1189 Following the death of his father Henry II, Richard the Lionheart was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey. 30 Jews are massacred after the coronation - Richard ordered the perpetrators be executed.
1650 English Parliamentarian forces led by Oliver Cromwell defeated an army loyal to King Charles II of England at the Battle of Dunbar. Cromwell described the victory as 'one of the most signal mercies God hath done for England and His people.' As a result of the destruction of the Scottish army, he was able to march unopposed to Edinburgh and quickly occupied the Scottish capital.
1651 Battle of Worcester: Oliver Cromwell's New Model army destroys English royalist force of mainly Scots in last battle of English Civil War.
1658 Richard Cromwell (the third son of Oliver Cromwell) became Lord Protector of England but served just under 9 months, leading to his nickname of 'Tumbledown ****' by Royalists.
1752 After Britain and the British Empire (including the American colonies) adopt the Gregorian Calendar, losing 11 days. People riot thinking the government stole 11 days of their lives.
1783 Britain finally recognised the United States of America by signing the Treaty of Paris which officially ended the American War of Independence.
1812 World's first cannery (Donkin, Hall and Gamble) opens in London, England to supply food to the Royal Navy.
1878 Over 640 died when the crowded paddle steamer Princess Alice collided with the Bywell Castle in the River Thames. It was the greatest loss of life in any Thames shipping disaster.
1916 Captain Leefe Robinson became the first pilot to shoot down a Zeppelin airship - during a German air raid on London in World War I. The airship caught fire after being attacked and crashed at Cuffley in Hertfordshire. Robinson was later awarded the Victoria Cross.
1935 Sir Malcolm Campbell reaches a speed of 304.331 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, becoming the first person to drive an automobile at over 300 mph.
1939 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in a radio broadcast, announced that Britain and France had declared war on Germany. He formed an all-party War Cabinet with Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty.
1939 Nazi sympathizer Unity Mitford was a British socialite, known for her relationship with Adolf Hitler. She attempts suicide after Britain declares war on Germany, the bullet lodged in her brain eventually kills her in 1948.
1939 In Britain, the formation of the Citizens' Advice Bureau - established to help people understand and comply with new rules and regulations that were introduced at the start of World War II.
1943 The Allies landed at Salerno, on mainland Italy, and the Italian government surrendered. It was four years to the day after war had been declared on Germany.
1950 Giuseppe "Nino" Farina wins inaugural Formula 1 World Drivers Championship by taking out the Italian Grand Prix at Monza in an Alfa Romeo; wins by 3 points from Juan Manuel Fangio.
1954 The National Trust purchased Fair Isle in northern Scotland, famous for its bird sanctuary and knitted sweaters.
1966 British soldiers Captain John Ridgway and Sergeant Chay Blyth become the first Britons to row across the Atlantic. They completed a 91-day row across the Atlantic in the English Rose III, when they rowed into Inishmore on the Isle of Aran.
1967 Sweden Switches to Driving on the Right Hand Side.
Kungsgatan, Stockholm, on Dagen H (switch-over day).
1967 A young Swedish singer named Anni-Frid Lyngstad wins a talent-show contest on the TV program Hyland's Corner with her group the Anni-Frid Four. She would later become famous as one of the two female lead singers of ABBA.
1972 Great Britain's Mary Peters sets a new world record of 4801 points to win the Munich Olympics pentathlon gold by just 10 points from Heide Rosendahl of West Germany.
1982 Culture Club's "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" is released in the UK. The critics are not kind; Smash Hits calls it "fourth division reggae."
1985 England cricket swing bowler Richard Ellison with 5 for 76 helps dismiss Australia for 129 in 6th Test win at the Oval; England regains Ashes 3-1.
1988 The first fines for not filling and returning poll tax registration forms were issued in Scotland.
1995 Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Hill Norton, backed claims that the British Government was covering up evidence of a UFO sighting in the south of England in 1990.
1995 eBay (Electronic Bay) founded by Pierre Omidyar.
1999 Charges were dropped against nine photographers and a motorcyclist in connection with the 1997 crash that killed Princess Diana, Dodi Al Fayed and their driver.
2006 After Arsenal had played just one Premier League match at the Emirates, Brazil played their first ‘home’ match at the ground, beating Argentina 3-0. In future years Brazil regularly played in their adopted home in North London.
2013 Microsoft purchases Nokia for $7.2 Billion.
2018 The 2018 heatwave made summer hottest ever in England, joint hottest for UK according to UK Meteorological Office.
2020 MacKenzie Scott, philanthropist and ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, becomes world's richest woman worth $68 billion.
1588 The death of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a favourite and possible lover of Queen Elizabeth I. When his wife Amy died after falling down the stairs, it was widely rumoured that Dudley had murdered her in order to marry Elizabeth. The Queen rejected him, even proposing that he wed Mary, Queen of Scots.
1815 Sir Humphrey Davy invented the miner's safety lamp.
1860 The first weather forecast appeared in The Times.
1867 At a meeting at the Adelphi Hotel in Sheffield members of the Wednesday Cricket Club formed a football club to keep fit during the winter. That club is now Sheffield Wednesday.
1884 Britain stopped sending convicts to New South Wales in Australia.
1886 Apache Chief Geronimo surrenders ending last major US-Indian war.
1888 George Eastman patents the first roll-film camera & registers "Kodak".
1893 Beatrix Potter introduced Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail in an illustrated note to her governess’s five-year-old son, Noel Moore.
1901 The birth, in Blackpool, of Sir William Lyons, known as 'Mr. Jaguar'. He was, with fellow motorcycle enthusiast William Walmsley, the co-founder in 1922 of the Swallow Sidecar Company, which became Jaguar Cars Limited after the war. The first 'Jaguar' model, under the company name of SS Cars Ltd. was offered in 1935, but after World War II Lyons changed the company name to Jaguar to avoid the unfortunate connotations of SS Cars Ltd. with the Nazi 'SS'.
1905 Chelsea played their first match at Stamford Bridge.
1909 The first Boy Scout rally was held at Crystal Palace, near London.
1955 British TV newsreaders were seen in vision for the first time. The first was the BBC's Kenneth Kendall.
1962 The Beatles started their first recording session at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, London, with their producer, George Martin.
1964 Queen Elizabeth II opened the Forth Road Bridge across the Firth of Forth in Scotland.
1976 The attendance at Craven Cottage for Second Division fixture between Fulham and Bristol Rovers was 21,127 which was well over double the number that were at their previous home League match. The reason - it was the debut of one George Best in the Fulham side. Also in the Fulham side that day were Bobby Moore and Rodney Marsh but it was Best who stole the show scoring the only goal of the match after just 71 seconds.
1981 The start of the Greenham Common peace protest outside the US Air Force base in Berkshire.The protest lasted for 19 years.
1985 The wreck of the Titanic was photographed for the first time, 73 years after it sank with the loss of 1,500 lives.
1998 Google is formally incorporated by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.
1998 1st ever "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" hosted by Chris Tarrant debuts on ITV in Britain.
2018 Amazon becomes America's second trillion dollar company.
After we toured with The Clash on the 'On Parole Tour' we asked their manager Bernie Rhodes if he would look after us. He said yes and he decided we had to get out of England so he sent us to Paris, France to get our act together 'cos he thought we weren't right yet.
He hired a van, we loaded all the equipment in, and he took us down to Dover. We thought he was coming with us,although he had his 'right hand man' this guy called Mickey Foot with him. So anyway, we got to Dover and he said 'unload the van', which we thought was a bit strange but we did it anyway. He pointed to some trolleys and told us to get all the equipment and put it on the trolleys.
Then he gave Mickey Foot some money and said 'see you guys', and drove back to London, left us at Dover with the equipment!.We pushed the equipment up the ramp onto the ferry and that was that.
We got to the other side problem number one, and that's where the 'adventure' started.
When we got to Calais, we got off the ferry, we all had our passports, but Silverton (our first drummer) was from Barbados so he had a Barbadian passport. So the French decided they didn't want him 'cos he didn't have a work permit, and they sent him straight back home to England.He went back to London and got a work permit and met us back in Paris, but in the meantime we had got off the ferry and met this guy that Bernie had arranged to pick us and the equipment up. He had come in this tiny little 'Interflora' van. There was no way we were going to fit all the gear and the band in this small van so we came up with the idea that some of the guys would have to hitch-hike from Calais to Paris. I looked around and thought - first time in France - the majority of the people were white, there's no way that I was going to hitch being black. Me and Neville looked at each other and decided no-one would give us a lift, we just assumed that in France they had the same sort of racial problem that we had in England. So me and Neville squeezed into the van with drums and keyboards and amps on top of us and we went right on to Paris.
Terry, Roddy, Jerry and Horace they hitched, and they got a lift, I think Terry or one of them got a lift in a Rolls-Royce. Can you imagine me or Neville getting a lift from a guy in a Rolls-Royce. Anyway, we all got to Paris and booked in the Hotel, got settled in and I think Siverton showed up 2 days later, anyway we were getting ready to do this gig at this one club, it was like a residancy at one club and this woman walked in. A very beautiful woman, she knocked on the door 'bang,bang' - 'Are you from England?' she said. 'Yes' we replied, 'Well the last band that were from England that stayed here smashed my hotel up' which we thought was bad news, but we did't realise how bad. (note: last band was The Damned!) These two other guys walked in, I had my guitar just lazing around strumming a few chords and singing fun songs, and this guy took the guitar off me and took Roddy's guitar. The woman said 'You pay for the damage that the last band did, if you don't pay - no guitar' We thought it was a joke, but the woman was serious - 'no payment, no guitar'. So I went mad, it was my cream telecaster, that guitar meant everything to me, I'd had to struggle to get it, 'cos I wasn't working and I had to pay for it, so it was tough.So there was a big argument, we got pushed downstairs and the woman decided to throw us out of the hotel, so we got down to the lobby and there was a big argument pushing around until the glass door to the hotel got smashed.
The police arrived - 'English, Jamaicans' they cried, and showed no interest at all, they just didn't want to know smoking their cigarettes. I went crazy 'I want my guitar back...'. The guy from the club arrived and started talking to the woman and he told us to go to the club. It took us about 10 minutes to walk there - all the way I was screaming at passers by 'I want my guitar back!'.
By the time we got to the club the guitars and all equipment was there - I thought wow, these guys are wicked. How did they do it? They just back pulled guns and demanded all the guitars and everything, and there we are- so GANGSTERS.
The songs intro 'Bernie Rhodes knows don't argue' is for Bernie, and the 'Can't interrupt while I'm talking, Or they'll confiscate all your guitars' comes from the hotel incident. My line in the song was 'They use the law to commit crime'.
Everything in Gangsters was about that trip, and it was a brilliant trip in the end because it gave us our first hit record - can't complain about that.
When we went to record our first single it was going to be 'Nite Klub' but we couldn't get the vibe quite right recording in the daytime, so we did Gangsters instead. Silverton had just left the band, and Jerry got his room mate Brad to play drums the day of the recording.
1646 Following Cromwell's victory in the English civil war, the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury was abolished.
1666 The end of the Great Fire of London, that had started on 2nd September at the bakery of Thomas Farriner on Pudding Lane. 10,000 buildings including St. Paul's Cathedral had been destroyed, but only 6 people are known to have died.
1698 Russian Tsar Peter the Great imposes a tax on beards.
1800 Following a blockade by Admiral Horatio Nelson, French troops surrendered the Mediterranean island of Malta to Britain.
1914 The First Battle of the Marne began. German, British and French troops fought for six days. Half a million people were killed.
1929 French premier Aristide Briand requests a United States of Europe.
1939 At the start of World War II in Europe, American President Roosevelt declared the United States to be neutral.
1946 The birth (in Stone Town, Zanzibar) of the British musician and Queen frontman Freddie Mercury born as Farrokh Bulsara.
1959 The first trunk dialling system from a public call-box was launched during a ceremonial phone call from Bristol to London.
1960 Cassius Clay [Muhammad Ali] beats 3-time European champion Zbigniew Pietrzykowski of Poland by unanimous points decision to win Olympic light heavyweight boxing gold medal at the Rome Games.
1963 Christine Keeler, one of the women involved in the Profumo scandal in Britain, was arrested and charged with perjury.
1972 During the Summer Olympics at Munich, in the early morning of September 5, a group of Palestinian terrorists storms the Olympic Village apartment of the Israeli athletes, killing two and taking nine others hostage. The terrorists were part of a group known as Black September, in return for the release of the hostages, they demanded that Israel release over 230 Arab prisoners being held in Israeli jails and two German terrorists. In an ensuing shootout at the Munich airport, the nine Israeli hostages were killed along with five terrorists and one West German policeman. Olympic competition was suspended for 24 hours to hold memorial services for the slain athletes.
1976 Jim Henson's "The Muppet Show" premieres on television with Mia Farrow as the guest star.
1979 The BBC began broadcasting the hit American series 'Dallas' which soon became one of the most popular programmes on British TV.
1981 Soft Cell hit #1 in the UK with an electronic cover of "Tainted Love," a song originally released by the American soul singer Gloria Jones in 1964.
1997 The death of Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa birth name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. At the age of 18 she became a Catholic nun in Ireland and chose the name of Sister Teresa, in memory of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. She migrated to India in 1929 at the age of 19 and lived there for rest of her life, adopting Indian citizenship.
2008 The first Fender Stratocaster set alight on stage by Jimi Hendrix is auctioned. The guitar sells for $575,000 to collector Daniel Boucher - less than the $1 million predicted. It is one of only two guitars definitively burned by Hendrix - the other was at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
2018 UK Prime Minister Theresa May confirms in parliament two Russian military intelligence officers undertook novichok nerve agent attack.
2019 Erramatti Mangamma becomes the world's oldest living mother giving birth to twins aged 74 in Hyderabad, India.
Celebrating the 41ST ANNIVERSARY of BAGGY TROUSERS by MADNESS (September 5th 1980) Guaranteed to transport you back to the playground and swing park, BAGGY TROUSERS was quintessential Madness – British pop at its finest. Taking time off from touring in Britain, Europe and America , Madness managed to do some recording, the first evidence of which was a single 'Baggy Trousers'. A wonderful, wistful anti-school song ("I had less and less respect for it," recalled Suggsy, "until in my last year, I hardly went at all... I suppose I was a bit of a hooligan."), which went to number three in the charts in October 1980 and went on to become a gold record. The album on which 'Baggy Trousers' would appear as the opening track was’ Absolutely’, and its b-side, 'The Business', eventually had lyrics added to it and a new name, appearing on the LP as 'Take It Or Leave It'. The album was, as usual, well-received by the public, achieving platinum status and peaking at number two in the LP charts the same month.
Remembering CHARLIE CHARLES (17th May 1945 - 5th Sep 1990)
Born Hugh Glenn Mortimer Charles in Guyana, Charlie became a member of Ian Dury’s Band, Kilburn and the High Roads. In 1977 they became Ian Dury & The Blockheads and found success. He died of cancer in September 1990 and the band re-united to play two benefit concerts for his family.
Celebrating the 41ST ANNIVERSARY of BAGGY TROUSERS by MADNESS (September 5th 1980) Guaranteed to transport you back to the playground and swing park, BAGGY TROUSERS was quintessential Madness – British pop at its finest. Taking time off from touring in Britain, Europe and America , Madness managed to do some recording, the first evidence of which was a single 'Baggy Trousers'. A wonderful, wistful anti-school song ("I had less and less respect for it," recalled Suggsy, "until in my last year, I hardly went at all... I suppose I was a bit of a hooligan."), which went to number three in the charts in October 1980 and went on to become a gold record. The album on which 'Baggy Trousers' would appear as the opening track was’ Absolutely’, and its b-side, 'The Business', eventually had lyrics added to it and a new name, appearing on the LP as 'Take It Or Leave It'. The album was, as usual, well-received by the public, achieving platinum status and peaking at number two in the LP charts the same month.
Celebrating the 41ST ANNIVERSARY of BAGGY TROUSERS by MADNESS (September 5th 1980) Guaranteed to transport you back to the playground and swing park, BAGGY TROUSERS was quintessential Madness – British pop at its finest. Taking time off from touring in Britain, Europe and America , Madness managed to do some recording, the first evidence of which was a single 'Baggy Trousers'. A wonderful, wistful anti-school song ("I had less and less respect for it," recalled Suggsy, "until in my last year, I hardly went at all... I suppose I was a bit of a hooligan."), which went to number three in the charts in October 1980 and went on to become a gold record. The album on which 'Baggy Trousers' would appear as the opening track was’ Absolutely’, and its b-side, 'The Business', eventually had lyrics added to it and a new name, appearing on the LP as 'Take It Or Leave It'. The album was, as usual, well-received by the public, achieving platinum status and peaking at number two in the LP charts the same month.
1620 149 Pilgrims, The Pilgrim Fathers, set sail from Plymouth in the Mayflower bound for America - the New World. The Pilgrims' story of people seeking to escape the religious controversies and economic problems of their time by emigrating to America, has become a central theme of the history and culture of the United States. They had originally set sail from Southampton on 5th August but were beset with problems.
1651 Charles II famously spent the night hidden in an oak tree at Boscobel after his defeat by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester.
1852 Britain's first free lending library opened, in Manchester.
1866 Three British tea clippers reached London within 2 hours of each other after a 16,000 mile race from China as there were big bonuses for the first ships home with the new season's tea.
1879 The opening of Britain's first telephone exchange - at Lombard Street in London.
1880 England beat Australia by five wickets at the Oval in the first Test Match played in England. English batsman W.G. Grace scored a century.
1899 Carnation processes its first can of evaporated milk.
1913 1st aircraft to loop the loop - Adolphe Pégoud in France.
1939 World War II: In an episode known as The Battle of Barking Creek, a friendly fire incident near Ipswich resulted in the first war death of a British fighter pilot (Pilot Officer Montague Hulton-Harrop). The incident exposed the inadequacies of RAF radar and identification procedures, leading to them being greatly improved by the crucial period of the Battle of Britain.
1944 World War II: The city of Ypres in Belgium was liberated by allied forces. As it was a difficult name to pronounce in English, British troops nicknamed the city 'Wipers'.
1952 At the Farnborough Airshow, a prototype de Havilland jet fighter exploded, and the debris fell onto the crowd. 26 people died.
1972 Summer Olympics resume in Munich, Germany after massacre of 11 Israeli athletes by Black September Palestinian terrorist organisation.
1986 The first series of the British medical drama television series 'Casualty'.
1988 11-year-old Thomas Gregory, from London, swam the channel, reaching Dover after 12 hours. He was the youngest person ever to achieve a cross-channel swim.
1992 Gay Kelleway becomes the 1st female jockey to ride a winner at England’s famous Royal Ascot.
1997 The funeral service for Diana, Princess of Wales, was held in Westminster Abbey, London. An estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide watched the service on television. Elton John sings a new version of "Candle In The Wind". This rendition, which replaces "Goodbye Norma Jean" with "Goodbye England's Rose," becomes the best-selling single of all time in the UK.
2007 Operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti dies of pancreatic cancer in Modena, Italy, at age 71.
2014 A study by Cass Business School claimed that the secret to a long life is having a waistline no larger than half your height. A waist to height ratio of 80 per cent or more could reduce life expectancy by up to 20 years.
Following their move from the Manor Ground in Plumstead, Arsenal – still Woolwich Arsenal at the time - played their first match at Highbury against Leicester Fosse in the Second Division. A 20,000 crowd saw Leicester’s Tommy Benfield score the first Highbury goal, George Jobey equalising for Arsenal with Arichibald Devine scoring the Arsenal winner from the penalty spot.
Football On This Day – 6th September 1989.
The day that Terry Butcher became a blood donor in the England cause. England needed a good result against closest group rivals Sweden in Stockholm to keep on course to qualify for the 1990 World Cup finals in Italy. Central defender Terry Butcher suffered a deep **** on his forehead early in the game which was stitched and bandaged up. But the Rangers defender continued to head the ball which opened up the wound and left him seriously blooded as shown in that iconic picture.
Football On This Day – 6th September 1995.
England played out a 0-0 draw with Colombia in a friendly international at Wembley. Easily forgotten – well it would have been had it not been for the extrovert Colombian goalkeeper René Higuita introducing us to the scorpion kick.
Happy 63rd Birthday to BUSTER BLOODVESSEL (born 6 September 1958)
The super-strength lager that few owned up to drinking in the ‘80s had a far higher pedigree some thirty years earlier when it was concocted in honour of Winston Churchill’s visit to Denmark. The strong taste was down to an infusion of brandy developed on account of the Prime Minister’s love of cognac.
1533 The birth of Elizabeth I, daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. She was Queen of England from 1558 to 1603 and was known as the Virgin Queen because she never married, being too shrewd to share power with a foreign monarch.
1548 Catherine Parr, 6th wife of Henry VIII, died in childbirth.
1571 Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, was arrested for his role in the Ridolfi plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. He was executed for treason in 1572 and is buried within the walls of the Tower of London.
1665 The death of George Viccars, the first plague victim to die in the village of Eyam in Derbyshire. The plague raged for 14 months. Out of a population of 350 people, only 80 survived.
1813 "Uncle Sam" 1st used to refer to the US, by Troy Post of New York.
1838 Grace Darling, daughter of the keeper of Longstone lighthouse on the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland, risked her life to rescue ship wrecked mariners. With her father, she rowed a tiny boat for over a mile through mountainous seas at the height of the storm to rescue nine people marooned on a rock. They were the only survivors of the steamship Forfarshine, which had run aground and broken up.
The courage that Grace and her family showed on that day is now legendary.
Grace and her father managed to get all nine survivors safely back to shore. The newspapers of the time reported on Grace's bravery and a media frenzy ensued. The government was impressed and gave her £50. The public was impressed even more, and raised over a thousand pounds. Grace was besieged with letters, visitors and request for public appearances. However, she did not enjoy being the focus of so much attention, preferring to live quietly at home with her parents.
Sadly, in October 1842 - four years after her brave act, Grace died of tuberculosis.
1895 The first game of what would become known as rugby league football, was played in England, starting the 1895–96 Northern Rugby Football Union season.
1923 Interpol forms in Vienna.
1931 King George V announced he would be taking a £50,000 a year pay cut while the economic crisis continued.
1936 Buddy Holly is born. He lives just 22 years but influences many of the biggest stars of the '60s, including The Beatles. Don McLean's "American Pie" is about his death.
1940 Germany began regular bombing of London - commonly known as 'The Blitz'. The bombing continued nightly until 2nd November.
1943 World War II. Italy surrendered to the Allies.
1969 Scottish Matra-Ford driver Jackie Stewart wins the Italian Grand Prix at Monza to clinch his first Formula 1 World Drivers Championship; his 6th F1 win of the season.
1973 Jackie Stewart became world champion racing driver for the third and final time.
1977 Ron Greenwood selected six players from European Champions Liverpool, plus Kevin Keegan who had recently left Anfield for Hamburg, for his first match as manager of England.But England lacked cohesion and imagination in a disappointing 0-0 draw in the friendly against Switzerland at Wembley. Liverpool's Ian Callaghan made this third appearance for England in that match - his previous match for England had been 11 years earlier in 1966.
1978 Keith Moon of The Who dies at age 32 after overdosing on medication that is supposed to help him overcome his alcoholism.
1978 While walking across Waterloo Bridge in London, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated by a Bulgarian secret police agent using a ricin pellet fired from a specially-designed umbrella.
1979 The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) makes its debut.
1984 Three more people died in the food poisoning epidemic at hospitals in Yorkshire, bringing the total number of deaths to 22.
1987 In the UK, Pink Floyd release A Momentary Lapse of Reason, their first album without founding member Roger Waters.
1996 Rap artist Tupac Shakur shot multiple times in a drive by shooting in Las Vegas, dies 6 days later.
2002 Scotland pulled back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 with the mighty Faroe Islands in a Euro qualifier.
2006 Sacha Baron Cohen's mockumentary "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" premieres at the Toronto Film Festival.
THE JAM - DAVID WATTS On this date in 1978, THE JAM were on Top Of The Pops performing DAVID WATTS, (September 7th 1978). The Jam’s cover gave this lesser-known Ray Davies song (found on the The Kinks' 1967 album Something Else) an urgent reading with insistent drums, significant pauses and a committed vocal by Kinks fan Weller.
1504 Michelangelo's statue of David is unveiled in Florence.
1560 Amy Robsart, wife of the Earl of Leicester, died from a fall. It was suspected that she was pushed, for soon after, the earl became an active suitor to Queen Elizabeth I.
1664 The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam was surrendered to the British, who, in 1669, renamed it New York after the Duke of York.
1727 A barn fire during a puppet show in the village of Burwell, Cambridgeshire, killed 78 people (51 of them children). The doors had been nailed shut to prevent further people getting in, a simple act which was key to the tragedy which resulted.
1760 British troops under Jeffrey Amherst defeated the French in the Battle of Montreal. After the loss, the French surrendered their arms throughout Canada.
1858 Abraham Lincoln supposedly says in a speech "You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time"
1888 Annie Chapman was found disembowelled in an East London street, the second victim of 'Jack the Ripper'.
1888 The first English Football League matches were played.
1914 HMS Oceanic, sister ship of RMS Titanic, sinks off Scotland.
1914 World War I: Private Thomas Highgate became the first British soldier of the war to be executed for desertion. He was undefended and called no witnesses in his defence, as all his comrades had been shot and killed. Highgate claimed that he was a 'straggler' trying to find his way back to rejoin his regiment after having been separated from his comrades. His execution was almost as hasty as his trial, as senior officers insisted that he be executed 'At once, as publicly as possible'. Posthumous pardons for over 300 such soldiers were announced in August 2006, including Highgate.
1921 1st Miss America crowned in Atlantic City - Margaret Gorman (16) of Washington, D.C.
1960 Publishers Penguin Books were charged with public obscenity for publishing D.H. Lawrence's controversial book - 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'.
1963 Scottish Lotus driver Jim Clark wins the Italian Grand Prix at Monza to clinch his first F1 World Drivers Championship; Clark's 5th GP win of the season.
1965 Small ads in Daily Variety and Hollywood Reporter attract 437 young men interested in forming the world’s first manufactured boy band, "The Monkees" - 3 are chosen with Davey Jones already having been cast.
1966 "Star Trek" 1st premieres on NBC-TV starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy.
1966 Queen Elizabeth II officially opened The Severn Bridge linking south Wales with south west England.
1968 British tennis player Virginia Wade beat American Billie Jean King to win the US Open.
1974 Evil Knievel attempts to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho but fails, escaping with minor injuries.
1979 US Open Women's Tennis: Tracy Austin becomes youngest US champion (16 years, 9 months); beats Chris Evert 6-4, 6-3.
1981 British TV comedy "Only Fools and Horses" created by John Sullivan, starring David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst and Lennard Pearce premieres on BBC One.
2001 Kylie Minogue releases her single "I Just Can't Get You Out of My Head", the biggest of her career.
2016 Prince Buster, a Jamaican native who popularized ska music in England, dies at age 78.
2018 US Open Women's Tennis: Naomi Osaka first Japanese female to win a Grand Slam singles final; beats Serena Williams in controversial match 6-2, 6-4.
The first matches in the Football League were played. The five matches played saw 23 goals scored and attracted around 25,000 spectators.
Football On This Day - 8th September 1958.
17-year-old Robert Frederick Chelsea Moore made his debut for West Ham United, a 3-2 First Division victory over Manchester United at Upton Park. Bobby Moore went on to make 544 League appearances for the Hammers before moving to Fulham in 1974 as well as playing 108 times for England.
Football On This Day - 8th September 2011.
Sandwiched between weekend fixtures in League 1 Notts County played a friendly on Thursday 8th September 2011. It was away in Italy against one of Europe's top teams, Juventus. Third tier Notts had been invited to Turin to play the first match at Juventus's new ground - the Juventus Stadium. History provided the reason. The historical link between the two clubs dates back to 1903 when Juventus decided to change the shirt colour they had been playing in since they were founded - pink. They asked an English team member, John Savage, for help and he in turn contacted a friend in Nottingham to send out a set of shirts to Turin. As a Notts County supporter the shirts he sent were inevitably black and white stripes and black and white remain the colours of Juventus to this day.
Football On This Day - 8th September 2015.
The day that Wayne Rooney became England's record goalscorer. His penalty in the 2-0 defeat of Switzerland in a Euro qualifier at Wembley was his 50th England goal.
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1189 Following the death of his father Henry II, Richard the Lionheart was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey. 30 Jews are massacred after the coronation - Richard ordered the perpetrators be executed.
1650 English Parliamentarian forces led by Oliver Cromwell defeated an army loyal to King Charles II of England at the Battle of Dunbar. Cromwell described the victory as 'one of the most signal mercies God hath done for England and His people.' As a result of the destruction of the Scottish army, he was able to march unopposed to Edinburgh and quickly occupied the Scottish capital.
1651 Battle of Worcester: Oliver Cromwell's New Model army destroys English royalist force of mainly Scots in last battle of English Civil War.
1658 Richard Cromwell (the third son of Oliver Cromwell) became Lord Protector of England but served just under 9 months, leading to his nickname of 'Tumbledown ****' by Royalists.
1752 After Britain and the British Empire (including the American colonies) adopt the Gregorian Calendar, losing 11 days. People riot thinking the government stole 11 days of their lives.
1783 Britain finally recognised the United States of America by signing the Treaty of Paris which officially ended the American War of Independence.
1812 World's first cannery (Donkin, Hall and Gamble) opens in London, England to supply food to the Royal Navy.
1878 Over 640 died when the crowded paddle steamer Princess Alice collided with the Bywell Castle in the River Thames. It was the greatest loss of life in any Thames shipping disaster.
1916 Captain Leefe Robinson became the first pilot to shoot down a Zeppelin airship - during a German air raid on London in World War I. The airship caught fire after being attacked and crashed at Cuffley in Hertfordshire. Robinson was later awarded the Victoria Cross.
1935 Sir Malcolm Campbell reaches a speed of 304.331 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, becoming the first person to drive an automobile at over 300 mph.
1939 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in a radio broadcast, announced that Britain and France had declared war on Germany. He formed an all-party War Cabinet with Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty.
1939 Nazi sympathizer Unity Mitford was a British socialite, known for her relationship with Adolf Hitler. She attempts suicide after Britain declares war on Germany, the bullet lodged in her brain eventually kills her in 1948.
1939 In Britain, the formation of the Citizens' Advice Bureau - established to help people understand and comply with new rules and regulations that were introduced at the start of World War II.
1943 The Allies landed at Salerno, on mainland Italy, and the Italian government surrendered. It was four years to the day after war had been declared on Germany.
1950 Giuseppe "Nino" Farina wins inaugural Formula 1 World Drivers Championship by taking out the Italian Grand Prix at Monza in an Alfa Romeo; wins by 3 points from Juan Manuel Fangio.
1954 The National Trust purchased Fair Isle in northern Scotland, famous for its bird sanctuary and knitted sweaters.
1966 British soldiers Captain John Ridgway and Sergeant Chay Blyth become the first Britons to row across the Atlantic. They completed a 91-day row across the Atlantic in the English Rose III, when they rowed into Inishmore on the Isle of Aran.
1967 Sweden Switches to Driving on the Right Hand Side.
Kungsgatan, Stockholm, on Dagen H (switch-over day).
1967 A young Swedish singer named Anni-Frid Lyngstad wins a talent-show contest on the TV program Hyland's Corner with her group the Anni-Frid Four. She would later become famous as one of the two female lead singers of ABBA.
1972 Great Britain's Mary Peters sets a new world record of 4801 points to win the Munich Olympics pentathlon gold by just 10 points from Heide Rosendahl of West Germany.
1982 Culture Club's "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" is released in the UK. The critics are not kind; Smash Hits calls it "fourth division reggae."
1985 England cricket swing bowler Richard Ellison with 5 for 76 helps dismiss Australia for 129 in 6th Test win at the Oval; England regains Ashes 3-1.
1988 The first fines for not filling and returning poll tax registration forms were issued in Scotland.
1995 Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Hill Norton, backed claims that the British Government was covering up evidence of a UFO sighting in the south of England in 1990.
1995 eBay (Electronic Bay) founded by Pierre Omidyar.
1999 Charges were dropped against nine photographers and a motorcyclist in connection with the 1997 crash that killed Princess Diana, Dodi Al Fayed and their driver.
2006 After Arsenal had played just one Premier League match at the Emirates, Brazil played their first ‘home’ match at the ground, beating Argentina 3-0. In future years Brazil regularly played in their adopted home in North London.
2013 Microsoft purchases Nokia for $7.2 Billion.
2018 The 2018 heatwave made summer hottest ever in England, joint hottest for UK according to UK Meteorological Office.
2020 MacKenzie Scott, philanthropist and ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, becomes world's richest woman worth $68 billion.
1588 The death of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a favourite and possible lover of Queen Elizabeth I. When his wife Amy died after falling down the stairs, it was widely rumoured that Dudley had murdered her in order to marry Elizabeth. The Queen rejected him, even proposing that he wed Mary, Queen of Scots.
1815 Sir Humphrey Davy invented the miner's safety lamp.
1860 The first weather forecast appeared in The Times.
1867 At a meeting at the Adelphi Hotel in Sheffield members of the Wednesday Cricket Club formed a football club to keep fit during the winter. That club is now Sheffield Wednesday.
1884 Britain stopped sending convicts to New South Wales in Australia.
1886 Apache Chief Geronimo surrenders ending last major US-Indian war.
1888 George Eastman patents the first roll-film camera & registers "Kodak".
1893 Beatrix Potter introduced Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail in an illustrated note to her governess’s five-year-old son, Noel Moore.
1901 The birth, in Blackpool, of Sir William Lyons, known as 'Mr. Jaguar'. He was, with fellow motorcycle enthusiast William Walmsley, the co-founder in 1922 of the Swallow Sidecar Company, which became Jaguar Cars Limited after the war. The first 'Jaguar' model, under the company name of SS Cars Ltd. was offered in 1935, but after World War II Lyons changed the company name to Jaguar to avoid the unfortunate connotations of SS Cars Ltd. with the Nazi 'SS'.
1905 Chelsea played their first match at Stamford Bridge.
1909 The first Boy Scout rally was held at Crystal Palace, near London.
1955 British TV newsreaders were seen in vision for the first time. The first was the BBC's Kenneth Kendall.
1962 The Beatles started their first recording session at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, London, with their producer, George Martin.
1964 Queen Elizabeth II opened the Forth Road Bridge across the Firth of Forth in Scotland.
1976 The attendance at Craven Cottage for Second Division fixture between Fulham and Bristol Rovers was 21,127 which was well over double the number that were at their previous home League match. The reason - it was the debut of one George Best in the Fulham side. Also in the Fulham side that day were Bobby Moore and Rodney Marsh but it was Best who stole the show scoring the only goal of the match after just 71 seconds.
1981 The start of the Greenham Common peace protest outside the US Air Force base in Berkshire.The protest lasted for 19 years.
1985 The wreck of the Titanic was photographed for the first time, 73 years after it sank with the loss of 1,500 lives.
1998 Google is formally incorporated by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.
1998 1st ever "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" hosted by Chris Tarrant debuts on ITV in Britain.
2018 Amazon becomes America's second trillion dollar company.
After we toured with The Clash on the 'On Parole Tour' we asked their manager Bernie Rhodes if he would look after us. He said yes and he decided we had to get out of England so he sent us to Paris, France to get our act together 'cos he thought we weren't right yet.
He hired a van, we loaded all the equipment in, and he took us down to Dover. We thought he was coming with us,although he had his 'right hand man' this guy called Mickey Foot with him. So anyway, we got to Dover and he said 'unload the van', which we thought was a bit strange but we did it anyway. He pointed to some trolleys and told us to get all the equipment and put it on the trolleys.
Then he gave Mickey Foot some money and said 'see you guys', and drove back to London, left us at Dover with the equipment!.We pushed the equipment up the ramp onto the ferry and that was that.
We got to the other side problem number one, and that's where the 'adventure' started.
When we got to Calais, we got off the ferry, we all had our passports, but Silverton (our first drummer) was from Barbados so he had a Barbadian passport. So the French decided they didn't want him 'cos he didn't have a work permit, and they sent him straight back home to England.He went back to London and got a work permit and met us back in Paris, but in the meantime we had got off the ferry and met this guy that Bernie had arranged to pick us and the equipment up. He had come in this tiny little 'Interflora' van. There was no way we were going to fit all the gear and the band in this small van so we came up with the idea that some of the guys would have to hitch-hike from Calais to Paris. I looked around and thought - first time in France - the majority of the people were white, there's no way that I was going to hitch being black. Me and Neville looked at each other and decided no-one would give us a lift, we just assumed that in France they had the same sort of racial problem that we had in England. So me and Neville squeezed into the van with drums and keyboards and amps on top of us and we went right on to Paris.
Terry, Roddy, Jerry and Horace they hitched, and they got a lift, I think Terry or one of them got a lift in a Rolls-Royce. Can you imagine me or Neville getting a lift from a guy in a Rolls-Royce. Anyway, we all got to Paris and booked in the Hotel, got settled in and I think Siverton showed up 2 days later, anyway we were getting ready to do this gig at this one club, it was like a residancy at one club and this woman walked in. A very beautiful woman, she knocked on the door 'bang,bang' - 'Are you from England?' she said. 'Yes' we replied, 'Well the last band that were from England that stayed here smashed my hotel up' which we thought was bad news, but we did't realise how bad. (note: last band was The Damned!) These two other guys walked in, I had my guitar just lazing around strumming a few chords and singing fun songs, and this guy took the guitar off me and took Roddy's guitar. The woman said 'You pay for the damage that the last band did, if you don't pay - no guitar' We thought it was a joke, but the woman was serious - 'no payment, no guitar'. So I went mad, it was my cream telecaster, that guitar meant everything to me, I'd had to struggle to get it, 'cos I wasn't working and I had to pay for it, so it was tough.So there was a big argument, we got pushed downstairs and the woman decided to throw us out of the hotel, so we got down to the lobby and there was a big argument pushing around until the glass door to the hotel got smashed.
The police arrived - 'English, Jamaicans' they cried, and showed no interest at all, they just didn't want to know smoking their cigarettes. I went crazy 'I want my guitar back...'. The guy from the club arrived and started talking to the woman and he told us to go to the club. It took us about 10 minutes to walk there - all the way I was screaming at passers by 'I want my guitar back!'.
By the time we got to the club the guitars and all equipment was there - I thought wow, these guys are wicked. How did they do it? They just back pulled guns and demanded all the guitars and everything, and there we are- so GANGSTERS.
The songs intro 'Bernie Rhodes knows don't argue' is for Bernie, and the 'Can't interrupt while I'm talking, Or they'll confiscate all your guitars' comes from the hotel incident. My line in the song was 'They use the law to commit crime'.
Everything in Gangsters was about that trip, and it was a brilliant trip in the end because it gave us our first hit record - can't complain about that.
When we went to record our first single it was going to be 'Nite Klub' but we couldn't get the vibe quite right recording in the daytime, so we did Gangsters instead. Silverton had just left the band, and Jerry got his room mate Brad to play drums the day of the recording.
1174 Canterbury Cathedral was destroyed by fire.
1646 Following Cromwell's victory in the English civil war, the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury was abolished.
1666 The end of the Great Fire of London, that had started on 2nd September at the bakery of Thomas Farriner on Pudding Lane. 10,000 buildings including St. Paul's Cathedral had been destroyed, but only 6 people are known to have died.
1698 Russian Tsar Peter the Great imposes a tax on beards.
1800 Following a blockade by Admiral Horatio Nelson, French troops surrendered the Mediterranean island of Malta to Britain.
1914 The First Battle of the Marne began. German, British and French troops fought for six days. Half a million people were killed.
1929 French premier Aristide Briand requests a United States of Europe.
1939 At the start of World War II in Europe, American President Roosevelt declared the United States to be neutral.
1946 The birth (in Stone Town, Zanzibar) of the British musician and Queen frontman Freddie Mercury born as Farrokh Bulsara.
1959 The first trunk dialling system from a public call-box was launched during a ceremonial phone call from Bristol to London.
1960 Cassius Clay [Muhammad Ali] beats 3-time European champion Zbigniew Pietrzykowski of Poland by unanimous points decision to win Olympic light heavyweight boxing gold medal at the Rome Games.
1963 Christine Keeler, one of the women involved in the Profumo scandal in Britain, was arrested and charged with perjury.
1972 During the Summer Olympics at Munich, in the early morning of September 5, a group of Palestinian terrorists storms the Olympic Village apartment of the Israeli athletes, killing two and taking nine others hostage. The terrorists were part of a group known as Black September, in return for the release of the hostages, they demanded that Israel release over 230 Arab prisoners being held in Israeli jails and two German terrorists. In an ensuing shootout at the Munich airport, the nine Israeli hostages were killed along with five terrorists and one West German policeman. Olympic competition was suspended for 24 hours to hold memorial services for the slain athletes.
1976 Jim Henson's "The Muppet Show" premieres on television with Mia Farrow as the guest star.
1979 The BBC began broadcasting the hit American series 'Dallas' which soon became one of the most popular programmes on British TV.
1981 Soft Cell hit #1 in the UK with an electronic cover of "Tainted Love," a song originally released by the American soul singer Gloria Jones in 1964.
1997 The death of Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa birth name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. At the age of 18 she became a Catholic nun in Ireland and chose the name of Sister Teresa, in memory of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. She migrated to India in 1929 at the age of 19 and lived there for rest of her life, adopting Indian citizenship.
2008 The first Fender Stratocaster set alight on stage by Jimi Hendrix is auctioned. The guitar sells for $575,000 to collector Daniel Boucher - less than the $1 million predicted. It is one of only two guitars definitively burned by Hendrix - the other was at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
2018 UK Prime Minister Theresa May confirms in parliament two Russian military intelligence officers undertook novichok nerve agent attack.
2019 Erramatti Mangamma becomes the world's oldest living mother giving birth to twins aged 74 in Hyderabad, India.
Guaranteed to transport you back to the playground and swing park, BAGGY TROUSERS was quintessential Madness – British pop at its finest.
Taking time off from touring in Britain, Europe and America , Madness managed to do some recording, the first evidence of which was a single 'Baggy Trousers'.
A wonderful, wistful anti-school song ("I had less and less respect for it," recalled Suggsy, "until in my last year, I hardly went at all... I suppose I was a bit of a hooligan."), which went to number three in the charts in October 1980 and went on to become a gold record.
The album on which 'Baggy Trousers' would appear as the opening track was’ Absolutely’, and its b-side, 'The Business', eventually had lyrics added to it and a new name, appearing on the LP as 'Take It Or Leave It'.
The album was, as usual, well-received by the public, achieving platinum status and peaking at number two in the LP charts the same month.
On this date in 1980, the promo video for BEST FRIEND by THE BEAT was shown on Top Of The Pops, (Sep 5th, 1980).
Born Hugh Glenn Mortimer Charles in Guyana, Charlie became a member of Ian Dury’s Band, Kilburn and the High Roads. In 1977 they became Ian Dury & The Blockheads and found success. He died of cancer in September 1990 and the band re-united to play two benefit concerts for his family.
1620 149 Pilgrims, The Pilgrim Fathers, set sail from Plymouth in the Mayflower bound for America - the New World. The Pilgrims' story of people seeking to escape the religious controversies and economic problems of their time by emigrating to America, has become a central theme of the history and culture of the United States. They had originally set sail from Southampton on 5th August but were beset with problems.
1651 Charles II famously spent the night hidden in an oak tree at Boscobel after his defeat by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester.
1852 Britain's first free lending library opened, in Manchester.
1866 Three British tea clippers reached London within 2 hours of each other after a 16,000 mile race from China as there were big bonuses for the first ships home with the new season's tea.
1879 The opening of Britain's first telephone exchange - at Lombard Street in London.
1880 England beat Australia by five wickets at the Oval in the first Test Match played in England. English batsman W.G. Grace scored a century.
1899 Carnation processes its first can of evaporated milk.
1913 1st aircraft to loop the loop - Adolphe Pégoud in France.
1939 World War II: In an episode known as The Battle of Barking Creek, a friendly fire incident near Ipswich resulted in the first war death of a British fighter pilot (Pilot Officer Montague Hulton-Harrop). The incident exposed the inadequacies of RAF radar and identification procedures, leading to them being greatly improved by the crucial period of the Battle of Britain.
1944 World War II: The city of Ypres in Belgium was liberated by allied forces. As it was a difficult name to pronounce in English, British troops nicknamed the city 'Wipers'.
1952 At the Farnborough Airshow, a prototype de Havilland jet fighter exploded, and the debris fell onto the crowd. 26 people died.
1960 Ten skeletons were found in 3800 year old graves at Stonehenge. See my ©BB picture of Stonehenge, Wiltshire.
1972 Summer Olympics resume in Munich, Germany after massacre of 11 Israeli athletes by Black September Palestinian terrorist organisation.
1986 The first series of the British medical drama television series 'Casualty'.
1988 11-year-old Thomas Gregory, from London, swam the channel, reaching Dover after 12 hours. He was the youngest person ever to achieve a cross-channel swim.
1992 Gay Kelleway becomes the 1st female jockey to ride a winner at England’s famous Royal Ascot.
1997 The funeral service for Diana, Princess of Wales, was held in Westminster Abbey, London. An estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide watched the service on television. Elton John sings a new version of "Candle In The Wind". This rendition, which replaces "Goodbye Norma Jean" with "Goodbye England's Rose," becomes the best-selling single of all time in the UK.
2007 Operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti dies of pancreatic cancer in Modena, Italy, at age 71.
2014 A study by Cass Business School claimed that the secret to a long life is having a waistline no larger than half your height. A waist to height ratio of 80 per cent or more could reduce life expectancy by up to 20 years.
Following their move from the Manor Ground in Plumstead, Arsenal – still Woolwich Arsenal at the time - played their first match at Highbury against Leicester Fosse in the Second Division. A 20,000 crowd saw Leicester’s Tommy Benfield score the first Highbury goal, George Jobey equalising for Arsenal with Arichibald Devine scoring the Arsenal winner from the penalty spot.
Football On This Day – 6th September 1989.
The day that Terry Butcher became a blood donor in the England cause. England needed a good result against closest group rivals Sweden in Stockholm to keep on course to qualify for the 1990 World Cup finals in Italy. Central defender Terry Butcher suffered a deep **** on his forehead early in the game which was stitched and bandaged up. But the Rangers defender continued to head the ball which opened up the wound and left him seriously blooded as shown in that iconic picture.
Football On This Day – 6th September 1995.
England played out a 0-0 draw with Colombia in a friendly international at Wembley. Easily forgotten – well it would have been had it not been for the extrovert Colombian goalkeeper René Higuita introducing us to the scorpion kick.
Happy 63rd Birthday to BUSTER BLOODVESSEL
(born 6 September 1958)
The super-strength lager that few owned up to drinking in the ‘80s had a far higher pedigree some thirty years earlier when it was concocted in honour of Winston Churchill’s visit to Denmark. The strong taste was down to an infusion of brandy developed on account of the Prime Minister’s love of cognac.
1533 The birth of Elizabeth I, daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. She was Queen of England from 1558 to 1603 and was known as the Virgin Queen because she never married, being too shrewd to share power with a foreign monarch.
1548 Catherine Parr, 6th wife of Henry VIII, died in childbirth.
1571 Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, was arrested for his role in the Ridolfi plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. He was executed for treason in 1572 and is buried within the walls of the Tower of London.
1665 The death of George Viccars, the first plague victim to die in the village of Eyam in Derbyshire. The plague raged for 14 months. Out of a population of 350 people, only 80 survived.
1813 "Uncle Sam" 1st used to refer to the US, by Troy Post of New York.
1838 Grace Darling, daughter of the keeper of Longstone lighthouse on the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland, risked her life to rescue ship wrecked mariners. With her father, she rowed a tiny boat for over a mile through mountainous seas at the height of the storm to rescue nine people marooned on a rock. They were the only survivors of the steamship Forfarshine, which had run aground and broken up.
The courage that Grace and her family showed on that day is now legendary.
Grace and her father managed to get all nine survivors safely back to shore. The newspapers of the time reported on Grace's bravery and a media frenzy ensued. The government was impressed and gave her £50. The public was impressed even more, and raised over a thousand pounds. Grace was besieged with letters, visitors and request for public appearances. However, she did not enjoy being the focus of so much attention, preferring to live quietly at home with her parents.
Sadly, in October 1842 - four years after her brave act, Grace died of tuberculosis.
1895 The first game of what would become known as rugby league football, was played in England, starting the 1895–96 Northern Rugby Football Union season.
1923 Interpol forms in Vienna.
1931 King George V announced he would be taking a £50,000 a year pay cut while the economic crisis continued.
1936 Buddy Holly is born. He lives just 22 years but influences many of the biggest stars of the '60s, including The Beatles. Don McLean's "American Pie" is about his death.
1940 Germany began regular bombing of London - commonly known as 'The Blitz'. The bombing continued nightly until 2nd November.
1943 World War II. Italy surrendered to the Allies.
1969 Scottish Matra-Ford driver Jackie Stewart wins the Italian Grand Prix at Monza to clinch his first Formula 1 World Drivers Championship; his 6th F1 win of the season.
1973 Jackie Stewart became world champion racing driver for the third and final time.
1977 Ron Greenwood selected six players from European Champions Liverpool, plus Kevin Keegan who had recently left Anfield for Hamburg, for his first match as manager of England.But England lacked cohesion and imagination in a disappointing 0-0 draw in the friendly against Switzerland at Wembley. Liverpool's Ian Callaghan made this third appearance for England in that match - his previous match for England had been 11 years earlier in 1966.
1978 Keith Moon of The Who dies at age 32 after overdosing on medication that is supposed to help him overcome his alcoholism.
1978 While walking across Waterloo Bridge in London, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated by a Bulgarian secret police agent using a ricin pellet fired from a specially-designed umbrella.
1979 The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) makes its debut.
1984 Three more people died in the food poisoning epidemic at hospitals in Yorkshire, bringing the total number of deaths to 22.
1987 In the UK, Pink Floyd release A Momentary Lapse of Reason, their first album without founding member Roger Waters.
1996 Rap artist Tupac Shakur shot multiple times in a drive by shooting in Las Vegas, dies 6 days later.
2002 Scotland pulled back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 with the mighty Faroe Islands in a Euro qualifier.
2006 Sacha Baron Cohen's mockumentary "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" premieres at the Toronto Film Festival.
On this date in 1978, THE JAM were on Top Of The Pops performing DAVID WATTS, (September 7th 1978).
The Jam’s cover gave this lesser-known Ray Davies song (found on the The Kinks' 1967 album Something Else) an urgent reading with insistent drums, significant pauses and a committed vocal by Kinks fan Weller.
This date in 1981 saw the UK release of SALEM’S LOT, (September 7th 1981).
1157 King Richard I (the Lion Heart) was born.
1504 Michelangelo's statue of David is unveiled in Florence.
1560 Amy Robsart, wife of the Earl of Leicester, died from a fall. It was suspected that she was pushed, for soon after, the earl became an active suitor to Queen Elizabeth I.
1664 The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam was surrendered to the British, who, in 1669, renamed it New York after the Duke of York.
1727 A barn fire during a puppet show in the village of Burwell, Cambridgeshire, killed 78 people (51 of them children). The doors had been nailed shut to prevent further people getting in, a simple act which was key to the tragedy which resulted.
1760 British troops under Jeffrey Amherst defeated the French in the Battle of Montreal. After the loss, the French surrendered their arms throughout Canada.
1858 Abraham Lincoln supposedly says in a speech "You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time"
1888 Annie Chapman was found disembowelled in an East London street, the second victim of 'Jack the Ripper'.
1888 The first English Football League matches were played.
1914 HMS Oceanic, sister ship of RMS Titanic, sinks off Scotland.
1914 World War I: Private Thomas Highgate became the first British soldier of the war to be executed for desertion. He was undefended and called no witnesses in his defence, as all his comrades had been shot and killed. Highgate claimed that he was a 'straggler' trying to find his way back to rejoin his regiment after having been separated from his comrades. His execution was almost as hasty as his trial, as senior officers insisted that he be executed 'At once, as publicly as possible'. Posthumous pardons for over 300 such soldiers were announced in August 2006, including Highgate.
1921 1st Miss America crowned in Atlantic City - Margaret Gorman (16) of Washington, D.C.
1960 Publishers Penguin Books were charged with public obscenity for publishing D.H. Lawrence's controversial book - 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'.
1963 Scottish Lotus driver Jim Clark wins the Italian Grand Prix at Monza to clinch his first F1 World Drivers Championship; Clark's 5th GP win of the season.
1965 Small ads in Daily Variety and Hollywood Reporter attract 437 young men interested in forming the world’s first manufactured boy band, "The Monkees" - 3 are chosen with Davey Jones already having been cast.
1966 "Star Trek" 1st premieres on NBC-TV starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy.
1966 Queen Elizabeth II officially opened The Severn Bridge linking south Wales with south west England.
1968 British tennis player Virginia Wade beat American Billie Jean King to win the US Open.
1974 Evil Knievel attempts to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho but fails, escaping with minor injuries.
1979 US Open Women's Tennis: Tracy Austin becomes youngest US champion (16 years, 9 months); beats Chris Evert 6-4, 6-3.
1981 British TV comedy "Only Fools and Horses" created by John Sullivan, starring David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst and Lennard Pearce premieres on BBC One.
2001 Kylie Minogue releases her single "I Just Can't Get You Out of My Head", the biggest of her career.
2016 Prince Buster, a Jamaican native who popularized ska music in England, dies at age 78.
2018 US Open Women's Tennis: Naomi Osaka first Japanese female to win a Grand Slam singles final; beats Serena Williams in controversial match 6-2, 6-4.
The first matches in the Football League were played. The five matches played saw 23 goals scored and attracted around 25,000 spectators.
Football On This Day - 8th September 1958.
17-year-old Robert Frederick Chelsea Moore made his debut for West Ham United, a 3-2 First Division victory over Manchester United at Upton Park. Bobby Moore went on to make 544 League appearances for the Hammers before moving to Fulham in 1974 as well as playing 108 times for England.
Football On This Day - 8th September 2011.
Sandwiched between weekend fixtures in League 1 Notts County played a friendly on Thursday 8th September 2011. It was away in Italy against one of Europe's top teams, Juventus. Third tier Notts had been invited to Turin to play the first match at Juventus's new ground - the Juventus Stadium. History provided the reason. The historical link between the two clubs dates back to 1903 when Juventus decided to change the shirt colour they had been playing in since they were founded - pink. They asked an English team member, John Savage, for help and he in turn contacted a friend in Nottingham to send out a set of shirts to Turin. As a Notts County supporter the shirts he sent were inevitably black and white stripes and black and white remain the colours of Juventus to this day.
Football On This Day - 8th September 2015.
The day that Wayne Rooney became England's record goalscorer. His penalty in the 2-0 defeat of Switzerland in a Euro qualifier at Wembley was his 50th England goal.