On This Day

[chalky_ncfc]

I'm pleased its still keeping you happy Chalky, I was a bit worried when you went awal, glad you are back fella

Its always an interesting read Altobelli...

1864 is so sad to read,I wonder what made that poor woman take such tragic and devastating action,the answer is probably lost in the time

[Altobelli]

Here you go Chalky

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-coroner-rules

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...us-case-review

[chalky_ncfc]

Bloody hell,now that's a shock,I had the impression that it was in Victorian times,a very sad story indeed

Thanks for the link Altobelli

[alfinyalcabo]

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

He still lives locally in Colne in a large detached house with views over the top reservoir in Foulridge

[Altobelli]

09 DECEMBER

536 Byzantine General Belisarius enters Rome while the Ostrogothic garrison peacefully leaves the city, returning the old capital to its empire.

1212 Frederick II (later also Holy Roman Emperor) crowned King of Germany in Mainz

1608 The birthday of John Milton, English poet, in Cheapside, London. His works included Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes.

1783 The first executions took place at Newgate Prison.(now the site of the Central Criminal Court aka the Old Bailey), Prior to this, public executions were carried out at Tyburn gallows, which involved carting the prisoners from Newgate Prison through the crowded streets.

1854 Lord Tennyson's poem, Charge of the Light Brigade was published. The Charge of the Light Brigade had been led by Lord Cardigan against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on 25th October 1854 in the Crimean War. The poem emphasized the valour of the cavalry in carrying out their orders, even though they knew that blunders had been made by those in command. Quote from the poem - 'Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.'

1868 The first traffic lights are installed outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.

1902 The birth of Richard Austen (‘Rab’) Butler, progressive British Conservative politician born in India who was Minister of Education, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary but never the role he was most tipped for, that of Prime Minister. Instead he served no less than four Prime Ministers.

1934 Dame Judi Dench, actress, was born.


1936 Australia all out 58 v England, Bradman out for a duck

1941 China declares war on Japan, Germany & Italy

1941 Hitler orders US ships are to be torpedoed

1953 General Electric announces all Communist employees will be fired

1960 The first episode of Coronation Street was screened on ITV. It is the world's longest-running television soap opera. A closing date for conducted tours of 31st December 2015 has been confirmed as the site has been sold for redevelopment.

1967 Jim Morrison arrested on stage for disturbing the peace

1967 Nicolae Ceaușescu becomes President of Romania (overthrown 1989)

1968 NLS (a system for which hypertext and the computer mouse were developed) is publicly demonstrated for the first time in San Francisco.

1973 Talks on Northern Ireland ended in an historic agreement to set up a Council of Ireland. British Prime Minister Edward Heath, Irish premier Liam Cosgrave, and representatives of the Ulster Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, signed the agreement, at Sunningdale, in Berkshire.

1974 Johnson Grigsby freed after 66 years in jail in Indiana

1987 England's cricket tour in Pakistan hung in the balance as a row erupted between captain Mike Gatting and the umpire Shakoor Rana who accused Gatting of cheating.

1990 Lech Wałęsa wins Poland's 1st direct presidential election in Poland

1992 Operation Restore Hope - US Marines land in Somalia

1992 The separation was announced of the Prince and Princess of Wales (Prince Charles and Princess Diana). They married in 1981.

1995 British soldier, Sgt. Timothy Cowley, was freed by police, 119 days after being kidnapped by Colombian bandits.

1996 Horrett Campbell, 33, a paranoid schizophrenic who attacked three children and four women with a machete at an infant school teddy bears' picnic in July was found guilty of seven counts of attempted murder. The court was told that Campbell had imagined he heard the children at St Luke's infants school, in Blakenhall, Wolverhampton, taunting him when he walked past the playground.

1997 There were problems for Richard Branson in his attempt to fly around the world in a hot-air balloon when the envelope ( the balloon section) of his Virgin Global Challenger broke loose from the gondola and flew off on its own from Marrakech, Morocco.

2010 A car containing Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall was attacked amid violence after MPs voted to raise university tuition fees in England. A window was cracked and their car hit by paint, but the couple were unharmed. In angry scenes, protesters battled with police in Parliament Square and were contained on Westminster Bridge for a time by officers.

2011 Prime Minister David Cameron insisted he put Britain's interests first by vetoing a new European Economic Treaty.

2012 The death of the British astronomer and broadcaster Sir Patrick Moore, aged 89. He was the presenter of the BBC's Sky At Night for over 50 years, from its first airing on 24th April 1957, making him the longest-running host ever of the same television show.

2014 A notebook which showed the early work of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, was bought by Swansea University for £104,500. He had a long affinity with Laugharne, (Carmarthenshire) spending the last four years of his life in the Boathouse.

2014 A classic Winnie the Pooh illustration by EH Shepard, first published in 1928, sold at Sotherby's for £314,500.

Famous Birthday's

John Milton
(1608 - 1674)

Margaret Hamilton
(1902 - 1985)



Douglas Fairbanks Jr
(1909 - 2000)


Broderick Crawford
(1911 - 1986)

Grace Hopper
(1906 - 1992)

Kirk Douglas
100th Birthday

Judi Dench
83rd Birthday

Beau Bridges
73rd Birthday

Joan Armatrading
66th Birthday

John Malkovich
63rd Birthday

Donny Osmond
60th Birthday

Jermaine Beckford
34th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Ralph Bunche
(1904 - 1971)

1993 Danny Blanchflower, North Ireland footballer, coach, dies at 67

Archie Moore
(1913 - 1998)

Jenni Rivera
(1969 - 2012)

2012 Sir Patrick Moore, English amateur astronomer and author, dies from an infection at 89

Famous Weddings

1883 Poet Rabindranath Tagore (22) weds Mrinalini Devi in an arranged marriage

1956 NBA player Bill Russell (22) weds college sweetheart Rose Swisher

1956 Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Fraser (26) weds Tamie Beggs (20)

1967 Lyndon B. Johnson's daughter Lynda marries in the White House

1983 Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Willy Brandt weds Brigitte Seebacher

Famous Divorces

1929 Businessman Howard Hughes divorces 1st wife Ella Rice after 4 years of marriage

1937 Writer Walter Lippmann (48) divorces first wife Faye Albertson after 20 years of marriage

1982 Mary-Beth & William Hurt divorce

[Altobelli]

10 DECEMBER

1394 The birth of King James I of Scotland. He reigned from 1406-1437 and was murdered at Perth in February 1437.

1520 Martin Luther publicly burns papal edict demanding he recant

1541 Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham were executed for having affairs with Catherine Howard, Queen of England and wife of Henry VIII.

1684 Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmond Halley

1688 King James II flees London

1799 Metric system adopted in France, first country to do so

1845 The Scottish civil engineer, Robert Thompson, patented pneumatic tyres. He was one of Scotland’s most prolific, but now largely forgotten, inventors. Tyre manufacture had to be by hand and they proved too expensive to be economically viable until Dunlop developed the process in 1888.

1868 Whitaker’s Almanac reference book was published for the first time. It's still in print, and is published annually.

1868 The first traffic lights were installed, outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they used semaphore arms and were illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.

1898 Spanish-American War formally ended by the Treaty of Paris; US acquires Philippines, Puerto Rico & Guam

1901 First Nobel Peace Prizes awarded to Red Cross founder Jean Henri Dunant and peace activist Frederic Passy


1903 Nobel Prize for physics awarded to Pierre and Marie Curie

1907 Author Rudyard Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. It was the first time it had been bestowed on an English writer.

1907 The worst night of the Brown Dog riots in London, when 1,000 medical students clashed with 400 police officers over the existence of a memorial for animals that had been subjected to vivisection.

1917 The first postmark slogan was stamped on envelopes in Britain: ‘Buy British War Bonds Now’.

1919 The Smith brothers Capt. Ross Smith and Lt. Keith Smith (Australians), became the first aviators to fly from Britain to Australia.

1926 2nd part of Hitler's Mein Kampf published

1929 Bradman scores 225 in 2nd inn of Test Cricket trial after 124 in 1st

1935 Nobel Prize for Chemistry awarded to Irene Joliot-Curie (daughter of Marie Curie) and her husband Frédéric Joliot for the discovery of artificial radioactivity

1936 Britain replaces King Edward VIII stamp series with King George VI

1936 Edward VIII signs Instrument of Abdication, giving up the British throne to marry American divoree Wallis Simpson

1941 World War II: The Royal Navy's ships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse were sunk by Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo bombers near Malaya.

1942 Hitler names Anton Mussert "leader of the Dutch people"

1964 Nobel Peace Prize presented to Dr Martin Luther King Jr. in Oslo

1968 Japan's biggest heist, the still-unsolved "300 million yen robbery", occurs in Tokyo.

1979 Twenty year old stuntman Eddie Kidd accomplished a "death-defying" motorcycle leap when he crossed an 80ft gap over a 50ft sheer drop above a viaduct at Maldon, Es***. He jumped the Great Wall of China in 1993, but his career ended after he suffered serious head injuries in 1996 at a Hell's Angels rally in Warwickshire.

1987 Two dangerous prisoners escaped by helicopter from the Gartree maximum security prison in Leicestershire.

1990 The first of the hostages held in the Gulf for four and a half months arrived in Britain, after their release by Saddam Hussein. A total of 100 British hostages were freed and landed at Heathrow airport, with the promise of a further 400 to follow.

1991 The leaders of the 12 EC nations agreed on the treaty of Maastricht, pledging closer political and economic union.

2001 Prime MInister Tony Blair backed Home Secretary David Blunkett over his call for ethnic minority groups to make more effort to fit in with the British identity.

2003 The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction of Angela Cannings, jailed for life for the murder of her two baby sons. She had always maintained that the two boys died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), also known as cot death.

2016 Terrorist bomb attacks outside a stadium in Istanbul kill 38 and injure 166

Famous Birthday's

James I
(1394 - 1437)

William Lloyd Garrison
(1805 - 1879)


Ada Lovelace
(1815 - 1852)

Famous Deaths



Alfred Nobel
(1833 - 1896)

Walter Johnson
(1887 - 1946)

Augusto Pinochet
(1915 - 2006)

Richard Pryor
(1940 - 2005)

Max Clifford
(1943 - 2017)

Famous Weddings

1843 Author and religious leader Mary Baker Eddy (22) weds building contractor George Washington Glover (32) in Tilton, New Hampshire

1947 Jazz musician Ella Fitzgerald (30) weds bass player Ray Brown (21)

1961 Dr Ruth marries Fred Westheimer

1994 Former Senate Majority Leader Mitchell (61) weds sports marketing executive Heather MacLachlan (35) at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in New York City

2005 "Audioslave" drummer Brad Wilk (37) weds "Seven Year Bitch" former lead vocalist Selene Vigil near the frozen waters of Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe

Famous Divorces

1997 Motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel (59) divorces Linda Joan Bork after 38 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

11 DECEMBER

1282 The death of the last native Prince of Wales - Llewelyn ap Gruffydd, prince of Gwynedd.

1620 103 Mayflower pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock (12/21 NS)

1688 James II fled to France, never to return and was forced to abdicate after William of Orange had landed in England on 5th November.

1769 Venetian blinds were patented (in London) by Edward Beran.

1792 France's King Louis XVI goes on trial, accused of high treason and crimes against the state

1877 English photographer Eadweard Mubridge won a long standing bet for a millionaire by proving that a horse's four feet are all off the ground simultaneously once every stride. He used multiple cameras around the track, each taking a single frame via a series of trip wires.

1895 The death, at Much Wenlock in Shropshire of William Penny Brookes. He was an English surgeon, magistrate, botanist, and educationalist especially known for inspiring the modern Olympic Games, the Wenlock Olympian Games and for his promotion of physical education and personal betterment. He was born at this house in Much Wenlock, was buried in the graveyard at Holy Trinity Church where there is this plaque and a memorial to him.

1903 The first wildlife preservation society was formed in Britain to protect fauna. It was called the Society for the Preservation of Wild Fauna of the Empire.

1913 "Mona Lisa" recovered 2 years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum

1914 The Royal Flying Corps, which later became the RAF, adopted the red, white and blue roundel to identify its aircraft more easily during World War I. See the roundel on a static WWII Spitfire F Mk IX - BS435 : F-FY at the Southport Woodvale Rally.

1914 In the Battle of the Falklands, all British ships survived whilst four German cruisers were sunk.

1917 13 black soldiers hanged for participation in Houston riot

1931 Statute of Westminster gives complete legislative independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland (Free State), and Newfoundland (not then part of Canada)

1936 After ruling for less than one year, Edward VIII becomes the first English monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne. Edward planned to marry divorcee Mrs. Wallis Simpson and, before he left for France, he made a final radio broadcast to the nation. He was succeeded by his brother, George, who became George VI.

1946 UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) established (Nobel 1965)

1952 Derek Bentley, aged 19, and 16 year old Christopher Craig, were found guilty of the murder of a policeman in south London. Because of his age, Craig was sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure, while Bentley, who did not fire the gun, was sentenced to hang. Despite a public outcry, the sentence was carried out on 27th January 1953.

1967 Concorde, the world's first supersonic airliner, was rolled out of its hangar for public viewing for the first time.

1967 Beatles' Apple Music signs its 1st group - Grapefruit

1975 An Icelandic gunboat opened fire on unarmed British fishery support vessels in the North Atlantic Sea, heightening the 'Cod War'.

1981 Muhammad Ali's 61st & last fight, losing to Trevor Berbick

1997 Delegates from 150 industrial nations attending a UN climate conference in Kyoto, Japan, reach agreement to control heat-trapping greenhouse gases

1979 Rhodesia reverted to British rule after Parliament passed a bill to end 14 years of illegal independence from Britain.

1986 Church leaders condemned a radio campaign about Aids for 'condoning promiscuity'.

1987 Charlie Chaplin’s famous memorabilia were sold at Christie’s in London. His cane and bowler went for £82,500 and his boots for £38,500.

1990 The Government set aside £42M to British haemophiliacs who became infected with the HIV virus after being treated with contaminated Factor VIII

2005 A huge fire continued to burn at Buncefield oil depot near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire. It was the largest of its kind in peacetime Europe and the noise of the explosions could be heard as far away as the Netherlands.

2012 HSBC bank settles with US authorities to pay $1.9 billion for drug cartel money laundering

2014 Ray Teret, a 73 year old DJ friend of *****phile Jimmy Savile, was jailed for 25 years for a catalogue of historical *** offences against young girls. He was convicted of seven rapes and 11 indecent assaults against schoolgirls in the 1960s and 1970s

2014 World's 1st ***** transplant procedure by a team from Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa (THINGS MIGHT BE LOOKING GOOD FOR YOU ALF)

Famous Birthday's

Leo X
(1475 - 1521)

Annie Jump Cannon
(1863 - 1941)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
(1918 - 2008)

David Gates, (rock vocalist, Bread-Baby I'm A Want You), born in Tulsa, Oklahoma
77th Birthday



Donna Mills
77th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Bettie Page
(1923 - 2008)



Ravi Shankar
(1920 - 2012)

Keith Chegwin
(1957 - 2017)

Famous Weddings

1924 Photographer Alfred Stieglitz (60) marries artist Georgia O'Keeffe (37) in Cliffside Park, New Jersey

1946 "Bill Haley & His Comets" rock and roll musician Bill Haley (21) weds Dorothy Crowe

1993 Canada's PM Stephen Harper (34) weds Laureen Teskey (30)

1999 Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane marries Rhona Gemmell

2010 "Good Charlotte" lead vocalist Joel Madden (31) weds fashion designer and actress Nicole Richie (30) at Beverly Hills, California


50 Years ago Album and Single # 1s

No Change This Week:

THE SOUND OF MUSIC ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK

BABY NOW THAT I'VE FOUND YOU FOUNDATIONS

[Altobelli]

12 DECEMBER

627 Battle at Nineveh: Byzantine Emperor Heraclius beats Sassanid forces during Byzantine-Sassanid War



1724 The birth of Admiral Samuel Hood, first Viscount, British naval commander and a skilful tactician. He was known particularly for his service in the American War of Independence and French Revolutionary Wars and he acted as a mentor to Horatio Nelson.

1787 Pennsylvania becomes 2nd state to ratify US constitution

1800 Washington, D.C., established as the capital of the United States of America


1889 Robert Browning, English poet, died. He was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. His grave now lies immediately adjacent to that of Alfred Tennyson.



1896 Marconi gave the first public demonstration of radio at Toynbee Hall, London. On the same day, in 1901, Marconi carried out the first transatlantic radio transmission from Poldhu, Cornwall, to St John’s, Newfoundland, a distance of 1800 miles.

1901 Guglielmo Marconi sends the first transatlantic radio signal, from Poldhu in Cornwall to Newfoundland, Canada

1908 The start of the first Australian Rugby League tour of Britain. The seven-month tour was almost a disaster due to small gate-takings.

1901 Guglielmo Marconi sends the first transatlantic radio signal, from Poldhu in Cornwall to Newfoundland, Canada

1925 Last Qajar Shah of Iran deposed; Rezā Shāh Pahlavi takes over

1939 HMS Duchess sank after a collision with HMS Barham off the coast of Scotland with the loss of 124 men.

1946 UN accepts 6 Manhattan blocks as a gift from John D. Rockefeller Jr

1948 Britain introduced National Service for all men aged between 18 and 26. It extended the British conscription of World War II into peacetime.

1955 Christopher Cockerell patented his prototype of the hovercraft. He had tested his theories using a hair-dryer and tin cans and found his work to have potential, but the idea took some years to develop, and he was forced to sell personal possessions in order to finance his research. Hovertravel is the only scheduled passenger hovercraft service in Europe and it operates between Southsea, Portsmouth and Ryde on the Isle of Wight.

1961 Adolf Eichmann is found guilty of war crimes in Israel

1963 Frank Sinatra Jr returned after being kidnapped

1964 Shooting starts for "Star Trek" pilot "The Cage" (Menagerie)

1965 The Beatles' last concert in Great Britain (Capitol Theatre in Cardiff, Wales)

1966 English sailor Francis Chichester arrived at Sydney in his ketch Gipsy Moth IV - half way in his bid to become the first man to sail solo around the world. On 28 May 1967, after 226 days, he arrived back in Plymouth and became the first person to achieve a true, solo, circumnavigation of the world from West to East via the great capes. The voyage was also a race against the clock as Chichester wanted to better the typical times achieved by the fastest fully crewed clipper ships during the heyday of commercial sail in the 19th century.

1975 The six-day Balcombe Street siege ended peacefully in London after four IRA gunmen freed their two hostages and gave themselves up to police.

1975 Sara Jane Moore pleds guilty to trying to kill US President Gerald Ford

1982 $9,800,000 in cash stolen from money transport car in NYC

1982 30,000 women formed a 9 mile human chain that encircled Greenham Common air base in Berkshire, in protest against the proposed siting of US Cruise missiles there.

1988 Britain’s worst rail crash for 20 years killed 35 and injured 113 people when a packed express train ran into the back of a stationary commuter train near Clapham Junction.

1988 The first satellite pictures were beamed to London's betting shops to allow them to watch the races live from many race courses.

1992 Princess Anne remarried and became Mrs. Timothy Laurence after a small family wedding in Scotland. She was previously married to Mark Phillips (1973).

2000 United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore

2001 Roy Whiting was found guilty of the abduction and murder of eight year old Sarah Payne, and sentenced to life in prison. The high profile case led to 'Sarah's Law', by allowing controlled access to the *** Offenders' Register, so that parents with young children could know if a child ***-offender was living in their area.

2001 Winona Ryder is arrested on shoplifting charges in Beverly Hills, California

2006 Peugeot produces its last car at the Ryton Plant signalling the end of mass car production in Coventry, formerly a major centre of the British motor industry.

2012 Ofcom announced that Internet shopping was more popular in the UK than in any other major country, with an annual average spend of £1,083 a year, compared with the second highest (Australia) at £842.

2013 Blockbuster, the DVD and games rental chain that went into administration in January, announced that all the remaining 91 UK stores, employing 808 people, would have to close by 16th December.

2013 Daniel Severn, a 27 year old burglar who had 80 convictions for 32 court appearances was jailed for two years and four months. The court heard that Severn became trapped while trying to raid someone's house and ended up with his head resting on the toilet for an hour and a half, with one foot trapped in the window that he had used to gain entry. When he had tried to call for help he dropped his phone in the bath. Severn was told "It would be funny if it were not such a serious offence."

2013 Doctors in Derby and Nottingham analysing the Ian Fleming novels showed that James Bond drank the equivalent of one and a half bottles of wine every day. They said that he was not the man to trust to deactivate a nuclear bomb and that his love of the bottle would have left him impotent and at death’s door. Excluding the 36 days that Bond was in prison, hospital or rehab, the spy downed 1,150 units of alcohol in 88 days, four times the recommended maximum intake for men in the UK.

2014 A 20 year study of the Darwin Awards (named after the naturalist Charles Darwin that reviewed the most foolish way people have died, found almost 90 per cent were 'won' by males.

2015 COP21 climate change summit in Paris reaches a deal between 195 countries to limit the rise in the global average temperature to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels

Famous Birthday's

John Jay
(1745 - 1829)



Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood, British admiral in the American Revolutionary War and the French Revolutionary Wars, born in Butleigh, England
(1724 - 1816)

Edvard Munch
(1863 - 1944)



Edward G Robinson
(1893 - 1973)

Sammy Davis, Sr
(1900 - 1988)

Frank Sinatra
(1915 - 1998)

Dionne Warwick
77th Birthday

Bill Nighy
68th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Robert Browning
(1812 - 1889)

John Thompson
(1845 - 1894)

Ike Turner
(1931 - 2007)

Peter Boyle
(1935 - 2006)

Famous Weddings

1957 Jerry Lee Lewis weds his cousin Myra Gale Brown, 13, while still married to his 1st wife Jane Mitcham

1991 Actor Richard Gere (42) weds supermodel Cindy Crawford (25) in Las Vegas

1998 TV personality Melissa Rivers (30) weds horse breeder John Endicott at The Plaza Hotel in New York City

2001 Actress Ashley Judd (33) weds race car driver Dario Franchetti (28) at Skibo Castle in Scotland

2008 Fashion mogul Tommy Hilfiger (57) weds former model Dee Ocleppo in Greenwich, Connecticut

Famous Divorces

2014 Actor and comedian Nick Cannon (37) files for divorce from singer Mariah Carey (48) after 6 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