On This Day

[chalky_ncfc]

This is the bit of this forum that I missed the most,still as entertaining as ever Altobelli

[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]

17 DECEMBER

1398 Timur (Tamerlane) captures and sacks Delhi, defeating Sultan Nasir-u Din Mehmud's armies which include elephants

1526 Pope Clemens VII publishes degree Cum ad zero - forms Inquisition

1778 The birth, in Penzance, of Sir Humphrey Davy, English inventor of the safety lamp for miners which allowed miners to work safely in the presence of flammable gases. Davy refused to patent the lamp, and its invention led to him being awarded the Rumford medal in 1816. The medal has been awarded every alternate year since 1800 by the Royal Society for outstandingly important discoveries by a scientist working in Europe.

1788 Russian army of Grigory Potemkin occupies Ocharov

1843 A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, was published.

1849 Thomas and William Bowler, felt hat makers, sold their first 'bowler' to William Coke, which he purchased at James Lock & Co. in London.

1862 General Ulysses S. Grant issues order #11, expelling Jews from Tennessee

1903 The Wright Brothers make the first sustained motorized aircraft flight at 10:35 AM, piloted by Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

1917 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, first English woman physician, died and was buried in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. She was the founder of the first hospital staffed by women and the first woman mayor in the United KIngdom.

1925 The death of Albert Neilson Hornby (A. N. Hornby), one of the best known sportsmen in England during the 19th century. Hornby was the first of only two men to captain the country at both rugby and cricket. He is also remembered as the England cricket captain whose side lost the Test match at home against the Australians in 1882 which gave rise to the Ashes (Quote: - English cricket has died, and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.) He is buried in Acton churchyard in Cheshire

1927 Bradman scores 118 on 1st-class cricket debut, 188 mins 8 fours

1933 Members of the public were allowed to walk through the recently completed Mersey Road Tunnel, prior to its opening to traffic.

1936 The birth of Tommy Steele, English singer and actor. Most of Steele's 1950s recordings were covers of American hits, such as 'Singing the Blues' and 'Knee Deep in the Blues'.



1941 German troops led by Erwin Rommel begin retreating in North Africa

1941 World War II: Beginning of the Siege of Sebastopol.

1942 Allies in London sentence German war criminals

1954 The British Petroleum Company (BP) was formed.



1957 The last episode of The Nat King Cole Show airs on NBC due to lack of national sponsorship

1964 "Goldfinger", 3rd James Bond film, starring Sean Connery and Honor Blackman premieres in London

1967 Alec Rose, aboard Lively Lady, completed his solo 14,500 mile sail from Britain to Australia, having been at sea for 155 days. He returned successfully to Portsmouth on 4th July 1968 and was knighted the next day by the Queen.

1968 An 11-year-old girl (Mary Bell) was sentenced to life in detention after being found guilty at Newcastle Assizes of the manslaughter of two small boys. It was said that she strangled the boys, aged four and three, 'solely for the pleasure and excitement of killing'.

1976 Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates rejected Opec's recommended 15% oil price increase and chose to impose a lower price rise of 5%.

1983 Three police officers and three members of the public were killed and many others injured after a car bomb attack in London. Police believe the IRA planted the bomb in a side street near Harrods department store in Knightsbridge.

1986 Mrs Davina Thompson, in an operation performed at a Cambridge hospital, became the world’s first heart, lungs and liver transplant patient .

1986 American mafia hitman Richard Kuklinski is arrested at a ro*******

2003 Former school caretaker Ian Huntley was convicted of the murders of 10 year olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. The judge said that the killings did not meet the criteria for a 'whole-life tariff', but that the 40-year term offered 'little or no hope' of his release.

2004 The opening of 'The Sage - Gateshead', a concert venue and centre for musical education, located on the south bank of the River Tyne.

2011 The Grand Theatre in Wolverhampton brought in children to play the seven dwarfs in its pantomime production of Snow White, apparently because dwarf actors were seen as too expensive. But in a statement, the producer said: 'This was a response to audience discomfort with what was considered by some to be exploitative casting.'

2012 The Queen's centenarian 'birthday card team' was expanded to cope with a surge of 100-year-olds. Figures showed a 70 per cent rise in just 10 years of people aged over 100 and how more than 104,000 First World War babies are still alive

2013 Alex Salmond's ‘Team Scotland’ delegation to the Ryder Cup in Chicago spent spent almost half a million pounds during their short stay, according to official figures obtained by The Telegraph.

2013 Angela Merkel is elected Chancellor of Germany for a third term

2014 The Rev Libby Lane, a parish priest from Crewe, was chosen to be the Church of England’s first female bishop. Her appointment brought to an end 22 years of resistance to the promotion of female priests.

2014 Dominique Harrison-Bentzen (22) slept rough on the streets of Preston, Lancashire, to raise money for homeless man Robbie after he had offered her his last £3 for a taxi home when she lost her bank card. Dominique raised more than £21,000 to help him after she put posts on Facebook and Twitter, asking people to help raise money to give Robbie a home.

2014 Birmingham was named as one of the top 10 cities in the world by travel handbook company Rough Guide. It was the only UK location on the list. The list does not rank the chosen cities.

2015 José Mourinho is sacked as manager of British Premier football club Chelsea

Famous Birthday's

Mackenzie King
(1874 - 1950)

1943 Dave Dee, British musician (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich), born in Salisbury, Wiltshire (d. 2009)



Ray Wilson
82nd Birthday

Tommy Steele
81st Birthday

Pope Francis
81st Birthday



Bernard Hill
73rd Birthday

Manny Pacquiao
39th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Simón BolÃ*var
(1783 - 1830)

William Thomson
(1824 - 1907)

2010 Captain Beefheart, American musician (b. 1941)

Kim Jong-il
(1942 - 2011)

Famous Weddings

1600 Marriage of Henry IV of France and Marie de' Medici

1915 Journalist Benito Mussolini marries Rachele Guidi in Treviglio Lombardy

1918 Philippine Senator (and later 2nd President) Manuel L. Quezon (40) weds first cousin Aurora Aragon (30) in Hong Kong

1955 Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (47) weds Cecilia Suyat

1969 50m TV viewers saw singer Tiny Tim marry Miss Vicky, on Tonight Show

1993 Tennis star Boris Becker (26) weds designer Barbara Feltus (27)



1994 Actress Heather Locklear (33) weds Bon Jovi lead guitarist Richie Sambora (35) at The American Cathedral in Paris, France

1994 Queen of Pop Celine Dion (26) weds her manager Rene Angelil (52) at Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal, Canada


Famous Divorces

2007 Actor Dermot Mulroney (44) divorces actress Catherine Keener (48) due to irreconcilable differences after 17 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

28 DECEMBER

1065 Westminster Abbey was consecrated. Its founder Edward the Confessor could not attend due to illness. He died on 5th January l066 and was buried in a shrine before the High Altar in his new church.

1612 First observation of Neptune - Galileo observes and records a "fixed star" without realising it is a planet

1694 Mary II, joint sovereign of England, Scotland and Ireland, died from smallpox, leaving William III to reign alone.

1734 The death of Robert Roy MacGregor, usually known simply as Rob Roy, the famous Scottish folk hero and outlaw of the early 18th century. He is buried in Balquhidder churchyard - see picture.

1767 King Taksin crowned King of Thailand and establishes Thonburi as his capital

1836 Spain recognizes independence of Mexico

1860 Harriet Tubman arrives in Auburn, New York, on her last mission to free slaves, having evaded capture for 8 years on the Underground Railroad

1879 The Tay railway bridge collapsed whilst the Edinburgh to Dundee train was crossing. The original crossing was the longest railway bridge in the world but during the storm the wind was said to have blown the iron girders in the central section away 'like matchwood. The engine and carriages plummeted into the icy river below killing 59 people. In 1979 British Rail commissioned a special train to take people across the new bridge at the exact time of the original accident ....... 19:15 GMT. On 28th December 2013 granite memorials to commemorate the disaster were unveiled on both sides of the river.

1904 The first weather reports relayed by wireless telegraphy were published in London.

1908 Earthquake strikes Messina, Italy, killing nearly 80,000

1918 Constance Markievicz, Irish Sinn Féin politician and suffragette, whilst detained in Holloway prison, became the first woman to be elected MP to the House of Commons.

1932 Roy Hattersley, Labour MP & former Labour deputy leader, was born.

1934 The first Test Match for women’s cricket was between Australia and England and was held at Brisbane. England beat Australia 2–0 in a three-Test series, with the final match drawn.

1934 Dame Maggie Smith, British actress was born. She made her stage debut in 1952 and has won numerous awards for acting, both for the stage and for film, including five BAFTA Awards, plus the BAFTA Fellowship Award. She currently stars in the drama, Downton Abbey as Violet Crawley, the Dowager-Countess of Grantham, for which she has won an Emmy.

1943 The birth of Richard Whiteley. He was best known for his twenty three years as host of the game show Countdown. At the time of his death in 2005 Whiteley was believed to have clocked more hours on British television screens than anyone else alive.

1943 All Kalmyk inhabitants of the Republic of Kalmukkie deported by the Soviet Union to Central Asia and Siberia. Many die en route.

1950 Derbyshire's Peak District became Britain’s first National Park.

1957 The Stanley abattoir in Liverpool (one of Britain's largest) closed down after foot and mouth disease was found in cattle.

1963 'That Was The Week That Was', television’s first satirical show, was broadcast for the last time. It was taken off air while still commanding huge audiences because 1964 was to be election year and it was felt that the show could influence voters.

1968 100,000 attend Miami Pop Festival

1968 Beatles' "White Album" goes #1 & stays #1 for 9 weeks

1968 Israeli assault on Beirut Airport

1971 Hashish now falls under the Dutch Opium Law (Opiumwet)

1972 Kim Il-song becomes president of North Korea

1972 Martin Bormann's skeleton is found in Berlin (Hitlers deputy)

1974 6.3 earthquake strikes Pakistan: 5200 killed

1975 Earthquake in Pakistan, 4,000 die


1975 Gary Cosier scores 109 v West Indies at MCG on Test Cricket debut

1980 A shake-up of broadcasting franchises paved the way for the launch of breakfast TV. The Independent Broadcasting Authority announced that the breakfast contract would go to TV-am and would launch in 1983.


1983 Gavaskar achieves his 30th century, beating Bradman's record of 29

1993 Customs officials at Felixstowe seized £70m of Colombian cocaine thought to be linked to the Mafia.

2003 The British Government announced plans to tighten airline security by allowing armed guards on some British flights to the USA.

2012 Vladimir Putin signs into law a ban on US adoption of Russian children

2015 Japan and South Korea reach agreement over WWII "comfort women", Japan apologies and pays 1bn yen compensation


Famous Birthday's

Woodrow Wilson
(1856 - 1924)



1872 PÃ*o Baroja y Nessi, Spanish Basque writer, author of over 100 novels (The Struggle for Life, Zalacain the Adventurer), born in San Sebastián, Basque Country (d. 1956)

1943 Richard Whiteley, British television presenter (d. 2005)

Nigel Kennedy
61st Birthday

Terry Butcher
59th Birthday

1945 Dwight Bement, rocker (Gary Puckett & Union Gap-Young Girl)
72nd Birthday

Roy Hattersley
85th Birthday

Maggie Smith
83rd Birthday

Denzel Washington
63rd Birthday

Famous Deaths


Rob Roy
( - 1734)

Ante Pavelić
(1889 - 1959)

1983 Dennis Wilson, drummer/singer (Beach Boys), drowns at 39

Susan Sontag
(1933 - 2004)

2010 Agathe von Trapp, Austrian-born American singer (oldest von Trapp child), dies at 97

2015 Lemmy [Ian Kilmister], British heavy metal musician (Motörhead), dies from terminal illness at 70

2016 Debbie Reynolds, American actress (Kathy Selden-Singin' in the Rain, The Unsinkable Molly Brown), dies of a stroke at 84 one day after her daughter Carrie Fisher also passed away

Famous Weddings

1936 British best-selling romantic author Barbara Cartland (35) marries 2nd husband Hugh McCorquodale

1936 Football player Bronko Nagurski (28) weds childhood sweetheart Eileen Kane in International Falls, Minnesota

1950 Author John Steinbeck (48) weds actress Elaine Anderson (36)

1956 Actress Elizabeth Montgomery (23) weds actor Gig Young (43)

1956 Singer Patti Page (29) weds choreographer Charles O'Curran in Las Vegas, Nevada

Famous Divorces

1942 Actress Janet Leigh (14) divorces childhood sweetheart John Kenneth Carlisle (18) 4 months after getting married

2010 Film and record company executive Justin Siegel (23) divorces actress-singer Emmy Rossum due to irreconcilable differences after a year-and-a-half of marriage

2012 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin (82) divorces Lois Driggs Cannon due to irreconcilable differences after 23 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

09 JANUARY

1799 Income tax was introduced into Britain by William Pitt the Younger, to raise funds for the Napoleonic War. The rate was two shillings in the pound.

1806 Lord Nelson, naval commander and hero of the Battle of Trafalgar, was buried beneath the dome of St Paul's cathedral, in London, after a grand and solemn procession along the river to Whitehall and thence to the City. Nelson was born on this site - a former rectory :. A plaque on the wall on Creake Road.

1816 Sir Humphry Davy tested his Davy safety lamp for miners at Hebburn Colliery. In January 1819, Davy was awarded a baronetcy, at the time the highest honour ever conferred on a man of science in Britain. A year later he became President of the Royal Society.

1854 Birth of Jenny, Lady Randolph Churchill, wife of Lord Randolph and mother of Winston.

1854 The first free lending Library opened, on Marylebone Road, London.

1888 The London Financial Guide was launched. It became The Financial Times on 13th February.

1898 The birth, in Rochdale, Lancashire, of Dame Gracie Fields, internationally famous singer. This statue of her was unveiled in her home town of Rochdale. on 18th September 2016 by Roy Hudd, President of the British Music Hall Society.

1909 Ernest Shackleton, leading the Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, planted the British flag 112 miles from the South Pole, the furthest anyone had ever reached at that time.

1929 Alexander Fleming successfully treated his assistant Stuart Craddick’s infection with a penicillin broth, at St Mary’s, Paddington.

1947 Elizabeth "Betty" Short, the black dahlia, is last seen alive.

1972 British miners began their first strike since 1926, campaigning for improved pay and conditions. A season of power cuts followed.

1997 The lone yachtsman, Tony Bullimore, feared drowned after his boat, (Exide Challenger) capsized in the Southern Ocean five days previously, was found safe and well.

2007 Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs announces the iPhone

2015 A New York judge sentenced the extradited radical preacher Abu Hamza to life in prison for supporting terrorist organisations. The Muslim cleric rose to prominence for his fiery sermons at a north London mosque prior to the protracted extradition battle. The US justice department and Theresa May, the UK home secretary, hailed the sentence.



2016 The Flying Scotsman, (engine no. 60103) and the first steam engine to be officially recorded at 100mph carried its first passengers, after a 10 year restoration that cost £4.2M. Test run services were carried out on the East Lancashire Railway, between Bury and Rawtenstall, for two successive weekends.

Famous Birthday's

Richard Nixon
(1913 - 1994)

1920 Clive Dunn, British actor, (d. 2012)



1925 Lee Van Cleef, NJ, actor (For a Few Dollars More, Escape from NY) (d. 1989)

Bob Denver
(1935 - 2005)



1939 Susannah York, English actress (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Superman), born in London, England (d. 2011)

Jimmy Page
74th Birthday

Joan Baez
77th Birthday

Catherine, Duchess of CambridgeCatherine, Duchess of Cambridge
36th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Victor Emmanuel II
(1820 - 1878)

Katherine Mansfield
(1888 - 1923)



Albert Stevens
( - 1966)

1995 Peter Cook, English comic/actor (Peter n' Dud, Bedazzled), dies at 57

2009 Dave Dee, British musician (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich), dies of cancer at 67

2016 Ed Stewart, British DJ and broadcaster (Crackerjack), dies of a stroke at 74

Famous Weddings

1428 Pope Martinus V declares Jacqueline, Countess of Haintaut's marriage to Humphrey Duke of Gloucester invalid

1987 Sir Rudolph Bing (of NY Met Opera) marries Lady Carroll Douglass

1988 English earl of St Andrews marries Sylvana Tomaselli

2005 "Motley Crue" lead singer Vince Neil (43) weds Lia Gerardini at the Four Seasons hotel in Las Vegas

2007 "Ugly Betty" actress Ashley Jensen (37) weds actor and writer Terence Beesley in a ceremony in the woods of Big Sur, California

50 Years Ago Album & Single # 1s

VAL DOONICAN ROCKS BUT GENTLY - VAL DOONICAN

HELLO GOODBYE - BEATLES

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[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]

15 DECEMBER

533 Byzantine general Belisarius defeats the Vandals, under King Gelimer, at the Battle of Ticameron

1256 Hulagu Khan captures and destroys Hashshashin stronghold at Alamut, in present-day Iran, part of the Mongol offensive on Islamic southwest Asia

1488 Bartolomeu Dias returns to Portugal after becoming 1st known European to sail round the Cape of Good Hope

1612 German Astronomer Simon Marius is 1st to observe Andromeda galaxy through a telescope

1791 US Bill of Rights ratified when Virginia gives its approval, becomes amendments 1-10 of the US constitution

1840 Napoleon Bonaparte receives a French state funeral in Paris 19 years after his death

1906 The opening of the Piccadilly tube line on London's Underground. It was the longest underground line at the time, running from Finsbury Park to Hammersmith.

1913 Suffragettes caused a dynamite explosion at Holloway Prison where Emmeline Pankhurst and Lady Constance Lytton were detained.

1942 The birth, in Tottenham, of Dave Clark, English musician with 'The Dave Clark Five'. Their single 'Glad All Over' knocked The Beatles' 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' off the top of the UK singles charts in January 1964. They had 12 Top 40 UK hits between 1964 and 1967 and disbanded in late 1970. In 2008, marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the band, The Dave Clark Five was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, located on the shore of Lake Erie in the United States.

1958 The last steam locomotive was made at Crewe. Engine number 92250 was the 7,331st locomotive built since the works opened.

1961 In Jerusalem, Adolph Eichmann, one of the major organizers of the Holocaust, was sentenced to death after being found guilty of 15 criminal charges, including war crimes, charges of crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people and membership of an outlawed organization.

1973 American Psychiatric Association declares homo***uality is not a mental illness

1974 New speed limits were introduced. Speed limits on motorways would remain at 70mph , but on dual carriageways they would become 60mph and on all other roads 50mph as the government tried to curb fuel use.

1979 Chris Haney and Scott Abbott develop the board game Trivial Pursuit

1982 Reputed to be Robin Hood's tree, the 'Major Oak' in Sherwood Forest, was fitted with a fire alarm.

1982 There were scenes of jubilation as the gates isolating the people of Gibraltar from Spain were opened for the first time in 13 years. There were tight restrictions, which included a ban on any British or foreign tourists crossing.

1984 'Do They Know It's Christmas' by Band Aid entered the chart at No.1 and stayed at the top for 5 weeks. At the time it was the biggest selling single ever in the UK, with sales of over three and a half million.

1987 A company in Bedford became the first to be fined (£500) for failing to register personal computer records under the Data Protection Act.

1988 Lori Davis of Long Island sues Mike Tyson for grabbing her buttocks

1993 The British and Irish prime ministers John Major and Albert Reynolds signed the historic Joint Declaration for Peace which they hoped would end 25 years of bombing and murder in Northern Ireland.

1994 Former 800m Commonwealth gold-medallist Diane Modahl was found guilty of taking a banned drug, but was cleared a year later on appeal.

1995 Playboy goes back on sale after 36 year ban in Ireland

2004 The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, resigned after an email implicated him in using his Government position to grant favours to his ex-lover.

2013 Andy Murray was awarded the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year. Earlier in the year Murray had become the first Briton in three quarters of a century to win the men’s singles competition at Wimbledon.

2014 Jonathan Paul Burrows, a London hedge fund manager who regularly avoided buying a train ticket on his commute to the City, was banned for life from working in any regulated financial industries. In total, Mr Burrows was believed to have dodged £42,550 in fares.

2015 Forty three year old astronaut Major Tim Peake became the first Briton to serve a mission on the International Space Station. He took off from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan at 11:03am GMT, alongside Nasa astronaut Tim Kopra and Russian commander Yuri Malenchenko.

Famous Birthday's

Nero
(37 - 68)



Gustave Eiffel
(1832 - 1923)

J. Paul Getty
(1892 - 1976)

Chico Mendes
(1944 - 1988)

Dave Clark, rock drummer (Dave Clark 5-Glad All Over), born in London, England
78th Birthday

Don Johnson
68th Birthday

Joe Jordan
66th Birthday

Frankie Dettori
47th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Afonso de Albuquerque
( - 1515)



Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa-Sioux chief who helped led his people to victory in the Battle of the Little Big Horn, killed by US Police aged 58 or 59
( - 1890)

1943 Thomas W "Fats" Waller, jazz pianist (Hot Chocolate), dies at 39 in KC Missouri



1944 Glenn Miller, American bandleader and jazz composer (Glenn Miller Orchestra-In the Mood), dies in a suspected plane crash at 40

Walt Disney
(1901 - 1966)



1962 Charles Laughton, English actor (Hunchback of Notre Dame), dies at 63

2013 Joan Fontaine, British-American actress, dies of natural causes at 96

Famous Weddings

1875 Sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (41) weds Jeanne-Emilie Baheux Puysieux in Newport, Rhode Island

1933 Actor Gary Cooper (32) weds actress Veronica Balfe (20) in Park Avenue, New York City

1944 Country music star Hank Williams (21) weds Audrey Sheppard. It was her second marriage and his first.

1960 King Boudouin of Belgium marries dona Fabiola de Mora y Aragon

1983 Author Roald Dahl (67) weds Liccy Crosland (45) at Brixton Town Hall in South London

Famous Divorces

1942 Actress Mary Astor (36) divorces film editor Manuel del Campo (29) after more than 4 years of marriage

2008 Pop singer Madonna (50) divorces film director Guy Ritchie (40) due to unreasonable behavior after almost 8 years of marriage

2010 Nip/Tuck actor Dylan Walsh (47) divorces actress Joana Going (47) due to irreconcilable differences after 6 years of marriage

[Altobelli]

26 DECEMBER

1135 The Coronation of King Stephen, grandson of William the Conqueror. Stephen's reign was marked by civil war and unsettled government. He was succeeded in 1154 by Henry II.

1492 1st Spanish settlement La Navidad (modern Môle-Saint-Nicolas) in the New World is founded by Christopher Columbus

1716 Thomas Gray, English poet, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University, was born.

1791 The birth of Charles Babbage, English mathematician, philosopher, and mechanical engineer who originated the idea of a programmable computer.

1860 The first ever inter-club football match took place between Hallam F.C. and Sheffield F.C. at Hallam's Sandygate Road ground in Sheffield, Yorkshire. Sandygate has been recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the 'Oldest Ground in the World'.

1874 Boxing Day was officially recognized in Britain as a Bank Holiday. The name originates from the custom of Christmas boxes being given to a lord's serfs and dates back to the middle ages.

1900 A relief crew arrived at the the lighthouse on the Flannan Isles, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, only to find that the previous crew of three lighthouse keepers had all disappeared without a trace. The mystery has never been resolved, but rumours and myths still abound.

1908 Jack Johnson TKOs Tommy Burns in 14 for heavyweight boxing title, becomes 1st black heavyweight champion

1913 A large Hippodrome was opened at Golders Green as a variety hall to take advantage of the newly arrived London underground.

1932 The BBC presented the first televised pantomime, Dick Whittington.

1943 A Royal Navy convoy, including the battleship Duke of York and cruiser Jamaica, attacked and sank the mighty German battlecruiser Scharnhorst, of North Cape, Norway. She was the last major German battleship.

1948 The first annual Reith Lecture on the BBC. They were inaugurated to mark the historic contribution made to public service broadcasting by Sir John Reith, the corporation's first director-general.

1959 The first charity walk took place, along the Icknield Way (Buckinghamshire & Norfolk), in aid of the World Refugee Fund.

1963 The Beatles release "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There" in the United States

1964 Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley claim last victim

1970 British Olympic medallist Lillian Board, MBE, died after losing her battle against a virulent form of cancer. The twice European Gold medallist and Olympic silver medallist who helped set four world records on the track, died late in the afternoon after she slipped into a coma on Christmas Eve.

1978 India's former Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi is released from jail

1988 Crash investigators uncovered wreckage which they hoped would hold the key to the Lockerbie air disaster of 21st December. Two men, said to be Libyan intelligence agents were later put on trial for planting the bomb.

2001 A man captured as he tried to ignite explosives hidden in his trainers aboard an American Airlines jet was identified as Richard Reid, a 28-year old unemployed British citizen.

2011 The 11 year old racehorse Kauto Star created history with a fifth 'King George VI Chase' victory at Kempton Park. The previous record of four wins had been held by the legendary Desert Orchid since 1990.

2004 9.3 magnitude earthquake creates a tsunami causing devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives and edges of the Indian Ocean, killing 230,000 people

​2012 The death of Con Shiels, aged 96, the last survivor of the Jarrow March of 1936, a protest against unemployment and poverty during the Great Depression.

2013 Nottingham's official Robin Hood (Tim Pollard) and Maid Marian (Sally Chappell) announced the birth of their baby girl, Scarlett Louise. As Robin and Marian, Mr. Pollard and Ms. Chappell promote tourism and take part in civic events including the annual Robin Hood Pageant.

2013 More people accessed the BBC iPlayer on tablets than on computers for the first time, after thousands had unwrapped new devices for Christmas. Over the festive period, there were 1.96 million requests for Doctor Who's Christmas special The Time of the Doctor, in which Peter Capaldi arrived to succeed Matt Smith.

Famous Birthday's



Charles Babbage
(1791 - 1871)

Mao Zedong
(1893 - 1976)

Steve Allen
(1921 - 2000)

Famous Deaths



Harry Truman
(1884 - 1972)

1974 Jack Benny, comedian (Jack Benny Show), dies at 80

1999 Curtis Mayfield, American musician (b. 1942)



2000 Jason Robards, American actor (b. 1922)



2001 Nigel Hawthorne, English actor (b. 1929)

2005 Kerry Packer, Australian businessman (b. 1937)

Reggie White
(1961 - 2004)

Gerald Ford
(1913 - 2006)

Famous Weddings

1613 Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, marries Frances Howard, occasioning John Donne's "Eclogue"

1793 The wedding of Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Prussia and Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz takes place.

1843 US Navy flag officer David Farragut (42) weds Virginia Loyall

1931 SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich marries Lina von Osten

1941 Jazz musician Ella Fitzgerald (24) weds convicted drug dealer Benny Kornegay

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07 JANUARY

1536 Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII of England and mother of Mary I, died, at Kimbolton Castle in Cambridgeshire where she had lived since Henry annulled their marriage. The Pope had declined the request for an annulment, but Henry married his mistress Anne Boleyn regardless, a chain of events that led to England's break with the Roman Catholic Church.

1805 The famous pugilist Tom Cribb had his first public fight. It was against Tom Maddox at Wood Green. Cribb was declared the winner after an incredible 76 rounds.

1927 A telephone service began operating between London and New York. A three-minute call cost £15. Nevertheless 31 different people made a call on the first day.

1945 Second World War - General Montgomery held a press conference in which he claimed credit for victory in the Battle of the Bulge (also known as the Ardennes Offensive). The defeat left many German units severely depleted of men and equipment. America suffered 89,000 casualties, their bloodiest battle of World War II

1965 Identical twin brothers Ronald and Reginald Kray were in custody, charged in connection with running a protection racket. When they died (1995 and 2000 respectively) their funerals were like those of royals, rather than those of notorious criminals.




1970 Farmers sue Max Yasgur for $35,000 in damages caused by "Woodstock"

1990 Tower of Pisa closed to the public after leaning too far

2000 Former Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken was released from jail after serving less than half of his 18-month sentence. He had been imprisoned for perjury and perverting the course of justice after his libel case against the Guardian Newspaper and Granada Television collapsed.

2014 Figures from 'Care for the Wild' showed that pilot culls of badgers in Somerset and Gloucestershire had cost more than £7m - equivalent to more than £4,000 per badger killed. The government scheme was to test how effective, humane and safe a cull could be in their attempt to stop the spread of bovine TB.

Famous Birthday's

Millard Fillmore
(1800 - 1874)

William Peter Blatty
(1928 - 2017)

Nicolas Cage
54th Birthday

Lewis Hamilton
33rd Birthday

Eden Hazard
27th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Catherine of Aragon
(1485 - 1536)



Nikola Tesla
(1856 - 1943)



1988 Trevor Howard, British actor (Brief Encounter, Superman, The Third Man), dies of bronchitis at 71



2015 Stéphane Charbonnier [Charb], French cartoonist and editor of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, dies in a terrorist attack at 47

2015 Rod Taylor, Australian actor (Time Machine, The Birds), dies at 84

Mário Soares
(1924 - 2017)

Famous Weddings

1630 Composer Pier Cavalli marries rich widow Maria Sosomeno

1879 Dutch King Willem II marries Emma von Waldeck-Pyrmont

1880 Pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski (19) weds Antonina Korsak

1911 Actress Mary Pickford (19) weds actor Owen Moore (25)

1934 Princess Juliana marries German prince Bernhard von Lippe-Biesterfeld

Famous Divorces

1985 Actress-singer Janet Jackson (18) divorces fellow R&B singer James DeBarge (21) only 4 months after getting married

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Thanks Acido, Much appreciated