This is the first photograph of Earth ever taken from space. It was captured on 24 October 1946 from a rocket 105 km above the ground that had been launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, USA.
The rocket was a German V2, captured by the Americans at the end of World War II. Hundreds of scientists and engineers from the Nazi rocket program were vital to the postwar development of the American and Russian space programs.
Though the V2 had rained terror on London and other cities during the war, in peacetime the explosive warhead was removed and replaced with a package of scientific instruments. These included a 35mm motion-picture camera set to snap one picture every second and a half.
The resulting images, developed from film dropped back to Earth in a tough steel canister, were like nothing that had been seen before. Until this point, the highest vantage point from which photos had been taken was some 22 km, aboard a high-altitude balloon.
The balloon pictures had shown the curvature of the Earth at the horizon, but the rocket photos opened new possibilities. Clyde Holliday, the engineer who developed the camera, saw the potential: in a 1950 National Geographic article, he predicted that one day “the entire land area of the globe might be mapped in this way”.
The first U.S. Transcontinental Telegraph message is sent, from San Francisco to Washington D.C. It provided instant communication between the east and west coasts, which previously could take months. It had taken 110 days in 1841 for the news of President William Henry Harrison's death to reach Los Angeles. The project consisted of 27,500 poles and 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of single-strand iron wire, a cost of $500,000, a little more than a year to complete. Keeping the telegraph line operational posed many challenges, as storms and wildlife damaged lines, along with native Americans destroying lines during the Indian wars. This also marked the end of the Pony Express, which officially ceased operations two days later. Construction of the first transcontinental telegraph,with a Pony Express rider passing below.
Manchester United end Arsenal's 49-game unbeaten run
By Daniel Lewis.
"[Wenger] came sprinting towards me with his hands raised saying, 'What do you want to do about it?'" Sir Alex Ferguson recalled in 2005, a year on from arguably the Premier League's most infamous game of football. "He was standing right there. He was criticising my players, calling them cheats, so I told him to leave them alone and behave himself."
If it is drama you are after, then it is difficult to pick out a more feisty and memorable encounter than Manchester United's 2-0 victory over great rivals Arsenal, which came on this day 16 years ago at Old Trafford. While this encounter has always provided many sub-plots pre-match - Ferguson vs. Arsene Wenger being just one of them - this particular match had even more riding on it.
The Gunners had just clocked 49 games without defeat, taking them into uncharted territory in the Premier League era as one of the greatest sides in a generation. Thirteen months on from the Battle of Old Trafford, in which Ruud van Nistelrooy missed a controversial late penalty to edge Arsenal a step closer to the title, it was time for another dramatic showdown.
Forget the Battle of Old Trafford, this was to be known as the Battle of the Buffet due to events that unravelled in the tunnel area post-match. On the field, during the 90 minutes of ferocious action, Van Nistelrooy redeemed himself somewhat by finding the net, while Wayne Rooney also scored his first league goal for the Red Devils.
Events had been boiling over long before the full-time whistle had sounded, though, as Van Nistelrooy somehow escaped a red card when stamping on Ashley Cole, with his subsequent retrospective three-game ban doing little to appease frustrated Arsenal supporters. The penalty tucked away by Rooney to seal things came about in a contentious manner, too, with minimal - if any - contact made by Sol Campbell inside the box.
If that was not enough to start the football equivalent of World War III, then the Gunners' premature "50 not out" Nike-branded shirts underneath their playing kits further added to the occasion. Exactly what happened in the tunnel area, beyond the sight of any of the cameras stationed inside Old Trafford, is not known to this day more than a decade on.
It is claimed that Cesc Fabregas was the key perpetrator, lobbing a pizza in the direction of Ferguson which led to the fiery Scotsman sporting a tracksuit in his TV interview shortly after the game had finished. The United boss was keen to focus on his side's display, and their achievement of becoming the first side in 50 attempts to get the better of their stubborn opponents.
Records of this kind are there to be broken, of course, but for Arsenal supporters it could not have happened at a worse place - White Hart Lane excluded. This was the home of their biggest rivals at the time, the side they had a long-running battle with for silverware on the domestic stage and the team they simply hated losing against.
Furthermore, Arsenal's form suffered as a result as they slipped from their position atop the league table and eventually found themselves five points adrift of Chelsea come Christmas time. United could not push on, however, finishing behind both Chelsea and Arsenal in third place, but they did have the satisfaction of ending the Londoners' impressive - and surely unbeatable - 49-game run without defeat.
It was a streak that began with a 6-1 triumph over Southampton at Highbury on May 7, 2003 and took in famous results along the way, including the 2-0 win against Leicester City at the end of the following season to ensure that Arsenal would do the unthinkable and go a whole league campaign without tasting a single defeat.
No side had achieved that feat since Preston North End did likewise in the late 1800s, but Wenger's charges were not content with simply going one season unbeaten - they had more records in their sights. A mammoth half-century was just about out of reach, however, due to that infamous loss at Old Trafford which finally put an end to the Invincibles' historic run.
Manchester United: Carroll; G. Neville, Ferdinand, Silvestre, Heinze; Ronaldo (Smith-85), P. Neville, Scholes, Giggs; Rooney, Van Nistelrooy (Saha-90)
The Charge of the Light Brigade by Jessica Brain “When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made!”
These words were made famous by Alfred Lord Tennyson in his poem, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, and refer to that fateful day on 25th October 1854 when around six hundred men led by Lord Cardigan rode into the unknown.
The charge against Russian forces was part of the Battle of Balaclava, a conflict making up a much larger series of events known as the Crimean War. The order for the cavalry charge proved catastrophic for the British cavalrymen: a disastrous mistake riddled with misinformation and miscommunication. The calamitous charge was to be remembered for both its bravery and tragedy.
The Crimean War was a conflict which broke out in October 1853 between the Russians on one side and an alliance of British, French, Ottoman and Sardinian troops on the other. During the following year the Battle of Balaklava took place, beginning in September when Allied troops arrived in Crimea. The focal point of this confrontation was the important strategic naval base of Sevastopol.
The Allied forces decided to lay siege to the port of Sevastapol. On 25th October 1854 the Russian army led by Prince Menshikov launched an assault on the British base at Balaklava. Initially it looked as if a Russian victory was imminent as they gained control of some of the ridges surrounding the port, therefore controlling the Allied guns. Nevertheless, the Allies managed to group together and held on to Balaklava.
Once the Russian forces had been held off, the Allies decided recover their guns. This decision led to one of the most crucial parts of the battle, now known as the Charge of the Light Brigade. The decision taken by Lord Fitzroy Somerset Raglan who was the British commander-in-chief at Crimea, was to look towards the Causeway Heights, where it was believed the Russians were seizing artillery guns.
The command given to the cavalry, made up of Heavy and Light Brigades, was to advance with the infantry. Lord Raglan had conveyed this message with the expectation of immediate action by the cavalry, with the idea that the infantry would follow. Unfortunately, due to lack of communication or some misunderstanding between Raglan and the commander of the Cavalry, George Bingham, Earl of Lucan, this was not carried out. Instead Bingham and his men held off for around forty five minutes, expecting the infantry to arrive later so they could proceed together.
Unfortunately with the breakdown in communication, Raglan frantically issued another command, this time to “advance rapidly to the front”. However, as far as Earl of Lucan and his men could see, there were no signs of any guns being seized by the Russians. This led to a moment of confusion, causing Bingham to ask Raglan’s aide-de-camp just where the cavalry were supposed to attack. The response from Captain Nolan was to gesticulate towards the North Valley instead of the Causeway which was the intended position for attack. After a little deliberation back and forth, it was decided that they must proceed in the aforementioned direction. A terrible blunder that would cost many lives, including that of Nolan himself.
Those in a position to take responsibility for the decisions included Bingham, the Earl of Lucan as well as his brother-in-law James Brudenell, the Earl of Cardigan who commanded the Light Brigade. Unfortunately for those serving under them, they loathed each other and were barely on speaking terms, a major issue considering the severity of the situation. It had also been said that neither character had earned much respect from their men, who were unfortunately obliged to obey their ill-fated commands on that day.
Lucan and Cardigan both decided to proceed with the ill-interpreted orders despite expressing some concern, therefore committing around six hundred and seventy members of the Light Brigade into battle. They drew their sabres and began the doomed mile-and-a-quarter-long charge, facing Russian troops who were firing on them from three different directions. The first to fall was Captain Nolan, Raglan’s aide-de-camp.
The horrors that followed would have shocked even the most experienced officer. Witnesses told of blood splattered bodies, missing limbs, brains blown to smithereens and smoke filling the air like a huge volcanic eruption. Those who did not die in the clash formed the long casualty list, with around one hundred and sixty treated for wounds and about one hundred and ten dead in the charge. The casualty rate amounted to a staggering forty percent. It was not just men who lost their lives that day, it was said that the troops lost approximately four hundred horses that day too. The price to pay for lack of military communication was steep.
Whilst the Light Brigade charged helplessly into the aim of Russian fire, Lucan led the Heavy Brigade forward with the French cavalry taking up the left of the position. Major Abdelal was able to lead an attack up to the Fedioukine Heights towards the flank of a Russian battery, forcing them to withdraw.
Slightly wounded and sensing that the Light Brigade were doomed, Lucan gave the order for the Heavy Brigade to halt and retreat, leaving Cardigan and his men without support. The decision taken by Lucan was said to be based on the desire to preserve his cavalry division, the ominous prospects of the Light Brigade being already unsalvageable as far as he could see. “Why add more casualties to the list?” Lucan is reported to have said to Lord Paulet.
Meanwhile as the Light Brigade charged into an endless smog of doom, those who did survive engaged in battle with the Russians, attempting to seize the guns as they did so. They regrouped into smaller numbers and prepared to charge the Russian cavalry. It is said that the Russians attempted to deal with any survivors swiftly but the Cossacks and other troops were unnerved to see the British horsemen charging towards them and panicked. The Russian cavalry pulled back.
By this point in the battle, all of the surviving members of the Light Brigade were behind the Russian guns, however lacking the support of Lucan and his men meant that the Russian officers quickly became aware that they outnumbered them. The retreat was therefore halted and an order was given to charge down into the valley behind the British and block their escape route. For those watching on, this looked to be a chillingly dire moment for the remaining Brigade fighters, however miraculously two groups of survivors quickly broke through the trap and made a break for it.
The battle was not over yet for these daring and courageous men, they were still coming under fire from guns on the Causeway Heights. The astounding bravery of the men was even acknowledged by the enemy who were said to have remarked that even when wounded and dismounted, the English would not surrender.
The mixture of emotions for both the survivors and onlookers meant that the Allies were incapable of continuing with any further action. The days, months and years that followed would lead to heated debates in order to apportion blame for such unnecessary misery that day. The Charge of the Light Brigade will be remembered as a battle steeped in bloodshed, mistakes, regret and trauma as well as valour, defiance and endurance.
David O'Leary was announced as the new manager of Leeds on this day in 1998, replacing George Graham. Having been Graham's assistant, O'Leary was put in caretaker charge at the club after the Scot departed for Tottenham, before being handed the job permanently on October 25. The former Republic of Ireland international guided Leeds to a fourth-placed finish in the Premier League in 1998-99, and that improved to third a year later.
O'Leary guided Leeds to third place in the 1999-2000 Premier League, which took them into the Champions League qualifying rounds. The team also reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup in 1999-2000, and the following season, in the Champions League, there was another run to the last four.
That famous campaign included O'Leary's men beating AC Milan 1-0 and drawing 1-1 with Barcelona at Elland Road in the first group stage. They ended up losing 3-0 on aggregate to Valencia in the semis.
Leeds came fourth again domestically, then fifth the next season before O'Leary's tenure came to an end in June 2002.
Leeds' plc announced the club and O'Leary had parted company "by mutual consent", but it soon became clear he had been sacked.
After O'Leary was sacked by Leeds, chairman Peter Risdale spoke about the money invested in players and failure to qualify for the Champions League. Chairman Peter Ridsdale subsequently spoke about the feeling that it had been time for a change with around £100million invested in players and the team having failed to qualify for the Champions League for two years running.
Ridsdale also made reference to a lack of silverware and "pressure off the field". The Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate court case had cast a huge cloud over Leeds' 2001-02 season.
O'Leary – who went on to manage Aston Villa from 2003 to 2006 and later had a brief stint with United Arab Emirates outfit Al-Ahli – was succeeded by Terry Venables. Peter Reid and Eddie Gray also had spells in charge before Leeds were relegated in 2004.
The oozlum bird, also spelled ouzelum, is a legendary creature found in Australian and British folk tales and legends. Some versions have it that, when startled, the bird will take off and fly around in ever-decreasing circles until it manages to fly up its own backside, disappearing completely, which adds to its rarity.
The Charge of the Light Brigade BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON I Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. “Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!” he said. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
II “Forward, the Light Brigade!” Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew Someone had blundered. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
III Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of h ell Rode the six hundred.
IV Flashed all their sabres bare, Flashed as they turned in air Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while All the world wondered. Plunged in the battery-smoke Right through the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reeled from the sabre stroke Shattered and sundered. Then they rode back, but not Not the six hundred.
V Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell. They that had fought so well Came through the jaws of Death, Back from the mouth of h ell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred.
VI When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wondered. Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!
Dr. Johnson said that ‘If a man should breakfast well, then he should breakfast in England’: presumably for those who could afford it!
One thing is certain, in the past, the rich breakfasted well; those lower down, the city clerks, artisans and labourers, had the Coffee House (cafe), where for a few coppers they had their chops and ale; those at the bottom had their tea, bread and dripping, scavenged the local shops or acquired what street-sold food they could. Many just went hungry.
The traditional adage of ‘breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper’, referred to the ‘well-heeled’.
The common assumption of the ‘full English breakfast’ spread from the big country houses in the 19th century when hot dishes of devilled kidneys, sausages, hams and eggs, not forgetting kedgeree, via India, were available on the sideboard.
Dr. Johnson said that ‘If a man should breakfast well, then he should breakfast in England’: presumably for those who could afford it!
One thing is certain, in the past, the rich breakfasted well; those lower down, the city clerks, artisans and labourers, had the Coffee House (cafe), where for a few coppers they had their chops and ale; those at the bottom had their tea, bread and dripping, scavenged the local shops or acquired what street-sold food they could. Many just went hungry.
The traditional adage of ‘breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper’, referred to the ‘well-heeled’.
The common assumption of the ‘full English breakfast’ spread from the big country houses in the 19th century when hot dishes of devilled kidneys, sausages, hams and eggs, not forgetting kedgeree, via India, were available on the sideboard.
In 1955 an examination was held to see the possibility of carrying heavier engines on the Severn Railway Bridge, and so at a cost of £125,000 Fairchilds were contracted to strengthen 500 diagonal braces.
However strengthening ironwork was to be the least of the Bridge’s problems as seen Today a Tuesday in 1960, which started as a normal working day for the crews of two oil barges, the Wastdale H out from Avonmouth carrying 350 tons of volatile petroleum spirit, and the Arkendale H carrying 300 tons of black oil.
For by the day’s end life would never be the same for many people, when at about 10 pm on a flood tide, in the fog around Berkeley Power Station, three miles from the bridge, the bows somehow became entangled.
This caused the vessels to drift helplessly towards the Rail Bridge (built 1875-79), demolishing the central arches, bursting the gas main, resulting in the death of five men in a catastrophic explosion.
Purton Memorial at Purton
Wrecks today with Wastdale on the left.
The Sharpness to Lydney Bridge, then the farthest downstream over the Severn, was built by the Severn Bridge Railway Company to carry coal from the Forest of Dean to Sharpness Docks.
Then the Great Western Railway built a 4 mile tunnel between 1873-86, so by 1893 declining revenues forced a new venture in the Joint Severn and Wye Joint Railway, which line continued to carry both freight and passengers until the 1960.s (2)
British Railways tinkered with the idea of rebuilding, but after spending millions on damage caused by construction vessels, decided to cut its losses and in 1967 decided to demolish.
Though the disaster was horrific, and no consolation for the families involved, casualties would have been worse as the last train of the day had crossed just before at 21.45.
On this day in 1881, the Earp brothers face off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in a legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.
After silver was discovered nearby in 1877, Tombstone quickly grew into one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest. Wyatt Earp, a former Kansaspolice officer working as a bank security guard, and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, the town marshal, represented “law and order” in Tombstone, though they also had reputations as being power-hungry and ruthless. The Clantons and McLaurys were cowboys who lived on a ranch outside of town and sidelined as cattle rustlers, thieves and murderers. In October 1881, the struggle between these two groups for control of Tombstone and CochiseCounty ended in a blaze of gunfire at the OK Corral.
On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend Doc Holliday. Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike’s brother Billy rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne. The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps. Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge.
Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street. The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired. Though it’s still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury’s chest. Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills.
Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder. A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were “fully justified in committing these homicides.” The famous shootout has been immortalized in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939), Gunfight at the OK Corral(1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994).
No player is allowed to loiter between the ball and the adversaries goal. (Cambridge Rule).
The Football Association was founded today in 1863 at a meeting at the Freeman’s Tavern in Great Queen St. London, when men of Cambridge University, credited with being the first football club, issued their set of definitive rules.
Football on Parker’s Piece, Cambridge.
These Cambridge Rules played on an oval pitch, were accepted by all the major Public Schools, except Blackheath, which eventually became the first rugby club and to found the Rugby Union.
From being a purely local activity football now became a nationally organised game, however, the acrimonious formation of the Association was eventually to cause a rift between the Rugby and Dribbling Codes, a divergence not over running with the ball, but concerning ‘hacking’. Rugby men felt it was manly and courageous to tackle an opponent by kicking him on the shins; the Dribbling Men didn’t and voted it out.
The Rugby men called the Dribblers cowards and walked out of the FA, thus instigating the start of the Rugby Union. Unsurprisingly the need of shin guards, originally worn outside socks, became essential and were to be invented in 1874 by Sam Widdowson of Nottingham Forest.
Players still handled the ball, and when it was caught, a ‘mark’ could be made and a ‘free kick’ allowed. The first FA laws allowed a ‘touch down’ rule and a free kick at goal after a ball had been kicked over the opposing goal line and ‘touched-down’, (the Rugby ‘try’). But within a few years football rejected all the now distinctive Rugby conventions.
Soon only the goalkeeper could handle the ball, the touchdown was abolished, and forward passing became the essence; offside became formalised. The foul play inspired by increasingly complex rules would give a modern referee nightmares.
One of the first Associations (in 1871) was Burton and District FA after local brewers had met in the Swan on October 5th 1870; the Rugby Football Club was founded at the same time and are still flourishing in the Author’s home town.
In 1885 professionalism was legalised in England, (but not in Scotland), which the Royal Arsenal, in the south, was the first club to embrace in 1891, a year which saw many changes with referees and linesmen taking the place of umpires and penalty kicks introduced.
No player is allowed to loiter between the ball and the adversaries goal. (Cambridge Rule).
The Football Association was founded today in 1863 at a meeting at the Freeman’s Tavern in Great Queen St. London, when men of Cambridge University, credited with being the first football club, issued their set of definitive rules.
Football on Parker’s Piece, Cambridge.
These Cambridge Rules played on an oval pitch, were accepted by all the major Public Schools, except Blackheath, which eventually became the first rugby club and to found the Rugby Union.
From being a purely local activity football now became a nationally organised game, however, the acrimonious formation of the Association was eventually to cause a rift between the Rugby and Dribbling Codes, a divergence not over running with the ball, but concerning ‘hacking’. Rugby men felt it was manly and courageous to tackle an opponent by kicking him on the shins; the Dribbling Men didn’t and voted it out.
The Rugby men called the Dribblers cowards and walked out of the FA, thus instigating the start of the Rugby Union. Unsurprisingly the need of shin guards, originally worn outside socks, became essential and were to be invented in 1874 by Sam Widdowson of Nottingham Forest.
Players still handled the ball, and when it was caught, a ‘mark’ could be made and a ‘free kick’ allowed. The first FA laws allowed a ‘touch down’ rule and a free kick at goal after a ball had been kicked over the opposing goal line and ‘touched-down’, (the Rugby ‘try’). But within a few years football rejected all the now distinctive Rugby conventions.
Soon only the goalkeeper could handle the ball, the touchdown was abolished, and forward passing became the essence; offside became formalised. The foul play inspired by increasingly complex rules would give a modern referee nightmares.
One of the first Associations (in 1871) was Burton and District FA after local brewers had met in the Swan on October 5th 1870; the Rugby Football Club was founded at the same time and are still flourishing in the Author’s home town.
In 1885 professionalism was legalised in England, (but not in Scotland), which the Royal Arsenal, in the south, was the first club to embrace in 1891, a year which saw many changes with referees and linesmen taking the place of umpires and penalty kicks introduced.
Love how the Rugby men called the Dribblers cowards for not accepting the 'kicking on the shin' rule,not much has changed today .
David O'Leary was announced as the new manager of Leeds on this day in 1998, replacing George Graham. Having been Graham's assistant, O'Leary was put in caretaker charge at the club after the Scot departed for Tottenham, before being handed the job permanently on October 25. The former Republic of Ireland international guided Leeds to a fourth-placed finish in the Premier League in 1998-99, and that improved to third a year later.
O'Leary guided Leeds to third place in the 1999-2000 Premier League, which took them into the Champions League qualifying rounds. The team also reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup in 1999-2000, and the following season, in the Champions League, there was another run to the last four.
That famous campaign included O'Leary's men beating AC Milan 1-0 and drawing 1-1 with Barcelona at Elland Road in the first group stage. They ended up losing 3-0 on aggregate to Valencia in the semis.
Leeds came fourth again domestically, then fifth the next season before O'Leary's tenure came to an end in June 2002.
Leeds' plc announced the club and O'Leary had parted company "by mutual consent", but it soon became clear he had been sacked.
After O'Leary was sacked by Leeds, chairman Peter Risdale spoke about the money invested in players and failure to qualify for the Champions League. Chairman Peter Ridsdale subsequently spoke about the feeling that it had been time for a change with around £100million invested in players and the team having failed to qualify for the Champions League for two years running.
Ridsdale also made reference to a lack of silverware and "pressure off the field". The Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate court case had cast a huge cloud over Leeds' 2001-02 season.
O'Leary – who went on to manage Aston Villa from 2003 to 2006 and later had a brief stint with United Arab Emirates outfit Al-Ahli – was succeeded by Terry Venables. Peter Reid and Eddie Gray also had spells in charge before Leeds were relegated in 2004.
I seem to remember that Leeds were a joy to watch back then.
I used to run a Ladbrokes in Cockfosters that David O'Leary used to pop into occasionally when he was still playing. No airs and graces with him. A proper down to earth fella.
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This is the first photograph of Earth ever taken from space. It was captured on 24 October 1946 from a rocket 105 km above the ground that had been launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, USA.
The rocket was a German V2, captured by the Americans at the end of World War II. Hundreds of scientists and engineers from the Nazi rocket program were vital to the postwar development of the American and Russian space programs.
Though the V2 had rained terror on London and other cities during the war, in peacetime the explosive warhead was removed and replaced with a package of scientific instruments. These included a 35mm motion-picture camera set to snap one picture every second and a half.
The resulting images, developed from film dropped back to Earth in a tough steel canister, were like nothing that had been seen before. Until this point, the highest vantage point from which photos had been taken was some 22 km, aboard a high-altitude balloon.
The balloon pictures had shown the curvature of the Earth at the horizon, but the rocket photos opened new possibilities. Clyde Holliday, the engineer who developed the camera, saw the potential: in a 1950 National Geographic article, he predicted that one day “the entire land area of the globe might be mapped in this way”.
October 24, 1861
The first U.S. Transcontinental Telegraph message is sent, from San Francisco to Washington D.C. It provided instant communication between the east and west coasts, which previously could take months. It had taken 110 days in 1841 for the news of President William Henry Harrison's death to reach Los Angeles. The project consisted of 27,500 poles and 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of single-strand iron wire, a cost of $500,000, a little more than a year to complete. Keeping the telegraph line operational posed many challenges, as storms and wildlife damaged lines, along with native Americans destroying lines during the Indian wars.
This also marked the end of the Pony Express, which officially ceased operations two days later.
Construction of the first transcontinental telegraph,with a Pony Express rider passing below.
"The project consisted of 27,500 poles and 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of single-strand iron wire,"
The mind truly boggles. Imagine the logistics behind that.
Manchester United end Arsenal's 49-game unbeaten run
By Daniel Lewis.
"[Wenger] came sprinting towards me with his hands raised saying, 'What do you want to do about it?'" Sir Alex Ferguson recalled in 2005, a year on from arguably the Premier League's most infamous game of football. "He was standing right there. He was criticising my players, calling them cheats, so I told him to leave them alone and behave himself."
If it is drama you are after, then it is difficult to pick out a more feisty and memorable encounter than Manchester United's 2-0 victory over great rivals Arsenal, which came on this day 16 years ago at Old Trafford. While this encounter has always provided many sub-plots pre-match - Ferguson vs. Arsene Wenger being just one of them - this particular match had even more riding on it.
The Gunners had just clocked 49 games without defeat, taking them into uncharted territory in the Premier League era as one of the greatest sides in a generation. Thirteen months on from the Battle of Old Trafford, in which Ruud van Nistelrooy missed a controversial late penalty to edge Arsenal a step closer to the title, it was time for another dramatic showdown.
Forget the Battle of Old Trafford, this was to be known as the Battle of the Buffet due to events that unravelled in the tunnel area post-match. On the field, during the 90 minutes of ferocious action, Van Nistelrooy redeemed himself somewhat by finding the net, while Wayne Rooney also scored his first league goal for the Red Devils.
Events had been boiling over long before the full-time whistle had sounded, though, as Van Nistelrooy somehow escaped a red card when stamping on Ashley Cole, with his subsequent retrospective three-game ban doing little to appease frustrated Arsenal supporters. The penalty tucked away by Rooney to seal things came about in a contentious manner, too, with minimal - if any - contact made by Sol Campbell inside the box.
If that was not enough to start the football equivalent of World War III, then the Gunners' premature "50 not out" Nike-branded shirts underneath their playing kits further added to the occasion. Exactly what happened in the tunnel area, beyond the sight of any of the cameras stationed inside Old Trafford, is not known to this day more than a decade on.
It is claimed that Cesc Fabregas was the key perpetrator, lobbing a pizza in the direction of Ferguson which led to the fiery Scotsman sporting a tracksuit in his TV interview shortly after the game had finished. The United boss was keen to focus on his side's display, and their achievement of becoming the first side in 50 attempts to get the better of their stubborn opponents.
Records of this kind are there to be broken, of course, but for Arsenal supporters it could not have happened at a worse place - White Hart Lane excluded. This was the home of their biggest rivals at the time, the side they had a long-running battle with for silverware on the domestic stage and the team they simply hated losing against.
Furthermore, Arsenal's form suffered as a result as they slipped from their position atop the league table and eventually found themselves five points adrift of Chelsea come Christmas time. United could not push on, however, finishing behind both Chelsea and Arsenal in third place, but they did have the satisfaction of ending the Londoners' impressive - and surely unbeatable - 49-game run without defeat.
It was a streak that began with a 6-1 triumph over Southampton at Highbury on May 7, 2003 and took in famous results along the way, including the 2-0 win against Leicester City at the end of the following season to ensure that Arsenal would do the unthinkable and go a whole league campaign without tasting a single defeat.
No side had achieved that feat since Preston North End did likewise in the late 1800s, but Wenger's charges were not content with simply going one season unbeaten - they had more records in their sights. A mammoth half-century was just about out of reach, however, due to that infamous loss at Old Trafford which finally put an end to the Invincibles' historic run.
Manchester United: Carroll; G. Neville, Ferdinand, Silvestre, Heinze; Ronaldo (Smith-85), P. Neville, Scholes, Giggs; Rooney, Van Nistelrooy (Saha-90)
Arsenal: Lehmann; Lauren, Campbell, Toure, Cole; Ljungberg, Vieira, Edu, Reyes (Pires-70); Bergkamp, Henry
by Jessica Brain
“When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!”
These words were made famous by Alfred Lord Tennyson in his poem, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, and refer to that fateful day on 25th October 1854 when around six hundred men led by Lord Cardigan rode into the unknown.
The charge against Russian forces was part of the Battle of Balaclava, a conflict making up a much larger series of events known as the Crimean War. The order for the cavalry charge proved catastrophic for the British cavalrymen: a disastrous mistake riddled with misinformation and miscommunication. The calamitous charge was to be remembered for both its bravery and tragedy.
The Crimean War was a conflict which broke out in October 1853 between the Russians on one side and an alliance of British, French, Ottoman and Sardinian troops on the other. During the following year the Battle of Balaklava took place, beginning in September when Allied troops arrived in Crimea. The focal point of this confrontation was the important strategic naval base of Sevastopol.
The Allied forces decided to lay siege to the port of Sevastapol. On 25th October 1854 the Russian army led by Prince Menshikov launched an assault on the British base at Balaklava. Initially it looked as if a Russian victory was imminent as they gained control of some of the ridges surrounding the port, therefore controlling the Allied guns. Nevertheless, the Allies managed to group together and held on to Balaklava.
Once the Russian forces had been held off, the Allies decided recover their guns. This decision led to one of the most crucial parts of the battle, now known as the Charge of the Light Brigade. The decision taken by Lord Fitzroy Somerset Raglan who was the British commander-in-chief at Crimea, was to look towards the Causeway Heights, where it was believed the Russians were seizing artillery guns.
The command given to the cavalry, made up of Heavy and Light Brigades, was to advance with the infantry. Lord Raglan had conveyed this message with the expectation of immediate action by the cavalry, with the idea that the infantry would follow. Unfortunately, due to lack of communication or some misunderstanding between Raglan and the commander of the Cavalry, George Bingham, Earl of Lucan, this was not carried out. Instead Bingham and his men held off for around forty five minutes, expecting the infantry to arrive later so they could proceed together.
Unfortunately with the breakdown in communication, Raglan frantically issued another command, this time to “advance rapidly to the front”. However, as far as Earl of Lucan and his men could see, there were no signs of any guns being seized by the Russians. This led to a moment of confusion, causing Bingham to ask Raglan’s aide-de-camp just where the cavalry were supposed to attack. The response from Captain Nolan was to gesticulate towards the North Valley instead of the Causeway which was the intended position for attack. After a little deliberation back and forth, it was decided that they must proceed in the aforementioned direction. A terrible blunder that would cost many lives, including that of Nolan himself.
Those in a position to take responsibility for the decisions included Bingham, the Earl of Lucan as well as his brother-in-law James Brudenell, the Earl of Cardigan who commanded the Light Brigade. Unfortunately for those serving under them, they loathed each other and were barely on speaking terms, a major issue considering the severity of the situation. It had also been said that neither character had earned much respect from their men, who were unfortunately obliged to obey their ill-fated commands on that day.
Lucan and Cardigan both decided to proceed with the ill-interpreted orders despite expressing some concern, therefore committing around six hundred and seventy members of the Light Brigade into battle. They drew their sabres and began the doomed mile-and-a-quarter-long charge, facing Russian troops who were firing on them from three different directions. The first to fall was Captain Nolan, Raglan’s aide-de-camp.
The horrors that followed would have shocked even the most experienced officer. Witnesses told of blood splattered bodies, missing limbs, brains blown to smithereens and smoke filling the air like a huge volcanic eruption. Those who did not die in the clash formed the long casualty list, with around one hundred and sixty treated for wounds and about one hundred and ten dead in the charge. The casualty rate amounted to a staggering forty percent. It was not just men who lost their lives that day, it was said that the troops lost approximately four hundred horses that day too. The price to pay for lack of military communication was steep.
Whilst the Light Brigade charged helplessly into the aim of Russian fire, Lucan led the Heavy Brigade forward with the French cavalry taking up the left of the position. Major Abdelal was able to lead an attack up to the Fedioukine Heights towards the flank of a Russian battery, forcing them to withdraw.
Slightly wounded and sensing that the Light Brigade were doomed, Lucan gave the order for the Heavy Brigade to halt and retreat, leaving Cardigan and his men without support. The decision taken by Lucan was said to be based on the desire to preserve his cavalry division, the ominous prospects of the Light Brigade being already unsalvageable as far as he could see. “Why add more casualties to the list?” Lucan is reported to have said to Lord Paulet.
Meanwhile as the Light Brigade charged into an endless smog of doom, those who did survive engaged in battle with the Russians, attempting to seize the guns as they did so. They regrouped into smaller numbers and prepared to charge the Russian cavalry. It is said that the Russians attempted to deal with any survivors swiftly but the Cossacks and other troops were unnerved to see the British horsemen charging towards them and panicked. The Russian cavalry pulled back.
By this point in the battle, all of the surviving members of the Light Brigade were behind the Russian guns, however lacking the support of Lucan and his men meant that the Russian officers quickly became aware that they outnumbered them. The retreat was therefore halted and an order was given to charge down into the valley behind the British and block their escape route. For those watching on, this looked to be a chillingly dire moment for the remaining Brigade fighters, however miraculously two groups of survivors quickly broke through the trap and made a break for it.
The battle was not over yet for these daring and courageous men, they were still coming under fire from guns on the Causeway Heights. The astounding bravery of the men was even acknowledged by the enemy who were said to have remarked that even when wounded and dismounted, the English would not surrender.
The mixture of emotions for both the survivors and onlookers meant that the Allies were incapable of continuing with any further action. The days, months and years that followed would lead to heated debates in order to apportion blame for such unnecessary misery that day. The Charge of the Light Brigade will be remembered as a battle steeped in bloodshed, mistakes, regret and trauma as well as valour, defiance and endurance.
David O'Leary was announced as the new manager of Leeds on this day in 1998, replacing George Graham.
Having been Graham's assistant, O'Leary was put in caretaker charge at the club after the Scot departed for Tottenham, before being handed the job permanently on October 25.
The former Republic of Ireland international guided Leeds to a fourth-placed finish in the Premier League in 1998-99, and that improved to third a year later.
O'Leary guided Leeds to third place in the 1999-2000 Premier League, which took them into the Champions League qualifying rounds.
The team also reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup in 1999-2000, and the following season, in the Champions League, there was another run to the last four.
That famous campaign included O'Leary's men beating AC Milan 1-0 and drawing 1-1 with Barcelona at Elland Road in the first group stage. They ended up losing 3-0 on aggregate to Valencia in the semis.
Leeds came fourth again domestically, then fifth the next season before O'Leary's tenure came to an end in June 2002.
Leeds' plc announced the club and O'Leary had parted company "by mutual consent", but it soon became clear he had been sacked.
After O'Leary was sacked by Leeds, chairman Peter Risdale spoke about the money invested in players and failure to qualify for the Champions League.
Chairman Peter Ridsdale subsequently spoke about the feeling that it had been time for a change with around £100million invested in players and the team having failed to qualify for the Champions League for two years running.
Ridsdale also made reference to a lack of silverware and "pressure off the field". The Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate court case had cast a huge cloud over Leeds' 2001-02 season.
O'Leary – who went on to manage Aston Villa from 2003 to 2006 and later had a brief stint with United Arab Emirates outfit Al-Ahli – was succeeded by Terry Venables. Peter Reid and Eddie Gray also had spells in charge before Leeds were relegated in 2004.
Perhaps it should've been named USS-Oozlum...
The oozlum bird, also spelled ouzelum, is a legendary creature found in Australian and British folk tales and legends. Some versions have it that, when startled, the bird will take off and fly around in ever-decreasing circles until it manages to fly up its own backside, disappearing completely, which adds to its rarity.
BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
II
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
III
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of h ell
Rode the six hundred.
IV
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
V
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of h ell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
VI
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
Dr. Johnson said that ‘If a man should breakfast well, then he should breakfast in England’: presumably for those who could afford it!
One thing is certain, in the past, the rich breakfasted well; those lower down, the city clerks, artisans and labourers, had the Coffee House (cafe), where for a few coppers they had their chops and ale; those at the bottom had their tea, bread and dripping, scavenged the local shops or acquired what street-sold food they could. Many just went hungry.
The traditional adage of ‘breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper’, referred to the ‘well-heeled’.
The common assumption of the ‘full English breakfast’ spread from the big country houses in the 19th century when hot dishes of devilled kidneys, sausages, hams and eggs, not forgetting kedgeree, via India, were available on the sideboard.
In 1955 an examination was held to see the possibility of carrying heavier engines on the Severn Railway Bridge, and so at a cost of £125,000 Fairchilds were contracted to strengthen 500 diagonal braces.
However strengthening ironwork was to be the least of the Bridge’s problems as seen Today a Tuesday in 1960, which started as a normal working day for the crews of two oil barges, the Wastdale H out from Avonmouth carrying 350 tons of volatile petroleum spirit, and the Arkendale H carrying 300 tons of black oil.
For by the day’s end life would never be the same for many people, when at about 10 pm on a flood tide, in the fog around Berkeley Power Station, three miles from the bridge, the bows somehow became entangled.
This caused the vessels to drift helplessly towards the Rail Bridge (built 1875-79), demolishing the central arches, bursting the gas main, resulting in the death of five men in a catastrophic explosion.
Purton
Memorial at Purton
Wrecks today with Wastdale on the left.
The Sharpness to Lydney Bridge, then the farthest downstream over the Severn, was built by the Severn Bridge Railway Company to carry coal from the Forest of Dean to Sharpness Docks.
Then the Great Western Railway built a 4 mile tunnel between 1873-86, so by 1893 declining revenues forced a new venture in the Joint Severn and Wye Joint Railway, which line continued to carry both freight and passengers until the 1960.s (2)
British Railways tinkered with the idea of rebuilding, but after spending millions on damage caused by construction vessels, decided to cut its losses and in 1967 decided to demolish.
Though the disaster was horrific, and no consolation for the families involved, casualties would have been worse as the last train of the day had crossed just before at 21.45.
On this day in 1881, the Earp brothers face off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in a legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.
After silver was discovered nearby in 1877, Tombstone quickly grew into one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest. Wyatt Earp, a former Kansaspolice officer working as a bank security guard, and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, the town marshal, represented “law and order” in Tombstone, though they also had reputations as being power-hungry and ruthless. The Clantons and McLaurys were cowboys who lived on a ranch outside of town and sidelined as cattle rustlers, thieves and murderers. In October 1881, the struggle between these two groups for control of Tombstone and CochiseCounty ended in a blaze of gunfire at the OK Corral.
On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend Doc Holliday. Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike’s brother Billy rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne. The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps. Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge.
Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street. The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired. Though it’s still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury’s chest. Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills.
Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder. A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were “fully justified in committing these homicides.” The famous shootout has been immortalized in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939), Gunfight at the OK Corral(1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994).
No player is allowed to loiter between the ball and the adversaries goal. (Cambridge Rule).
The Football Association was founded today in 1863 at a meeting at the Freeman’s Tavern in Great Queen St. London, when men of Cambridge University, credited with being the first football club, issued their set of definitive rules.
Football on Parker’s Piece, Cambridge.
These Cambridge Rules played on an oval pitch, were accepted by all the major Public Schools, except Blackheath, which eventually became the first rugby club and to found the Rugby Union.
From being a purely local activity football now became a nationally organised game, however, the acrimonious formation of the Association was eventually to cause a rift between the Rugby and Dribbling Codes, a divergence not over running with the ball, but concerning ‘hacking’. Rugby men felt it was manly and courageous to tackle an opponent by kicking him on the shins; the Dribbling Men didn’t and voted it out.
The Rugby men called the Dribblers cowards and walked out of the FA, thus instigating the start of the Rugby Union. Unsurprisingly the need of shin guards, originally worn outside socks, became essential and were to be invented in 1874 by Sam Widdowson of Nottingham Forest.
Players still handled the ball, and when it was caught, a ‘mark’ could be made and a ‘free kick’ allowed. The first FA laws allowed a ‘touch down’ rule and a free kick at goal after a ball had been kicked over the opposing goal line and ‘touched-down’, (the Rugby ‘try’). But within a few years football rejected all the now distinctive Rugby conventions.
Soon only the goalkeeper could handle the ball, the touchdown was abolished, and forward passing became the essence; offside became formalised. The foul play inspired by increasingly complex rules would give a modern referee nightmares.
One of the first Associations (in 1871) was Burton and District FA after local brewers had met in the Swan on October 5th 1870; the Rugby Football Club was founded at the same time and are still flourishing in the Author’s home town.
In 1885 professionalism was legalised in England, (but not in Scotland), which the Royal Arsenal, in the south, was the first club to embrace in 1891, a year which saw many changes with referees and linesmen taking the place of umpires and penalty kicks introduced.
James Cameron obviously called it right about O.J. Simpson...
I used to run a Ladbrokes in Cockfosters that David O'Leary used to pop into occasionally when he was still playing. No airs and graces with him. A proper down to earth fella.