@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
@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
The Observer Science prizes A true sea shanty: the story behind the Longitude prize John Harrison's timekeeping devices changed nautical history. Jonathan Betts, senior curator of horology at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and I met in a workshop tucked away behind an impressive display of ships' chronometers and a very strange brass contraption with two swinging, double-ended pendulums manacled by springs. This machine was the first of John Harrison's clocks, known as H1, predating all those other chronometers, and representing his first attempt to make a timekeeper that would remain accurate on board ship.
Harrison made this clock in an effort to provide a reliable means of measuring longitude (the east-west position). An inability to calculate longitude had been the cause of many disasters at sea, prompting the British government to launch the Longitude prize in 1714. There would be a reward of £20,000 – several million in today's money – for the person who solved the problem. While some attempted astronomical solutions, Harrison, a clockmaker by trade, was sure that an accurate timekeeper was the key to the problem. At sea, you could tell the time by looking at the position of the sun. If you then knew the time in a distant place with known longitude – in London, for instance – you could use the difference in time to calculate your own longitude. Each four minutes of difference translated into one degree difference in longitude.
The problem was that the most faithful timekeepers of the age were pendulum clocks and you can imagine what would happen to one of those if you took it out with you on the high seas. Waves aren't at all conducive to the regular swinging of a pendulum. Any hope of accurate timekeeping would be dashed on the rocks, just as you were now likely to be, with an inability to pinpoint your position correctly.
In the design of his H1, Harrison opted for two double-ended pendulums, or balances, but the odd-looking machine was still disturbed at sea and not accurate enough to win the reward. Nevertheless, the members of the Board of Longitude, led by the astronomer royal, saw some promise in the inventions of the Yorkshire clockmaker. They funded his continued work on the longitude problem.
Harrison made two more clocks, attempting to improve on the design of H1. It looked as though he was heading in the right direction, but then, in 1755, he suddenly changed tack. It must have seemed that he'd lost his mind. While pendulum clocks were known for their accuracy on dry land, pocket watches were notoriously bad timekeepers. And his new instrument looked for all the world like an oversize pocket watch. It was ludicrous to imagine that this watch would be the answer to the longitude problem.
Despite sceptics and detractors, Harrison's H4 would prove itself on not one, but two long voyages to the Caribbean. Inside that perhaps unassuming exterior, Harrison had packed innovative components that would make H4 the most reliable timekeeper at sea the world had yet seen. It would make sure that sailors would be safe – or at least, the chronometers that followed in its wake would allow them to avoid the dangers that they'd faced when ignorant of their precise position on the globe.
Betts had invited me into the workshop to show me H4. I waited with bated breath as he opened a safe and with gloved hands removed the watch and placed it on the table in front of us. It was a beautiful thing, in a polished case, like a perfect silver pebble. It had an ornate face, painted in thin black lines on white enamel, and delicate hands. I gazed at it with a mixture of awe and astonishment – it was actually quite unprepossessing. I could see why it would have caused raised eyebrows among the Board of Longitude.
"Would you like to see inside it?" Betts asked, like a curator with a key to the tomb of a pharaoh. Of course I would!
He opened the case and took the instrument out. It was even more ornate inside. An incredibly beautiful and intricate brass machine lay under that white face. And the upper, visible surfaces of the brass components were engraved with extravagant, baroque tendrils and curls. The guts of this instrument were designed to be admired.
"Would you like me to start it?" he asked, with the knowing air of someone who had just delivered a gobsmacking suggestion. I was suitably gobsmacked. He took a tiny handle, fitted into a hole and gave it a quarter-turn. Nothing happened.
But this was one of the reasons that Harrison was thought so eccentric when he produced H4 – because, going against everything that every good watchmaker learned, H4 would not self-start. All pocket watches self-started! That was the thing about pocket watches – you wound them up and they sprang into action immediately. All they needed was that slight kick when you took the key out… and they'd be off. Not Harrison's H4. He'd designed a watch that needed more of a boot up the backside to get it going. Betts knew this – but I gasped as he gave the unique, the priceless, the surely delicate H4 a short, very sharp twist… and it whirred into action. The ticking was incredibly fast: five ticks per second.
This was the real breakthrough, the real secret of H4, that would make it imperturbable at sea. It beat so fast, and the balance wheel rotated so far, with such high energy, that it could not be pushed off-balance, even by a raging sea. The watch that was so hard to start was also hard to stop, hard to perturb.
Harrison had solved the problem with what seemed like a crazy idea. He was a maverick and a genius (and eventually he even managed to extract most of the £20,000 reward out of the Board of Longitude). He had made it his life's work to create this accurate timekeeper: it had taken decades to achieve it, but he realised his ambition.
Wow fabulous. You have actually seen it up close and personal? What a privilege. I will watch the show tomorrow, but I think the show I remember was a dramatisation, maybe with some up to date real world thrown in. How big must certain people’s brains be to think up and put into practice such things. Thanks for starting the thread, it may throw up more things like this that should be remembered and celebrated.
Just looked it up , it’s called , funnily enough, Longitude. Staring Michael Gambon and Jeremy Irons , was first screened over two nights back in 2000. Might see if it’s possible to watch it again somewhere.
The only fools and horses episode is called “ time on our hands “ and was the last of three Christmas specials back in 1996. It does indeed include a watch made by Harrison.
Wow fabulous. You have actually seen it up close and personal? What a privilege. I will watch the show tomorrow, but I think the show I remember was a dramatisation, maybe with some up to date real world thrown in. How big must certain people’s brains be to think up and put into practice such things. Thanks for starting the thread, it may throw up more things like this that should be remembered and celebrated.
The article was written by Alice Roberts in The Guardian,I had to delete the main headline with the authors name to fit into one page on this thread.
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 came about because of the resentment felt by the Catholic Irish, both Gael and Old English, in regards to the loss of their lands to Protestant settlers from England and Scotland.
Catholic Irish were frightened by reports that the Covenanter Army in Scotland was considering an invasion of Ireland in order to eradicate the Catholic religion. At the same time, there was also a threat of invasion by Cromwell’s Puritans who were at war against King Charles1. It was hoped that the King would redress the complaints of the Catholics and halt or even reverse the policy of plantation. It was not an act of rebellion against the Royal domain.
The uprising of 1641 The uprising was lead by Rory O’ Moore from Leix, with Sir Phelim O’ Neill and his brother Turlough of Tyrone, The Maguires of Fermanagh, the Magennis, O’ Reilly and the MacMahons.
They had planned to begin the rebellion on the 23rd October 1641 with attacks on Dublin and various other British strongholds throughout the country. However, their plans were betrayed to the British by a native Irish convert to Protestantism, Owen O’ Connolly.
Due to this information, Dublin did not fall. However the rebellion went ahead in the north and the towns of Dungannon, Newry, Castleblaney along with the fort at Charlemont fell to the rebels.
Most of the province of Ulster came under the control of the rebel leaders. The rebel army, of 30,000 men had been instructed to take no life except in battle, to arrest the gentry and to spare the Scottish planters as they were considered kindred. For a week after the rebellion, these instructions were adhered to but many of the rebels had lost their lands to the Protestant planters and they wanted revenge. They attacked farms and settlements killing and turning many people away and robbing and stripping them of all their goods.
Sir Phelim O’ Neill has been himself thought to have ordered the murder of Protestants in Tyrone and Armagh. It is thought that there were about 12000 people slaughtered although contemporary reports put the death toll as much higher. It is thought that up to 30% of the Ulster planters lost their lives whilst 10% is the figure for the whole of Ireland.
As the rebellion progressed in Ulster there were uprisings in Leinster by November and thereafter the whole of Ireland. In Munster were many English settlers were planted, the rebels did not shed much blood but they did turn out thee settlers many of whom fled back to England.
Battle of Edgehill, (Oct. 23, 1642), first battle of the English Civil Wars, in which forces loyal to the English Parliament, commanded by Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, fatally delayed Charles I’s march on London.
The Battle of Edgehill took place in open country between Banbury and Warwick. The royal army, under Charles I’s personal command, marched southeast toward London, which was garrisoned by parliamentary troops. The Earl of Essex hastened to its relief with the main parliamentary army. On the night of October 22–23, the two nearly even forces discovered that they lay only a few miles apart, and the following day they drew up in battle order. However, since most of the soldiers were raw recruits, this took several hours—action did not begin until about 2 PM. After an hour’s exchange of artillery fire, the royal cavalry, led by Charles’s nephew Prince Rupert, launched a powerful attack that drove the opposing horse from the field. In a pattern repeated in later battles, Rupert’s pursuit continued too long, allowing Essex’s superior infantry to drive back the Royalists. The return of Rupert and some of his men just before dark stabilized the situation, and the two sides disengaged. Of some 26,000 men involved in the battle, approximately 1,000 died and 2,000 more were injured.
Both armies slept in the open, despite a hard frost and no food, and the next day again drew up in battle order; but neither possessed the strength (or, perhaps, the stamina) to fight. On October 25, two days after the battle, the king resumed his march on London, but he decided to take Banbury—his initial objective—and Brentford first. This allowed Essex to reach London and organize a defensive shield against the Royalist advance. Reinforced by the London militia, Essex drew up his forces in battle order again at Turnham Green on November 13. Outnumbered two to one, and with winter approaching, Charles withdrew and established his capital at Oxford. He had just lost his best chance of nipping the Great Rebellion in the bud.
Former champion jockey, Lester Piggott, has been sentenced to three years imprsionment after being found guilty of an alleged tax fraud of over £3m. The 51-year-old remained stony-faced as he was sentenced by Mr Justice Farquharson at Ipswich Crown Court.
But his wife, Susan, collapsed in tears as he was taken to Norwich prison.
Piggott was jailed after failing to declare income to the Inland Revenue of £3.25m.
The biggest sum on the charge sheet relates to an alleged omission of £1,359,726 from additional riding income. Another alleged that for 14 years, from 1971, he omitted income of £1,031,697 from bloodstock operations.
False declarations
Piggott, whose personal fortune is estimated at £20m, is said to have used different names to channel his earnings in secret bank accounts in Switzerland, the Bahamas, Singapore and the Cayman Islands.
The nine times Derby winner has been prosecuted in the biggest individual income tax-dodging case ever brought in Britain and the sentence is the highest to be passed for a personal tax fraud.
Piggott was charged after a joint Customs and Inland Revenue investigation, codenamed Centaur after the halfman, half-horse beast of mythology, into his affairs.
The jockey was said to have signed false declarations to the Inland Revenue during three successive inquiries into his tax affairs between 1970 and 1985.
The judge remarked that Piggott even misled his own accountants "until the matter was forced out of you" last year.
Other leading jockeys and racing figures were also questioned during the inquiry but the Inland Revenue said it was "too early to say" whether more prosecutions will follow.
Top racing figures have been left stunned by the punishment imposed on Piggott, who has become a household name throughout the world.
The champion jockey, Pat Eddery said: "I am shocked and very sad. I did not think he would get three years, but the law is the law."
The sentence was condemned as a "terrible injustice" by the Newmarket trainer, David Thom, who said Piggott had put "more money in the taxman's coffers than any 100 people could have done."
But appeals for leniency by Mr John Mathew, QC, Piggott's counsel, had been rejected by the judge, who said he could not "pass over" the scale of Piggott's VAT and income tax evasion without an invitation to others tempted to cheat.
He will be eligible for parole after one year or if early release is refused, could earn remission of one year for good behaviour.
Lester Piggott won the Epsom Derby nine times and became the youngest ever to win the event in 1954 at the tender age of 18. He rode to victory 5,300 times in more than 30 countries during his 47 years in the saddle.
BBC Ceefax, the world's first teletext service, has completed its final broadcast after 38 years on air.
Before Olympic champion Dame Mary Peters turned off the last of the UK's analogue TV signals in Belfast, a series of graphics on Ceefax's front page disappeared down to a small dot.
The Plain English Campaign earlier gave Ceefax a lifetime achievement award for "clarity" and use of "everyday words".
And ex-Prime Minister Sir John Major said Ceefax would be "much missed".
Sir John, who has previously revealed that he regularly checked Ceefax pages between Downing Street meetings to keep up to date with cricket scores, said: "Ceefax will be much missed. At moments of high pressure - with little time for detailed examination of the news - Ceefax headlines offered an instant window on the world.
"From breaking global news to domestic sports news, Ceefax was speedy, accurate and indispensable. It can be proud of its record."
A few weeks after Ceefax provided coverage of its 10th and final Olympic Games, Lord Coe added his own tribute by saying: "Ceefax has been an invaluable news service for every sports fan over the last 38 years.
"I have checked in on many a sports news story, track and field triumph and, of course, Chelsea results!"
Ceefax was launched on 23 September 1974 to give BBC viewers the chance to check the latest news headlines, sports scores, weather forecast or TV listings - in a pre-internet era where the only alternative was to wait for the next TV or radio bulletin to be aired.
Its premise was to give viewers free access to the same information that was coming into the BBC newsroom, as soon as the BBC's journalists had received it.
Ceefax had initially been developed when BBC engineers, exploring ways to provide subtitles to enable viewers with hearing problems to enjoy BBC TV programmes, found it was possible to transmit full pages of text information in the "spare lines" transmitted on the analogue TV signal.
The BBC then appointed veteran journalist Colin McIntyre, its former UN correspondent and chief publicity officer, as the first editor of a news and information service which was broadcast using the same method.
It was called Ceefax, simply because viewers would be able to quickly "see the facts" of any story of the day.
McIntyre initially updated 24 news pages on his own, feeding punch tape into machines, before recruiting Ceefax's first eight journalists.
Initially the service was a minority interest, with just a handful of Ceefax-capable TVs in the UK, but it slowly started to gain popularity and the engineering team that developed the service was honoured with a Queen's Award for innovation.
But the real impetus for viewers came when BBC Television decided to use a selection of Ceefax pages, accompanied by music, before the start of programming each day. Initially called Ceefax AM and Ceefax In Vision, the Pages From Ceefax "programme" continued for 30 years, being broadcast overnight on BBC Two until this week.
As viewers got a small taste of what Ceefax had to offer, millions of Britons during the 1980s invested in new teletext-enabled TV sets which gave them access to the full Ceefax service, which by now included recipe details for dishes prepared on BBC cookery shows, share prices, music reviews and an annual advent calendar.
Its audience peaked in the 1990s when it had 20 million viewers who checked the service at least once a week. Since the launch of the National Lottery in 1994, dozens of jackpot winners have revealed that they first learned their life had been changed when they checked their numbers on Ceefax.
But the launch of the UK's TV digital signal, and the announcement that the analogue TV signal would disappear in a staged switch-off over five years, meant a slow withdrawal of Ceefax, ending with the final broadcast in Northern Ireland.
BBC Northern Ireland and UTV screened a simulcast reviewing the era of analogue TV, and then Dame Mary Peters - 1972 Olympic gold medallist in the pentathlon - pressed the button to change the television landscape.
By David Bressan on October 22, 2013 October 23 is (in)famous as supposed earth's birthday - this date is mentioned in many textbooks retelling the life of Irish Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656). In 1650 Ussher published a book with the title "Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti" (Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the earliest Beginning of the World), where he reconstructed the history of the world based on the bible, Egyptian and Jewish chronologies , but also research by other scholars, like John Lightfoot (1602-1675), who published his calculations in the year 1644.
The exact time given by the Ussher-Lightfoot-Chronology - October 23*, 4004 B.C., at nine o'clock in the morning** - is often ridiculed by textbooks as (we now know) a futile attempt, but at his time Ussher's calculation were based on the most reliable information available and were not intended for practical use, but as a theological guideline. For Ussher and other scholars it was important to know the age of the earth to possibly infer the time of the rapture.
[* or 6 p.m. October 22, 4004 B.C. according to the Jewish calendar, **however Ussher don´t mentions a certain time, he only states that light was created first ]
However Ussher´s calculations were not universally accepted as the only truth - there were in fact other attempts to determinate the age of the earth and many concluded that the true age was significantly older than the known human history.
24 Oct, 1901 - Canada Niagara Falls 1901 : The first successful barrel ride over Niagara Falls occurred when Anna Edson Taylor, a school teacher, rode safely over the Falls today in a barrel. The ride through the rapids took 18 minutes. Niagara Falls Public Domain Photo
1857 The founding of the world's first official football club, Sheffield Football Club, in Yorkshire, by a group of former students from Cambridge University. The club's finest hour came in 1904 when they won the FA Amateur Cup, a competition conceived after a suggestion by Sheffield. They are commemorated by the English Football Hall of Fame for their significant place in football history.
1976 British Formula One driver James Hunt won the Japanese Grand Prix and secured the world championship. The 1976 Formula One season was the 27th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1976 World Championship of F1 Drivers and the 1976 International Cup for F1 Manufacturers which were contested concurrently over a sixteen race series which commenced on January 25 and ended on October 24. The season also included two non-championship races for Formula One cars.
In an extraordinarily political season the World Championship went to McLaren driver James Hunt by one point from Ferrari's Niki Lauda, although Ferrari took the International Cup for F1 Manufacturers. Controversy began in Spain where Hunt was initially disqualified from first place, giving the race to Lauda, only for the decision to be overturned on appeal months later. The six wheeled Tyrrell confounded the skeptics by winning in Sweden, with Lauda third and Hunt fifth.
Hunt won in France and, it seemed, in Britain, but the race had been restarted after a first lap pile-up and Hunt drove on an access road returning to the pits, which was against the rules. He was eventually disqualified after an appeal from Ferrari. Lauda became the official race winner.
Lauda then crashed heavily in West Germany and appeared likely to die from his injuries. Hunt won the race and finished fourth to John Watson's Penske (the team's only win) in Austria. Miraculously, Lauda returned to finish fourth in Italy, where Hunt, Jochen Mass and Watson were relegated to the back of the grid for infringements of the regulations.
Hunt won in Canada and in the US but Lauda took third to lead Hunt by three points going into the final race. In appalling weather conditions Mario Andretti won, Lauda gave up because of the hazardous conditions, and Hunt eventually finished third to take the title.
2003 The legendary supersonic aircraft, Concorde, made its last commercial passenger flight amid emotional scenes at Heathrow airport. Concorde was retired after 27 years due to a general downturn in the aviation industry after the 11th September terrorist attacks in 2001 and a decision by Airbus to discontinue maintenance support.
Concorde, the first supersonic passenger-carrying commercial airplane (or supersonic transport, SST), built jointly by aircraft manufacturers in Great Britain and France. The Concorde made its first transatlantic crossing on September 26, 1973, and it inaugurated the world’s first scheduled supersonic passenger service on January 21, 1976—British Airways initially flying the aircraft from London to Bahrain and Air France flying it from Paris to Rio de Janeiro. Both airlines added regular service to Washington, D.C., in May 1976 and to New York City in November 1977. Other routes were added temporarily or seasonally, and the Concorde was flown on chartered flights to destinations all over the world. However, the aircraft’s noise and operating expense limited its service. Financial losses led both airlines to cut routes, eventually leaving New York City as their only regular destination. Concorde operations were finally ceased by Air France in May 2003 and by British Airways in October 2003. Only 14 of the aircraft actually went into service.
The Concorde was the first major cooperative venture of European countries to design and build an aircraft. On November 29, 1962, Britain and France signed a treaty to share costs and risks in producing an SST. British Aerospace and the French firm Aérospatiale were responsible for the airframe, while Britain’s Rolls-Royce and France’s SNECMA (Société Nationale d’Étude et de Construction de Moteurs d’Aviation) developed the jet engines. The result was a technological masterpiece, the delta-wing Concorde, which made its first flight on March 2, 1969. The Concorde had a maximum cruising speed of 2,179 km (1,354 miles) per hour, or Mach 2.04 (more than twice the speed of sound), allowing the aircraft to reduce the flight time between London and New York to about three hours. The development costs of the Concorde were so great that they could never be recovered from operations, and the aircraft was never financially profitable. Nevertheless, it proved that European governments and manufacturers could cooperate in complex ventures, and it helped to ensure that Europe would remain at the technical forefront of aerospace development.
On July 25, 2000, a Concorde en route from Paris to New York City suffered engine failure shortly after takeoff when debris from a burst tire caused a fuel tank to rupture and burst into flames. The aircraft crashed into a small hotel and restaurant. All 109 persons on board, including 100 passengers and 9 crew members, died; 4 people on the ground were also killed.
1987 Heavyweight boxing champion Frank Bruno knocked out Joe Bugner in Britain's most hyped boxing match, held at White Hart Lane, London. Bruno took home £750,000, Bugner got £250,000.
October 24, 1929 — A record 12,894,650 shares were sold on this day as panic gripped the Wall Street stock market in New York. It was to be known as Black Thursday, but far worse was to come.
On October 28 the market went into freefall with losses as high as $5billion being reported. The next day – Black Tuesday – prices completely collapsed amid panic selling, triggering losses of between $10-$15billion. Millions of Americans saw their life savings disappear.
Prices continued to drop, leading to losses of a staggering $30billion by mid-November. The market hit rock bottom on November 23 after which prices began to stabilise, meaning that at last the 1929 Wall Street crash was over. But it took 23 years for the market to recover.
It all came about after a huge economic boom enjoyed during the “Roaring Twenties” and the “Jazz Age.” It was a time of “spend, spend, spend” bolstered by easy credit schemes and widespread borrowing by consumers.
It was also a time of “live now, pay later” and the stock market was no exception. Brokers encouraged buying shares “on margin”, which meant using borrowed money.
As a result, Wall Street saw an extended period of rising share prices, known as the Long Bull Market.
Inevitably, the chickens came home to roost as the economy began to contract. Professional investors then started to sell, causing prices slowly to fall. As they saw what was happening smaller investors, concerned about paying off their loans, also began to sell. So prices on the market fell even further, generating rising panic that led to the Wall Street Crash.
In turn, this brought about the Great Depression with numerous bank closures, mass unemployment, homelessness, hunger and despair for millions of Americans. Peaking in 1933, it would last for ten years until the Second World War broke out in 1939.
Comments
Fascinating stuff, loving this thread.
Looks like it was John Harrison;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison
A true sea shanty: the story behind the Longitude prize
John Harrison's timekeeping devices changed nautical history.
Jonathan Betts, senior curator of horology at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and I met in a workshop tucked away behind an impressive display of ships' chronometers and a very strange brass contraption with two swinging, double-ended pendulums manacled by springs. This machine was the first of John Harrison's clocks, known as H1, predating all those other chronometers, and representing his first attempt to make a timekeeper that would remain accurate on board ship.
Harrison made this clock in an effort to provide a reliable means of measuring longitude (the east-west position). An inability to calculate longitude had been the cause of many disasters at sea, prompting the British government to launch the Longitude prize in 1714. There would be a reward of £20,000 – several million in today's money – for the person who solved the problem. While some attempted astronomical solutions, Harrison, a clockmaker by trade, was sure that an accurate timekeeper was the key to the problem. At sea, you could tell the time by looking at the position of the sun. If you then knew the time in a distant place with known longitude – in London, for instance – you could use the difference in time to calculate your own longitude. Each four minutes of difference translated into one degree difference in longitude.
The problem was that the most faithful timekeepers of the age were pendulum clocks and you can imagine what would happen to one of those if you took it out with you on the high seas. Waves aren't at all conducive to the regular swinging of a pendulum. Any hope of accurate timekeeping would be dashed on the rocks, just as you were now likely to be, with an inability to pinpoint your position correctly.
In the design of his H1, Harrison opted for two double-ended pendulums, or balances, but the odd-looking machine was still disturbed at sea and not accurate enough to win the reward. Nevertheless, the members of the Board of Longitude, led by the astronomer royal, saw some promise in the inventions of the Yorkshire clockmaker. They funded his continued work on the longitude problem.
Harrison made two more clocks, attempting to improve on the design of H1. It looked as though he was heading in the right direction, but then, in 1755, he suddenly changed tack. It must have seemed that he'd lost his mind. While pendulum clocks were known for their accuracy on dry land, pocket watches were notoriously bad timekeepers. And his new instrument looked for all the world like an oversize pocket watch. It was ludicrous to imagine that this watch would be the answer to the longitude problem.
Despite sceptics and detractors, Harrison's H4 would prove itself on not one, but two long voyages to the Caribbean. Inside that perhaps unassuming exterior, Harrison had packed innovative components that would make H4 the most reliable timekeeper at sea the world had yet seen. It would make sure that sailors would be safe – or at least, the chronometers that followed in its wake would allow them to avoid the dangers that they'd faced when ignorant of their precise position on the globe.
Betts had invited me into the workshop to show me H4. I waited with bated breath as he opened a safe and with gloved hands removed the watch and placed it on the table in front of us. It was a beautiful thing, in a polished case, like a perfect silver pebble. It had an ornate face, painted in thin black lines on white enamel, and delicate hands. I gazed at it with a mixture of awe and astonishment – it was actually quite unprepossessing. I could see why it would have caused raised eyebrows among the Board of Longitude.
"Would you like to see inside it?" Betts asked, like a curator with a key to the tomb of a pharaoh. Of course I would!
He opened the case and took the instrument out. It was even more ornate inside. An incredibly beautiful and intricate brass machine lay under that white face. And the upper, visible surfaces of the brass components were engraved with extravagant, baroque tendrils and curls. The guts of this instrument were designed to be admired.
"Would you like me to start it?" he asked, with the knowing air of someone who had just delivered a gobsmacking suggestion. I was suitably gobsmacked. He took a tiny handle, fitted into a hole and gave it a quarter-turn. Nothing happened.
But this was one of the reasons that Harrison was thought so eccentric when he produced H4 – because, going against everything that every good watchmaker learned, H4 would not self-start. All pocket watches self-started! That was the thing about pocket watches – you wound them up and they sprang into action immediately. All they needed was that slight kick when you took the key out… and they'd be off. Not Harrison's H4. He'd designed a watch that needed more of a boot up the backside to get it going. Betts knew this – but I gasped as he gave the unique, the priceless, the surely delicate H4 a short, very sharp twist… and it whirred into action. The ticking was incredibly fast: five ticks per second.
This was the real breakthrough, the real secret of H4, that would make it imperturbable at sea. It beat so fast, and the balance wheel rotated so far, with such high energy, that it could not be pushed off-balance, even by a raging sea. The watch that was so hard to start was also hard to stop, hard to perturb.
Harrison had solved the problem with what seemed like a crazy idea. He was a maverick and a genius (and eventually he even managed to extract most of the £20,000 reward out of the Board of Longitude). He had made it his life's work to create this accurate timekeeper: it had taken decades to achieve it, but he realised his ambition.
Awesome.
Love stuff like this.
I will watch the show tomorrow, but I think the show I remember was a dramatisation, maybe with some up to date real world thrown in. How big must certain people’s brains be to think up and put into practice such things.
Thanks for starting the thread, it may throw up more things like this that should be remembered and celebrated.
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 came about because of the resentment felt by the Catholic Irish, both Gael and Old English, in regards to the loss of their lands to Protestant settlers from England and Scotland.
Catholic Irish were frightened by reports that the Covenanter Army in Scotland was considering an invasion of Ireland in order to eradicate the Catholic religion. At the same time, there was also a threat of invasion by Cromwell’s Puritans who were at war against King Charles1. It was hoped that the King would redress the complaints of the Catholics and halt or even reverse the policy of plantation. It was not an act of rebellion against the Royal domain.
The uprising of 1641
The uprising was lead by Rory O’ Moore from Leix, with Sir Phelim O’ Neill and his brother Turlough of Tyrone, The Maguires of Fermanagh, the Magennis, O’ Reilly and the MacMahons.
They had planned to begin the rebellion on the 23rd October 1641 with attacks on Dublin and various other British strongholds throughout the country. However, their plans were betrayed to the British by a native Irish convert to Protestantism, Owen O’ Connolly.
Due to this information, Dublin did not fall. However the rebellion went ahead in the north and the towns of Dungannon, Newry, Castleblaney along with the fort at Charlemont fell to the rebels.
Most of the province of Ulster came under the control of the rebel leaders. The rebel army, of 30,000 men had been instructed to take no life except in battle, to arrest the gentry and to spare the Scottish planters as they were considered kindred. For a week after the rebellion, these instructions were adhered to but many of the rebels had lost their lands to the Protestant planters and they wanted revenge. They attacked farms and settlements killing and turning many people away and robbing and stripping them of all their goods.
Sir Phelim O’ Neill has been himself thought to have ordered the murder of Protestants in Tyrone and Armagh. It is thought that there were about 12000 people slaughtered although contemporary reports put the death toll as much higher. It is thought that up to 30% of the Ulster planters lost their lives whilst 10% is the figure for the whole of Ireland.
As the rebellion progressed in Ulster there were uprisings in Leinster by November and thereafter the whole of Ireland. In Munster were many English settlers were planted, the rebels did not shed much blood but they did turn out thee settlers many of whom fled back to England.
Battle of Edgehill, (Oct. 23, 1642), first battle of the English Civil Wars, in which forces loyal to the English Parliament, commanded by Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, fatally delayed Charles I’s march on London.
The Battle of Edgehill took place in open country between Banbury and Warwick. The royal army, under Charles I’s personal command, marched southeast toward London, which was garrisoned by parliamentary troops. The Earl of Essex hastened to its relief with the main parliamentary army. On the night of October 22–23, the two nearly even forces discovered that they lay only a few miles apart, and the following day they drew up in battle order. However, since most of the soldiers were raw recruits, this took several hours—action did not begin until about 2 PM. After an hour’s exchange of artillery fire, the royal cavalry, led by Charles’s nephew Prince Rupert, launched a powerful attack that drove the opposing horse from the field. In a pattern repeated in later battles, Rupert’s pursuit continued too long, allowing Essex’s superior infantry to drive back the Royalists. The return of Rupert and some of his men just before dark stabilized the situation, and the two sides disengaged. Of some 26,000 men involved in the battle, approximately 1,000 died and 2,000 more were injured.
Both armies slept in the open, despite a hard frost and no food, and the next day again drew up in battle order; but neither possessed the strength (or, perhaps, the stamina) to fight. On October 25, two days after the battle, the king resumed his march on London, but he decided to take Banbury—his initial objective—and Brentford first. This allowed Essex to reach London and organize a defensive shield against the Royalist advance. Reinforced by the London militia, Essex drew up his forces in battle order again at Turnham Green on November 13. Outnumbered two to one, and with winter approaching, Charles withdrew and established his capital at Oxford. He had just lost his best chance of nipping the Great Rebellion in the bud.
1987: Lester Piggott jailed for three years
Former champion jockey, Lester Piggott, has been sentenced to three years imprsionment after being found guilty of an alleged tax fraud of over £3m.
The 51-year-old remained stony-faced as he was sentenced by Mr Justice Farquharson at Ipswich Crown Court.
But his wife, Susan, collapsed in tears as he was taken to Norwich prison.
Piggott was jailed after failing to declare income to the Inland Revenue of £3.25m.
The biggest sum on the charge sheet relates to an alleged omission of £1,359,726 from additional riding income. Another alleged that for 14 years, from 1971, he omitted income of £1,031,697 from bloodstock operations.
False declarations
Piggott, whose personal fortune is estimated at £20m, is said to have used different names to channel his earnings in secret bank accounts in Switzerland, the Bahamas, Singapore and the Cayman Islands.
The nine times Derby winner has been prosecuted in the biggest individual income tax-dodging case ever brought in Britain and the sentence is the highest to be passed for a personal tax fraud.
Piggott was charged after a joint Customs and Inland Revenue investigation, codenamed Centaur after the halfman, half-horse beast of mythology, into his affairs.
The jockey was said to have signed false declarations to the Inland Revenue during three successive inquiries into his tax affairs between 1970 and 1985.
The judge remarked that Piggott even misled his own accountants "until the matter was forced out of you" last year.
Other leading jockeys and racing figures were also questioned during the inquiry but the Inland Revenue said it was "too early to say" whether more prosecutions will follow.
Top racing figures have been left stunned by the punishment imposed on Piggott, who has become a household name throughout the world.
The champion jockey, Pat Eddery said: "I am shocked and very sad. I did not think he would get three years, but the law is the law."
The sentence was condemned as a "terrible injustice" by the Newmarket trainer, David Thom, who said Piggott had put "more money in the taxman's coffers than any 100 people could have done."
But appeals for leniency by Mr John Mathew, QC, Piggott's counsel, had been rejected by the judge, who said he could not "pass over" the scale of Piggott's VAT and income tax evasion without an invitation to others tempted to cheat.
He will be eligible for parole after one year or if early release is refused, could earn remission of one year for good behaviour.
Lester Piggott won the Epsom Derby nine times and became the youngest ever to win the event in 1954 at the tender age of 18.
He rode to victory 5,300 times in more than 30 countries during his 47 years in the saddle.
BBC Ceefax, the world's first teletext service, has completed its final broadcast after 38 years on air.
Before Olympic champion Dame Mary Peters turned off the last of the UK's analogue TV signals in Belfast, a series of graphics on Ceefax's front page disappeared down to a small dot.
The Plain English Campaign earlier gave Ceefax a lifetime achievement award for "clarity" and use of "everyday words".
And ex-Prime Minister Sir John Major said Ceefax would be "much missed".
Sir John, who has previously revealed that he regularly checked Ceefax pages between Downing Street meetings to keep up to date with cricket scores, said: "Ceefax will be much missed. At moments of high pressure - with little time for detailed examination of the news - Ceefax headlines offered an instant window on the world.
"From breaking global news to domestic sports news, Ceefax was speedy, accurate and indispensable. It can be proud of its record."
A few weeks after Ceefax provided coverage of its 10th and final Olympic Games, Lord Coe added his own tribute by saying: "Ceefax has been an invaluable news service for every sports fan over the last 38 years.
"I have checked in on many a sports news story, track and field triumph and, of course, Chelsea results!"
Ceefax was launched on 23 September 1974 to give BBC viewers the chance to check the latest news headlines, sports scores, weather forecast or TV listings - in a pre-internet era where the only alternative was to wait for the next TV or radio bulletin to be aired.
Its premise was to give viewers free access to the same information that was coming into the BBC newsroom, as soon as the BBC's journalists had received it.
Ceefax had initially been developed when BBC engineers, exploring ways to provide subtitles to enable viewers with hearing problems to enjoy BBC TV programmes, found it was possible to transmit full pages of text information in the "spare lines" transmitted on the analogue TV signal.
The BBC then appointed veteran journalist Colin McIntyre, its former UN correspondent and chief publicity officer, as the first editor of a news and information service which was broadcast using the same method.
It was called Ceefax, simply because viewers would be able to quickly "see the facts" of any story of the day.
McIntyre initially updated 24 news pages on his own, feeding punch tape into machines, before recruiting Ceefax's first eight journalists.
Initially the service was a minority interest, with just a handful of Ceefax-capable TVs in the UK, but it slowly started to gain popularity and the engineering team that developed the service was honoured with a Queen's Award for innovation.
But the real impetus for viewers came when BBC Television decided to use a selection of Ceefax pages, accompanied by music, before the start of programming each day. Initially called Ceefax AM and Ceefax In Vision, the Pages From Ceefax "programme" continued for 30 years, being broadcast overnight on BBC Two until this week.
As viewers got a small taste of what Ceefax had to offer, millions of Britons during the 1980s invested in new teletext-enabled TV sets which gave them access to the full Ceefax service, which by now included recipe details for dishes prepared on BBC cookery shows, share prices, music reviews and an annual advent calendar.
Its audience peaked in the 1990s when it had 20 million viewers who checked the service at least once a week. Since the launch of the National Lottery in 1994, dozens of jackpot winners have revealed that they first learned their life had been changed when they checked their numbers on Ceefax.
But the launch of the UK's TV digital signal, and the announcement that the analogue TV signal would disappear in a staged switch-off over five years, meant a slow withdrawal of Ceefax, ending with the final broadcast in Northern Ireland.
BBC Northern Ireland and UTV screened a simulcast reviewing the era of analogue TV, and then Dame Mary Peters - 1972 Olympic gold medallist in the pentathlon - pressed the button to change the television landscape.
In my early years following horse racing Piggott was my hero & it broke my heart when it turned out he had been fiddling his taxes.
By David Bressan on October 22, 2013
October 23 is (in)famous as supposed earth's birthday - this date is mentioned in many textbooks retelling the life of Irish Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656). In 1650 Ussher published a book with the title "Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti" (Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the earliest Beginning of the World), where he reconstructed the history of the world based on the bible, Egyptian and Jewish chronologies , but also research by other scholars, like John Lightfoot (1602-1675), who published his calculations in the year 1644.
The exact time given by the Ussher-Lightfoot-Chronology - October 23*, 4004 B.C., at nine o'clock in the morning** - is often ridiculed by textbooks as (we now know) a futile attempt, but at his time Ussher's calculation were based on the most reliable information available and were not intended for practical use, but as a theological guideline. For Ussher and other scholars it was important to know the age of the earth to possibly infer the time of the rapture.
[* or 6 p.m. October 22, 4004 B.C. according to the Jewish calendar, **however Ussher don´t mentions a certain time, he only states that light was created first ]
However Ussher´s calculations were not universally accepted as the only truth - there were in fact other attempts to determinate the age of the earth and many concluded that the true age was significantly older than the known human history.
1901 : The first successful barrel ride over Niagara Falls occurred when Anna Edson Taylor, a school teacher, rode safely over the Falls today in a barrel. The ride through the rapids took 18 minutes.
Niagara Falls Public Domain Photo
Full Size Original Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Niag715.jpg
1857 The founding of the world's first official football club, Sheffield Football Club, in Yorkshire, by a group of former students from Cambridge University. The club's finest hour came in 1904 when they won the FA Amateur Cup, a competition conceived after a suggestion by Sheffield. They are commemorated by the English Football Hall of Fame for their significant place in football history.
The 1976 Formula One season was the 27th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1976 World Championship of F1 Drivers and the 1976 International Cup for F1 Manufacturers which were contested concurrently over a sixteen race series which commenced on January 25 and ended on October 24. The season also included two non-championship races for Formula One cars.
In an extraordinarily political season the World Championship went to McLaren driver James Hunt by one point from Ferrari's Niki Lauda, although Ferrari took the International Cup for F1 Manufacturers. Controversy began in Spain where Hunt was initially disqualified from first place, giving the race to Lauda, only for the decision to be overturned on appeal months later. The six wheeled Tyrrell confounded the skeptics by winning in Sweden, with Lauda third and Hunt fifth.
Hunt won in France and, it seemed, in Britain, but the race had been restarted after a first lap pile-up and Hunt drove on an access road returning to the pits, which was against the rules. He was eventually disqualified after an appeal from Ferrari. Lauda became the official race winner.
Lauda then crashed heavily in West Germany and appeared likely to die from his injuries. Hunt won the race and finished fourth to John Watson's Penske (the team's only win) in Austria. Miraculously, Lauda returned to finish fourth in Italy, where Hunt, Jochen Mass and Watson were relegated to the back of the grid for infringements of the regulations.
Hunt won in Canada and in the US but Lauda took third to lead Hunt by three points going into the final race. In appalling weather conditions Mario Andretti won, Lauda gave up because of the hazardous conditions, and Hunt eventually finished third to take the title.
Concorde, the first supersonic passenger-carrying commercial airplane (or supersonic transport, SST), built jointly by aircraft manufacturers in Great Britain and France. The Concorde made its first transatlantic crossing on September 26, 1973, and it inaugurated the world’s first scheduled supersonic passenger service on January 21, 1976—British Airways initially flying the aircraft from London to Bahrain and Air France flying it from Paris to Rio de Janeiro. Both airlines added regular service to Washington, D.C., in May 1976 and to New York City in November 1977. Other routes were added temporarily or seasonally, and the Concorde was flown on chartered flights to destinations all over the world. However, the aircraft’s noise and operating expense limited its service. Financial losses led both airlines to cut routes, eventually leaving New York City as their only regular destination. Concorde operations were finally ceased by Air France in May 2003 and by British Airways in October 2003. Only 14 of the aircraft actually went into service.
The Concorde was the first major cooperative venture of European countries to design and build an aircraft. On November 29, 1962, Britain and France signed a treaty to share costs and risks in producing an SST. British Aerospace and the French firm Aérospatiale were responsible for the airframe, while Britain’s Rolls-Royce and France’s SNECMA (Société Nationale d’Étude et de Construction de Moteurs d’Aviation) developed the jet engines. The result was a technological masterpiece, the delta-wing Concorde, which made its first flight on March 2, 1969. The Concorde had a maximum cruising speed of 2,179 km (1,354 miles) per hour, or Mach 2.04 (more than twice the speed of sound), allowing the aircraft to reduce the flight time between London and New York to about three hours. The development costs of the Concorde were so great that they could never be recovered from operations, and the aircraft was never financially profitable. Nevertheless, it proved that European governments and manufacturers could cooperate in complex ventures, and it helped to ensure that Europe would remain at the technical forefront of aerospace development.
On July 25, 2000, a Concorde en route from Paris to New York City suffered engine failure shortly after takeoff when debris from a burst tire caused a fuel tank to rupture and burst into flames. The aircraft crashed into a small hotel and restaurant. All 109 persons on board, including 100 passengers and 9 crew members, died; 4 people on the ground were also killed.
October 24, 1929 — A record 12,894,650 shares were sold on this day as panic gripped the Wall Street stock market in New York. It was to be known as Black Thursday, but far worse was to come.
On October 28 the market went into freefall with losses as high as $5billion being reported. The next day – Black Tuesday – prices completely collapsed amid panic selling, triggering losses of between $10-$15billion. Millions of Americans saw their life savings disappear.
Prices continued to drop, leading to losses of a staggering $30billion by mid-November. The market hit rock bottom on November 23 after which prices began to stabilise, meaning that at last the 1929 Wall Street crash was over. But it took 23 years for the market to recover.
It all came about after a huge economic boom enjoyed during the “Roaring Twenties” and the “Jazz Age.” It was a time of “spend, spend, spend” bolstered by easy credit schemes and widespread borrowing by consumers.
It was also a time of “live now, pay later” and the stock market was no exception. Brokers encouraged buying shares “on margin”, which meant using borrowed money.
As a result, Wall Street saw an extended period of rising share prices, known as the Long Bull Market.
Inevitably, the chickens came home to roost as the economy began to contract. Professional investors then started to sell, causing prices slowly to fall. As they saw what was happening smaller investors, concerned about paying off their loans, also began to sell. So prices on the market fell even further, generating rising panic that led to the Wall Street Crash.
In turn, this brought about the Great Depression with numerous bank closures, mass unemployment, homelessness, hunger and despair for millions of Americans. Peaking in 1933, it would last for ten years until the Second World War broke out in 1939.