollywood, California
78th Birthday

Tom Selleck
73rd Birthday

Oprah Winfrey
64th Birthday

Famous Weddings

1839 English Naturalist and author of Origin of the Species author Charles Darwin marries Emma Wedgwood

1917 Sculptor Auguste Rodin (76) weds Rose Beuret

1923 President of Turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (41) weds highly-educated woman Latife Hanim

1945 Actress Gloria Swanson (45) weds William N. Davey

1958 Academy Award-winning actor Paul Newman (33) weds "The Three Faces of Eve" actress Joanne Woodward (27) at the El Rancho hotel-casino in Las Vegas

Famous Divorces

1951 Actress Elizabeth Taylor's 1st divorce from hotel heir Conrad Hilton Jr

1987 Lisa files for separation from husband NY Met Darryl Strawberry

1990 Actor Michael Keaton (38) divorces actress Caroline McWilliams (44) after 7 years of marriage

1994 Actor Bill Murray (43) divorces Margaret Kelly after 13 years of marriage

Famous Deaths

H. L. Mencken
(1880 - 1956)

Robert Frost
(1874 - 1963)



1964 Alan Ladd, American actor (Shane, Carpetbaggers), dies from an overdose at 50

1965 John Larkin, American actor (Saints & Sinners, The Satan Bug, 12 O'Clock High), dies of heart attack at 52

1980 Jimmy Durante, comedian (Palooka, Jimmy Durante Show), dies at 86

2009 Bill Frindall, English cricket scorer and statistician (b. 1939)