The Stone of Scone was recovered in Arbroath Abbey in April 1951, after a 107-day hunt after Scottish Nationalist students said they were responsible for its theft claiming they had returned the hefty sandstone slab to the country of origin.
The Coronation Stone, commonly called the Stone of Scone had been stolen Today in 1950 from Westminster Abbey where it had rested underneath the Coronation Chair for 650 years.
The Stone which once rested under the Coronation Chair of Edward I.
The stone weighed 458 pounds and was wrested overnight from underneath the Coronation Chair behind the High Altar and then dragged through a small door to waiting cars.
According to tradition it was the ‘pillow’ on which Jacob slept at Bethel. After various moves round the Mediterranean it arrived in Ireland where it became the ‘Stone of Destiny’ upon which Irish kings were crowned.
Taken to Scotland by Fergus who founded the Scottish monarchy it was set up at Scone and encased in a wooden chair upon which the Scottish kings were crowned. Kenneth MacAlpine king of the Dalriada Scots brought it to Scone Abbey in 838.
Edward I took the stone from Scone in 1296 to Westminster Abbey forming the support for Edward the Confessor’s chair, thus becoming the coronation chair of British monarchs, down the centuries.
Speculation however, is concerned about authenticity of the stone, for the original was said to have been intricately carved, while the present is a plain block of sandstone. Many believe the canny Scots palmed this off on the English and the real one is hidden underground.
It was in December 1996 that John Major’s government to placate the Scots gave permission for the Stone of Scone to be returned to Scotland where it reposes not at Scone but in Edinburgh Castle.
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.
1606 First known performance of William Shakespeare's tragedy "King Lear" before the court of King James I at Whitehall, London.
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 African-American boxer Jack Johnson stops Canadian defending champion Tommy Burns in the 14th round in Sydney, Australia, to become the first black man to win world heavyweight title; Burns is favourite in 12th title defence but Johnson dominates before police stop the bout.
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, **** 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.
1966 Jimi Hendrix writes "Purple Haze" backstage at the Upper Cut Club, London.
1971 Muhammad Ali finishes off German Jürgen Blin with a thundering right cross for a 7th-round knockout in a non-title heavyweight boxing contest in Zurich, Switzerland.
1973 Horror film "The Exorcist" based on book and screenplay by William Peter Blatty, starring Linda Blair, rated X, premieres - 1st horror film to be nominated for Best Picture.
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.
1996 Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey is found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, Colorado.
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.
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.
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.
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.
2015 Weeks of heavy rain led to the worst floods Hebden Bridge (West Yorkshire) had ever seen. 1600 businesses were affected. 45% of flooded premises suffered structural damage, 75% lost stock and 46% lost office equipment - almost double the losses faced after the floods in summer 2012. By early spring 2016 almost 40% of businesses in the town were still closed.
There was a time when a 'foreign' player in the League was from Scotland, Ireland or Wales but on Boxing Day 1999 Chelsea fielded the first team in the League to consist entirely of non-British players. They won 2-1 at Southampton in the Premier League with a starting line-up of - Ed de Goey (Netherlands), Albert Ferrer (Spain), Celestine Babayaro (Nigeria), Emerson Thome (Brazil), Franck Leboeuf (France), Dan Petrescu (Romania), Didier Deschamps (France), Roberto di Matteo (Italy), Gabriele Ambrosetti (Italy), Gus Poyet (Uruguay), and Tore Andre Flo (Norway). Their manager was Gianluca Vialli of Italy but at least they had English subs that day!
Football On This Day - 26th December 2008.
When Hull City found themselves 4-0 down at half-time away to Manchester City in a Boxing Day Premier League fixture Tigers manager Phil Brown was not chuffed. He likened Hull's efforts as a 'Sunday League performance' and with his Christmas spirit absent he refused to allow his players to return to the dressing room during the half-time break. Instead he sat them on the pitch in front of the 5500 travelling fans and gave the players a bollocking! Hull lost the match 5-1 but hey, that meant they had drawn the second half 1-1!
1773 The birth of Sir George Cayley, English pioneer of the study of aerodynamics. In 1853 he built the first successful glider to be flown by a man, his reluctant coachman! One of his later inventions was the caterpillar tractor.
1831 English naturalist Charles Darwin sailed from Plymouth on board his ship, HMS Beagle. His scientific voyage of discovery lasted five years and led to the publication (in 1859) of his highly controversial book The Origin of Species which fuelled the 'creation versus evolution' debate.
1836 At least 8 people were killed at Lewes, Sussex, in Britain's worst avalanche disaster.
1904 The first performance in London of James Barrie’s most famous work, Peter Pan. A Broadway production was mounted in 1905 and the play has since seen adaptation as a pantomime, a stage musical, a television special, and several films, including a 1924 silent film, a 1953 animated Disney full-length feature, and a 2003 live action production with state of the art special effects.
1918 A British sovereign welcomed an American President to Britain for the first time when King George V and Queen Mary met President and Mrs. Wilson at Charing Cross Railway Station and then escorted them to Buckingham Palace. A state banquet was held at the palace and President Wilson visited Carlisle, his mother’s home.
1945 The World Bank and International Monetary Fund were created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations.
1965 Thirteen people were killed when Britain's first North Sea drilling rig (Sea Gem) capsized.
1975 The Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts came into effect in Britain.
1977 Thousands of people flocked to UK cinemas to watch the long-awaited blockbuster, Star Wars.
1984 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was voted Woman of the Year, on Radio 4's Today programme. According to a Gallup Poll she was the woman most admired by the American people; the third consecutive year that the 'Iron Lady' had received that honour.
1997 Windsor Castle was reopened to the public following restoration work. 100 rooms of the palace were damaged in a fire in 1992.
2012 The death, at the age of 83, of Gerry Anderson, the creator of hit TV shows including Thunderbirds, Stingray and Joe 90. His other creations included UFO, Space: 1999, Supercar and Fireball XL5.
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.
1849 M Jolly-Bellin discovers dry-cleaning, he accidentally upset lamp containing turpentine & oil on his clothing & sees cleaning effect.
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.
1915 Today the British Cabinet recognizes the true nature of the war by deciding to institute compulsory military service, with single men to be conscripted before married ones.
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.
1934 Film "Bright Eyes" premieres starring Shirley Temple and featuring the song "On the Good Ship Lollipop".
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.
1963 Scottish Lotus driver Jim Clark wins his record 7th Grand Prix of the F1 season, the South African event at Prince George Circuit; first Scotsman to win the World Drivers Championship.
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.
1993 Customs officials at Felixstowe seized £70m of Colombian cocaine thought to be linked to the Mafia.
2002 LinkedIn is founded by Reid Hoffman and others in Mountain View, California.
2003 The British Government announced plans to tighten airline security by allowing armed guards on some British flights to the USA.
1170 Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas à Becket, was murdered in his own cathedral by four knights,believing they were acting on direct orders from King Henry II. The disgraced knights and their families did a number of penances, one of which was to build a Chantry chapel in the centre of Watchet and the building of St Decuman’s Church which Richard Brito and Reginald FitzUrse then gave to Wells Cathedral. Their families went on to give land to atone for their relations’ evil deed.
1675 Parliament ordered the closing of all coffee houses on the basis that they were centres of malicious gossip about the Government.
1766 Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist and inventor of waterproof clothing (i.e. the Macintosh or simply Mac), was born, in Glasgow. For his various chemical discoveries he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1823.
1835 Treaty of New Echota is signed between the US government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction to cede all lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States.
The Trail of Tears, painting by Robert Lindneux.
It was US President Andrew Jackson's policy to removing Native Americans from their ancestral lands to make way for settlers and speculators that led to the infamous Trail of Tears in the 1830s.
The Cherokees of Georgia initially tried legal means to resist the policy and actually won their case in the US Supreme Court. However President Jackson refused to acknowledge the judgement and 20,000 were eventually marched west at gunpoint. A quarter of their number would perish on the journey.
1851 1st American Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) chapter opened in Boston, Massachusetts.
1860 HMS Warrior, Britain's first seagoing iron-clad warship, was launched. She froze to the slipway when she was launched during London's coldest winter for 50 years and six tugs were required to haul her into the river. In later years Warrior was saved from being scrapped by the efforts of the Maritime Trust. The restoration took 8 years. Today, the ship is used as a venue for special events, and can be privately hired as a wedding venue.
1862 Bowling ball invented.
1895 The beginning of the Jameson Raid into the Transvaal in South Africa. It was intended to trigger an uprising by the primarily British expatriate workers (known as Uitlanders) but no uprising took place, yet it was an inciting factor in the 2nd Boer War.
1918 The Sunday Express was published for the first time.
1940 London suffered its most devastating air raid when Germans firebombed the city as over 10,000 bombs including the 1st incendiary bombs are dropped on the city as part of the Blitz. Hundreds of fires caused by the exploding bombs engulfed areas of London, but fire fighters showed a valiant indifference to the bombs falling around them and saved much of the city from destruction. The next day, a newspaper photo of St. Paul's Cathedral standing undamaged amid the smoke and flames seemed to symbolize the capital's unconquerable spirit during the Battle of Britain.
1962 British driver Graham Hill wins the South African Grand Prix at Prince George Circuit in a BRM; takes out his first F1 World Drivers Championship by 12 points from Scotsman Jim Clark.
1975 New legislation introducing a woman's right to equal pay and status in the workplace, and in society, came into force in the UK.
1994 Shane Warne takes a hat-trick v England at cricket MCG.
1997 British journalist Dawn Alford, of the Daily Mirror, who claimed a Cabinet Minister's son had sold her drugs, was arrested on suspicion of possessing cannabis, hoisted (as the saying goes) by her own petard!
2012 Bradley Wiggins, who won the Tour de France and an Olympic gold, was knighted in the New Year Honours list. Paralympic cyclist Sarah Storey became a dame after taking four gold medals. The most decorated sailor in Olympic history, Ben Ainslie, was also knighted. In all, 78 awards were linked to the 2012 Olympics or Paralympics.
2013 A painting bought for £400 and featured on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow was revealed to be a Van Dyck portrait worth about £400,000. Father Jamie, who runs a retreat house in Whaley Bridge, on the edge of the Peak District, said that he was planning to sell the piece by the 17th Century Flemish artist to buy new church bells.
2013 7-time world F1 motor racing champion Michael Schumacher suffers a serious head injury in a ski accident in the French Alps.
2014 Christopher Hooson (33) who stole an Android tablet from a Whitley Bay charity shop, only to try and donate it to them eight days later as it did not work, was recognized by staff from his CCTV images. He was ordered to pay £85 costs and a £20 victim surcharge.
1460 The Wars of the Roses: The defeat and death of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and claimant to the English throne, at the Battle of Wakefield.
1865 Author Rudyard Kipling was born, in India, but was taken by his family to England when he was five years old. His best known fictional works are Jungle Book and Just So Stories. He celebrated British imperialism with tales and poems of British soldiers in India and in 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1879 The first performance of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, 'The Pirates of Penzance', at the Royal Bijou Theatre, Paignton, Devon.
1887 A petition, signed by more than 1 million women in Britain, was sent to Queen Victoria calling for public houses to be closed on Sundays.
1919 Lincoln's Inn, one of four 'Inns of Court' in London to which barristers belong and where they are called to the Bar, admitted its first female students.
1922 Creation of the USSR formally proclaimed in Moscow from the Bolshoi Theatre, Soviet Union organized as a federation of RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Belorussian SSR and Transcaucasian SSR.
1932 The completion of the electrification of the London to Brighton railway line.
1937 Gordon Banks, English goal keeper, was born, in Sheffield. The International Federation of Football History & Statistics named Banks the second best goalkeeper of the 20th century, after the Russian Lev Yashin.
1946 Football league players threatened to strike over the proposed maximum wage of £11 a week.
1954 British athlete Chris Chataway became the first winner of the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year award.
1968 Frank Sinatra first records "My Way" with lyrics written by Paul Anka and based on the French song "Comme d'habitude".
1986 According to new plans by the government, more than 200 canaries would be 'phased out' of Britain's mining pits. New electronic devices would replace canaries as detectors of harmful gasses, because they were said to be cheaper in the long run and more effective.
1995 Lowest ever UK temperature recorded of -27.2°C at Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands,equaling the record set at Braemar, Aberdeenshire on February 11, 1895 and January 10, 1982.
2014 Tommie Rose, a 15 year old schoolboy, who made £14,000 from his school tuck-shop to pay future university fees for a business studies degree was threatened with suspension, as his shop breached the school's healthy-eating guidelines.
Football On This Day - 30th December 1995. After the ref dropped his yellow card Paul Gascoigne – then of Rangers – jokingly ‘booked’ the ref when returning the card to him. The ref booked Gascoigne for real.
A Premier League first at Fratton Park for the Portsmouth v Arsenal fixture - for the first time a match kicked off with not one Englishman on the field for either side. The starting line-ups included 7 from France as well as players from Iceland, Algeria, Croatia, Ghana, Cameroon, Russia, Bosnia, Belgium, South Africa, Israel, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. But the English did eventually get a look-in, just before the final whistle each side brought on an English sub!
1695 The window tax was imposed in Britain. It resulted in many being bricked up, evidence which remains to this day. An example is here at the house in Market Weighton where William Bradley, the world's tallest Englishman was born.The story goes that Bradley,a typically frugal Yorkshireman,did not want to pay extra window tax,so he had the windows painted on the outside of the building.As for the house,it was specially built for Bradley,with extra high rooms and doorways.
1720 The birth, in Rome,of Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles Edward Stuart),also known as the ‘Young Pretender’.He landed in Scotland with his followers in 1745,capturing Edinburgh and setting up court at the Palace of Holyrood.His decision to march on London brought him head on with an army led by the Duke of Cumberland and defeat at Culloden.
1738 The birth of Charles Cornwallis, the British soldier whose surrender to George Washington (1781) ended the War of Independence.
1759 Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and started brewing Guinness at the St. James's Gate Brewery, Dublin. Ten years later Guinness exported his ale for the first time, when six and a half barrels were shipped to Britain.
1892 The first hostel for homeless men, Rowton House, opened in Bond Street, Vauxhall. There was strict discipline, with rules against cooking, card playing, etc.
1923 The chimes of Big Ben were broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC.
1935 Charles Darrow patents the board game Monopoly, goes on to be the 1st millionaire game designer.
1937 Sir Anthony Hopkins, Welsh actor, was born. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 for services to the arts.
1938 Dr R N Harger's "drunkometer", 1st breath test, introduced in Indiana.
1942 Football manager Alex Ferguson was born, in Glasgow. With 25 years as manager of Manchester United, he was the longest serving manager in their history and also the longest serving of all the current League managers. He stepped down as manager of Manchester United on 8th May 2013 after 27 seasons. Under his leadership the team won 38 trophies, including 13 league titles, two Champions Leagues, five FA Cups and four League Cups.
1948 Malcolm Campbell, British racing driver, died, after a series of strokes. He was one of the few land speed record holders of his era to die of natural causes. Campbell broke nine land speed records between 1924 and 1935. He set his final land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah on 3rd September 1935, becoming the first person to drive an automobile at more than 300mph.
1960 The British coin, the farthing, in use in Britain since the 13th Century, ceased to be legal tender at midnight.
1961 The Beach Boys play their debut gig under that name.
1964 Donald Campbell broke the world water speed record, (at Dumbleyung Lake, Western Australia, 276.33 mph), the only man to break both land and water speed records in the same year. He remains the world's most prolific breaker of water speed records.
1967 Evel Knievel fails in his attempt to jump the Caesar's Palace Fountain, Las Vegas, breaking his pelvis, femur, wrist, hip and both ankles.
1973 The three-day week began in Britain as a result of power strikes. It led to the downfall of Prime Minister Edward Heath and his government.
1980 After being struck by an orange thrown from the crowd West Indian fast bowler Sylvester Clarke knocks out a spectator with a brick during 4th Test against Pakistan in Multan.
1984 Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen loses his arm in a car crash.
1999 Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as acting President.
2014 Neil Brittlebank (from Redditch) and Kevin Beresford (from East Ardsley in Yorkshire) won the dubious honour of being two of the dullest men of the year,as awarded by the Dull Men's Club. Mr Beresford produces books and calendars about roundabouts, while Mr Brittlebank, collects bricks.
2017 More than 1,300 cars were destroyed when the multi-storey car park at the Liverpool Echo Arena burst into flames during the final event of the Liverpool International Horse Show. Fire investigations revealed that a 16-year-old Land Rover that had been converted to a 'different fuel arrangement' had caught fire on the third floor. Claims of more than £20m were paid out to insurance customers.
1651 Charles II was crowned King of Scotland at Scone, a village in Perth and Kinross.
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.
1773 The hymn that became known as "Amazing Grace", was first used to accompany a sermon, led by John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire.
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.
1785 John Walter published the first issue of the Daily Universal Register. In 1788 it was renamed The Times.
1812 The Bishop of Durham, Shute Barrington, ordered troops from Durham Castle to break up a miners' strike in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, at collieries owned by the Dean & Chapter of Durham Cathedral.
1833 Britain claimed sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.
1876 Bass Ale’s ‘Red Triangle’ became the first registered trade mark in Britain.The generally accepted story is that after the passing of the Trademark Registration Act of 1875, when applications to apply for trademark registration opened on January 1, 1876, a Bass employee was sent to wait overnight outside the registrar’s office the day before in order to be the first in line to file to register a trademark the next morning. That’s why in 2013 Bass Pale Ale was renamed as Bass Trademark No.1.
1877 The British Prime Minister, Disraeli, had Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India.
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 CityUK, home to the BBC and ITV studios.
1919 More than 200 men, returning home after the end of World War One, died when the naval yacht HMY Iolaire hit a reef in bad weather close to Stornoway harbour and sank just yards from the Lewis coastline.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1757 Robert Clive (also known as Clive of India) captured Calcutta. It had been seized by the Nawab of Bengal, who imprisoned 146 British in the infamous ‘black hole’. Only 23 survived. Clive established the military and political supremacy of the East India Company in Bengal and also the wealth that followed, for the British crown. Together with Warren Hastings (the first Governor-General of India) he was one of the key figures in the creation of British India.
1969 Australian Rupert Murdoch beat off a rival bid to win control of the News of the World, his first Fleet Street newspaper.
1971 Sixty six spectators were crushed to death and more than 200 others injured at the Ibrox football ground in Glasgow at the end of a Rangers v Celtic derby. The official inquiry into the disaster concluded that someone,possibly a child being carried on his father's shoulders, fell whilst exiting the ground, causing a massive chain reaction pile up of people.
1974 Museums and Galleries began charging admission for the first time.
1975 On this date in 1975, the very first episode of THE SWEENEY was shown.
1980 Steel workers staged their first national strike for more than fifty years.
1982 Erica Rowe became the first sports 'streaker' when she ran across the Twickenham ground at the England v Australia rugby match waving her bra in the air. She was arrested, with policemen covering her 40" breasts with their woefully undersized helmets.
1987 The publishers of Enid Blyton's Noddy books bowed to pressure groups and agreed to expunge racism by changing the golliwog characters to gnomes.
2013 Thieves in Manchester dug a 100ft (30m) long 4ft high tunnel directly under a cash machine, using machinery to cut through concrete. They escaped with only £6,000 because the machine had not been re-filled after the New Year bank holiday. A similar plot was foiled in the same area in 2007, and police believe it may have been carried out by the same gang.
1777 The Battle of Princeton, in New Jersey, ended with George Washington’s defeat of the British, led by Cornwallis.
1795 The death of Josiah Wedgwood, English potter and grandfather of the naturalist Charles Darwin.The pottery that Wedgewood founded became one of the most famous in the world.
1911 Police, with the army in attendance, stormed a house in London's East End where it was thought a gang of wanted anarchists were hiding. Newspapers dubbed the incident 'The Siege of Sidney Street'. When the fugitives shot at police, the Scots Guards were summoned from the Tower of London, and Winston Churchill, who was then Home Secretary, arrived on the scene to find the house in flames. No firefighters were sent in to put out the blaze, and the house eventually collapsed, burning the anarchists to death.
1946 William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) was hanged for treason in London. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he had broadcast propaganda from Nazi Germany during the Second World War to both Britain and the United States. The broadcasts started on 18th September 1939 and continued until 30th April 1945, when Hamburg was overrun by the British Army.
1961 The production of the millionth Morris Minor, designed by the Greek born Sir Alec Issigonis. He considered the Morris Minor to be a vehicle that combined many of the luxuries and conveniences of a good motor car, but at a price suitable for the working classes.
1967 The first ever episode of Trumpton aired. "Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grubb"
1984 The launch of the FTSE 100, an index of the 100 leading shares listed on the London Stock Exchange, measured by their market value. It had a starting base level of 1,000 points.
1988 Margaret Thatcher became the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century.
2013 Data released by the Met. Office showed that the previous 12 months had been the second wettest on record in the UK, with England recording its wettest year ever since records began in 1910.
2014 Along the whole of Wales' coastline dozens of roads were closed and the rail network was also badly affected as storm surges brought flooding chaos around Wales' coast. In Aberystwyth the promenade and its historic shelter were destroyed as huge waves crashed onto it. The winter storms continued across many parts of Britain and parts of Somerset, including the village of Muchelney were cut off for weeks.
2015 A 51,000 tonne car carrier ship (Hoegh Osaka) became stranded on Bramble Bank in the Solent between Southampton and the Isle of Wight. The ship was carrying 1,200 Jaguar sports cars, Land Rover 4x4s, 65 BMW Minis, 105 JCB diggers and a single Rolls-Royce Wraith – worth an estimated £260,000 – all destined for the Middle East. The vessel was eventually righted and towed to Southampton on 22nd January.
871 The Battle of Reading took place,in the county of Berkshire. It followed an invasion of the then kingdom of Wessex by an army of Danes. The Saxon forces retreated, allowing the Danes to continue their advance into Wessex. Much of King Alfred's 28-year reign was taken up with this Danish conflict.
1642 Under the orders of King Charles I, armed soldiers entered Parliament. The English Civil War started shortly afterwards.
1890 The Daily Graphic was launched; the first daily illustrated paper. It merged with the Daily Sketch in 1926. .
1932 Gandhi was arrested and his National Congress of India declared illegal by the British administration.The warrant for Gandhi's arrest merely said that he was being arrested 'for good and sufficient reasons.'
1938 Bertram Mills’ Circus became the first circus to be shown on television. This was also the first time that a paying audience for any event had been televised, and audience members were informed that they could request seats out of range of the cameras. Originally from Paddington, London, his circus became famous in Britain for its Christmas shows at Olympia in West London and his troupe were the last to perform with live animals on the Drury Lane Theatre stage.
1957 A dissatisfied plastic surgeon patient was sentenced in London to ten years’ imprisonment, after he had threatened his surgeon with a gun, complaining that his nose was too short.
1967 Donald Campbell, 46 year old son of Sir Malcolm Campbell, died in his attempt to break his own world water speed record on Coniston Water in the Lake District.His boat, Bluebird K7, somersaulted at high speed, and Campbell died instantly and is buried in Coniston graveyard.
1973 Of Funerals and Fish, the pilot for a sitcom called The Last of the Summer Wine, was broadcast. It'll never last, that one.
2017 The last ABC cinema closed its doors. The Bournemouth cinema (which opened in June 1937) had only kept its name by a quirk of positioning in the town. It closed with a final screening of 'Back to the Future', which was chosen by its audience.
1066 The death of Edward the Confessor, usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex. He was called ‘the Confessor’ because of his great piety. He died childless, sparking a succession crisis that led to the Norman Conquest
1531 Pope Clemens VII forbade English King Henry VIII to re-marry. The event led to the creation of the Church of England.
1840 Records show 95,820 licensed public houses in England on this date.
1886 "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson published by Longmans, Green & Co.
1930 Bonnie Parker meets Clyde Barrow for the first time at Clarence Clay's house
1941 Amy Johnson,record-breaking English aviator,died whilst flying an aircraft from Blackpool to Kidlington (Oxfordshire) in foggy conditions as her role in the Air Transport Auxiliary that ferried new,repaired and damaged military aircraft between UK departments.Her plane was found,100 miles off course in the muddy water of the Thames but her body was never recovered.Reportedly out of fuel she had been seen alive in the water but a rescue attempt failed and the incident also led to the death of her would-be rescuer, Lt. Cmdr. Walter Fletcher.Amy Johnson was the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia in 1930 and she also set numerous long-distance records during the 1930s.
1960 The last journey of the Mumbles Railway,the oldest in the world.It was set up in 1804 as a goods railway running from Swansea to Mumbles Head, Wales and began carrying passengers in 1807.The railway still holds the record for the highest number of forms of traction of any railway in the world - horse-drawn,sail power,steam power, electric power,petrol and diesel.
1971 One-day cricket was born when 46,000 turned up to watch England play Australia at Melbourne. The test match had been rained off for several days previously. Australia won by 5 wickets (with 42 balls remaining).
1971 Body of former world heavyweight boxing champion Charles "Sonny" Liston (40) is found by his wife Geraldine at their Las Vegas home; he had been dead for an estimated 6 days; foul play suspected.
1981 Peter Sutcliffe,a 35-year-old lorry driver from Bradford,suspected of carrying out 13 murders across West Yorkshire over a period of five years,was formally charged in court.
1981 The first episode of the BBC television adaptation of THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY was broadcast.
2001 A report funded by The Department of Health found that the convicted serial killer, former GP Harold Shipman,may have killed in excess of 300 of his patients.
1795 The death of Josiah Wedgwood, English potter and grandfather of the naturalist Charles Darwin.The pottery that Wedgewood founded became one of the most famous in the world.
Only live a few miles from the Wedgwood (correct spelling) Factory. On leaving school, getting an apprenticeship there was a gold mine. Unfortunately, you had to have a member of family already working there to get your foot in the door. Anyway, I never knew Charles Darwin was his Grandfather.
PS...still reading these daily. After the bad beat threads and the daily Haysie press release threads ofc
1795 The death of Josiah Wedgwood, English potter and grandfather of the naturalist Charles Darwin.The pottery that Wedgewood founded became one of the most famous in the world.
Only live a few miles from the Wedgwood (correct spelling) Factory. On leaving school, getting an apprenticeship there was a gold mine. Unfortunately, you had to have a member of family already working there to get your foot in the door. Anyway, I never knew Charles Darwin was his Grandfather.
PS...still reading these daily. After the bad beat threads and the daily Haysie press release threads ofc
I'm glad someone is When I couldn't post for a few days the page got more views than when I do post ! I enjoy doing it as you sometimes learn things that are a surprise,I didn't know the Darwin/Wedgwood connection either.
Comments
The Stone of Scone was recovered in Arbroath Abbey in April 1951, after a 107-day hunt after Scottish Nationalist students said they were responsible for its theft claiming they had returned the hefty sandstone slab to the country of origin.
The Coronation Stone, commonly called the Stone of Scone had been stolen Today in 1950 from Westminster Abbey where it had rested underneath the Coronation Chair for 650 years.
The Stone which once rested under the Coronation Chair of Edward I.
The stone weighed 458 pounds and was wrested overnight from underneath the Coronation Chair behind the High Altar and then dragged through a small door to waiting cars.
According to tradition it was the ‘pillow’ on which Jacob slept at Bethel. After various moves round the Mediterranean it arrived in Ireland where it became the ‘Stone of Destiny’ upon which Irish kings were crowned.
Taken to Scotland by Fergus who founded the Scottish monarchy it was set up at Scone and encased in a wooden chair upon which the Scottish kings were crowned. Kenneth MacAlpine king of the Dalriada Scots brought it to Scone Abbey in 838.
Edward I took the stone from Scone in 1296 to Westminster Abbey forming the support for Edward the Confessor’s chair, thus becoming the coronation chair of British monarchs, down the centuries.
Speculation however, is concerned about authenticity of the stone, for the original was said to have been intricately carved, while the present is a plain block of sandstone. Many believe the canny Scots palmed this off on the English and the real one is hidden underground.
It was in December 1996 that John Major’s government to placate the Scots gave permission for the Stone of Scone to be returned to Scotland where it reposes not at Scone but in Edinburgh Castle.
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.
1606 First known performance of William Shakespeare's tragedy "King Lear" before the court of King James I at Whitehall, London.
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 African-American boxer Jack Johnson stops Canadian defending champion Tommy Burns in the 14th round in Sydney, Australia, to become the first black man to win world heavyweight title; Burns is favourite in 12th title defence but Johnson dominates before police stop the bout.
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, **** 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.
1966 Jimi Hendrix writes "Purple Haze" backstage at the Upper Cut Club, London.
1971 Muhammad Ali finishes off German Jürgen Blin with a thundering right cross for a 7th-round knockout in a non-title heavyweight boxing contest in Zurich, Switzerland.
1973 Horror film "The Exorcist" based on book and screenplay by William Peter Blatty, starring Linda Blair, rated X, premieres - 1st horror film to be nominated for Best Picture.
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.
1996 Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey is found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, Colorado.
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.
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.
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.
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.
2015 Weeks of heavy rain led to the worst floods Hebden Bridge (West Yorkshire) had ever seen. 1600 businesses were affected. 45% of flooded premises suffered structural damage, 75% lost stock and 46% lost office equipment - almost double the losses faced after the floods in summer 2012. By early spring 2016 almost 40% of businesses in the town were still closed.
There was a time when a 'foreign' player in the League was from Scotland, Ireland or Wales but on Boxing Day 1999 Chelsea fielded the first team in the League to consist entirely of non-British players. They won 2-1 at Southampton in the Premier League with a starting line-up of - Ed de Goey (Netherlands), Albert Ferrer (Spain), Celestine Babayaro (Nigeria), Emerson Thome (Brazil), Franck Leboeuf (France), Dan Petrescu (Romania), Didier Deschamps (France), Roberto di Matteo (Italy), Gabriele Ambrosetti (Italy), Gus Poyet (Uruguay), and Tore Andre Flo (Norway). Their manager was Gianluca Vialli of Italy but at least they had English subs that day!
Football On This Day - 26th December 2008.
When Hull City found themselves 4-0 down at half-time away to Manchester City in a Boxing Day Premier League fixture Tigers manager Phil Brown was not chuffed. He likened Hull's efforts as a 'Sunday League performance' and with his Christmas spirit absent he refused to allow his players to return to the dressing room during the half-time break. Instead he sat them on the pitch in front of the 5500 travelling fans and gave the players a bollocking! Hull lost the match 5-1 but hey, that meant they had drawn the second half 1-1!
1773 The birth of Sir George Cayley, English pioneer of the study of aerodynamics. In 1853 he built the first successful glider to be flown by a man, his reluctant coachman! One of his later inventions was the caterpillar tractor.
1831 English naturalist Charles Darwin sailed from Plymouth on board his ship, HMS Beagle. His scientific voyage of discovery lasted five years and led to the publication (in 1859) of his highly controversial book The Origin of Species which fuelled the 'creation versus evolution' debate.
1836 At least 8 people were killed at Lewes, Sussex, in Britain's worst avalanche disaster.
1904 The first performance in London of James Barrie’s most famous work, Peter Pan. A Broadway production was mounted in 1905 and the play has since seen adaptation as a pantomime, a stage musical, a television special, and several films, including a 1924 silent film, a 1953 animated Disney full-length feature, and a 2003 live action production with state of the art special effects.
1918 A British sovereign welcomed an American President to Britain for the first time when King George V and Queen Mary met President and Mrs. Wilson at Charing Cross Railway Station and then escorted them to Buckingham Palace. A state banquet was held at the palace and President Wilson visited Carlisle, his mother’s home.
1945 The World Bank and International Monetary Fund were created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations.
1965 Thirteen people were killed when Britain's first North Sea drilling rig (Sea Gem) capsized.
1975 The Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts came into effect in Britain.
1977 Thousands of people flocked to UK cinemas to watch the long-awaited blockbuster, Star Wars.
1984 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was voted Woman of the Year, on Radio 4's Today programme. According to a Gallup Poll she was the woman most admired by the American people; the third consecutive year that the 'Iron Lady' had received that honour.
1997 Windsor Castle was reopened to the public following restoration work. 100 rooms of the palace were damaged in a fire in 1992.
2012 The death, at the age of 83, of Gerry Anderson, the creator of hit TV shows including Thunderbirds, Stingray and Joe 90. His other creations included UFO, Space: 1999, Supercar and Fireball XL5.
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.
1849 M Jolly-Bellin discovers dry-cleaning, he accidentally upset lamp containing turpentine & oil on his clothing & sees cleaning effect.
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.
1915 Today the British Cabinet recognizes the true nature of the war by deciding to institute compulsory military service, with single men to be conscripted before married ones.
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.
1934 Film "Bright Eyes" premieres starring Shirley Temple and featuring the song "On the Good Ship Lollipop".
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.
1963 Scottish Lotus driver Jim Clark wins his record 7th Grand Prix of the F1 season, the South African event at Prince George Circuit; first Scotsman to win the World Drivers Championship.
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.
1993 Customs officials at Felixstowe seized £70m of Colombian cocaine thought to be linked to the Mafia.
2002 LinkedIn is founded by Reid Hoffman and others in Mountain View, California.
2003 The British Government announced plans to tighten airline security by allowing armed guards on some British flights to the USA.
1170 Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas à Becket, was murdered in his own cathedral by four knights,believing they were acting on direct orders from King Henry II. The disgraced knights and their families did a number of penances, one of which was to build a Chantry chapel in the centre of Watchet and the building of St Decuman’s Church which Richard Brito and Reginald FitzUrse then gave to Wells Cathedral. Their families went on to give land to atone for their relations’ evil deed.
1675 Parliament ordered the closing of all coffee houses on the basis that they were centres of malicious gossip about the Government.
1766 Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist and inventor of waterproof clothing (i.e. the Macintosh or simply Mac), was born, in Glasgow. For his various chemical discoveries he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1823.
1835 Treaty of New Echota is signed between the US government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction to cede all lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States.
The Trail of Tears, painting by Robert Lindneux.
It was US President Andrew Jackson's policy to removing Native Americans from their ancestral lands to make way for settlers and speculators that led to the infamous Trail of Tears in the 1830s.
The Cherokees of Georgia initially tried legal means to resist the policy and actually won their case in the US Supreme Court. However President Jackson refused to acknowledge the judgement and 20,000 were eventually marched west at gunpoint. A quarter of their number would perish on the journey.
1851 1st American Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) chapter opened in Boston, Massachusetts.
1860 HMS Warrior, Britain's first seagoing iron-clad warship, was launched. She froze to the slipway when she was launched during London's coldest winter for 50 years and six tugs were required to haul her into the river. In later years Warrior was saved from being scrapped by the efforts of the Maritime Trust. The restoration took 8 years. Today, the ship is used as a venue for special events, and can be privately hired as a wedding venue.
1862 Bowling ball invented.
1895 The beginning of the Jameson Raid into the Transvaal in South Africa. It was intended to trigger an uprising by the primarily British expatriate workers (known as Uitlanders) but no uprising took place, yet it was an inciting factor in the 2nd Boer War.
1918 The Sunday Express was published for the first time.
1940 London suffered its most devastating air raid when Germans firebombed the city as over 10,000 bombs including the 1st incendiary bombs are dropped on the city as part of the Blitz. Hundreds of fires caused by the exploding bombs engulfed areas of London, but fire fighters showed a valiant indifference to the bombs falling around them and saved much of the city from destruction. The next day, a newspaper photo of St. Paul's Cathedral standing undamaged amid the smoke and flames seemed to symbolize the capital's unconquerable spirit during the Battle of Britain.
1962 British driver Graham Hill wins the South African Grand Prix at Prince George Circuit in a BRM; takes out his first F1 World Drivers Championship by 12 points from Scotsman Jim Clark.
1975 New legislation introducing a woman's right to equal pay and status in the workplace, and in society, came into force in the UK.
1994 Shane Warne takes a hat-trick v England at cricket MCG.
1997 British journalist Dawn Alford, of the Daily Mirror, who claimed a Cabinet Minister's son had sold her drugs, was arrested on suspicion of possessing cannabis, hoisted (as the saying goes) by her own petard!
2012 Bradley Wiggins, who won the Tour de France and an Olympic gold, was knighted in the New Year Honours list. Paralympic cyclist Sarah Storey became a dame after taking four gold medals. The most decorated sailor in Olympic history, Ben Ainslie, was also knighted. In all, 78 awards were linked to the 2012 Olympics or Paralympics.
2013 A painting bought for £400 and featured on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow was revealed to be a Van Dyck portrait worth about £400,000. Father Jamie, who runs a retreat house in Whaley Bridge, on the edge of the Peak District, said that he was planning to sell the piece by the 17th Century Flemish artist to buy new church bells.
2013 7-time world F1 motor racing champion Michael Schumacher suffers a serious head injury in a ski accident in the French Alps.
2014 Christopher Hooson (33) who stole an Android tablet from a Whitley Bay charity shop, only to try and donate it to them eight days later as it did not work, was recognized by staff from his CCTV images. He was ordered to pay £85 costs and a £20 victim surcharge.
1460 The Wars of the Roses: The defeat and death of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and claimant to the English throne, at the Battle of Wakefield.
1865 Author Rudyard Kipling was born, in India, but was taken by his family to England when he was five years old. His best known fictional works are Jungle Book and Just So Stories. He celebrated British imperialism with tales and poems of British soldiers in India and in 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1879 The first performance of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, 'The Pirates of Penzance', at the Royal Bijou Theatre, Paignton, Devon.
1887 A petition, signed by more than 1 million women in Britain, was sent to Queen Victoria calling for public houses to be closed on Sundays.
1919 Lincoln's Inn, one of four 'Inns of Court' in London to which barristers belong and where they are called to the Bar, admitted its first female students.
1922 Creation of the USSR formally proclaimed in Moscow from the Bolshoi Theatre, Soviet Union organized as a federation of RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Belorussian SSR and Transcaucasian SSR.
1932 The completion of the electrification of the London to Brighton railway line.
1937 Gordon Banks, English goal keeper, was born, in Sheffield. The International Federation of Football History & Statistics named Banks the second best goalkeeper of the 20th century, after the Russian Lev Yashin.
1946 Football league players threatened to strike over the proposed maximum wage of £11 a week.
1954 British athlete Chris Chataway became the first winner of the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year award.
1968 Frank Sinatra first records "My Way" with lyrics written by Paul Anka and based on the French song "Comme d'habitude".
1986 According to new plans by the government, more than 200 canaries would be 'phased out' of Britain's mining pits. New electronic devices would replace canaries as detectors of harmful gasses, because they were said to be cheaper in the long run and more effective.
1995 Lowest ever UK temperature recorded of -27.2°C at Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands,equaling the record set at Braemar, Aberdeenshire on February 11, 1895 and January 10, 1982.
2014 Tommie Rose, a 15 year old schoolboy, who made £14,000 from his school tuck-shop to pay future university fees for a business studies degree was threatened with suspension, as his shop breached the school's healthy-eating guidelines.
Football On This Day - 30th December 1995.
After the ref dropped his yellow card Paul Gascoigne – then of Rangers – jokingly ‘booked’ the ref when returning the card to him. The ref booked Gascoigne for real.
Football On This Day - 30th December 2009.
A Premier League first at Fratton Park for the Portsmouth v Arsenal fixture - for the first time a match kicked off with not one Englishman on the field for either side. The starting line-ups included 7 from France as well as players from Iceland, Algeria, Croatia, Ghana, Cameroon, Russia, Bosnia, Belgium, South Africa, Israel, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. But the English did eventually get a look-in, just before the final whistle each side brought on an English sub!
New Year’s Eve, and Hogmanay in Scotland.
1695 The window tax was imposed in Britain. It resulted in many being bricked up, evidence which remains to this day. An example is here at the house in Market Weighton where William Bradley, the world's tallest Englishman was born.The story goes that Bradley,a typically frugal Yorkshireman,did not want to pay extra window tax,so he had the windows painted on the outside of the building.As for the house,it was specially built for Bradley,with extra high rooms and doorways.
1720 The birth, in Rome,of Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles Edward Stuart),also known as the ‘Young Pretender’.He landed in Scotland with his followers in 1745,capturing Edinburgh and setting up court at the Palace of Holyrood.His decision to march on London brought him head on with an army led by the Duke of Cumberland and defeat at Culloden.
1738 The birth of Charles Cornwallis, the British soldier whose surrender to George Washington (1781) ended the War of Independence.
1759 Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and started brewing Guinness at the St. James's Gate Brewery, Dublin. Ten years later Guinness exported his ale for the first time, when six and a half barrels were shipped to Britain.
1892 The first hostel for homeless men, Rowton House, opened in Bond Street, Vauxhall. There was strict discipline, with rules against cooking, card playing, etc.
1923 The chimes of Big Ben were broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC.
1935 Charles Darrow patents the board game Monopoly, goes on to be the 1st millionaire game designer.
1937 Sir Anthony Hopkins, Welsh actor, was born. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 for services to the arts.
1938 Dr R N Harger's "drunkometer", 1st breath test, introduced in Indiana.
1942 Football manager Alex Ferguson was born, in Glasgow. With 25 years as manager of Manchester United, he was the longest serving manager in their history and also the longest serving of all the current League managers. He stepped down as manager of Manchester United on 8th May 2013 after 27 seasons. Under his leadership the team won 38 trophies, including 13 league titles, two Champions Leagues, five FA Cups and four League Cups.
1948 Malcolm Campbell, British racing driver, died, after a series of strokes. He was one of the few land speed record holders of his era to die of natural causes. Campbell broke nine land speed records between 1924 and 1935. He set his final land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah on 3rd September 1935, becoming the first person to drive an automobile at more than 300mph.
1960 The British coin, the farthing, in use in Britain since the 13th Century, ceased to be legal tender at midnight.
1961 The Beach Boys play their debut gig under that name.
1964 Donald Campbell broke the world water speed record, (at Dumbleyung Lake, Western Australia, 276.33 mph), the only man to break both land and water speed records in the same year. He remains the world's most prolific breaker of water speed records.
1967 Evel Knievel fails in his attempt to jump the Caesar's Palace Fountain, Las Vegas, breaking his pelvis, femur, wrist, hip and both ankles.
1973 The three-day week began in Britain as a result of power strikes. It led to the downfall of Prime Minister Edward Heath and his government.
1974 Lindsey Buckingham & Stevie Nicks join Fleetwood Mac.
1980 After being struck by an orange thrown from the crowd West Indian fast bowler Sylvester Clarke knocks out a spectator with a brick during 4th Test against Pakistan in Multan.
1984 Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen loses his arm in a car crash.
1999 Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as acting President.
2014 Neil Brittlebank (from Redditch) and Kevin Beresford (from East Ardsley in Yorkshire) won the dubious honour of being two of the dullest men of the year,as awarded by the Dull Men's Club. Mr Beresford produces books and calendars about roundabouts, while Mr Brittlebank, collects bricks.
2017 More than 1,300 cars were destroyed when the multi-storey car park at the Liverpool Echo Arena burst into flames during the final event of the Liverpool International Horse Show. Fire investigations revealed that a 16-year-old Land Rover that had been converted to a 'different fuel arrangement' had caught fire on the third floor. Claims of more than £20m were paid out to insurance customers.
For reasons unbeknown to me the copy & paste on my laptop isn't working properly,if you want to continue to see 'On This Day' use this link.
https://www.beautifulbritain.co.uk/htm/onthisday/onthisday.htm
1651 Charles II was crowned King of Scotland at Scone, a village in Perth and Kinross.
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.
1773 The hymn that became known as "Amazing Grace", was first used to accompany a sermon, led by John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire.
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.
1785 John Walter published the first issue of the Daily Universal Register. In 1788 it was renamed The Times.
1812 The Bishop of Durham, Shute Barrington, ordered troops from Durham Castle to break up a miners' strike in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, at collieries owned by the Dean & Chapter of Durham Cathedral.
1833 Britain claimed sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.
1876 Bass Ale’s ‘Red Triangle’ became the first registered trade mark in Britain.The generally accepted story is that after the passing of the Trademark Registration Act of 1875, when applications to apply for trademark registration opened on January 1, 1876, a Bass employee was sent to wait overnight outside the registrar’s office the day before in order to be the first in line to file to register a trademark the next morning. That’s why in 2013 Bass Pale Ale was renamed as Bass Trademark No.1.
1877 The British Prime Minister, Disraeli, had Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India.
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 CityUK, home to the BBC and ITV studios.
1919 More than 200 men, returning home after the end of World War One, died when the naval yacht HMY Iolaire hit a reef in bad weather close to Stornoway harbour and sank just yards from the Lewis coastline.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1757 Robert Clive (also known as Clive of India) captured Calcutta. It had been seized by the Nawab of Bengal, who imprisoned 146 British in the infamous ‘black hole’. Only 23 survived. Clive established the military and political supremacy of the East India Company in Bengal and also the wealth that followed, for the British crown. Together with Warren Hastings (the first Governor-General of India) he was one of the key figures in the creation of British India.
1969 Australian Rupert Murdoch beat off a rival bid to win control of the News of the World, his first Fleet Street newspaper.
1971 Sixty six spectators were crushed to death and more than 200 others injured at the Ibrox football ground in Glasgow at the end of a Rangers v Celtic derby. The official inquiry into the disaster concluded that someone,possibly a child being carried on his father's shoulders, fell whilst exiting the ground, causing a massive chain reaction pile up of people.
1974 Museums and Galleries began charging admission for the first time.
1975 On this date in 1975, the very first episode of THE SWEENEY was shown.
1980 Steel workers staged their first national strike for more than fifty years.
1982 Erica Rowe became the first sports 'streaker' when she ran across the Twickenham ground at the England v Australia rugby match waving her bra in the air. She was arrested, with policemen covering her 40" breasts with their woefully undersized helmets.
1987 The publishers of Enid Blyton's Noddy books bowed to pressure groups and agreed to expunge racism by changing the golliwog characters to gnomes.
2013 Thieves in Manchester dug a 100ft (30m) long 4ft high tunnel directly under a cash machine, using machinery to cut through concrete. They escaped with only £6,000 because the machine had not been re-filled after the New Year bank holiday. A similar plot was foiled in the same area in 2007, and police believe it may have been carried out by the same gang.
1777 The Battle of Princeton, in New Jersey, ended with George Washington’s defeat of the British, led by Cornwallis.
1795 The death of Josiah Wedgwood, English potter and grandfather of the naturalist Charles Darwin.The pottery that Wedgewood founded became one of the most famous in the world.
1911 Police, with the army in attendance, stormed a house in London's East End where it was thought a gang of wanted anarchists were hiding. Newspapers dubbed the incident 'The Siege of Sidney Street'. When the fugitives shot at police, the Scots Guards were summoned from the Tower of London, and Winston Churchill, who was then Home Secretary, arrived on the scene to find the house in flames. No firefighters were sent in to put out the blaze, and the house eventually collapsed, burning the anarchists to death.
1946 William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) was hanged for treason in London. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he had broadcast propaganda from Nazi Germany during the Second World War to both Britain and the United States. The broadcasts started on 18th September 1939 and continued until 30th April 1945, when Hamburg was overrun by the British Army.
1961 The production of the millionth Morris Minor, designed by the Greek born Sir Alec Issigonis. He considered the Morris Minor to be a vehicle that combined many of the luxuries and conveniences of a good motor car, but at a price suitable for the working classes.
1967 The first ever episode of Trumpton aired. "Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grubb"
1984 The launch of the FTSE 100, an index of the 100 leading shares listed on the London Stock Exchange, measured by their market value. It had a starting base level of 1,000 points.
1988 Margaret Thatcher became the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century.
2013 Data released by the Met. Office showed that the previous 12 months had been the second wettest on record in the UK, with England recording its wettest year ever since records began in 1910.
2014 Along the whole of Wales' coastline dozens of roads were closed and the rail network was also badly affected as storm surges brought flooding chaos around Wales' coast. In Aberystwyth the promenade and its historic shelter were destroyed as huge waves crashed onto it. The winter storms continued across many parts of Britain and parts of Somerset, including the village of Muchelney were cut off for weeks.
2015 A 51,000 tonne car carrier ship (Hoegh Osaka) became stranded on Bramble Bank in the Solent between Southampton and the Isle of Wight. The ship was carrying 1,200 Jaguar sports cars, Land Rover 4x4s, 65 BMW Minis, 105 JCB diggers and a single Rolls-Royce Wraith – worth an estimated £260,000 – all destined for the Middle East. The vessel was eventually righted and towed to Southampton on 22nd January.
871 The Battle of Reading took place,in the county of Berkshire. It followed an invasion of the then kingdom of Wessex by an army of Danes. The Saxon forces retreated, allowing the Danes to continue their advance into Wessex. Much of King Alfred's 28-year reign was taken up with this Danish conflict.
1642 Under the orders of King Charles I, armed soldiers entered Parliament. The English Civil War started shortly afterwards.
1890 The Daily Graphic was launched; the first daily illustrated paper. It merged with the Daily Sketch in 1926. .
1932 Gandhi was arrested and his National Congress of India declared illegal by the British administration.The warrant for Gandhi's arrest merely said that he was being arrested 'for good and sufficient reasons.'
1938 Bertram Mills’ Circus became the first circus to be shown on television. This was also the first time that a paying audience for any event had been televised, and audience members were informed that they could request seats out of range of the cameras. Originally from Paddington, London, his circus became famous in Britain for its Christmas shows at Olympia in West London and his troupe were the last to perform with live animals on the Drury Lane Theatre stage.
1957 A dissatisfied plastic surgeon patient was sentenced in London to ten years’ imprisonment, after he had threatened his surgeon with a gun, complaining that his nose was too short.
1967 Donald Campbell, 46 year old son of Sir Malcolm Campbell, died in his attempt to break his own world water speed record on Coniston Water in the Lake District.His boat, Bluebird K7, somersaulted at high speed, and Campbell died instantly and is buried in Coniston graveyard.
1973 Of Funerals and Fish, the pilot for a sitcom called The Last of the Summer Wine, was broadcast. It'll never last, that one.
1990 One Foot in the Grave, starring Annette Crosbie and Richard Wilson was first broadcast.
2017 The last ABC cinema closed its doors. The Bournemouth cinema (which opened in June 1937) had only kept its name by a quirk of positioning in the town. It closed with a final screening of 'Back to the Future', which was chosen by its audience.
1066 The death of Edward the Confessor, usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex. He was called ‘the Confessor’ because of his great piety. He died childless, sparking a succession crisis that led to the Norman Conquest
1531 Pope Clemens VII forbade English King Henry VIII to re-marry. The event led to the creation of the Church of England.
1840 Records show 95,820 licensed public houses in England on this date.
1886 "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson published by Longmans, Green & Co.
1930 Bonnie Parker meets Clyde Barrow for the first time at Clarence Clay's house
1941 Amy Johnson,record-breaking English aviator,died whilst flying an aircraft from Blackpool to Kidlington (Oxfordshire) in foggy conditions as her role in the Air Transport Auxiliary that ferried new,repaired and damaged military aircraft between UK departments.Her plane was found,100 miles off course in the muddy water of the Thames but her body was never recovered.Reportedly out of fuel she had been seen alive in the water but a rescue attempt failed and the incident also led to the death of her would-be rescuer, Lt. Cmdr. Walter Fletcher.Amy Johnson was the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia in 1930 and she also set numerous long-distance records during the 1930s.
1960 The last journey of the Mumbles Railway,the oldest in the world.It was set up in 1804 as a goods railway running from Swansea to Mumbles Head, Wales and began carrying passengers in 1807.The railway still holds the record for the highest number of forms of traction of any railway in the world - horse-drawn,sail power,steam power, electric power,petrol and diesel.
1971 One-day cricket was born when 46,000 turned up to watch England play Australia at Melbourne. The test match had been rained off for several days previously. Australia won by 5 wickets (with 42 balls remaining).
1971 Body of former world heavyweight boxing champion Charles "Sonny" Liston (40) is found by his wife Geraldine at their Las Vegas home; he had been dead for an estimated 6 days; foul play suspected.
1981 Peter Sutcliffe,a 35-year-old lorry driver from Bradford,suspected of carrying out 13 murders across West Yorkshire over a period of five years,was formally charged in court.
1981 The first episode of the BBC television adaptation of THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY was broadcast.
2001 A report funded by The Department of Health found that the convicted serial killer, former GP Harold Shipman,may have killed in excess of 300 of his patients.
Only live a few miles from the Wedgwood (correct spelling) Factory. On leaving school, getting an apprenticeship there was a gold mine. Unfortunately, you had to have a member of family already working there to get your foot in the door. Anyway, I never knew Charles Darwin was his Grandfather.
PS...still reading these daily. After the bad beat threads and the daily Haysie press release threads ofc