1966 144 people, 116 of them children, were killed in the small Welsh mining village of Aberfan when tons of slush, from a nearby coal **** tip weakened by rain, slid downhill and engulfed the village school, a farm and a row of terraced houses. The tragedy occurred at the beginning of the school day and on the day before the school closed for the half-term holiday. The children are buried in Aberfan's cemetery, on the hillside above the valley.
1805 At the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson gave his famous signal, ‘England expects...’ which flew from the HMS Victory shortly after 11:00 a.m. The British won this important battle against Napoleon’s combined French and Spanish fleets off Cape Trafalgar, south-west of Spain and left Britain's navy unchallenged until the 20th century but Nelson was one of the day’s casualties.
I remember that so vividly. Harold Wilson, then Prime Minister, visited the following day.
An awful tragedy. The old NCB - National Coal Board - were at fault due to poor management. Lord Robens was in charge of the NCB but somehow escaped personal censure.
It was a huge story at the time, quite rightly too, & it came just months after England won the World Cup.
1854 Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 women volunteer nurses that she trained, were deployed to the Crimea, where the main British camp was based, fighting in the Crimean War. During her first winter at Scutari, ten times more soldiers died from illnesses such as typhus, typhoid, cholera and dysentery than from battle wounds. She had the sewers flushed and ventilation improved. Almost six months after her arrival death rates were sharply reduced.
I remember that so vividly. Harold Wilson, then Prime Minister, visited the following day.
An awful tragedy. The old NCB - National Coal Board - were at fault due to poor management. Lord Robens was in charge of the NCB but somehow escaped personal censure.
It was a huge story at the time, quite rightly too, & it came just months after England won the World Cup.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. In a TV address on October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy (1917-63) notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security. Following this news, many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. However, disaster was avoided when the U.S. agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s (1894-1971) offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba. Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey.
On October 22, 2012, Lance Armstrong is formally stripped of the seven Tour de France titles he won from 1999 to 2005 and banned for life from competitive cycling after being charged with systematically using illicit performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions as well as demanding that some of his Tour teammates dope in order to help him win races. It was a dramatic fall from grace for the onetime global cycling icon, who inspired millions of people after surviving cancer then going on to become one of the most dominant riders in the history of the grueling French race, which attracts the planet’s top cyclists.
1966: Double-agent breaks out of jail One of Britain's most notorious double-agents, George Blake, has escaped from prison in London after a daring break-out believed to have been masterminded by the Soviet Union. Wardens at Wormwood Scrubs prison last saw him at the evening roll call, at 1730 GMT.
An hour-and-a-half later, his cell was discovered to be empty.
After a short search, the escape route was found. Bars in a window at the end of a landing had been sawn away and a rope ladder hung down inside the prison wall.
False sense of security
Blake is believed to have taken advantage of the free association allowed between prisoners on Saturday afternoons in the long-term wing, where he had his cell.
He had served a little over five years of his 42-year sentence.
He was not under high security at the prison, and the privileges he enjoyed have been heavily criticised in the wake of his escape.
He was removed from the list of likely escapers after only a year, and wardens were said to have been lulled into a false sense of security by his seeming acceptance of his exceptionally long sentence.
Blake was charged under the Official Secrets Act in May 1961. During his trial, part of which was held in camera, he pleaded guilty to five counts of passing on secrets to the Soviet authorities.
He was sentenced to the maximum of 14 years on each of three counts, to run consecutively - a total of 42 years. It was the longest jail term any British court had handed down to an individual to date.
Nine years of betrayal
He spent nine years as a double-agent after being converted to Communism while a prisoner of war in Seoul, during the Korean War.
During this time, he is believed to have betrayed the names of more than 40 British agents to the Soviets. Many disappeared, and were thought to have been executed.
His actions devastated British secret service operations in the Middle East. He is believed to have passed on the names of almost every British agent working in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut.
Lord Parker, Lord Chief Justice, the judge sentencing him, likened his actions to treason, and said, "It is one of the worst that can be envisaged other than in a time of war."
Gordon Banks: The fateful car crash which ended a glittering career
Gordon Banks was arguably the greatest goalkeeper who ever lived. Here we look back on the tragic events that finished his glorious career...
The 1972/73 season couldn’t have opened much better for Stoke City and Gordon Banks after he persuaded his World Cup-winning team-mate Geoff Hurst to move from West Ham to the Potteries.
Stoke were in and around the top-10 for the first couple of months and gave a decent account of themselves at Anfield when beaten 2-1 by Liverpool on October 21.
He later reflected: “Just another game, I thought. Little did I know that this match was to be my last in English football.”
He was two months short of his 34th birthday, with years still to burn between the sticks, when tragedy struck the next day.
Having journeyed into the Victoria Ground for treatment on a minor injury, he was on his way home for Sunday lunch in Madeley Heath when he overtook an idling car in his Ford Consul.
He was on the wrong side of the road, therefore, when an approaching car suddenly appeared in front of him.
He remembered slamming on the brakes and an almighty bang, but little else.
Awaking in hospital after surgery had been carried out on his eyes, he was told that fragments of glass had perforated his right eye and damaged the retina.
The injuries to his face were so severe that some 200 stitches were required, together with around 100 micro stitches inside the socket of his right eye.
He later recalled: “One day I leaned over to pick up a cup of tea on my bedside table and was shocked to grasp thin air. That’s when the reality of my situation hit home. “I remember thinking if I can’t even get the angle right to pick up a cup of tea, how will I ever judge the flight and speed of a football again?”
Media interest, even in those days, was intense. His wife Ursula was in tears when their home was besieged on one occasion by around 30 reporters and photographers.
And when doctors allowed their famous patient to have his own TV in hospital, it arrived courtesy of a man with the new set under one arm and a camera secreted under the other. “I had to slip the TV engineer a tenner,” said the press photographer, who received short shrift and no picture.
After six weeks, Banks was back at the Victoria Ground to meet his team-mates, and after six months he was back in light training.
Eventually, by the summer of 1973, Tony Waddington asked him the fateful question about playing again, adding that he thought Banks could still do a job “If I can’t meet the standards I set for myself, I’m going to have to call it a day.”
The crushing blow of retiring so early from the English game was cushioned by a job coaching Stoke’s youth team.
Gordon Banks: The fateful car crash which ended a glittering career
Gordon Banks was arguably the greatest goalkeeper who ever lived. Here we look back on the tragic events that finished his glorious career...
The 1972/73 season couldn’t have opened much better for Stoke City and Gordon Banks after he persuaded his World Cup-winning team-mate Geoff Hurst to move from West Ham to the Potteries.
Stoke were in and around the top-10 for the first couple of months and gave a decent account of themselves at Anfield when beaten 2-1 by Liverpool on October 21.
He later reflected: “Just another game, I thought. Little did I know that this match was to be my last in English football.”
He was two months short of his 34th birthday, with years still to burn between the sticks, when tragedy struck the next day.
Having journeyed into the Victoria Ground for treatment on a minor injury, he was on his way home for Sunday lunch in Madeley Heath when he overtook an idling car in his Ford Consul.
He was on the wrong side of the road, therefore, when an approaching car suddenly appeared in front of him.
He remembered slamming on the brakes and an almighty bang, but little else.
Awaking in hospital after surgery had been carried out on his eyes, he was told that fragments of glass had perforated his right eye and damaged the retina.
The injuries to his face were so severe that some 200 stitches were required, together with around 100 micro stitches inside the socket of his right eye.
He later recalled: “One day I leaned over to pick up a cup of tea on my bedside table and was shocked to grasp thin air. That’s when the reality of my situation hit home. “I remember thinking if I can’t even get the angle right to pick up a cup of tea, how will I ever judge the flight and speed of a football again?”
Media interest, even in those days, was intense. His wife Ursula was in tears when their home was besieged on one occasion by around 30 reporters and photographers.
And when doctors allowed their famous patient to have his own TV in hospital, it arrived courtesy of a man with the new set under one arm and a camera secreted under the other. “I had to slip the TV engineer a tenner,” said the press photographer, who received short shrift and no picture.
After six weeks, Banks was back at the Victoria Ground to meet his team-mates, and after six months he was back in light training.
Eventually, by the summer of 1973, Tony Waddington asked him the fateful question about playing again, adding that he thought Banks could still do a job “If I can’t meet the standards I set for myself, I’m going to have to call it a day.”
The crushing blow of retiring so early from the English game was cushioned by a job coaching Stoke’s youth team.
1805 At the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson gave his famous signal, ‘England expects...’ which flew from the HMS Victory shortly after 11:00 a.m. The British won this important battle against Napoleon’s combined French and Spanish fleets off Cape Trafalgar, south-west of Spain and left Britain's navy unchallenged until the 20th century but Nelson was one of the day’s casualties.
Somewhere in the Portsmouth Evening News photographic archives, there is a picture of yours truly, in an 8th Portsmouth Cub Scout uniform , on the deck of HMS Victory with local dignitaries laying a wreath to commemorate one of the top ten Greatest Britains.
1884 Oct 22 International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C. adopts Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) worldwide, creating 24 international time zones with longitude zero at the Greenwich meridian
1884 Oct 22 Sporting Life announces that both pennant winners will meet in 3 game series Oct 23-25 at Polo Grounds NYC to determine baseball champion
1884 Oct 22 International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C. adopts Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) worldwide, creating 24 international time zones with longitude zero at the Greenwich meridian
@Tikay10 , I seem to remember a television series that told the story of the man who invented the way to accurately tell time at sea. If I remember correctly the Admiralty had put up a very large sum of money as a prize to anyone who could do it. Sadly I cannot remember the name of it, guessing it was a BBC production, I think the winner made five different variants before hitting on the final design. If anyone can remember it , the series may be on you tube somewhere, I may have it wrong but I think the Admiralty renegaded on the deal. It was a really interesting story. I may also be wrong in my next statement, but I think one of those timepieces was used in the storyline that enabled Del Boy and Rodney to finally become “ millionaires “ or maybe I am just getting old . Anyway it’s the sort of thing I think you would enjoy researching
Comments
Aberfan.
I remember that so vividly. Harold Wilson, then Prime Minister, visited the following day.
An awful tragedy. The old NCB - National Coal Board - were at fault due to poor management. Lord Robens was in charge of the NCB but somehow escaped personal censure.
It was a huge story at the time, quite rightly too, & it came just months after England won the World Cup.
@lucy4
Behave...
Any memories of the other two events...
Captained a fine ship at Trafalgar 🏴☠️ in the early years
Never knew that. I learn something new every day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teekay
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. In a TV address on October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy (1917-63) notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security. Following this news, many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. However, disaster was avoided when the U.S. agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s (1894-1971) offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba. Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey.
On October 22, 2012, Lance Armstrong is formally stripped of the seven Tour de France titles he won from 1999 to 2005 and banned for life from competitive cycling after being charged with systematically using illicit performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions as well as demanding that some of his Tour teammates dope in order to help him win races. It was a dramatic fall from grace for the onetime global cycling icon, who inspired millions of people after surviving cancer then going on to become one of the most dominant riders in the history of the grueling French race, which attracts the planet’s top cyclists.
1966: Double-agent breaks out of jail
One of Britain's most notorious double-agents, George Blake, has escaped from prison in London after a daring break-out believed to have been masterminded by the Soviet Union.
Wardens at Wormwood Scrubs prison last saw him at the evening roll call, at 1730 GMT.
An hour-and-a-half later, his cell was discovered to be empty.
After a short search, the escape route was found. Bars in a window at the end of a landing had been sawn away and a rope ladder hung down inside the prison wall.
False sense of security
Blake is believed to have taken advantage of the free association allowed between prisoners on Saturday afternoons in the long-term wing, where he had his cell.
He had served a little over five years of his 42-year sentence.
He was not under high security at the prison, and the privileges he enjoyed have been heavily criticised in the wake of his escape.
He was removed from the list of likely escapers after only a year, and wardens were said to have been lulled into a false sense of security by his seeming acceptance of his exceptionally long sentence.
Blake was charged under the Official Secrets Act in May 1961. During his trial, part of which was held in camera, he pleaded guilty to five counts of passing on secrets to the Soviet authorities.
He was sentenced to the maximum of 14 years on each of three counts, to run consecutively - a total of 42 years. It was the longest jail term any British court had handed down to an individual to date.
Nine years of betrayal
He spent nine years as a double-agent after being converted to Communism while a prisoner of war in Seoul, during the Korean War.
During this time, he is believed to have betrayed the names of more than 40 British agents to the Soviets. Many disappeared, and were thought to have been executed.
His actions devastated British secret service operations in the Middle East. He is believed to have passed on the names of almost every British agent working in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut.
Lord Parker, Lord Chief Justice, the judge sentencing him, likened his actions to treason, and said, "It is one of the worst that can be envisaged other than in a time of war."
Gordon Banks: The fateful car crash which ended a glittering career
Gordon Banks was arguably the greatest goalkeeper who ever lived. Here we look back on the tragic events that finished his glorious career...
The 1972/73 season couldn’t have opened much better for Stoke City and Gordon Banks after he persuaded his World Cup-winning team-mate Geoff Hurst to move from West Ham to the Potteries.
Stoke were in and around the top-10 for the first couple of months and gave a decent account of themselves at Anfield when beaten 2-1 by Liverpool on October 21.
He later reflected: “Just another game, I thought. Little did I know that this match was to be my last in English football.”
He was two months short of his 34th birthday, with years still to burn between the sticks, when tragedy struck the next day.
Having journeyed into the Victoria Ground for treatment on a minor injury, he was on his way home for Sunday lunch in Madeley Heath when he overtook an idling car in his Ford Consul.
He was on the wrong side of the road, therefore, when an approaching car suddenly appeared in front of him.
He remembered slamming on the brakes and an almighty bang, but little else.
Awaking in hospital after surgery had been carried out on his eyes, he was told that fragments of glass had perforated his right eye and damaged the retina.
The injuries to his face were so severe that some 200 stitches were required, together with around 100 micro stitches inside the socket of his right eye.
He later recalled: “One day I leaned over to pick up a cup of tea on my bedside table and was shocked to grasp thin air. That’s when the reality of my situation hit home.
“I remember thinking if I can’t even get the angle right to pick up a cup of tea, how will I ever judge the flight and speed of a football again?”
Media interest, even in those days, was intense. His wife Ursula was in tears when their home was besieged on one occasion by around 30 reporters and photographers.
And when doctors allowed their famous patient to have his own TV in hospital, it arrived courtesy of a man with the new set under one arm and a camera secreted under the other.
“I had to slip the TV engineer a tenner,” said the press photographer, who received short shrift and no picture.
After six weeks, Banks was back at the Victoria Ground to meet his team-mates, and after six months he was back in light training.
Eventually, by the summer of 1973, Tony Waddington asked him the fateful question about playing again, adding that he thought Banks could still do a job
“If I can’t meet the standards I set for myself, I’m going to have to call it a day.”
The crushing blow of retiring so early from the English game was cushioned by a job coaching Stoke’s youth team.
1884 Oct 22 Sporting Life announces that both pennant winners will meet in 3 game series Oct 23-25 at Polo Grounds NYC to determine baseball champion
A system that has aged really well & stood the test of time. (Pun not intended).
Anyway it’s the sort of thing I think you would enjoy researching