1648 Parliament broke off negotiations with King Charles I, in response to the news that Charles was entering into an engagement with the Scots, thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War.
1746 ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ and his Highlanders won the battle of Falkirk. It was to be their last victory in the 'forty-five' Jacobite uprising, as three months later they were defeated at Culloden.
1773 Captain Cook's ship and his crew, aboard 'Resolution', became the first Europeans to sail below the Antarctic Circle. Cook also surveyed, mapped and took possession for Britain of South Georgia. He almost encountered the mainland of Antarctica, but turned back north towards Tahiti to resupply his ship, then resumed his southward course in a second fruitless attempt to find the continent.
1775 9 old women burnt as witches for causing bad harvests in Kalisk, Poland.
1863 The birth, in Chorlton-on-Medlock,near Manchester,of David Lloyd George,Welsh politician. In 1909 he introduced old-age pensions,followed in 1911 by health and unemployment insurance. In 1916 he became Prime Minister of a coalition government.
1896 The Daimler Motor Company (Coventry) was registered as the first British car manufacturer.
1912 Captain Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole, only to find that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him by one month.
1920 First day of prohibition of alcohol comes into effect in the US as a result of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution.
1929 Popeye makes 1st appearance, in comic strip "Thimble Theater".
1945 The **** began the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces closed in. Nearly one and a half thousand British prisoners of war were sent to the Auschwitz death camps.
1968 The motor manufacturer British Leyland was formed; from the merger of British Motor Holdings Ltd. and Leyland Motor Corp. Ltd.
1973 The future had arrived as the Post Office introduced a pocket radio pager.
1986 The Royal yacht Britannia evacuated Britons and other foreign nationals from Aden during their civil war.
1986 Tim Witherspoon beats defending champion Tony Tubbs by majority decision in 15 rounds at The Omni, Atlanta for WBA heavyweight boxing title.
1987 US President Reagan signs secret order permitting covert sale of arms to Iran.
2007 Doomsday Clock set to five minutes to midnight in response to North Korea's 1st nuclear test.
2008 British Airways Flight 38 crash landed just short of London Heathrow Airport with no fatalities. It was the first complete hull loss of a Boeing 777, the world's largest twin jet aircraft.
2014 Cambridge City Council said that apostrophes on new street signs would be abolished,a decision that was condemned by language traditionalists.The naming policy also banned street names which would be "difficult to pronounce or awkward to spell" and any that "could give offence" or would "encourage defacing of nameplates". After an intervention by cabinet minister Eric Pickles,local people in Cambridge started to edit street signs adding apostrophes if they were necessary.
2015 American boxer Deontay Wilder wins the WBC heavyweight championship by unanimous decision over Bermane Stiverne at MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas; Wilder first American to hold a heavyweight title since Shannon Briggs in 2007.
The highest attendance for a League match in England was recorded in the First Division match between Manchester United and Arsenal - 83,260. The match was played at Manchester City's Maine Road ground with Old Trafford still closed because of wartime damage.
Football On This Day – 17th January 2011.
Liverpool's Ryan Babel became the first footballer to be fined for comments made on Twitter. He was fined £10,000 for posting a doctored picture of referee Howard Webb wearing a Manchester United shirt with the tweet 'And they call him one of the best referees. That's a joke.' As you will have guessed Babel believed that Webb had made a poor decision in a Liverpool v Manchester United match.
1486 After 30 years of civil war the Royal Houses of Lancaster and York were united by the marriage of Henry VII to Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV.
1644 Perplexed Pilgrims in Boston reported America's 1st UFO sighting.
1670 Henry Morgan captured Panama. Morgan was a privateer who made a name for himself during activities in the Caribbean, primarily raiding Spanish settlements. The privateers were private people or ships, authorized by a government to attack foreign shipping during wartime. It was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers. Morgan was one of the most notorious and successful privateers of all time, and one of the most ruthless.
1778 English navigator Captain James Cook became the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands. He named them the Sandwich Islands, after Lord Sandwich, who was then first Lord of the Admiralty.
1788 A British fleet of eleven ships and 800 convicts landed at Botany Bay, Australia. They created the first British penal colony, in Port Jackson - Sydney.
1879 The first edition of Boy’s Own Paper was published. The editor was S.O. Beeton, the husband of Mrs. Beeton, the cookery book writer.
1884 Dr. William Price a vegetarian nudist who believed in free love and herbal remedies,was arrested for cremating the body of his infant son, Iesu Grist (the Welsh for Jesus Christ), in front of onlookers on a Llantrisant hillside. Price was arrested and put on trial by those who believed that cremation was illegal in Britain. However he successfully argued that there was no legislation that specifically outlawed it which paved the way for the Cremation Act of 1902.
1888 Birth of Sir Thomas Sopwith, British aviation pioneer. It was a Sopwith Camel that shot down Von Richthofen, the Red Baron. On Sopwith’s 100th birthday, a Sopwith Pup built after World War I, led a fly-past over his home in Hampshire.
1919 Bentley Motors Limited was founded by Walter Owen Bentley,but the manufacturer did not make a complete car for 27 years only engines and chassis. Bentley had been previously known for his range of rotary aero-engines in World War I. He also designed and made production cars that won the Le Mans 24 hours in the 1920s.Bentley was purchased by Rolls-Royce in 1931,which itself was purchased by the Volkswagen Group of Germany in 1998,although the business is still based in Crewe.
1934 The first arrest was made in Britain as a result of issuing pocket radios to police. A Brighton shoplifter was arrested just 15 minutes after stealing three coats.
1974 "$6 Million Man" starring Lee Majors premieres on ABC TV.
1976 British Labour MPs Jim Sillars and John Robertson launched the Scottish Labour Party (SLP) to campaign for greater devolution for Scotland.
1978 Geoff Boycott captains England for the 1st time, v Pakistan at Karachi.
2014 UKIP councillor David Silvester blamed the recent storms and heavy floods across Britain on the Government's decision to legalise gay marriage.
2014 Lewis Clarke, a 16-year-old boy from Bristol set a new record by becoming the youngest person to trek to the South Pole. He spent 48 days at temperatures as low as -50C (-58F) and winds of up to 120 mph,covering a distance of 702 miles.
2016 World's 62 richest people are now as wealthy as half the world's population according to a report published by Oxfam.
A momentous date – the day the maximum wage was abolished in English football. In 1961 the most a footballer could be paid was £20 a week (£17 in the summer) and in its campaign to get the wage cap ended the Professional Footballers Association – led by Fulham’s Jimmy Hill – had called a players strike for Saturday January 21st 1961. Three days before the planned strike the League gave in and the maximum wage was no more allowing Hill’s Fulham team-mate, Johnny Haynes,to become the first £100 a week footballer in England. Ironically though the change didn’t see Hill get an increase in his £18 a week pay before he retired while Haynes didn’t get another pay rise in his remaining 9 years as a player.
Football On This Day - 18th January 1964.
The United Trinity of Manchester United – George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton – played together for the first time and brought almost instant success.United won 4-1 at WBA with the goals coming from Law (2), Best and Charlton.
Football On This Day – 18th January 1973.
Manchester United manager Tommy Docherty signed Celtic's Lou Macari for £200,000, the most ever paid at the time for a player in the Scottish League.
1419 Rouen surrendered to Henry V in the Hundred Years' War, completing Henry's reconquest of Normandy.
1649 The Puritan parliament began the trial of Charles I for treason. Charles refused to plead saying that he did not recognise the legality of the High Court.
1661 Thomas Venner was hanged,drawn and quartered in London. Venner was a cooper by trade but also a rebel,the last leader of the Fifth Monarchy Men who had tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Oliver Cromwell.He subsequently led a coup in London against the newly-restored government of Charles II. The coup lasted lasted four days before the Royal authorities captured the rebels.
1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops occupied Stirling.
1825 Ezra Daggett and nephew Thomas Kensett patent food storage in tin cans.
1848 The birth of Matthew Webb,the first person to swim the English Channel - (25th August 1875, in a time of 21 hours & 45 minutes).
1903 New bicycle race "Tour de France" announced.
1915 More than 20 people were killed when German zeppelins bombed England for the first time. The bombs were dropped on Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn.
1915 Neon Tube sign patented by George Claude.
1917 The Silvertown explosion in West Ham. 73 people were killed and 400 injured in an explosion in a munitions plant .The plant was destroyed instantly as were many nearby buildings including the Silvertown Fire Station and a gasometer.
1955 "Scrabble" debuts on board game market.
1973 The Statesman, an unarmed ocean going tug, was sent to protect British trawlers from Icelandic patrol boats as the dispute over cod fishing rights intensified.
1978 The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany leaves VW's plant in Emden. Beetle production in Latin America would continue until 2003.
1990 Police in Johannesburg armed with batons and dogs broke up a demonstration against English cricketers who had defied a ban on playing in segregated South Africa.
2013 A piece of music that was composed by waiting for bird droppings to fall onto giant sheets of manuscript paper received its premiere at the Tate Liverpool art gallery. Artist Kerry Morrison said that the music represented the role that birds play in the environment.
2013 Lance Armstrong admits to doping in all seven of his Tour de France victories.
1265 England's first Parliament met at Westminster Hall in London convened by the Earl of Leicester,Simon de Montfort.
1356 Edward Balliol abdicated as King of Scotland in favour of Edward III and in exchange for an English pension.He spent the rest of his life living in obscurity and died in 1367 at Wheatley Doncaster.
1649 Charles I went on trial for treason and other 'high crimes'. He was beheaded ten days later. It was reported at his execution that he wore two shirts to prevent the cold weather causing any noticeable shivers that the assembled crowd could have mistaken for fear or weakness.
1783 Great Britain signed a peace treaty with France and Spain, officially ending hostilities in the American Revolutionary War (also known as the American War of Independence).
1841 China cedes Hong Kong to the British during the 1st Opium War.
1850 The opening of the Penny Savings Bank, to encourage thrift amongst the poor.
1882 A draper’s shop called Coxon & Company in Newcastle-upon-Tyne became the first shop in the world to be lit by incandescent electric light.It used Swan lamps.
1936 George V died and was succeeded by Edward VIII who abdicated 325 days later because of his insistence on marrying American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
1942 Nazi officials hold notorious Wannsee Conference in Berlin to organize the "final solution", the extermination of Europe's Jews.
Adolf Eichmann's infamous list with estimates of the number of Jews in European countries as presented at the Wannsee Conference.
1944 RAF drops 2,300 ton of bombs on Berlin.
1961 The Democrat J.F. Kennedy is inaugurated as President of the United States,the youngest ever sworn in.
1971 Single "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye about police brutality is released.
1972 Number of people out of work and claiming unemployment benefit in UK rises to over 1 million.
1980 President Jimmy Carter announces US boycott of Olympics in Moscow.
1981 Ronald Reagan inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States of America.
1982 Heavy metal musician Ozzy Osbourne allegedly bites the head off a bat on stage in Des Moines, Iowa.
1986 France and Britain finally decided to undertake the Channel Tunnel project promising that trains would run under the Channel by 1993. When it eventually opened on 6th May 1994 it left Eurotunnel with debts of £925m a year later.
1987 The Archbishop of Canterbury's special envoy to Lebanon, Terry Waite, was kidnapped in Beirut whilst attempting to win freedom for Western hostages.
1987 UK Police crackdown on soccer hooligans in biggest operation against violence around football stadiums.
1993 Bill Clinton inaugurated as 42nd US President.
1994 British comedy "Four Weddings and a Funeral" written by Richard Curtis,starring Hugh Grant premieres at the Sundance Film Festival.
1997 Her Majesty's Royal Yacht Britannia began her final voyage to Hong Kong before being decommissioned. She is now based in Edinburgh as a visitor attraction.
2009 Barack Obama, inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America, becomes the United States' first African-American president.
2014 Dr. Michael Ramscar and a team of scientists suggested that the brains of older people only appear to slow down because they have so much information to compute, much like a full-up hard drive. “The brains of older people do not get weak. On the contrary, they simply know more.”
2017 Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States of America.
Two weeks after the first Sunday matches in the FA Cup twelve grounds hosted Football League matches for the first time on a Sunday.The first of those was at the Den when Millwall hosted Fulham in a morning Second Division fixture.The 15,143 crowd was Millwall's best of the season to date and with the other 11 clubs all recording better than average attendances it looked like Sunday football might just catch on.
Football On This Day - 20th January 2004.
The first day of Rio Ferdinand's 8 month ban for missing a drugs test. He said he forgot about it as he was moving house and had to go shopping. His forgetfulness also cost him a £50,000 fine.
1799 Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccination was introduced. His work on vaccination prevented him from continuing with his ordinary medical practice. Supported by his colleagues and the King he petitioned Parliament and was granted £10,000 for his work on vaccination. In 1806 he was granted another £20,000 for his ongoing work in microbiology.
1807 Streets in London were first illuminated by gaslight when Pall Mall was lit up.
1846 The publication of the first edition of the Daily News, edited by Charles Dickens. It merged with the Daily Chronicle to form the News Chronicle in 1930 and was ultimately absorbed by the Daily Mail in 1960.
1903 Harry Houdini escapes from Halvemaansteeg police station in Amsterdam.
1921 British crime writer Agatha Christie publishes her first novel "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" introducing the character Hercule Poirot.
1925 The birth of the comedian Benny Hill in Southampton, Hampshire. One of his biggest fans was the silent film star Charlie Chaplin.
1937 Marcel Boulestin became the first television cook when he presented the first of the Cook’s Night Out programmes on BBC.
1950 The British writer George Orwell died after a three year battle against tuberculosis. His books included 1984 and Animal Farm. They were controversial and 1984 like Animal Farm was widely viewed as an attack on the Communist system.
1966 The Monte Carlo rally ended in uproar over the disqualification of the British cars expected to fill the first four places.They were all ruled out of the prizes along with six other British cars for alleged infringements of regulations about the way their headlights dipped.
1976 The first Concorde jets carrying commercial passengers simultaneously took off at 11:40 a.m. from Heathrow Airport and Orly Airport outside Paris. The London flight was to Bahrain in the Persian Gulf and the Paris flight was to Rio de Janeiro. Nearly 3 hours was knocked off the normal flying time to Bahrain by the British Concorde but the Air France Concorde arrived 38 minutes late.
1990 John McEnroe becomes 1st ever player to be expelled from the Australian Open.
1994 Lorena Bobbitt found temporarily insane when she cut off her husband's ****.
2008 Black Monday on the world's stock markets saw the FTSE 100 have its biggest ever one-day fall. European stocks closed with their worst result since 11th September 2001, and Asian stocks dropped as much as 14%.
2014 Pub chain JD Wetherspoon opened a new £1m pub, at junction 2 of the M40 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, in spite of fierce criticism from road safety and alcohol campaigners. The Hope and Champion became Britain's first pub ever to be opened at a motorway service area.
2019 A light aircraft carrying EPL team Cardiff City's record signing Emiliano Sala of French club FC Nantes disappears near the Channel islands en route to Wales.
Peter Shilton played his 1005th and last match in the Football League for Leyton Orient against Wigan Athletic. The 9 matches he had played for the O's had seen him become the first person ever to play in 1000 League matches. Wigan won 2-1 and went on the win the Division 3 title.
Football On This Day - 21st January 2005.
Obviously missing football after selling Chelsea to Roman Abramovich in 2003 Ken Bates announced that he had bought a new £10m toy - Leeds United.
871 The Battle of Basing, in the then kingdom of Wessex (now Hampshire) following an invasion of Danes.The Saxon army led by King Ethelred was beaten but like its predecessors this was an indecisive battle.Ethelred died in April and was succeeded by Alfred the Great. Much of King Alfred's 28 year reign was taken up with the Danish conflict.
1771 Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands was ceded to Britain by the Spanish.
1879 The Zulus massacred British troops at Isandlwana,the first major encounter in the Anglo–Zulu War. Later at the Battle of Rorke's Drift two British officers and 150 British and colonial troops defended their garrison from the attacks of between 3,000 and 4,000 Zulu warriors. Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded to the defenders along with a number of other decorations and honours.The battle was immortalized in the 1964 film Zulu. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syZX_wa1sj8
1901 Queen Victoria died aged 81 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. At the time her reign was the longest in British history spanned 63 years and saw the growth of 'an empire on which the sun never set'.
1908 Katie Mulcahey is arrested for lighting a cigarette, violating the 1-day old "Sullivan Ordinance" banning women from smoking in public and is fined $5. Appearing before the judge she stated “I’ve got as much right to smoke as you have. I never heard of this new law and I don’t want to hear about it. No man shall dictate to me.”
1920 The birth of Sir Alf Ramsey, football manager of England when they won the 1966 World Cup. He was knighted in 1967 in recognition of England's World Cup win the previous year.
1927 The first live radio commentary of a football match anywhere in the world between Arsenal F.C. and Sheffield United at Highbury. In order to help the listener follow the play the Radio Times printed a numbered grid of the pitch with commentator Henry Wakelam giving grid numbers in his commentary.
1955 Joe Davis recorded the first official maximum snooker break of 147 in an exhibition match at Leicester Square Hall.
1959 Mike Hawthorn, English race car driver and one-time F1 world champion died aged 29 in a road accident on the A3 bypass near Guildford driving his British Racing Green Jaguar 3.4-litre car. What happened on that day is still unknown.
1962 The ‘A6 Murder’ trial began the longest murder trial in British legal history. James Hanratty was accused of murdering Michael Gregston at a lay-by near Bedford. The trial finally ended on 17th February 1962 with Hanratty sentenced to hang despite his protests of innocence and disquiet amongst some observers of the trial.
1972 The United Kingdom,the Irish Republic and Denmark joined the Common Market.
1973 George Foreman TKOs Joe Frazier in 2 rounds to win WBC & WBA heavyweight boxing titles in Kingston, Jamaica; Frazier knocked down 3 times in both 1st & 2nd rounds.
1988 Defending champion Mike Tyson beats former titleholder Larry Holmes by TKO in round 4 at Convention Centre, Atlantic City to retain his undisputed heavyweight boxing title.
2015 Mothers invited to a Scottish Government-backed breastfeeding conference were left angry and bemused after being told that they would not be allowed to breastfeed their babies.
2015 Survival expert Ray Mears, who was due to make at least £10,000 as a speaker at the Caravan, Camping and Motorhome Show was sacked after he chose caravans as one of his pet hates on the TV show 'Room 101'.
2017 Peter Maddox's bright yellow Corsa car was targeted in the Cotswold village of Bibury by vandals who broke the rear window and scratched ‘move’ on the paintwork. In 2015 people had started to complain on social media that the car was constantly ‘photobombing’ their photographs of the quintessentially English cottages on Arlington Row, Bibury.
In April 2017 a convoy of 100 yellow cars drove through Bibury in an act of solidarity.
Photo from 20th February 2017. Mr. Maddox vowed to replace his bright yellow vandalised Corsa with a lime green one but opted for grey instead.
2018 Netflix becomes the largest digital media and entertainment company in the world worth $100 billion.
2020 China locks down the city of Wuhan and its 11 million people in an effort to control COVID-19 with a then official death toll of 17 and over 500 people ill.
2020 China locks down the city of Wuhan and its 11 million people in an effort to control COVID-19 with a then official death toll of 17 and over 500 people ill.
First I have heard of this. They must have been successful.
2020 China locks down the city of Wuhan and its 11 million people in an effort to control COVID-19 with a then official death toll of 17 and over 500 people ill.
First I have heard of this. They must have been successful.
As long as they can keep it confined to their country everyone else should be o.k....
1570 James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray and regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland,was fatally shot by James Hamilton, a supporter of Mary Queen of Scots. It was the first recorded assassination by a firearm.
1571 Queen Elizabeth I opened the Royal Exchange, London, as a bankers’ meeting house. It was founded by the financier Sir Thomas Gresham.
1713 The signing of the Treaty of Utrecht redrew the map of Europe. The treaty signalled the end of the long and **** War of Spanish Succession. As part of the agreement Gibraltar and Minorca become British.
1897 Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Resulting murder trial of her husband perhaps only case in US history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.
1900 Second Boer War: The defeat of the British at the Battle of Spion Kop 24 miles west-south-west of Ladysmith on a steep terraced hilltop. Many football grounds in the English Premier League and Football League have one terrace or stand 'Spion Kop' or 'Kop' because of the steep nature of their terracing.
1957 Wham-O Company produces the 1st Frisbee disc (originally called the "Pluto Platter" until 1958).
1963 At 7.30 pm in Beirut,the American Eleanor Philby was waiting for her husband Kim, a Middle East correspondent for two London journals to collect her. Instead he was on his way to Moscow - ‘the most damaging double agent in British history’.
1977 Mini-series "Roots" premieres on ABC.
1978 Sweden becomes the first nation in the world to ban aerosol sprays, believed to be damaging to earth's ozone layer.
1983 Tennis great Björn Borg announces retirement at 26 (5 x Wimbledon, 6 x French Open).
1983 "A-Team" with Mr T premieres on NBC.
1985 A House of Lords debate was televised for the first time.
1986 1st induction of Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame (Chuck Berry,James Brown,Ray Charles,Fats Domino,Everly Bros,Buddy Holly,Jerry Lee Lewis & Elvis Presley).
1989 Legislation came into force which permitted garages to display fuel prices by litre only, not by the gallon.
1993 Graham Gooch scores his 100th 100, on tour at Cuttack.
2015 The owner of the mobile network 'Three' confirmed that it was in exclusive negotiations to acquire O2 UK from Spanish telco Telefonica for £10.25bn. It would have made the combined Three and O2 operator the biggest in the UK, with a 41% share of the market but the deal was blocked in May 2016 by the European Commission.
2018 Twelve camels disqualified from the King Abdulaziz Camel beauty contest, Saudi Arabia after their owners used botox on their lips.
A goal for Bournemouth against Cambridge United saw an 18-year-old Jermain Defoe set what was then a post war scoring record.The striker on loan from West Ham United, had scored in 10 consecutive Football League matches.
Football On This Day - 23rd January 2013.
Swansea get to the Capital One Cup final but all the headlines are about Chelsea’s Eden Hazard being sent off for kicking a ballboy.
A goal for Bournemouth against Cambridge United saw an 18-year-old Jermain Defoe set what was then a post war scoring record.The striker on loan from West Ham United, had scored in 10 consecutive Football League matches.
Football On This Day - 23rd January 2013.
Swansea get to the Capital One Cup final but all the headlines are about Chelsea’s Eden Hazard being sent off for kicking a ballboy.
Is this the one where the ball boy was Swansea supporter, with minutes to go hung onto the ball .......... Hazard tried to get it off him he fell on the ground still holding on to it Hazard tried to kick it out of his hands but Ref sent him off. ?
A goal for Bournemouth against Cambridge United saw an 18-year-old Jermain Defoe set what was then a post war scoring record.The striker on loan from West Ham United, had scored in 10 consecutive Football League matches.
Football On This Day - 23rd January 2013.
Swansea get to the Capital One Cup final but all the headlines are about Chelsea’s Eden Hazard being sent off for kicking a ballboy.
Is this the one where the ball boy was Swansea supporter, with minutes to go hung onto the ball .......... Hazard tried to get it off him he fell on the ground still holding on to it Hazard tried to kick it out of his hands but Ref sent him off. ?
76 The birth in Spain of Hadrian,Roman Emperor whose defensive policies led to the building of Hadrian’s Wall on the border between Scotland and England.
1872 The death of the Reverend William Webb Ellis,the alleged creator of rugby football whilst a pupil at Rugby School. The story has become firmly entrenched in rugby folklore.
1848 James Wilson Marshall checked on this day that the watercourse of the mill he was in charge of was clear of silt and debris.He peered through the clear water saw something shining up at him and later recalled: “It made my heart thump,for I was certain it was gold.” It was and Marshall’s discovery led to the famous frantic California Gold Rush when thousands of get-rich-quick hopeful prospectors from all over the world engulfed the area.
1901 The birth of Edward Turner English motorcycle designer. He sold his 4 cylinder engine to Aerial motorcycles when BSA rejected it. And thus it became the legendary 'Ariel Square Four'.
1927 Alfred Hitchcock releases his first film as director - The Pleasure Garden in England.
1930 The birth in Norfolk of Bernard Matthews the poultry industry figure. He won a scholarship to the City of Norwich School but found it difficult to settle regularly failed his exams and left school with no qualifications.Nevertheless when he died aged 80 in November 2010 he had amassed a fortune estimated at over £300m a motor yacht,a Cessna private jet and a Rolls-Royce motor car.
1935 1st canned beer, "Krueger's Cream Ale," is sold by American company Krueger Brewing Co.
1942 World War II: The Allies bombarded Bangkok leading Thailand to declare war against the United States and the United Kingdom.
1958 After warming to 100,000,000 degrees, 2 light atoms are bashed together to create a heavier atom resulting in 1st man-made nuclear fusion.
1962 Brian Epstein signs management contract with the Beatles.
1965 Death of Sir Winston Churchill,aged 90, world famous soldier,politician,historian and Prime Minister of Britain.He had correctly predicted that he would die on the same date as his father,Lord Randolph Churchill, who had died exactly 70 years previously.
1969 Students protesting at the installation of steel security gates at the London School of Economics went on the rampage,with crowbars,pickaxes and sledgehammers.
1972 Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi was found hiding in a Guam jungle,where he had been since the end of World War II. He was among the last three Japanese hold-outs to surrender after the end of hostilities in 1945 almost 28 years after the island had been liberated by allied forces in 1944.
1976 Margaret Thatcher leader of the Conservative Party was dubbed 'The Iron Lady' in the Soviet newspaper 'Red Star' after her speech on the threat of Communism.
1984 Apple Computer Inc unveils its revolutionary Macintosh personal computer.
1986 The beginning of the end for London's Fleet Street, home to most of Britain's national newspapers, when staff of the 'Sun' and 'News of the World' were told that they were moving to new premises at Wapping, in London's Docklands.
1986 Leon Brittan the Trade and Industry Secretary under Thatcher is 2nd cabinet minister to resign after 'Westland affair'.
2001 Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson resigned from the Cabinet over a passports for cash scandal. It was the second time he had left the Cabinet in disgrace since Labour came to power in 1997.
2014 Somerset County Council and Sedgemoor DC declared a major incident throughout much of the Somerset Levels. The village of Muchelney was cut off by flood water from the River Parrett for almost 10 weeks.
2015 A racehorse named Sir Winston Churchill netted a win, on the 50th anniversary of the wartime leader's death, in the 3:25pm race at Uttoxeter racecourse.
The next time you hear about a multi-million pound shirt sponsorship deal spare a thought for the club who started what was a battle to get shirt sponsorship accepted in this country - Kettering Town. Shortly after arriving at Rockingham Road as player-manager and chief executive Derek Dougan signed a four-figure deal with Kettering Tyres to have their name printed on the club playing shirts. The first match in the country to feature sponsored shirts was the Southern League match between the Poppies and Bath City on 24th January 1976. The FA were not amused and ordered the removal of the ads. The club then suggested that the wording be shortened to 'Kettering T' - meaning of course, they said, Kettering Town - but that was again blocked by the FA with a threat of a fine for non-compliance. But it didn't take long for clubs to realise that shirt sponsorship was a revenue earner and it soon became commonplace - although not initially in televised matches.
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1648 Parliament broke off negotiations with King Charles I, in response to the news that Charles was entering into an engagement with the Scots, thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War.
1746 ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ and his Highlanders won the battle of Falkirk. It was to be their last victory in the 'forty-five' Jacobite uprising, as three months later they were defeated at Culloden.
1773 Captain Cook's ship and his crew, aboard 'Resolution', became the first Europeans to sail below the Antarctic Circle. Cook also surveyed, mapped and took possession for Britain of South Georgia. He almost encountered the mainland of Antarctica, but turned back north towards Tahiti to resupply his ship, then resumed his southward course in a second fruitless attempt to find the continent.
1775 9 old women burnt as witches for causing bad harvests in Kalisk, Poland.
1863 The birth, in Chorlton-on-Medlock,near Manchester,of David Lloyd George,Welsh politician. In 1909 he introduced old-age pensions,followed in 1911 by health and unemployment insurance. In 1916 he became Prime Minister of a coalition government.
1896 The Daimler Motor Company (Coventry) was registered as the first British car manufacturer.
1912 Captain Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole, only to find that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him by one month.
1920 First day of prohibition of alcohol comes into effect in the US as a result of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution.
1929 Popeye makes 1st appearance, in comic strip "Thimble Theater".
1945 The **** began the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces closed in. Nearly one and a half thousand British prisoners of war were sent to the Auschwitz death camps.
1968 The motor manufacturer British Leyland was formed; from the merger of British Motor Holdings Ltd. and Leyland Motor Corp. Ltd.
1973 The future had arrived as the Post Office introduced a pocket radio pager.
1976 Blondie release their debut single "X Offender" written by Debbie Harry and Gary Valentine.
1983: The opening moments of the first edition of Breakfast Time. It's almost like you're back in the 1980s.
1986 The Royal yacht Britannia evacuated Britons and other foreign nationals from Aden during their civil war.
1986 Tim Witherspoon beats defending champion Tony Tubbs by majority decision in 15 rounds at The Omni, Atlanta for WBA heavyweight boxing title.
1987 US President Reagan signs secret order permitting covert sale of arms to Iran.
2007 Doomsday Clock set to five minutes to midnight in response to North Korea's 1st nuclear test.
2008 British Airways Flight 38 crash landed just short of London Heathrow Airport with no fatalities. It was the first complete hull loss of a Boeing 777, the world's largest twin jet aircraft.
2014 Cambridge City Council said that apostrophes on new street signs would be abolished,a decision that was condemned by language traditionalists.The naming policy also banned street names which would be "difficult to pronounce or awkward to spell" and any that "could give offence" or would "encourage defacing of nameplates". After an intervention by cabinet minister Eric Pickles,local people in Cambridge started to edit street signs adding apostrophes if they were necessary.
2015 American boxer Deontay Wilder wins the WBC heavyweight championship by unanimous decision over Bermane Stiverne at MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas; Wilder first American to hold a heavyweight title since Shannon Briggs in 2007.
The highest attendance for a League match in England was recorded in the First Division match between Manchester United and Arsenal - 83,260. The match was played at Manchester City's Maine Road ground with Old Trafford still closed because of wartime damage.
Football On This Day – 17th January 2011.
Liverpool's Ryan Babel became the first footballer to be fined for comments made on Twitter. He was fined £10,000 for posting a doctored picture of referee Howard Webb wearing a Manchester United shirt with the tweet 'And they call him one of the best referees. That's a joke.' As you will have guessed Babel believed that Webb had made a poor decision in a Liverpool v Manchester United match.
Born on this day 1959 SUSANNA HOFFS of THE BANGLES who,believe it or not,turns 62 today.
1486 After 30 years of civil war the Royal Houses of Lancaster and York were united by the marriage of Henry VII to Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV.
1644 Perplexed Pilgrims in Boston reported America's 1st UFO sighting.
1670 Henry Morgan captured Panama. Morgan was a privateer who made a name for himself during activities in the Caribbean, primarily raiding Spanish settlements. The privateers were private people or ships, authorized by a government to attack foreign shipping during wartime. It was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers. Morgan was one of the most notorious and successful privateers of all time, and one of the most ruthless.
1778 English navigator Captain James Cook became the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands. He named them the Sandwich Islands, after Lord Sandwich, who was then first Lord of the Admiralty.
1788 A British fleet of eleven ships and 800 convicts landed at Botany Bay, Australia. They created the first British penal colony, in Port Jackson - Sydney.
A very good series worth watching.
1879 The first edition of Boy’s Own Paper was published. The editor was S.O. Beeton, the husband of Mrs. Beeton, the cookery book writer.
1884 Dr. William Price a vegetarian nudist who believed in free love and herbal remedies,was arrested for cremating the body of his infant son, Iesu Grist (the Welsh for Jesus Christ), in front of onlookers on a Llantrisant hillside. Price was arrested and put on trial by those who believed that cremation was illegal in Britain. However he successfully argued that there was no legislation that specifically outlawed it which paved the way for the Cremation Act of 1902.
1888 Birth of Sir Thomas Sopwith, British aviation pioneer. It was a Sopwith Camel that shot down Von Richthofen, the Red Baron. On Sopwith’s 100th birthday, a Sopwith Pup built after World War I, led a fly-past over his home in Hampshire.
1919 Bentley Motors Limited was founded by Walter Owen Bentley,but the manufacturer did not make a complete car for 27 years only engines and chassis. Bentley had been previously known for his range of rotary aero-engines in World War I. He also designed and made production cars that won the Le Mans 24 hours in the 1920s.Bentley was purchased by Rolls-Royce in 1931,which itself was purchased by the Volkswagen Group of Germany in 1998,although the business is still based in Crewe.
1934 The first arrest was made in Britain as a result of issuing pocket radios to police. A Brighton shoplifter was arrested just 15 minutes after stealing three coats.
1974 "$6 Million Man" starring Lee Majors premieres on ABC TV.
1976 British Labour MPs Jim Sillars and John Robertson launched the Scottish Labour Party (SLP) to campaign for greater devolution for Scotland.
1978 Geoff Boycott captains England for the 1st time, v Pakistan at Karachi.
2014 UKIP councillor David Silvester blamed the recent storms and heavy floods across Britain on the Government's decision to legalise gay marriage.
2014 Lewis Clarke, a 16-year-old boy from Bristol set a new record by becoming the youngest person to trek to the South Pole. He spent 48 days at temperatures as low as -50C (-58F) and winds of up to 120 mph,covering a distance of 702 miles.
2016 World's 62 richest people are now as wealthy as half the world's population according to a report published by Oxfam.
A momentous date – the day the maximum wage was abolished in English football. In 1961 the most a footballer could be paid was £20 a week (£17 in the summer) and in its campaign to get the wage cap ended the Professional Footballers Association – led by Fulham’s Jimmy Hill – had called a players strike for Saturday January 21st 1961. Three days before the planned strike the League gave in and the maximum wage was no more allowing Hill’s Fulham team-mate, Johnny Haynes,to become the first £100 a week footballer in England. Ironically though the change didn’t see Hill get an increase in his £18 a week pay before he retired while Haynes didn’t get another pay rise in his remaining 9 years as a player.
Football On This Day - 18th January 1964.
The United Trinity of Manchester United – George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton – played together for the first time and brought almost instant success.United won 4-1 at WBA with the goals coming from Law (2), Best and Charlton.
Football On This Day – 18th January 1973.
Manchester United manager Tommy Docherty signed Celtic's Lou Macari for £200,000, the most ever paid at the time for a player in the Scottish League.
1419 Rouen surrendered to Henry V in the Hundred Years' War, completing Henry's reconquest of Normandy.
1649 The Puritan parliament began the trial of Charles I for treason. Charles refused to plead saying that he did not recognise the legality of the High Court.
1661 Thomas Venner was hanged,drawn and quartered in London. Venner was a cooper by trade but also a rebel,the last leader of the Fifth Monarchy Men who had tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Oliver Cromwell.He subsequently led a coup in London against the newly-restored government of Charles II. The coup lasted lasted four days before the Royal authorities captured the rebels.
1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops occupied Stirling.
1825 Ezra Daggett and nephew Thomas Kensett patent food storage in tin cans.
1848 The birth of Matthew Webb,the first person to swim the English Channel - (25th August 1875, in a time of 21 hours & 45 minutes).
1903 New bicycle race "Tour de France" announced.
1915 More than 20 people were killed when German zeppelins bombed England for the first time. The bombs were dropped on Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn.
1915 Neon Tube sign patented by George Claude.
1917 The Silvertown explosion in West Ham. 73 people were killed and 400 injured in an explosion in a munitions plant .The plant was destroyed instantly as were many nearby buildings including the Silvertown Fire Station and a gasometer.
1955 "Scrabble" debuts on board game market.
1973 The Statesman, an unarmed ocean going tug, was sent to protect British trawlers from Icelandic patrol boats as the dispute over cod fishing rights intensified.
1978 The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany leaves VW's plant in Emden. Beetle production in Latin America would continue until 2003.
1990 Police in Johannesburg armed with batons and dogs broke up a demonstration against English cricketers who had defied a ban on playing in segregated South Africa.
2013 A piece of music that was composed by waiting for bird droppings to fall onto giant sheets of manuscript paper received its premiere at the Tate Liverpool art gallery. Artist Kerry Morrison said that the music represented the role that birds play in the environment.
2013 Lance Armstrong admits to doping in all seven of his Tour de France victories.
1265 England's first Parliament met at Westminster Hall in London convened by the Earl of Leicester,Simon de Montfort.
1356 Edward Balliol abdicated as King of Scotland in favour of Edward III and in exchange for an English pension.He spent the rest of his life living in obscurity and died in 1367 at Wheatley Doncaster.
1649 Charles I went on trial for treason and other 'high crimes'. He was beheaded ten days later. It was reported at his execution that he wore two shirts to prevent the cold weather causing any noticeable shivers that the assembled crowd could have mistaken for fear or weakness.
1783 Great Britain signed a peace treaty with France and Spain, officially ending hostilities in the American Revolutionary War (also known as the American War of Independence).
1841 China cedes Hong Kong to the British during the 1st Opium War.
1850 The opening of the Penny Savings Bank, to encourage thrift amongst the poor.
1882 A draper’s shop called Coxon & Company in Newcastle-upon-Tyne became the first shop in the world to be lit by incandescent electric light.It used Swan lamps.
1936 George V died and was succeeded by Edward VIII who abdicated 325 days later because of his insistence on marrying American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
1942 Nazi officials hold notorious Wannsee Conference in Berlin to organize the "final solution", the extermination of Europe's Jews.
Adolf Eichmann's infamous list with estimates of the number of Jews in European countries as presented at the Wannsee Conference.
1944 RAF drops 2,300 ton of bombs on Berlin.
1961 The Democrat J.F. Kennedy is inaugurated as President of the United States,the youngest ever sworn in.
1971 Single "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye about police brutality is released.
1972 Number of people out of work and claiming unemployment benefit in UK rises to over 1 million.
1980 President Jimmy Carter announces US boycott of Olympics in Moscow.
1981 Ronald Reagan inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States of America.
1982 Heavy metal musician Ozzy Osbourne allegedly bites the head off a bat on stage in Des Moines, Iowa.
1986 France and Britain finally decided to undertake the Channel Tunnel project promising that trains would run under the Channel by 1993. When it eventually opened on 6th May 1994 it left Eurotunnel with debts of £925m a year later.
1987 The Archbishop of Canterbury's special envoy to Lebanon, Terry Waite, was kidnapped in Beirut whilst attempting to win freedom for Western hostages.
1987 UK Police crackdown on soccer hooligans in biggest operation against violence around football stadiums.
1993 Bill Clinton inaugurated as 42nd US President.
1994 British comedy "Four Weddings and a Funeral" written by Richard Curtis,starring Hugh Grant premieres at the Sundance Film Festival.
1997 Her Majesty's Royal Yacht Britannia began her final voyage to Hong Kong before being decommissioned. She is now based in Edinburgh as a visitor attraction.
2009 Barack Obama, inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America, becomes the United States' first African-American president.
2014 Dr. Michael Ramscar and a team of scientists suggested that the brains of older people only appear to slow down because they have so much information to compute, much like a full-up hard drive. “The brains of older people do not get weak. On the contrary, they simply know more.”
2017 Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States of America.
Two weeks after the first Sunday matches in the FA Cup twelve grounds hosted Football League matches for the first time on a Sunday.The first of those was at the Den when Millwall hosted Fulham in a morning Second Division fixture.The 15,143 crowd was Millwall's best of the season to date and with the other 11 clubs all recording better than average attendances it looked like Sunday football might just catch on.
Football On This Day - 20th January 2004.
The first day of Rio Ferdinand's 8 month ban for missing a drugs test. He said he forgot about it as he was moving house and had to go shopping. His forgetfulness also cost him a £50,000 fine.
1799 Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccination was introduced. His work on vaccination prevented him from continuing with his ordinary medical practice. Supported by his colleagues and the King he petitioned Parliament and was granted £10,000 for his work on vaccination. In 1806 he was granted another £20,000 for his ongoing work in microbiology.
1807 Streets in London were first illuminated by gaslight when Pall Mall was lit up.
1846 The publication of the first edition of the Daily News, edited by Charles Dickens. It merged with the Daily Chronicle to form the News Chronicle in 1930 and was ultimately absorbed by the Daily Mail in 1960.
1903 Harry Houdini escapes from Halvemaansteeg police station in Amsterdam.
1921 British crime writer Agatha Christie publishes her first novel "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" introducing the character Hercule Poirot.
1925 The birth of the comedian Benny Hill in Southampton, Hampshire. One of his biggest fans was the silent film star Charlie Chaplin.
1937 Marcel Boulestin became the first television cook when he presented the first of the Cook’s Night Out programmes on BBC.
1950 The British writer George Orwell died after a three year battle against tuberculosis. His books included 1984 and Animal Farm. They were controversial and 1984 like Animal Farm was widely viewed as an attack on the Communist system.
1966 The Monte Carlo rally ended in uproar over the disqualification of the British cars expected to fill the first four places.They were all ruled out of the prizes along with six other British cars for alleged infringements of regulations about the way their headlights dipped.
1976 The first Concorde jets carrying commercial passengers simultaneously took off at 11:40 a.m. from Heathrow Airport and Orly Airport outside Paris. The London flight was to Bahrain in the Persian Gulf and the Paris flight was to Rio de Janeiro. Nearly 3 hours was knocked off the normal flying time to Bahrain by the British Concorde but the Air France Concorde arrived 38 minutes late.
1990 John McEnroe becomes 1st ever player to be expelled from the Australian Open.
1994 Lorena Bobbitt found temporarily insane when she cut off her husband's ****.
2008 Black Monday on the world's stock markets saw the FTSE 100 have its biggest ever one-day fall. European stocks closed with their worst result since 11th September 2001, and Asian stocks dropped as much as 14%.
2014 Pub chain JD Wetherspoon opened a new £1m pub, at junction 2 of the M40 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, in spite of fierce criticism from road safety and alcohol campaigners. The Hope and Champion became Britain's first pub ever to be opened at a motorway service area.
2019 A light aircraft carrying EPL team Cardiff City's record signing Emiliano Sala of French club FC Nantes disappears near the Channel islands en route to Wales.
Peter Shilton played his 1005th and last match in the Football League for Leyton Orient against Wigan Athletic. The 9 matches he had played for the O's had seen him become the first person ever to play in 1000 League matches. Wigan won 2-1 and went on the win the Division 3 title.
Football On This Day - 21st January 2005.
Obviously missing football after selling Chelsea to Roman Abramovich in 2003 Ken Bates announced that he had bought a new £10m toy - Leeds United.
871 The Battle of Basing, in the then kingdom of Wessex (now Hampshire) following an invasion of Danes.The Saxon army led by King Ethelred was beaten but like its predecessors this was an indecisive battle.Ethelred died in April and was succeeded by Alfred the Great. Much of King Alfred's 28 year reign was taken up with the Danish conflict.
1771 Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands was ceded to Britain by the Spanish.
1879 The Zulus massacred British troops at Isandlwana,the first major encounter in the Anglo–Zulu War. Later at the Battle of Rorke's Drift two British officers and 150 British and colonial troops defended their garrison from the attacks of between 3,000 and 4,000 Zulu warriors. Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded to the defenders along with a number of other decorations and honours.The battle was immortalized in the 1964 film Zulu.
1901 Queen Victoria died aged 81 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. At the time her reign was the longest in British history spanned 63 years and saw the growth of 'an empire on which the sun never set'.
1908 Katie Mulcahey is arrested for lighting a cigarette, violating the 1-day old "Sullivan Ordinance" banning women from smoking in public and is fined $5. Appearing before the judge she stated “I’ve got as much right to smoke as you have. I never heard of this new law and I don’t want to hear about it. No man shall dictate to me.”
1920 The birth of Sir Alf Ramsey, football manager of England when they won the 1966 World Cup. He was knighted in 1967 in recognition of England's World Cup win the previous year.
1927 The first live radio commentary of a football match anywhere in the world between Arsenal F.C. and Sheffield United at Highbury. In order to help the listener follow the play the Radio Times printed a numbered grid of the pitch with commentator Henry Wakelam giving grid numbers in his commentary.
1955 Joe Davis recorded the first official maximum snooker break of 147 in an exhibition match at Leicester Square Hall.
1959 Mike Hawthorn, English race car driver and one-time F1 world champion died aged 29 in a road accident on the A3 bypass near Guildford driving his British Racing Green Jaguar 3.4-litre car. What happened on that day is still unknown.
1962 The ‘A6 Murder’ trial began the longest murder trial in British legal history. James Hanratty was accused of murdering Michael Gregston at a lay-by near Bedford. The trial finally ended on 17th February 1962 with Hanratty sentenced to hang despite his protests of innocence and disquiet amongst some observers of the trial.
1972 The United Kingdom,the Irish Republic and Denmark joined the Common Market.
1973 George Foreman TKOs Joe Frazier in 2 rounds to win WBC & WBA heavyweight boxing titles in Kingston, Jamaica; Frazier knocked down 3 times in both 1st & 2nd rounds.
1988 Defending champion Mike Tyson beats former titleholder Larry Holmes by TKO in round 4 at Convention Centre, Atlantic City to retain his undisputed heavyweight boxing title.
2015 Mothers invited to a Scottish Government-backed breastfeeding conference were left angry and bemused after being told that they would not be allowed to breastfeed their babies.
2015 Survival expert Ray Mears, who was due to make at least £10,000 as a speaker at the Caravan, Camping and Motorhome Show was sacked after he chose caravans as one of his pet hates on the TV show 'Room 101'.
2017 Peter Maddox's bright yellow Corsa car was targeted in the Cotswold village of Bibury by vandals who broke the rear window and scratched ‘move’ on the paintwork. In 2015 people had started to complain on social media that the car was constantly ‘photobombing’ their photographs of the quintessentially English cottages on Arlington Row, Bibury.
In April 2017 a convoy of 100 yellow cars drove through Bibury in an act of solidarity.
Photo from 20th February 2017. Mr. Maddox vowed to replace his bright yellow vandalised Corsa with a lime green one but opted for grey instead.
2018 Netflix becomes the largest digital media and entertainment company in the world worth $100 billion.
2020 China locks down the city of Wuhan and its 11 million people in an effort to control COVID-19 with a then official death toll of 17 and over 500 people ill.
First I have heard of this. They must have been successful.
1570 James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray and regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland,was fatally shot by James Hamilton, a supporter of Mary Queen of Scots. It was the first recorded assassination by a firearm.
1571 Queen Elizabeth I opened the Royal Exchange, London, as a bankers’ meeting house. It was founded by the financier Sir Thomas Gresham.
1713 The signing of the Treaty of Utrecht redrew the map of Europe. The treaty signalled the end of the long and **** War of Spanish Succession. As part of the agreement Gibraltar and Minorca become British.
1897 Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Resulting murder trial of her husband perhaps only case in US history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.
1900 Second Boer War: The defeat of the British at the Battle of Spion Kop 24 miles west-south-west of Ladysmith on a steep terraced hilltop. Many football grounds in the English Premier League and Football League have one terrace or stand 'Spion Kop' or 'Kop' because of the steep nature of their terracing.
1957 Wham-O Company produces the 1st Frisbee disc (originally called the "Pluto Platter" until 1958).
1963 At 7.30 pm in Beirut,the American Eleanor Philby was waiting for her husband Kim, a Middle East correspondent for two London journals to collect her. Instead he was on his way to Moscow - ‘the most damaging double agent in British history’.
1977 Mini-series "Roots" premieres on ABC.
1978 Sweden becomes the first nation in the world to ban aerosol sprays, believed to be damaging to earth's ozone layer.
1983 Tennis great Björn Borg announces retirement at 26 (5 x Wimbledon, 6 x French Open).
1983 "A-Team" with Mr T premieres on NBC.
1985 A House of Lords debate was televised for the first time.
1986 1st induction of Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame (Chuck Berry,James Brown,Ray Charles,Fats Domino,Everly Bros,Buddy Holly,Jerry Lee Lewis & Elvis Presley).
1989 Legislation came into force which permitted garages to display fuel prices by litre only, not by the gallon.
1993 Graham Gooch scores his 100th 100, on tour at Cuttack.
2015 The owner of the mobile network 'Three' confirmed that it was in exclusive negotiations to acquire O2 UK from Spanish telco Telefonica for £10.25bn. It would have made the combined Three and O2 operator the biggest in the UK, with a 41% share of the market but the deal was blocked in May 2016 by the European Commission.
2018 Twelve camels disqualified from the King Abdulaziz Camel beauty contest, Saudi Arabia after their owners used botox on their lips.
A goal for Bournemouth against Cambridge United saw an 18-year-old Jermain Defoe set what was then a post war scoring record.The striker on loan from West Ham United, had scored in 10 consecutive Football League matches.
Football On This Day - 23rd January 2013.
Swansea get to the Capital One Cup final but all the headlines are about Chelsea’s Eden Hazard being sent off for kicking a ballboy.
76 The birth in Spain of Hadrian,Roman Emperor whose defensive policies led to the building of Hadrian’s Wall on the border between Scotland and England.
1872 The death of the Reverend William Webb Ellis,the alleged creator of rugby football whilst a pupil at Rugby School. The story has become firmly entrenched in rugby folklore.
1848 James Wilson Marshall checked on this day that the watercourse of the mill he was in charge of was clear of silt and debris.He peered through the clear water saw something shining up at him and later recalled: “It made my heart thump,for I was certain it was gold.” It was and Marshall’s discovery led to the famous frantic California Gold Rush when thousands of get-rich-quick hopeful prospectors from all over the world engulfed the area.
1901 The birth of Edward Turner English motorcycle designer. He sold his 4 cylinder engine to Aerial motorcycles when BSA rejected it. And thus it became the legendary 'Ariel Square Four'.
1927 Alfred Hitchcock releases his first film as director - The Pleasure Garden in England.
1930 The birth in Norfolk of Bernard Matthews the poultry industry figure. He won a scholarship to the City of Norwich School but found it difficult to settle regularly failed his exams and left school with no qualifications.Nevertheless when he died aged 80 in November 2010 he had amassed a fortune estimated at over £300m a motor yacht,a Cessna private jet and a Rolls-Royce motor car.
1935 1st canned beer, "Krueger's Cream Ale," is sold by American company Krueger Brewing Co.
1942 World War II: The Allies bombarded Bangkok leading Thailand to declare war against the United States and the United Kingdom.
1958 After warming to 100,000,000 degrees, 2 light atoms are bashed together to create a heavier atom resulting in 1st man-made nuclear fusion.
1962 Brian Epstein signs management contract with the Beatles.
1965 Death of Sir Winston Churchill,aged 90, world famous soldier,politician,historian and Prime Minister of Britain.He had correctly predicted that he would die on the same date as his father,Lord Randolph Churchill, who had died exactly 70 years previously.
1969 Students protesting at the installation of steel security gates at the London School of Economics went on the rampage,with crowbars,pickaxes and sledgehammers.
1972 Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi was found hiding in a Guam jungle,where he had been since the end of World War II. He was among the last three Japanese hold-outs to surrender after the end of hostilities in 1945 almost 28 years after the island had been liberated by allied forces in 1944.
1976 Margaret Thatcher leader of the Conservative Party was dubbed 'The Iron Lady' in the Soviet newspaper 'Red Star' after her speech on the threat of Communism.
1984 Apple Computer Inc unveils its revolutionary Macintosh personal computer.
1986 The beginning of the end for London's Fleet Street, home to most of Britain's national newspapers, when staff of the 'Sun' and 'News of the World' were told that they were moving to new premises at Wapping, in London's Docklands.
1986 Leon Brittan the Trade and Industry Secretary under Thatcher is 2nd cabinet minister to resign after 'Westland affair'.
2001 Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson resigned from the Cabinet over a passports for cash scandal. It was the second time he had left the Cabinet in disgrace since Labour came to power in 1997.
2014 Somerset County Council and Sedgemoor DC declared a major incident throughout much of the Somerset Levels. The village of Muchelney was cut off by flood water from the River Parrett for almost 10 weeks.
2015 A racehorse named Sir Winston Churchill netted a win, on the 50th anniversary of the wartime leader's death, in the 3:25pm race at Uttoxeter racecourse.
The next time you hear about a multi-million pound shirt sponsorship deal spare a thought for the club who started what was a battle to get shirt sponsorship accepted in this country - Kettering Town. Shortly after arriving at Rockingham Road as player-manager and chief executive Derek Dougan signed a four-figure deal with Kettering Tyres to have their name printed on the club playing shirts. The first match in the country to feature sponsored shirts was the Southern League match between the Poppies and Bath City on 24th January 1976. The FA were not amused and ordered the removal of the ads. The club then suggested that the wording be shortened to 'Kettering T' - meaning of course, they said, Kettering Town - but that was again blocked by the FA with a threat of a fine for non-compliance. But it didn't take long for clubs to realise that shirt sponsorship was a revenue earner and it soon became commonplace - although not initially in televised matches.