The big freeze meant that only 3 of the scheduled 32 FA Cup 3rd Round ties were played, with the last tie in that round not being decided until March 11th. The Lincoln v Coventry tie was postponed a total of 15 times and 14 of the other ties suffered 10 or more postponements. Between December 8th and 16th February Bolton did not play a single competitive match.
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.
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.
The Swansea & Mumbles Railway A Journey through the Archives
A Brief History Of The Railway Here is an outline of the key moments in the history of The Swansea & Mumbles Railway.
Origins
During the Industrial Revolution, Swansea developed into an important centre and a seaport town. The Swansea & Mumbles Railway was formed so that lime produced from the Gower kilns and coal from the Clyne Valley could be transported to the wharfs at Swansea.
Early Days
There was a growth of industry along the river Tawe during the 18th century and Swansea became famous for its Copper Industry. The Swansea & Mumbles Railway (or the Oystermouth Railroad as it was then known) was originally constructed as a mineral line and not as a passenger service.
Becoming the World’s First Passenger Service
In the year 1807, the Swansea & Mumbles Railway began to carry passengers. It was the first railway in the world to do so. The first passenger carriages were made from the mineral wagons used on the tramroad. The man responsible for this was Benjamin French, an initial shareholder in the railway.
‘Horse Power’
Horse drawn trains remained on the Swansea & Mumbles Railway until 1896 (albeit intermittently with steam powered locomotives). The change from horse-drawn to steam trains did cause anxiety. It was thought that the idea of a noisy, speeding steam locomotive through the streets would frighten people and horses.copy Train-Mumbles Horse drawn-1865
Full Steam Ahead
Steam trials took place on the Swansea & Mumbles Railway between 1878 and 1885 and also between 1892 and 1896. Three of the Swansea & Mumbles Railway steam trains were given names. They were called ‘Crumlyn’, ‘Swansea’ and ‘Hampshire’.
Glory Years
In 1893, The Swansea & Mumbles Railway was extended to Southend. Previously the terminus was at Oystermouth. The extension to the Mumbles was completed in 1898. This made the Swansea & Mumbles Railway very popular with day trippers and tourists who visited the Mumbles Pier.
Electrification
The 1920’s was the last decade when the Mumbles Train was hauled by steam locomotives. Steam locomotives ran on the railway until March 1st 1929. Electric trains took over the following day.
The end of the Mumbles tram
“During the War”
The Second World War (1939-1945) affected Swansea very badly. Heavy bombing raids known as ‘The Blitz’ caused chaos and severe damage to many buildings in the centre and suburbs. The Swansea & Mumbles Railway became an important form of transport during the war years. The electric powered trains were unaffected by petrol rationing.
Goodbye to the Mumbles Railway
In October 1958, 90% of the shares of the Mumbles Railway Ltd. passed into the hands of the South Wales Transport Company (SWTC). The Swansea and Mumbles Railway finally closed on the 5th January 1960. The last train entered the Rutland Street terminus at 12:20 am.
1066 The coronation of Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, succeeding Edward the Confessor. He reigned for ten months before he died at the Battle of Hastings, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the Conqueror. Harold was the first of only three Kings of England to have died in battle; the other two being Richard I and Richard III.
1367 Birth in Bordeaux of King Richard II, the last of the Plantagenet kings of England. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince.
1412 The birth of St Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans. She was a great heroine of French history and believed that she had a divine mission to drive the British from France. She died at the stake after being captured by the Burgundians and sold to the British.
1540 King Henry VIII married ‘the Flanders Mare’, Anne of Cleves, his fourth wife. The King found her so different from her picture that he swore they had brought him a Flanders mare. She was Queen of England from 6th January 1540 to 9th July 1540. The marriage was never consummated, and, following the annulment of their marriage, Anne was given a generous settlement by the King and was referred to thereafter as the King's Beloved Sister. She lived to see the coronation of Henry's daughter, (Mary I) and outlasted all of Henry's wives.
1681 1st recorded boxing match (Duke of Albemarle's butler vs his butcher).The first recorded boxing match took place when Christopher Monck,the 2nd Duke of Albemarle, engineered a bout between his butler and his butcher, with the butcher coming out on top.
1839 The most damaging storm in 300 years swept across Ireland, damaging or destroying more than 20% of the houses in Dublin.
1916 World War I - The British Government introduced conscription, to replace the many thousands killed in the trenches in France.
1928 Four people were drowned, and many paintings in the basement of the Tate Gallery were severely damaged, when the Thames flooded. The water was deep enough to fill the moat of the Tower of London.
1938 The 82-year-old Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psychoanalysis, arrived in London from Vienna with several of his students, to escape the persecution of Jews.
1974 United Kingdom begins three-day work week during energy crisis.
1976 Rentaghost, the children's comedy series first aired.
1977 The music publisher EMI ended its contract with the notorious punk rock group, Sex Pistols, after reports of abusive behaviour at Heathrow Airport.
1979 The Village People's Y.M.C.A becomes their only UK #1 single. At its peak it sold over 150,000 copies a day.
1983 The Royal Navy arrested a Danish trawler captain (Kent Kirk) for illegally entering British waters in the first confrontation of the ' fish war'. The move followed Denmark's refusal to agree to proposals for a new EEC fishing regime.
1987 The first episode of TV's Inspector Morse was broadcast.
2000 The flu outbreak in Britain puts pressure on NHS.The big flu outbreak occurred in 1999/2000,when 22,000 people died,which is 10 times the average for a winter flu season.
2013 Jessops, the High Street camera retailer founded in Leicester in 1935 by Frank Jessop, went into administration. On 11th January it was announced that Jessops was to shut all of its stores at the end of the day's trading, resulting in the loss of 1,370 jobs.
2014 54 year old Stephen Gough, the so-called 'Naked Rambler' was jailed for 16 months after a jury took just two minutes to find him guilty of breaching an antisocial behaviour order designed to prevent him from appearing nude in public. Gough has been convicted for dozens of offences, mainly in Scotland, where he was repeatedly arrested during attempts to walk from Land's End to John o'Groats without clothes.
2015 The death was announced of D-Day veteran Bernard Jordan (aged 90). In June 2014 he sparked a police search when he left the care home in Hove to join fellow veterans and attended the 70th anniversary D-Day commemorations in France. His wife Irene (aged 88) died just days after her husband. They left their entire state, estimated at being worth around £600,000 to the RNLI.
2019 Record $3.1 million (333.6 million yen) price for giant bluefin tuna at Tokyo's Toyosu fish market bought by sushi restaurant owner Kiyoshi Kimura.
Bill Shankly took another step on his managerial path to Liverpool when he was appointed boss of Workington, then in Division 3 North of the Football League. Life was very different at Borough Park than he would later find at Anfield. At Workington he was expected to do his share of answering the phone and doing the banking but his biggest shock came on his first day at the club when he discovered there was no electricity at the Workington ground. In those pre-internet, pre-floodlight days all the lighting and heating at Borough Park was gas-powered!
Football On This Day - 6th January 1974.
A war in the Middle East causing a three-day working week in this country led to the first senior Sunday matches being played in England. Four FA Cup Third Round ties were played on Sunday 6th January 1974, the first that kicked off was between Cambridge United and Oldham Athletic. Two weeks later Football League matches were played for the first time on a Sunday and football on the Sabbath was here to stay.
Football On This Day - 6th January 1975.
A home League defeat to Notts County over the Christmas period saw Nottingham Forest sack their manager Allan Brown and on 6th January 1975 they appointed his successor....Brian Clough. After his failures at Brighton and Leeds few would have expected great things at the City Ground but he turned a mid-table Second Division side into League champions in 1978 and European Cup winners in 1979 and 1980.
Football On This Day - 6th January 1990.
A memorable day for Cardiff City. Their FA Cup Third Round tie against Queens Park Rangers saw them bank then record club receipts for a match at their former Ninian Park home - £50,517.75. Well, they would have banked it on Monday but sadly for Cardiff's bank balance thieves broke into the safe over the weekend and pinched the lot!
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.
1558 English forces were ousted from the French port of Calais, led by the Duke of Guise. Calais had surrendered to an invading English army in 1346 and its recapture by the French saw the last continental possession of England forfeited.
1601 Robert, Earl of Essex, leads revolt in London against Queen Elizabeth.
1618 Francis Bacon became Lord Chancellor of England. Later that year he was accused of taking a bribe, and fined £40,000, a huge sum of money for those times.
1714 Typewriter patented by Englishman Henry Mill (built years later).
1785 1st balloon flight across English Channel by Jean Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries.
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.
1889 Birth of Arthur Clifford Hartley, the English inventor of World War II’s PLUTO (Pipeline Under The Ocean), a series of 21 undersea pipes used to transport oil from Britain to continental Europe. He also invented FIDO (Fog Investigation Dispersal Operation) which is credited with bringing 2500 aircraft and 10,000 aircrew safely home during the war.
1904 The CQD distress signal was introduced. CQ stood for ‘seek you’, and the D for ‘danger’. It lasted just two years before being replaced with SOS.
1915 World War I: Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm approves strategic bombing of Britain, but forbids bombing London, fearing his relatives in the royal family might be killed.
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.
1927 Harlem Globetrotters play their 1st game in Hinckley, Illinois.
1948 Thomas Mantell, a pilot for the Kentucky Air National Guard, crashes while pursuing a supposed UFO.
1965 Identical twin brothers Ronald and Reginald Kray were in custody, charged in connection with running a protection racket.
1973 British Darts Organisation founded in North London.
1976 The Ministry of Defence claimed that a British naval frigate, HMS Andromeda, had been deliberately rammed into by an Icelandic gunboat in the Atlantic. The ‘attack’ was one of several incidents between Britain and Iceland with regard to disputed fishing territory.
1990 Tower of Pisa closed to the public after leaning too far.
1994 After a wait of 800 years, girls were invited to join the Cathedral Choir at Wells in Somerset.
1998 Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky signs affidavit denying she had an affair with President Bill Clinton.
1999 President Bill Clinton's Impeachment trial begins in the US Senate after the House voted to impeach him for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
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.
2015 Terrorist attack on the offices of satirical newspaper "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris kills 12.
2019 Amazon overtakes Microsoft to become the world's most valuable listed company for the first time, worth $797 billion.
871 Alfred the Great (born in Oxfordshire) led a West Saxon army to repel an invasion by the Vikings.
1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie occupied Stirling. Such early successes would prove short-lived for the pretender to the throne. His army seized control of the town but failed to take the castle and subsequently retreated northwards.
1800 London opened its first soup kitchens for the poor.
1815 Britain lost the last battle it ever fought against the US in the War of 1812 when General Sir Edward Pakenham and his men were defeated at New Orleans.
1877 Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain (Montana Territory).
1902 New York state assemblyman Francis G. Landon gets a bill passed to criminalize men turning around on a street and "looking at a woman in that way".
1921 David Lloyd George became the first Prime Minister to reside in Chequers, a country mansion in Buckinghamshire which had been given by Lord Lee of Fareham as a gift to the nation.
1940 World War II: Britain introduced food rationing. Restaurants were initially exempt from rationing, but this was resented, as the rich could supplement their food allowance by eating out frequently and extravagantly, so new rules were introduced.
1941 Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scout movement, died, aged 83 in Kenya and was buried at Nyeri. His gravestone bears a circle with a dot in the centre, which is the trail sign for 'Going home', or 'I have gone home'. When his wife Olave died in 1977, her ashes were sent to Kenya and interred beside her husband. Kenya has declared Baden-Powell's grave a national monument.
1942 The birth of Stephen Hawking, possibly the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Albert Einstein. He wrote A Brief History of Time,which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. His book sold at least 25,000,000 copies,was no doubt read by many thousands but maybe understood by only hundreds.
1947 Birth of David Robert Jones known professionally as David Bowie was an English singer-songwriter and actor.He was a leading figure in the music industry and is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.
1962 21 year old golfer Jack Nicklaus makes his first professional appearance; tied 50th in Los Angeles Open.
1967 The Forsyte Saga,the television adaptation of Galsworthy’s novel,screened its first episode. It was so popular that for the six months of its run, many churches had to change the times of their services.
1978 TV series "All Creatures Great and Small" debuts on BBC TV, based on the books by James Herriot.
1982 Spain reopened the frontier of the British colony of Gibraltar. In return, Britain agreed to open negotiations on Gibraltar’s future, and ended its opposition to Spain joining the EEC.
1989 47 people were killed and over 80 injured when a British Midland 737-400 jet crashed on the M1 motorway. Remarkably nobody travelling on the motorway was hurt. The plane had developed a problem in its left engine shortly after it took off from Heathrow. The pilots mistakenly believed that the fault was in the right hand engine which they shut down,leading to the crash,just yards from the runway of East Midlands Airport.
1992 George H. W. Bush gets ill & vomits on Japanese prime minister's lap.
2001 The High Court ruled that the identities and whereabouts of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables,who murdered toddler James Bulger in 1993 would be kept secret for the rest of their lives.Venables was subsequently returned to prison in March 2010 for other offences and it was decided that he would stay in prison 'for the foreseeable future',as he would be likely to reveal his identity if released. A mere 18 months later it was reported that the Parole Board for England and Wales had approved the release of Venables,who was subsequently released from prison on 3rd September 2013.
2004 The liner RMS Queen Mary 2, was named by Queen Elizabeth II. At the time of her construction in 2003 she was the longest, widest and tallest passenger ship ever built, and at 151,400 gross tons, she was also the largest.
Such is the turnover of managers it is rarely a shock when a manager leaves a club but there was widespread and genuine shock on Tyneside when Kevin Keegan resigned as Newcastle United manager on this day in 1997. Former Newcastle player Keegan had taken up his first managerial post at St James’ Park in 1992 when the club was in great danger of suffering relegation to the third tier. But at the start of 1997 his Newcastle side were fourth in the Premier League, had just beaten Tottenham 7-1 in the League and had recorded a 5-0 victory over Manchester United earlier in the season. In their playing ranks they had Alan Shearer who Newcastle had bought six months earlier for a world record £15m fee, and he was scoring regularly. The club and their fans were on a high but Kevin Keegan believed he had taken the club as far as he could, and so resigned.
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.
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.
1838 First Photograph of a Person. Louis Daguerre used his famous daguerreotype process of photography to snap a photo of the Boulevard du Temple in Paris.The streets in the photo appear deserted this is because the exposure time for the photo was so long that the cars and trams could not be captured.Thus only the man having his shoes shined and the shoeshiner were motionless enough to be caught.This is thus the first known photograph of a person. In the bottom left corner a man can be seen having his shoes shined on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris.
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.
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.
1969 First trial flight of Concorde supersonic jetliner, Bristol, England.
1972 The Queen Elizabeth, the liner that had been turned into a sailing university, caught fire and sank in Hong Kong harbour. She had been the world’s largest passenger liner for over thirty years.
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.
2001 Apple announced iTunes at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, for organizing and playing digital music and videos.
2006 DCI Sam Tyler had an accident and woke up in 1973, in the first episode of Life on Mars.
2007 Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs announces the iPhone.
2014 The closure of Clerkenwell fire station, close to King's Cross in London. Built in 1872, it was the UK's oldest fire station.
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.
Manchester City recorded their lowest ever League attendance at Maine Road with just 8,015 turning up for their Second Division fixture with Swindon Town. City lost 2-1 with Mike Summerbee scoring one of Swindon’s goals. The next time Mike Summerbee played at Maine Road he was in the Manchester City colours – he moved north at the start of the following season and helped with a dramatic improvement in City fortunes. In 1965/66 when they won the Second Division title with the Maine Road crowd topping 63,000 for a cup-tie. More success followed over the next few seasons with City winning the League title, FA Cup, League Cup and European Cup-Winners Cup.
Football On This Day - 9th January 1979.
Charlton Athletic players Mick Flanagan and Derek Hales were sent off in an FA Cup Third Round tie against non-leaguers Maidstone United - for fighting each other!
1645 The execution of William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was beheaded on Tower Hill after being found ‘guilty of endeavouring to subvert the laws, to overthrow the Protestant religion, and to act as an enemy to Parliament’. The next archbishop was not appointed until fifteen years later, with the Restoration of Charles II.
1839 Indian tea was auctioned in Britain for the first time. Previously, only China tea had been available, at great expense. After the introduction of Indian tea, prices fell and tea became so affordable that it was soon the national drink.
1840 Sir Rowland Hill introduced the Penny Post to Britain. Mail was delivered at a standard charge rather than being paid by the recipient. On its first day, 112,000 letters were posted in London alone.
1863 The first section of the London Underground railway was opened, by Prime Minister Gladstone. It ran from Paddington to Farringdon Street, stopping at seven stations. The trains ran every fifteen minutes.
1897 Ukrainian bacteriologist Wademar Haffkine performs the first human trial for a vaccine for the plague on himself during the Bombay epidemic.
1918 The House of Lords gave its approval to the Representation of the People Bill, which gave woman over the age of 30 the right to vote, as recognition of the contribution made by women defence workers during the First World War. However, women were still not politically equal to men, who could vote from the age of 21. Full electoral equality wouldn't occur until the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act of 1928.
1946 The General Assembly of the United Nations met for the first time, at Westminster Central Hall.
1949 RCA introduces the 45 RPM record.
1956 Elvis Presley records single "Heartbreak Hotel".
1958 Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire" reaches #1 on the UK pop charts.
1979 'Crisis? What Crisis?' Prime Minister James Callaghan flew back into strike-torn Britain denying allegations that the country was in chaos during the 'Winter of Discontent' strike wave.
1985 The C5 electric car, with a top speed of 15 mph (the fastest allowed in the UK without a driving licence) was demonstrated by its inventor, Sir Clive Sinclair. It retailed for £399 but only 17,000 were ever sold and Sinclair Vehicles was put into receivership on 12th October 1985.
1985 Eight people died and dozens were injured when an explosion destroyed a block of exclusive flats in south-west London. The blast was compared to a 50lb bomb going off and caused an estimated £250m worth of damage in addition to the loss of life.
1994 Trial of Lorena Bobbitt who cut off her husband's ****,begins.
1999 "The Sopranos", starring James Gandolfini as mobster Tony Soprano, debuts on HBO.
2015 The Falklands commemorated Margaret Thatcher by unveiling a statue of the late Prime Minister who led the 1982 war that kept the island British. (Note - 10th January is Margaret Thatcher Day on the Falklands.)
2016 The death, from liver cancer, of the English singer, songwriter David Bowie, aged 69.
1569 The first state lottery took place in England. Lots were sold at the West Door of St Paul’s Cathedral. National lotteries continued until 1826 when it was felt that " the inducement to gambling held out by lotteries is a great moral evil, helping to impoverish many and diverting attention from the more legitimate industrial modes of moneymaking."
1838 First public demonstration of telegraph messages sent using dots and dashes at Speedwell Ironworks in Morristown, New Jersey by Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail.
1857 Jockey Fred Archer was born. He won his first race at the age of 12 and was a Champion Jockey for 13 consecutive years until 1886. He won 2748 races during his career, including five Derby winners. In 1885 he rode 246 winners, a record that wasn't broken until Gordon Richards' 1933 season. Archer committed suicide, aged 29, by shooting himself, following depression after the death of his wife.
1864 Charing Cross Station opens in London.
1879 The start of the Zulu war against British colonial rule in South Africa.War begins as British Lt-General Chelmsford invades Zululand in South Africa.
1922 Insulin first used on humans to treat diabetes,on Canadian Leonard Thompson aged 14.
1928 The death of Thomas Hardy,the English playwright and poet.He died aged 87 having dictated his final poem to his wife on his deathbed.He is buried at Westminster Abbey,which proved controversial as Hardy and his family and friends had wanted him to be interred at his birth place in Stinsford Dorchester,in the same grave as his first wife Emma. A compromise was reached whereby his heart was buried at Stinsford with Emma and his ashes in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey.
1954 All Comet airliners were grounded.The day before,35 people had died in a mysterious crash off the island of Elba. In 1953, another Comet had crashed inexplicably near Calcutta when 'it fell out of the sky for no apparent reason’. The cause was finally traced to a structural fault with serious consequences for British aviation.
1973 The first 867 graduates from the Open University were awarded their degrees after two years studying from home.
1984 French farmers hijacked British lorries in a dispute against meat imports.
1993 British Airways was forced into an embarrassing climb-down in relation to a campaign of 'dirty tricks' it had launched against rival airline Virgin Atlantic. BA was forced to pay damages to both Virgin Atlantic and its boss Richard Branson.
2014 Three Britons made the shortlist of just over 1,000 who want to take part in the Dutch project 'Mars One'. It hopes to send 24 people from around the world on a one way trip to settle on Mars, after going through a seven-year training course, commencing in 2018.
2018 US President Donald Trump causes worldwide controversy when it is reported he called African countries "shitholes" during immigration meeting.
1510 Henry VIII, then just 18 years old, appeared incognito in a jousting tournament at Richmond Park, and was applauded for his jousting before he revealed his true identity.
1866 The Aeronautical Society of Great Britain was formed in London, thirty seven years before the Wright Brothers achieved the first successful powered flight.
1895 The National Trust was founded by three Victorian philanthropists - Miss Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley.Octavia Hill was concerned about the poor availability of open spaces for poor people.
1899 Unable to launch their lifeboat at Lynmouth because of heavy storms,the crew,horses and helpers dragged their 10 ton lifeboat Louisa and carriage in the dark the 15 miles overland to Porlock Weir. The 11 hour journey across Exmoor included a haul over Countisbury Hill (1 in 4) followed by descending another 1 in 4 hill down into Porlock where the corner of a house had to be demolished to gain access.Their rescue of the 18 crew from Forrest Hall was successful.The journey was re-enacted in daylight on 12th January 1999.
1948 First supermarket in UK opens,the self-service supermarket came to Britain when the London Co-Operative Society opened a store in Manor Park.
1950 The British submarine Truculent collided with a Swedish oil tanker Divina,in the Thames.The two vessels remained locked together for a few seconds before the submarine sank,resulting in the deaths of 64 people. An inquiry attributed 75% of the blame to Truculent and 25% to Divina.Truculent was sold and broken up for scrap in May 1950.
1959 Henry Cooper defeated Brian London on points over 15 rounds,becoming British and European heavyweight boxing champion.Cooper was the first to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award twice (in 1967 and 1970). He is the only British boxer to win three Lonsdale Belts outright and he was knighted in 2000.
1966 "Batman", starring Adam West as Batman,Burt Ward as Robin and Cesar Romero as The Joker debuts on ABC.
1967 Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation and remains preserved at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.
1970 The Boeing 747 completed its first transatlantic flight from New York to Heathrow. It is still often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet or Queen of the Skies.The 747 was the first 'wide-body' ever produced. It held the passenger capacity record of 660 (in single class layout) for 37 years until October 2007 when the Airbus A380 took to the skies with a maximum passenger capacity of 850.
1976 Crime writer Dame Agatha Christie died leaving a final book waiting to be published. According to the Guinness Book of World Records,Christie is the best selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly four billion copies and her estate claims that her works rank third after those of William Shakespeare and the Bible as the most widely published books.
1978 The executors of Lady Churchill’s estate admitted that she had burnt Graham Sutherland’s portrait of Sir Winston 18 months after the House of Commons had presented it to him in 1954. Sir Winston ironically described it as ‘a remarkable example of modern art’.
Finding the depiction deeply unflattering Churchill disliked the portrait intensely.After its public presentation the painting was taken to his country home at Chartwell but not put on display.After the death of Lady Spencer-Churchill in 1977 it came to light that she had the painting destroyed some months after it was delivered to relieve her husband's frustration.
1979 DR. FEELGOOD released the single, MILK AND ALCOHOL.
1982 Mark Thatcher,son of the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,went missing in the Sahara while taking part in the Paris-Dakar Rally. He was rescued two days later and it turned out that he had lost his way.The incident provoked a tidal wave of jokes and cartoons making fun of his sense of direction.
1995 Murder trial against O.J. Simpson, begins in LA.
2001 Sven Goran Eriksson became the first foreign coach of the England football team. In 2006,he was recorded as saying that he would be willing to leave England to manage Aston Villa if England won the World Cup,after being duped into believing that a wealthy Arab would buy the club and wanted him as manager.The wealthy Arab was in fact a 'Fake Sheikh',an undercover News of the World reporter.On 4th May 2006 the FA announced that Steve McClaren, Eriksson's assistant would take over after the World Cup.
One of the immortals of the English game made his Football League debut. Just 10 days short of his 17th birthday Dixie Dean played for his local club,Tranmere Rovers,in a Division 3 (North) match at Rotherham County (as Rotherham United were then). Tranmere lost the match 5-1. His debut might have been a disappointment but his goalscoring record of 27 goals in 30 League outings for Tranmere brought him to the attention of near neighbours Everton who signed him in March 1925.From then on it was goals all the way with his achievement of scoring 349 goals in 399 League appearances being an Everton record while his 60 League goals in 1927/28 is an English record that seems unbeatable,he also scored 18 goals in 16 appearances for England. In May 2001 a statue of the Everton legend was unveiled outside of Goodison Park and tragically he died on 1st March 1980 at Goodison while watching an Everton-Liverpool local derby.
1691 The death of George Fox,English founder of the religious group of the Society of Friends,also known as the Quakers.He was interred in the Nonconformists' burying ground at Bunhill Fields in London,in the presence of thousands of mourners.(Note - In 1652, George Fox climbed Pendle Hill in Lancashire,where he had a vision of a "great people to be gathered",leading to the beginning of the Quaker movement.)
1785 John Walter publishes 1st issue of "The Times" of London.
1832 The death of Thomas Lord, English professional cricketer and founder of Lord's Cricket Ground in 1787. He is buried in the churchyard of St. John's Church at West Meon in Hampshire.
1842 Dr. William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British East India Company Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War is famous for being the only member of an army of 4,500 men and 12,000 civilians to survive a massacre after the army's long retreat from Kabul. He safely reached the British sentry post at Jalalabad, Afghanistan 'On This Day'. The episode was made the subject of a famous painting by the Victorian artist Lady Butler,who portrayed an exhausted Dr. Brydon approaching the gates of the Jalalabad fort perched on his dying horse.The painting is titled Remnants of an Army.
1893 The birth of a new political party in Britain when James Keir Hardie and others formed the Independent Labour Party. It was an action that worried the Liberals,who were afraid that the new party might at some point in the future win the working-class votes that they traditionally received.
1926 The birth of Michael Bond, English children’s writer and creator of ‘Paddington Bear’. Whilst working as a BBC television cameraman Bond had his first book published, 'A Bear Called Paddington'. It was the start of Bond's most famous series of books, telling the tales of a bear from 'Darkest Peru', whose Aunt Lucy sent him to England, carrying a jar of marmalade.
1958 In Scotland, the serial killer Peter Manuel was arrested after a series of attacks over a two year period that left nine people dead although he is suspected of having killed as many as eighteen. Manuel was hanged in Barlinnie prison on 11th July 1958. He was one of the last prisoners to die on the Barlinnie gallows.
1964 Capital Records grudgingly released the first Beatles record, ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’, in the US to, as they said 'see how it goes’. It became their fastest selling single ever. Within only three weeks, a million copies had been sold.
1979 YMCA files libel suit against Village People's YMCA song.
1989 Computers across Britain hit by "Friday the 13th"/Jerusalem virus.
1992 Japan apologizes for forcing Korean women into sexual slavery during World War II.
2004 Dr. Harold Shipman, who is believed to have killed more than 200 of his patients, was found hanged in his prison cell. To date Shipman is the only British doctor to have been proved guilty of murdering his patients in addition to being one of the most prolific serial killers in recorded history.
1742 The death of Sir Edmund Halley, aged 86; astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist. He was Astronomer Royal who gave his name to a comet.
1878 Queen Victoria watched a demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, by W.H. Preece at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Preece called it 'Signalling through Space without Wires'.
1886 Birth of Hugh Lofting, creator of ‘Dr Dolittle’. He trained as a civil engineer prior to enlisting in the Irish Guards to serve in World War I. He wrote illustrated letters home to his children from the trenches during World War I when actual news, he later said, was either too horrible or too dull. These letters became the foundation of the his successful Doctor Dolittle novels for children.
1896 The first public screening of a film in Britain, at the London headquarters of the Royal Photographic society.
1898 The death at Guildford of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson,who wrote under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll and who was author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
1937 The first Gallup Opinion Poll was conducted in Britain. It was the invention of the American George Horace Gallup who founded the Gallup Institute in 1935.
1947 The Covent Garden Opera Company opened with Karl Rankl’s production of Carmen, in the newly renovated theatre which had been a dance hall during the war.
1966 David Bowie releases his 1st single "Can't Help Thinking About Me".
1969 Football legend Sir Matt Busby announced that he would retire as manager of Manchester United at the end of the season. Formerly a Scottish football player and manager he was most noted for his time as managing Manchester United between 1945 and 1969.
1975 A 17-year-old heiress,Lesley Whittle, was kidnapped from her home in Shropshire. Her body was found on 7th March 1975, hanging from a wire at the bottom of a drain shaft in Bathpool Park, Staffordshire. Donald Neilson also known as the Black Panther was convicted of her murder (and three others) in July 1976.
1978 Sex Pistols' final concert held in Winterland, San Francisco.
1984 Madonna 1st sings "Holiday" on American Bandstand.
1989 Muslims in Bradford ritually burned a copy of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in the first serious protest in Britain. The book had been banned in some Muslim countries.
2002 After three months of no cases being reported, the United Kingdom was finally declared free from the 'Foot and Mouth' infection, after a crisis that started in 2001 in which millions of cows and sheep were destroyed.
2013 Music and DVD chain HMV appointed an administrator, making it the latest casualty on the High Street and putting 4,350 jobs at risk. Quote from retail analyst Neil Saunders - "In the digital era, where 73.4% of music and film are online .... there is no real future for physical retail in the music sector."
2014 Monkeys at Paignton Zoo in Devon were banned from eating bananas. Keepers said - "Giving monkeys bananas that have been cultivated for humans is like giving them cake and chocolate. Reducing the sugar in their diets has calmed them down and made their group more settled."
1535 Henry VIII assumed the title 'Supreme Head of the Church'.
1559 Elizabeth I was crowned Queen of England at the age of 26. She was the daughter of Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn and the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.
1759 The opening of the British Museum, at Montague House, London. Access often depended on who you were and who you knew. Permission had to be given by the librarian and only 10 people an hour were allowed in. Its permanent collection numbers some eight million works and is amongst the finest, most comprehensive, and largest in existence. It illustrates and documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present day.
1790 Fletcher Christian, eight fellow mutineers from the ship Bounty, six Tahitian men and 12 women, landed on the remote Pacific island of Pitcairn following the mutiny led by Christian.They stripped the Bounty of all that could be floated ashore before setting it on fire.
1797 The first top hat was worn by John Hetherington, a London haberdasher. He was fined £50 the first time he wore his new creation, 'for causing a disturbance'.The arresting officer told the court that nobody had seen anything like it before: “He had such a tall and shiny construction on his head that it must have terrified nervous people. The sight of this construction was so overstated that various women fainted,children began to cry and dogs started to bark. One child broke his arm among all the jostling.”
1859 The National Portrait Gallery opened to the public in Great George Street. There were only 56 portraits and viewing was by appointment on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
1867 Crowds flocked onto the frozen surface of the lake in London’s Regent's Park during a severe frost. The ice broke, and 40 people died.
1870 Britain's first woman doctor, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, passed the final exam of the Medical Faculty of the Sorbonne and became a fully qualified MD.
1880 The London Telephone Company published the first directory, listing 255 subscribers.
1893 The birth in Cardiff,of Ivor Novello,Welsh composer and actor.His first big hit was 'Keep the Home Fires Burning which was very popular during World War I. The Ivor Novello Awards for songwriting were established in 1955 in Novello's memory and are awarded each year by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.
1895 Tchaikovsky's ballet "Swan Lake" premieres, St Petersburg.
1927 BBC radio broadcast the first live commentary of a rugby match. Captain Teddy Wakelam narrated the match at Twickenham, between Wales and England. The following Saturday Wakelam provided the first football commentary from Highbury,where Arsenal was playing Sheffield United.
1943 World's largest office building, the Pentagon is completed to house the US military.
1962 The centigrade or Celsius scale was used in the British Meteorological Office weather forecasts for the first time, more than 200 years after the death of the Swedish scientist who invented it.
1965 Rock group Who releases first album "I Can't Explain".
1971 George Harrison releases "My Sweet Lord" single in the UK.
1974 TV sitcom "Happy Days" begins an 11 year run on ABC.
1981 "Hill Street Blues" premieres on NBC-TV.
1982 Mark Thatcher, son of UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, makes his way home after 6 days missing in the Sahara.
1984 Martina Navratilova’s 54-match winning streak ends when beaten by Hana Mandlíková 7-6, 3-6, 6-4 in the final of the Virginia Slims of California tennis event in Oakland; after loss Navratilova wins next 74 matches for new record.
2001 Wikipedia a free Wiki or content encyclopedia is launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger.
2009 Chesley Sullenberger lands US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in NYC. All passengers and crew members survive in what becomes known as the "Miracle on the Hudson".
Passengers wait to be rescued on the wings of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River.
2011 The death of Nathaniel (Nat) Lofthouse, OBE, English professional footballer who played for Bolton Wanderers for his whole career. He was capped 33 times for the England national football team between 1950 and 1958, scoring 30 goals and having one of the greatest goals per game ratios of any player to represent England at the highest level.
2014 The death, aged 69, of actor Roger Lloyd-Pack, who played Trigger in Only Fools And Horses. He appeared in dozens of TV shows and films, including Dr Who, The Vicar Of Dibley, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire.
1572 Thomas Howard, the Fourth Duke of Norfolk and second cousin of Queen Elizabeth I was tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to assassinate the Queen, replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots and restore Catholicism in England. The plot was hatched and planned by Roberto di Ridolfi, an international banker who was able to travel and gather support without attracting too much suspicion. Norfolk was later executed at the Tower of London for his involvement but Ridolfi lived out his life in Florence until his death in 1612.
1581 The English Parliament outlawed Roman Catholicism.
1604 At the Hampton Court Conference, John Rainolds presented to King James I the motion '...that there might bee a newe translation of the Bible.' Approved the next day, Rainolds' motion led to the 1611 publication of the King James Bible.
1707 The Act of Union was passed, merging the English and Scottish parliaments and paving the way for the new country of Great Britain.
1769 Hoax article advertising fictitious theatrical performer "The Bottle Conjuror" drew huge crowds to the Haymarket Theatre, London.One of the worst riots in theatre history occurred at the Haymarket Theatre, London. Crowds had packed out the venue to see a conjuror who claimed he would get himself into a quart tavern bottle.The conjuror never arrived and the crowd erupted. It's alleged the Duke of Montagu perpetrated the fiasco to win a bet
1908 The first issue of the magazine Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship; the first book on the Scout Movement. It was written and illustrated by Robert Baden-Powell, its founder. It is reputedly the fourth best selling book of the 20th century, estimated at 100 to 150 million copies, in 87 languages.
1909 Ernest Shackleton’s British expedition reached the area of the South Magnetic Pole.
1930 Frank Whittle submitted his first patent for a jet engine ( British Patent No. 347,206 - granted in 1932). He had his first engine running by April 1937. This replica of Britain's first jet propelled aircraft,the Gloster-Whittle E.28/39 stands on the Whittle Roundabout at the junction of A426 and A4303 in .Lutterworth.
1939 The Irish Republican Army (IRA) begins its bombing and sabotage campaign in England.
1945 Adolf Hitler moved into his underground bunker the so-called Führerbunker. It was located beneath Hitler's New Reich Chancellery in Berlin and was the last of the Führer Headquarters to be used by Hitler. It became the epicentre of the Nazi regime and it was here during the last week of April 1945 that Hitler married Eva Braun shortly before they committed suicide.
1950 Listen With Mother began on radio with the words "Hello children. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin". When the series ended in 1982 there was a national outcry
1957 The Cavern Club opened in Liverpool. It provided a showcase for many young rock ‘n’ roll musicians, among them the Beatles.
1962 Shooting begins on "Dr No" the first James Bond film.
1974 "Jaws" by Peter Benchley is published by Doubleday.
1979 BBC landmark nature series "Life on Earth" presented by David Attenborough first shown on BBC One.
1980 Paul McCartney is arrested at Tokyo International Airport for possession of marijuana he is sent to jail for nine days before being deported.
1981 Boxer Leon Spinks is mugged,his assailants even take his gold teeth.
1982 Britain and the Vatican resumed full diplomatic relations after a break of exactly 447 years.
1984 Paul & Linda McCartney arrested in Barbados-possession of cannabis.
1991 Operation 'Desert Storm' began against Iraq, for its invasion of Kuwait.
2003 The Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which would be its final one. Columbia disintegrates 16 days later on re-entry.
Comments
The big freeze meant that only 3 of the scheduled 32 FA Cup 3rd Round ties were played, with the last tie in that round not being decided until March 11th. The Lincoln v Coventry tie was postponed a total of 15 times and 14 of the other ties suffered 10 or more postponements. Between December 8th and 16th February Bolton did not play a single competitive match.
The horses were grafters, I bet they were wishing they could have run a bit faster, and become racehorses.
I will never be able to understand why they shut down the "first in the world."
1066 The coronation of Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, succeeding Edward the Confessor. He reigned for ten months before he died at the Battle of Hastings, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the Conqueror. Harold was the first of only three Kings of England to have died in battle; the other two being Richard I and Richard III.
1367 Birth in Bordeaux of King Richard II, the last of the Plantagenet kings of England. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince.
1412 The birth of St Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans. She was a great heroine of French history and believed that she had a divine mission to drive the British from France. She died at the stake after being captured by the Burgundians and sold to the British.
1540 King Henry VIII married ‘the Flanders Mare’, Anne of Cleves, his fourth wife. The King found her so different from her picture that he swore they had brought him a Flanders mare. She was Queen of England from 6th January 1540 to 9th July 1540. The marriage was never consummated, and, following the annulment of their marriage, Anne was given a generous settlement by the King and was referred to thereafter as the King's Beloved Sister. She lived to see the coronation of Henry's daughter, (Mary I) and outlasted all of Henry's wives.
1681 1st recorded boxing match (Duke of Albemarle's butler vs his butcher).The first recorded boxing match took place when Christopher Monck,the 2nd Duke of Albemarle, engineered a bout between his butler and his butcher, with the butcher coming out on top.
1839 The most damaging storm in 300 years swept across Ireland, damaging or destroying more than 20% of the houses in Dublin.
1916 World War I - The British Government introduced conscription, to replace the many thousands killed in the trenches in France.
1928 Four people were drowned, and many paintings in the basement of the Tate Gallery were severely damaged, when the Thames flooded. The water was deep enough to fill the moat of the Tower of London.
1938 The 82-year-old Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psychoanalysis, arrived in London from Vienna with several of his students, to escape the persecution of Jews.
1974 United Kingdom begins three-day work week during energy crisis.
1976 Rentaghost, the children's comedy series first aired.
1977 The music publisher EMI ended its contract with the notorious punk rock group, Sex Pistols, after reports of abusive behaviour at Heathrow Airport.
1979 The Village People's Y.M.C.A becomes their only UK #1 single. At its peak it sold over 150,000 copies a day.
1983 The Royal Navy arrested a Danish trawler captain (Kent Kirk) for illegally entering British waters in the first confrontation of the ' fish war'. The move followed Denmark's refusal to agree to proposals for a new EEC fishing regime.
1987 The first episode of TV's Inspector Morse was broadcast.
2000 The flu outbreak in Britain puts pressure on NHS.The big flu outbreak occurred in 1999/2000,when 22,000 people died,which is 10 times the average for a winter flu season.
2013 Jessops, the High Street camera retailer founded in Leicester in 1935 by Frank Jessop, went into administration. On 11th January it was announced that Jessops was to shut all of its stores at the end of the day's trading, resulting in the loss of 1,370 jobs.
2014 54 year old Stephen Gough, the so-called 'Naked Rambler' was jailed for 16 months after a jury took just two minutes to find him guilty of breaching an antisocial behaviour order designed to prevent him from appearing nude in public. Gough has been convicted for dozens of offences, mainly in Scotland, where he was repeatedly arrested during attempts to walk from Land's End to John o'Groats without clothes.
2015 The death was announced of D-Day veteran Bernard Jordan (aged 90). In June 2014 he sparked a police search when he left the care home in Hove to join fellow veterans and attended the 70th anniversary D-Day commemorations in France. His wife Irene (aged 88) died just days after her husband. They left their entire state, estimated at being worth around £600,000 to the RNLI.
2019 Record $3.1 million (333.6 million yen) price for giant bluefin tuna at Tokyo's Toyosu fish market bought by sushi restaurant owner Kiyoshi Kimura.
Bill Shankly took another step on his managerial path to Liverpool when he was appointed boss of Workington, then in Division 3 North of the Football League. Life was very different at Borough Park than he would later find at Anfield. At Workington he was expected to do his share of answering the phone and doing the banking but his biggest shock came on his first day at the club when he discovered there was no electricity at the Workington ground. In those pre-internet, pre-floodlight days all the lighting and heating at Borough Park was gas-powered!
Football On This Day - 6th January 1974.
A war in the Middle East causing a three-day working week in this country led to the first senior Sunday matches being played in England. Four FA Cup Third Round ties were played on Sunday 6th January 1974, the first that kicked off was between Cambridge United and Oldham Athletic. Two weeks later Football League matches were played for the first time on a Sunday and football on the Sabbath was here to stay.
Football On This Day - 6th January 1975.
A home League defeat to Notts County over the Christmas period saw Nottingham Forest sack their manager Allan Brown and on 6th January 1975 they appointed his successor....Brian Clough. After his failures at Brighton and Leeds few would have expected great things at the City Ground but he turned a mid-table Second Division side into League champions in 1978 and European Cup winners in 1979 and 1980.
Football On This Day - 6th January 1990.
A memorable day for Cardiff City. Their FA Cup Third Round tie against Queens Park Rangers saw them bank then record club receipts for a match at their former Ninian Park home - £50,517.75. Well, they would have banked it on Monday but sadly for Cardiff's bank balance thieves broke into the safe over the weekend and pinched the lot!
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.
1558 English forces were ousted from the French port of Calais, led by the Duke of Guise. Calais had surrendered to an invading English army in 1346 and its recapture by the French saw the last continental possession of England forfeited.
1601 Robert, Earl of Essex, leads revolt in London against Queen Elizabeth.
1618 Francis Bacon became Lord Chancellor of England. Later that year he was accused of taking a bribe, and fined £40,000, a huge sum of money for those times.
1714 Typewriter patented by Englishman Henry Mill (built years later).
1785 1st balloon flight across English Channel by Jean Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries.
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.
1889 Birth of Arthur Clifford Hartley, the English inventor of World War II’s PLUTO (Pipeline Under The Ocean), a series of 21 undersea pipes used to transport oil from Britain to continental Europe. He also invented FIDO (Fog Investigation Dispersal Operation) which is credited with bringing 2500 aircraft and 10,000 aircrew safely home during the war.
1904 The CQD distress signal was introduced. CQ stood for ‘seek you’, and the D for ‘danger’. It lasted just two years before being replaced with SOS.
1915 World War I: Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm approves strategic bombing of Britain, but forbids bombing London, fearing his relatives in the royal family might be killed.
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.
1927 Harlem Globetrotters play their 1st game in Hinckley, Illinois.
1948 Thomas Mantell, a pilot for the Kentucky Air National Guard, crashes while pursuing a supposed UFO.
1965 Identical twin brothers Ronald and Reginald Kray were in custody, charged in connection with running a protection racket.
1973 British Darts Organisation founded in North London.
1976 The Ministry of Defence claimed that a British naval frigate, HMS Andromeda, had been deliberately rammed into by an Icelandic gunboat in the Atlantic. The ‘attack’ was one of several incidents between Britain and Iceland with regard to disputed fishing territory.
1990 Tower of Pisa closed to the public after leaning too far.
1994 After a wait of 800 years, girls were invited to join the Cathedral Choir at Wells in Somerset.
1998 Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky signs affidavit denying she had an affair with President Bill Clinton.
1999 President Bill Clinton's Impeachment trial begins in the US Senate after the House voted to impeach him for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
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.
2015 Terrorist attack on the offices of satirical newspaper "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris kills 12.
2019 Amazon overtakes Microsoft to become the world's most valuable listed company for the first time, worth $797 billion.
871 Alfred the Great (born in Oxfordshire) led a West Saxon army to repel an invasion by the Vikings.
1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie occupied Stirling. Such early successes would prove short-lived for the pretender to the throne. His army seized control of the town but failed to take the castle and subsequently retreated northwards.
1800 London opened its first soup kitchens for the poor.
1815 Britain lost the last battle it ever fought against the US in the War of 1812 when General Sir Edward Pakenham and his men were defeated at New Orleans.
1877 Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain (Montana Territory).
1902 New York state assemblyman Francis G. Landon gets a bill passed to criminalize men turning around on a street and "looking at a woman in that way".
1921 David Lloyd George became the first Prime Minister to reside in Chequers, a country mansion in Buckinghamshire which had been given by Lord Lee of Fareham as a gift to the nation.
1940 World War II: Britain introduced food rationing. Restaurants were initially exempt from rationing, but this was resented, as the rich could supplement their food allowance by eating out frequently and extravagantly, so new rules were introduced.
1941 Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scout movement, died, aged 83 in Kenya and was buried at Nyeri. His gravestone bears a circle with a dot in the centre, which is the trail sign for 'Going home', or 'I have gone home'. When his wife Olave died in 1977, her ashes were sent to Kenya and interred beside her husband. Kenya has declared Baden-Powell's grave a national monument.
1942 The birth of Stephen Hawking, possibly the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Albert Einstein. He wrote A Brief History of Time,which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. His book sold at least 25,000,000 copies,was no doubt read by many thousands but maybe understood by only hundreds.
1947 Birth of David Robert Jones known professionally as David Bowie was an English singer-songwriter and actor.He was a leading figure in the music industry and is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.
1962 21 year old golfer Jack Nicklaus makes his first professional appearance; tied 50th in Los Angeles Open.
1967 The Forsyte Saga,the television adaptation of Galsworthy’s novel,screened its first episode. It was so popular that for the six months of its run, many churches had to change the times of their services.
1978 TV series "All Creatures Great and Small" debuts on BBC TV, based on the books by James Herriot.
1982 Spain reopened the frontier of the British colony of Gibraltar. In return, Britain agreed to open negotiations on Gibraltar’s future, and ended its opposition to Spain joining the EEC.
1989 47 people were killed and over 80 injured when a British Midland 737-400 jet crashed on the M1 motorway. Remarkably nobody travelling on the motorway was hurt. The plane had developed a problem in its left engine shortly after it took off from Heathrow. The pilots mistakenly believed that the fault was in the right hand engine which they shut down,leading to the crash,just yards from the runway of East Midlands Airport.
1992 George H. W. Bush gets ill & vomits on Japanese prime minister's lap.
2001 The High Court ruled that the identities and whereabouts of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables,who murdered toddler James Bulger in 1993 would be kept secret for the rest of their lives.Venables was subsequently returned to prison in March 2010 for other offences and it was decided that he would stay in prison 'for the foreseeable future',as he would be likely to reveal his identity if released. A mere 18 months later it was reported that the Parole Board for England and Wales had approved the release of Venables,who was subsequently released from prison on 3rd September 2013.
2004 The liner RMS Queen Mary 2, was named by Queen Elizabeth II. At the time of her construction in 2003 she was the longest, widest and tallest passenger ship ever built, and at 151,400 gross tons, she was also the largest.
Football On This Day - 8th January 1997.
Such is the turnover of managers it is rarely a shock when a manager leaves a club but there was widespread and genuine shock on Tyneside when Kevin Keegan resigned as Newcastle United manager on this day in 1997. Former Newcastle player Keegan had taken up his first managerial post at St James’ Park in 1992 when the club was in great danger of suffering relegation to the third tier. But at the start of 1997 his Newcastle side were fourth in the Premier League, had just beaten Tottenham 7-1 in the League and had recorded a 5-0 victory over Manchester United earlier in the season. In their playing ranks they had Alan Shearer who Newcastle had bought six months earlier for a world record £15m fee, and he was scoring regularly. The club and their fans were on a high but Kevin Keegan believed he had taken the club as far as he could, and so resigned.
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.
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.
1838 First Photograph of a Person.
Louis Daguerre used his famous daguerreotype process of photography to snap a photo of the Boulevard du Temple in Paris.The streets in the photo appear deserted this is because the exposure time for the photo was so long that the cars and trams could not be captured.Thus only the man having his shoes shined and the shoeshiner were motionless enough to be caught.This is thus the first known photograph of a person.
In the bottom left corner a man can be seen having his shoes shined on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris.
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.
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.
1969 First trial flight of Concorde supersonic jetliner, Bristol, England.
1972 The Queen Elizabeth, the liner that had been turned into a sailing university, caught fire and sank in Hong Kong harbour. She had been the world’s largest passenger liner for over thirty years.
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.
2001 Apple announced iTunes at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, for organizing and playing digital music and videos.
2006 DCI Sam Tyler had an accident and woke up in 1973, in the first episode of Life on Mars.
2007 Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs announces the iPhone.
2014 The closure of Clerkenwell fire station, close to King's Cross in London. Built in 1872, it was the UK's oldest fire station.
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.
We waited an hour for a chance to see the Flying Scotsman go through.
This video always makes me laugh
Manchester City recorded their lowest ever League attendance at Maine Road with just 8,015 turning up for their Second Division fixture with Swindon Town. City lost 2-1 with Mike Summerbee scoring one of Swindon’s goals. The next time Mike Summerbee played at Maine Road he was in the Manchester City colours – he moved north at the start of the following season and helped with a dramatic improvement in City fortunes. In 1965/66 when they won the Second Division title with the Maine Road crowd topping 63,000 for a cup-tie. More success followed over the next few seasons with City winning the League title, FA Cup, League Cup and European Cup-Winners Cup.
Football On This Day - 9th January 1979.
Charlton Athletic players Mick Flanagan and Derek Hales were sent off in an FA Cup Third Round tie against non-leaguers Maidstone United - for fighting each other!
1645 The execution of William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was beheaded on Tower Hill after being found ‘guilty of endeavouring to subvert the laws, to overthrow the Protestant religion, and to act as an enemy to Parliament’. The next archbishop was not appointed until fifteen years later, with the Restoration of Charles II.
1839 Indian tea was auctioned in Britain for the first time. Previously, only China tea had been available, at great expense. After the introduction of Indian tea, prices fell and tea became so affordable that it was soon the national drink.
1840 Sir Rowland Hill introduced the Penny Post to Britain. Mail was delivered at a standard charge rather than being paid by the recipient. On its first day, 112,000 letters were posted in London alone.
1863 The first section of the London Underground railway was opened, by Prime Minister Gladstone. It ran from Paddington to Farringdon Street, stopping at seven stations. The trains ran every fifteen minutes.
1897 Ukrainian bacteriologist Wademar Haffkine performs the first human trial for a vaccine for the plague on himself during the Bombay epidemic.
1918 The House of Lords gave its approval to the Representation of the People Bill, which gave woman over the age of 30 the right to vote, as recognition of the contribution made by women defence workers during the First World War. However, women were still not politically equal to men, who could vote from the age of 21. Full electoral equality wouldn't occur until the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act of 1928.
1946 The General Assembly of the United Nations met for the first time, at Westminster Central Hall.
1949 RCA introduces the 45 RPM record.
1956 Elvis Presley records single "Heartbreak Hotel".
1958 Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire" reaches #1 on the UK pop charts.
1979 'Crisis? What Crisis?' Prime Minister James Callaghan flew back into strike-torn Britain denying allegations that the country was in chaos during the 'Winter of Discontent' strike wave.
1985 The C5 electric car, with a top speed of 15 mph (the fastest allowed in the UK without a driving licence) was demonstrated by its inventor, Sir Clive Sinclair. It retailed for £399 but only 17,000 were ever sold and Sinclair Vehicles was put into receivership on 12th October 1985.
1985 Eight people died and dozens were injured when an explosion destroyed a block of exclusive flats in south-west London. The blast was compared to a 50lb bomb going off and caused an estimated £250m worth of damage in addition to the loss of life.
1994 Trial of Lorena Bobbitt who cut off her husband's ****,begins.
1999 "The Sopranos", starring James Gandolfini as mobster Tony Soprano, debuts on HBO.
2015 The Falklands commemorated Margaret Thatcher by unveiling a statue of the late Prime Minister who led the 1982 war that kept the island British. (Note - 10th January is Margaret Thatcher Day on the Falklands.)
2016 The death, from liver cancer, of the English singer, songwriter David Bowie, aged 69.
1569 The first state lottery took place in England. Lots were sold at the West Door of St Paul’s Cathedral. National lotteries continued until 1826 when it was felt that " the inducement to gambling held out by lotteries is a great moral evil, helping to impoverish many and diverting attention from the more legitimate industrial modes of moneymaking."
1838 First public demonstration of telegraph messages sent using dots and dashes at Speedwell Ironworks in Morristown, New Jersey by Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail.
1857 Jockey Fred Archer was born. He won his first race at the age of 12 and was a Champion Jockey for 13 consecutive years until 1886. He won 2748 races during his career, including five Derby winners. In 1885 he rode 246 winners, a record that wasn't broken until Gordon Richards' 1933 season. Archer committed suicide, aged 29, by shooting himself, following depression after the death of his wife.
1864 Charing Cross Station opens in London.
1879 The start of the Zulu war against British colonial rule in South Africa.War begins as British Lt-General Chelmsford invades Zululand in South Africa.
1922 Insulin first used on humans to treat diabetes,on Canadian Leonard Thompson aged 14.
1928 The death of Thomas Hardy,the English playwright and poet.He died aged 87 having dictated his final poem to his wife on his deathbed.He is buried at Westminster Abbey,which proved controversial as Hardy and his family and friends had wanted him to be interred at his birth place in Stinsford Dorchester,in the same grave as his first wife Emma. A compromise was reached whereby his heart was buried at Stinsford with Emma and his ashes in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey.
1954 All Comet airliners were grounded.The day before,35 people had died in a mysterious crash off the island of Elba. In 1953, another Comet had crashed inexplicably near Calcutta when 'it fell out of the sky for no apparent reason’. The cause was finally traced to a structural fault with serious consequences for British aviation.
1973 The first 867 graduates from the Open University were awarded their degrees after two years studying from home.
1984 French farmers hijacked British lorries in a dispute against meat imports.
1993 British Airways was forced into an embarrassing climb-down in relation to a campaign of 'dirty tricks' it had launched against rival airline Virgin Atlantic. BA was forced to pay damages to both Virgin Atlantic and its boss Richard Branson.
2014 Three Britons made the shortlist of just over 1,000 who want to take part in the Dutch project 'Mars One'. It hopes to send 24 people from around the world on a one way trip to settle on Mars, after going through a seven-year training course, commencing in 2018.
2018 US President Donald Trump causes worldwide controversy when it is reported he called African countries "shitholes" during immigration meeting.
1510 Henry VIII, then just 18 years old, appeared incognito in a jousting tournament at Richmond Park, and was applauded for his jousting before he revealed his true identity.
1866 The Aeronautical Society of Great Britain was formed in London, thirty seven years before the Wright Brothers achieved the first successful powered flight.
1895 The National Trust was founded by three Victorian philanthropists - Miss Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley.Octavia Hill was concerned about the poor availability of open spaces for poor people.
1899 Unable to launch their lifeboat at Lynmouth because of heavy storms,the crew,horses and helpers dragged their 10 ton lifeboat Louisa and carriage in the dark the 15 miles overland to Porlock Weir. The 11 hour journey across Exmoor included a haul over Countisbury Hill (1 in 4) followed by descending another 1 in 4 hill down into Porlock where the corner of a house had to be demolished to gain access.Their rescue of the 18 crew from Forrest Hall was successful.The journey was re-enacted in daylight on 12th January 1999.
1948 First supermarket in UK opens,the self-service supermarket came to Britain when the London Co-Operative Society opened a store in Manor Park.
1950 The British submarine Truculent collided with a Swedish oil tanker Divina,in the Thames.The two vessels remained locked together for a few seconds before the submarine sank,resulting in the deaths of 64 people. An inquiry attributed 75% of the blame to Truculent and 25% to Divina.Truculent was sold and broken up for scrap in May 1950.
1959 Henry Cooper defeated Brian London on points over 15 rounds,becoming British and European heavyweight boxing champion.Cooper was the first to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award twice (in 1967 and 1970). He is the only British boxer to win three Lonsdale Belts outright and he was knighted in 2000.
1966 "Batman", starring Adam West as Batman,Burt Ward as Robin and Cesar Romero as The Joker debuts on ABC.
1967 Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation and remains preserved at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.
1970 The Boeing 747 completed its first transatlantic flight from New York to Heathrow. It is still often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet or Queen of the Skies.The 747 was the first 'wide-body' ever produced. It held the passenger capacity record of 660 (in single class layout) for 37 years until October 2007 when the Airbus A380 took to the skies with a maximum passenger capacity of 850.
1976 Crime writer Dame Agatha Christie died leaving a final book waiting to be published. According to the Guinness Book of World Records,Christie is the best selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly four billion copies and her estate claims that her works rank third after those of William Shakespeare and the Bible as the most widely published books.
1978 The executors of Lady Churchill’s estate admitted that she had burnt Graham Sutherland’s portrait of Sir Winston 18 months after the House of Commons had presented it to him in 1954. Sir Winston ironically described it as ‘a remarkable example of modern art’.
Finding the depiction deeply unflattering Churchill disliked the portrait intensely.After its public presentation the painting was taken to his country home at Chartwell but not put on display.After the death of Lady Spencer-Churchill in 1977 it came to light that she had the painting destroyed some months after it was delivered to relieve her husband's frustration.
1979 DR. FEELGOOD released the single, MILK AND ALCOHOL.
1982 Mark Thatcher,son of the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,went missing in the Sahara while taking part in the Paris-Dakar Rally. He was rescued two days later and it turned out that he had lost his way.The incident provoked a tidal wave of jokes and cartoons making fun of his sense of direction.
1995 Murder trial against O.J. Simpson, begins in LA.
2001 Sven Goran Eriksson became the first foreign coach of the England football team. In 2006,he was recorded as saying that he would be willing to leave England to manage Aston Villa if England won the World Cup,after being duped into believing that a wealthy Arab would buy the club and wanted him as manager.The wealthy Arab was in fact a 'Fake Sheikh',an undercover News of the World reporter.On 4th May 2006 the FA announced that Steve McClaren, Eriksson's assistant would take over after the World Cup.
One of the immortals of the English game made his Football League debut. Just 10 days short of his 17th birthday Dixie Dean played for his local club,Tranmere Rovers,in a Division 3 (North) match at Rotherham County (as Rotherham United were then). Tranmere lost the match 5-1. His debut might have been a disappointment but his goalscoring record of 27 goals in 30 League outings for Tranmere brought him to the attention of near neighbours Everton who signed him in March 1925.From then on it was goals all the way with his achievement of scoring 349 goals in 399 League appearances being an Everton record while his 60 League goals in 1927/28 is an English record that seems unbeatable,he also scored 18 goals in 16 appearances for England. In May 2001 a statue of the Everton legend was unveiled outside of Goodison Park and tragically he died on 1st March 1980 at Goodison while watching an Everton-Liverpool local derby.
1691 The death of George Fox,English founder of the religious group of the Society of Friends,also known as the Quakers.He was interred in the Nonconformists' burying ground at Bunhill Fields in London,in the presence of thousands of mourners.(Note - In 1652, George Fox climbed Pendle Hill in Lancashire,where he had a vision of a "great people to be gathered",leading to the beginning of the Quaker movement.)
1785 John Walter publishes 1st issue of "The Times" of London.
1832 The death of Thomas Lord, English professional cricketer and founder of Lord's Cricket Ground in 1787. He is buried in the churchyard of St. John's Church at West Meon in Hampshire.
1842 Dr. William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British East India Company Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War is famous for being the only member of an army of 4,500 men and 12,000 civilians to survive a massacre after the army's long retreat from Kabul. He safely reached the British sentry post at Jalalabad, Afghanistan 'On This Day'. The episode was made the subject of a famous painting by the Victorian artist Lady Butler,who portrayed an exhausted Dr. Brydon approaching the gates of the Jalalabad fort perched on his dying horse.The painting is titled Remnants of an Army.
1893 The birth of a new political party in Britain when James Keir Hardie and others formed the Independent Labour Party. It was an action that worried the Liberals,who were afraid that the new party might at some point in the future win the working-class votes that they traditionally received.
1926 The birth of Michael Bond, English children’s writer and creator of ‘Paddington Bear’. Whilst working as a BBC television cameraman Bond had his first book published, 'A Bear Called Paddington'. It was the start of Bond's most famous series of books, telling the tales of a bear from 'Darkest Peru', whose Aunt Lucy sent him to England, carrying a jar of marmalade.
1958 In Scotland, the serial killer Peter Manuel was arrested after a series of attacks over a two year period that left nine people dead although he is suspected of having killed as many as eighteen. Manuel was hanged in Barlinnie prison on 11th July 1958. He was one of the last prisoners to die on the Barlinnie gallows.
1964 Capital Records grudgingly released the first Beatles record, ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’, in the US to, as they said 'see how it goes’. It became their fastest selling single ever. Within only three weeks, a million copies had been sold.
1979 YMCA files libel suit against Village People's YMCA song.
1989 Computers across Britain hit by "Friday the 13th"/Jerusalem virus.
1992 Japan apologizes for forcing Korean women into sexual slavery during World War II.
2004 Dr. Harold Shipman, who is believed to have killed more than 200 of his patients, was found hanged in his prison cell. To date Shipman is the only British doctor to have been proved guilty of murdering his patients in addition to being one of the most prolific serial killers in recorded history.
1742 The death of Sir Edmund Halley, aged 86; astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist. He was Astronomer Royal who gave his name to a comet.
1878 Queen Victoria watched a demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, by W.H. Preece at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Preece called it 'Signalling through Space without Wires'.
1886 Birth of Hugh Lofting, creator of ‘Dr Dolittle’. He trained as a civil engineer prior to enlisting in the Irish Guards to serve in World War I. He wrote illustrated letters home to his children from the trenches during World War I when actual news, he later said, was either too horrible or too dull. These letters became the foundation of the his successful Doctor Dolittle novels for children.
1896 The first public screening of a film in Britain, at the London headquarters of the Royal Photographic society.
1898 The death at Guildford of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson,who wrote under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll and who was author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
1937 The first Gallup Opinion Poll was conducted in Britain. It was the invention of the American George Horace Gallup who founded the Gallup Institute in 1935.
1947 The Covent Garden Opera Company opened with Karl Rankl’s production of Carmen, in the newly renovated theatre which had been a dance hall during the war.
1966 David Bowie releases his 1st single "Can't Help Thinking About Me".
1969 Football legend Sir Matt Busby announced that he would retire as manager of Manchester United at the end of the season. Formerly a Scottish football player and manager he was most noted for his time as managing Manchester United between 1945 and 1969.
1975 A 17-year-old heiress,Lesley Whittle, was kidnapped from her home in Shropshire. Her body was found on 7th March 1975, hanging from a wire at the bottom of a drain shaft in Bathpool Park, Staffordshire. Donald Neilson also known as the Black Panther was convicted of her murder (and three others) in July 1976.
1978 Sex Pistols' final concert held in Winterland, San Francisco.
1984 Madonna 1st sings "Holiday" on American Bandstand.
1989 Muslims in Bradford ritually burned a copy of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in the first serious protest in Britain. The book had been banned in some Muslim countries.
2002 After three months of no cases being reported, the United Kingdom was finally declared free from the 'Foot and Mouth' infection, after a crisis that started in 2001 in which millions of cows and sheep were destroyed.
2013 Music and DVD chain HMV appointed an administrator, making it the latest casualty on the High Street and putting 4,350 jobs at risk. Quote from retail analyst Neil Saunders - "In the digital era, where 73.4% of music and film are online .... there is no real future for physical retail in the music sector."
2014 Monkeys at Paignton Zoo in Devon were banned from eating bananas. Keepers said - "Giving monkeys bananas that have been cultivated for humans is like giving them cake and chocolate. Reducing the sugar in their diets has calmed them down and made their group more settled."
1535 Henry VIII assumed the title 'Supreme Head of the Church'.
1559 Elizabeth I was crowned Queen of England at the age of 26. She was the daughter of Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn and the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.
1759 The opening of the British Museum, at Montague House, London. Access often depended on who you were and who you knew. Permission had to be given by the librarian and only 10 people an hour were allowed in. Its permanent collection numbers some eight million works and is amongst the finest, most comprehensive, and largest in existence. It illustrates and documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present day.
1790 Fletcher Christian, eight fellow mutineers from the ship Bounty, six Tahitian men and 12 women, landed on the remote Pacific island of Pitcairn following the mutiny led by Christian.They stripped the Bounty of all that could be floated ashore before setting it on fire.
1797 The first top hat was worn by John Hetherington, a London haberdasher. He was fined £50 the first time he wore his new creation, 'for causing a disturbance'.The arresting officer told the court that nobody had seen anything like it before: “He had such a tall and shiny construction on his head that it must have terrified nervous people. The sight of this construction was so overstated that various women fainted,children began to cry and dogs started to bark. One child broke his arm among all the jostling.”
1859 The National Portrait Gallery opened to the public in Great George Street. There were only 56 portraits and viewing was by appointment on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
1867 Crowds flocked onto the frozen surface of the lake in London’s Regent's Park during a severe frost. The ice broke, and 40 people died.
1870 Britain's first woman doctor, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, passed the final exam of the Medical Faculty of the Sorbonne and became a fully qualified MD.
1880 The London Telephone Company published the first directory, listing 255 subscribers.
1893 The birth in Cardiff,of Ivor Novello,Welsh composer and actor.His first big hit was 'Keep the Home Fires Burning which was very popular during World War I. The Ivor Novello Awards for songwriting were established in 1955 in Novello's memory and are awarded each year by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.
1895 Tchaikovsky's ballet "Swan Lake" premieres, St Petersburg.
1927 BBC radio broadcast the first live commentary of a rugby match. Captain Teddy Wakelam narrated the match at Twickenham, between Wales and England. The following Saturday Wakelam provided the first football commentary from Highbury,where Arsenal was playing Sheffield United.
1943 World's largest office building, the Pentagon is completed to house the US military.
1962 The centigrade or Celsius scale was used in the British Meteorological Office weather forecasts for the first time, more than 200 years after the death of the Swedish scientist who invented it.
1965 Rock group Who releases first album "I Can't Explain".
1971 George Harrison releases "My Sweet Lord" single in the UK.
1974 TV sitcom "Happy Days" begins an 11 year run on ABC.
1981 "Hill Street Blues" premieres on NBC-TV.
1982 Mark Thatcher, son of UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, makes his way home after 6 days missing in the Sahara.
1984 Martina Navratilova’s 54-match winning streak ends when beaten by Hana Mandlíková 7-6, 3-6, 6-4 in the final of the Virginia Slims of California tennis event in Oakland; after loss Navratilova wins next 74 matches for new record.
2001 Wikipedia a free Wiki or content encyclopedia is launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger.
2009 Chesley Sullenberger lands US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in NYC. All passengers and crew members survive in what becomes known as the "Miracle on the Hudson".
Passengers wait to be rescued on the wings of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River.
2011 The death of Nathaniel (Nat) Lofthouse, OBE, English professional footballer who played for Bolton Wanderers for his whole career. He was capped 33 times for the England national football team between 1950 and 1958, scoring 30 goals and having one of the greatest goals per game ratios of any player to represent England at the highest level.
2014 The death, aged 69, of actor Roger Lloyd-Pack, who played Trigger in Only Fools And Horses. He appeared in dozens of TV shows and films, including Dr Who, The Vicar Of Dibley, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire.
1572 Thomas Howard, the Fourth Duke of Norfolk and second cousin of Queen Elizabeth I was tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to assassinate the Queen, replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots and restore Catholicism in England. The plot was hatched and planned by Roberto di Ridolfi, an international banker who was able to travel and gather support without attracting too much suspicion. Norfolk was later executed at the Tower of London for his involvement but Ridolfi lived out his life in Florence until his death in 1612.
1581 The English Parliament outlawed Roman Catholicism.
1604 At the Hampton Court Conference, John Rainolds presented to King James I the motion '...that there might bee a newe translation of the Bible.' Approved the next day, Rainolds' motion led to the 1611 publication of the King James Bible.
1707 The Act of Union was passed, merging the English and Scottish parliaments and paving the way for the new country of Great Britain.
1769 Hoax article advertising fictitious theatrical performer "The Bottle Conjuror" drew huge crowds to the Haymarket Theatre, London.One of the worst riots in theatre history occurred at the Haymarket Theatre, London. Crowds had packed out the venue to see a conjuror who claimed he would get himself into a quart tavern bottle.The conjuror never arrived and the crowd erupted. It's alleged the Duke of Montagu perpetrated the fiasco to win a bet
1908 The first issue of the magazine Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship; the first book on the Scout Movement. It was written and illustrated by Robert Baden-Powell, its founder. It is reputedly the fourth best selling book of the 20th century, estimated at 100 to 150 million copies, in 87 languages.
1909 Ernest Shackleton’s British expedition reached the area of the South Magnetic Pole.
1930 Frank Whittle submitted his first patent for a jet engine ( British Patent No. 347,206 - granted in 1932). He had his first engine running by April 1937. This replica of Britain's first jet propelled aircraft,the Gloster-Whittle E.28/39 stands on the Whittle Roundabout at the junction of A426 and A4303 in .Lutterworth.
1939 The Irish Republican Army (IRA) begins its bombing and sabotage campaign in England.
1939 Daily newspaper comic strip "Superman" debuts.
1945 Adolf Hitler moved into his underground bunker the so-called Führerbunker. It was located beneath Hitler's New Reich Chancellery in Berlin and was the last of the Führer Headquarters to be used by Hitler. It became the epicentre of the Nazi regime and it was here during the last week of April 1945 that Hitler married Eva Braun shortly before they committed suicide.
1950 Listen With Mother began on radio with the words "Hello children. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin". When the series ended in 1982 there was a national outcry
1957 The Cavern Club opened in Liverpool. It provided a showcase for many young rock ‘n’ roll musicians, among them the Beatles.
1962 Shooting begins on "Dr No" the first James Bond film.
1974 "Jaws" by Peter Benchley is published by Doubleday.
1979 BBC landmark nature series "Life on Earth" presented by David Attenborough first shown on BBC One.
1980 Paul McCartney is arrested at Tokyo International Airport for possession of marijuana he is sent to jail for nine days before being deported.
1981 Boxer Leon Spinks is mugged,his assailants even take his gold teeth.
1982 Britain and the Vatican resumed full diplomatic relations after a break of exactly 447 years.
1984 Paul & Linda McCartney arrested in Barbados-possession of cannabis.
1991 Operation 'Desert Storm' began against Iraq, for its invasion of Kuwait.
2003 The Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which would be its final one. Columbia disintegrates 16 days later on re-entry.