Biopowered - vegetable oil and biodiesel forum
General => Chatter => Topic started by: K.H on August 16, 2014, 12:19:08 AM
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1842 The first regular British detective force was formed as a division of the Metropolitan Police, under the joint command of Inspector Pearce and Inspector John Haynes. In 1878 it became known as the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
1856 The birth of James Keir Hardie, Scottish politician. He founded the British Labour Party and was its leader from 1906.
1872 The first voting by ballot in Great Britain took place in a by-election at Pontefract, when Hugh Childers, a Liberal MP and minister was re-elected
1888 T.E. Lawrence, Welsh soldier and writer known as 'Lawrence of Arabia', was born, in Tremadog, Gwynedd.
1939 The Cunard liner Queen Mary recaptured the Blue Riband from the SS Normandie, crossing the Atlantic in 3 days, 22 hours and 40 minutes.
1941 Corporal Josef Jakobs was executed by firing squad at the Tower of London at 7:12 a.m. making him the last person to be executed at the Tower for treason.
1947 Pakistan was founded when British rule over the region ended. India gained independence from Britain, and the Union Jack was lowered in New Delhi for the last time. Pandit Nehru became India’s first Prime Minister.
1950 Princess Anne, Britain's Princess Royal was born.
1962 Unhappy with Pete Best's role in The Beatles, Brian Epstein and the other three members decided to sack him. He played his last gig at The Cavern, Liverpool, two years and three days after he first performed with them.
1963 The execution of Henry John Burnett, the last man to be hanged in Scotland and the first to be hanged in Aberdeen since 1891. Burnett was tried at the high court in Aberdeen in July and found guilty of the murder of merchant seaman Thomas Guyan.
1971 Controversial horse rider Harvey Smith was stripped of his £2,000 winnings and a major show jumping title for allegedly making a rude V-sign gesture.
1985 Richard Branson's speedboat Virgin Atlantic Challenger capsized off the south-west of England. He was just two hours short of completing the fastest-ever Atlantic crossing.
1987 Caning was officially banned in British schools (excluding independent schools).
1998 A bomb blast in Omagh, Northern Ireland, killed 28 people and injured more than 300 others. A 29th victim died a month later. It was the worst attack in 29 years of paramilitary violence in Ulster.
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Camper must be finished then?
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Camper must be finished then?
Cynic!
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1513 King Henry VIII of England and his troops defeated the French in the Battle of the Spurs, at Guinigatte, NW France.
1743 The earliest prize-ring code of boxing rules was formulated in England by the champion fighter Jack Broughton.
1819 The Peterloo massacre took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester when militia, with sabres drawn, charged on a crowd of 60,000–80,000 gathered to hear discussion on the reform of parliamentary representation. 15 people were killed and 650 injured.
1858 A telegraphed message from Britain's Queen Victoria to US President Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable.
1897 Endowed by the sugar merchant Henry Tate, the Tate Gallery, in London, was opened.
1900 Second Boer War: The Battle of Elands River (in western Transvaal) ended after a 13-day siege. The battle began when a force of 2,000 - 3,000 Boers had surrounded a force of 500 at a supply dump at Brakfontein Drift. Outnumbered and surrounded, the garrison was asked to surrender, but refused. The siege was lifted, with a 10,000-strong column led by Lord Kitchener.
1913 The completion of the Royal Navy battlecruiser HMS Queen Mary, the last battlecruiser built by the Royal Navy before World War I.
1930 The birth, in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire, of Ted Hughes, English poet & former Poet Laureate.
1930 The first British Empire Games (now the Commonwealth Games) were held at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
1952 Twelve bodies were recovered and 24 people were missing, feared dead, in a flood which swept through Lynmouth in north Devon.
1960 Britain granted independence to the crown colony of Cyprus.
1984 John De Lorean was acquitted in Los Angeles of charges that he conspired to import 100 kg of cocaine, and used the proceeds to save his financially-troubled Northern Ireland sports car company.
2001 Paul Burrell, former butler to Diana, Princess of Wales, was charged with theft from her estate relating to a total of 342 items, reportedly worth £5m.
2004 Flash floods devastated the north Cornwall coastal village of Boscastle after the area's average August rainfall fell in just two hours.
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There's a coincidence..Lynmouth and Boscastle were the same day but 52 years apart! Spooky
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I predict a punch line somewhere. It isn't his birthday, is it?
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Not until next weekend.
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So this could go on all week, then?
Suspenseful.
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Not until next weekend.
How the hell did you know that? ;D
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I was going to post this up daily as its been a bit quiet lately and all i get is suspicion, i cant see i ever done anything to deserve it ;D
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Me thinks you protest to much.
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, i cant see i ever done anything to deserve it ;D
Breathing.
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, i cant see i ever done anything to deserve it ;D
Breathing.
;D
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hmmm do we have a lottery winner in our midst?
:-\
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hmmm do we have a lottery winner in our midst?
:-\
Are you trying to tell us you've won a tenner?
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Still waiting for the 17th and today!
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Forum i steal them from didnt post any up, cant trust anyone can ya
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There's a coincidence..Lynmouth and Boscastle were the same day but 52 years apart! Spooky
inclement weather is not unusual in cornwall in august. we joke about the bad luck of having holidays in august down here while feeling a bit sorry for poor buggers in tents and caravans.
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1587 An expedition led by Sir Walter Raleigh landed at what is now Roanoke Island, North Carolina. Seven days later, Virginia Dare, granddaughter of governor John White, became the first child of English parentage to be born in America.
1783 A huge fireball meteor was seen across Britain. Analysis of observations indicated that the meteor entered the Earth's atmosphere over the North Sea, before passing over the east coast of Scotland and England and the English Channel. It finally broke up, after a passage within the atmosphere of around a thousand miles over south-western France or northern Italy.
1825 Scottish explorer Alexander Gordon Laing became the first European to reach Timbuktu, now in Mali. He was murdered there the following month.
1932 Scottish aviator Jim Mollison made the first westbound solo transatlantic flight in a light aircraft when he arrived in New Brunswick after leaving Portmarnock in Ireland 30 hours earlier.
1941 Britain's National Fire Service was established.
1948 Jockey Lester Piggott, aged 12, rode his first winner on only his seventh ride.
1948 The Australian cricket team completed a 4–0 Ashes series win over England during their undefeated 'Invincibles' tour.
1959 The proposed route of the M1 was altered to save a forest from destruction.
1962 Ringo Starr joined The Beatles - Lennon, McCartney and Harrison - as drummer, and made his debut with them at the horticultural society dance in Birkenhead.
1966 The Tay road bridge was opened by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.
1967 The luxury liner Queen Mary was sold to the Southern Californian town of Long Beach.
1971 The British Army was accused of shooting dead an unarmed, disabled man during disturbances in Northern Ireland. Soldiers said that Eamon McDevitt, 24, was brandishing a pistol when he was shot, but civilian witnesses said that the man, who was born deaf and dumb, was simply waving his arms about, his way of attracting attention.
1982 The City of Liverpool named four Streets after the fab four, John Lennon Drive, Paul McCartney Way, George Harrison Close and Ringo Starr Drive.
1989 Manchester United Football Club was sold for £20m in the biggest takeover deal in the history of British football.
1998 Pilot Peter Diamond was jailed for 2 years for helping businessman fraudster Azil Nadir (Polly Peck company) escape from Britain in May 1993.
2003 The death of Tony Jackson, lead singer and bass player with the Searchers on their first two UK hits, 'Sweets for My Sweet" and 'Sugar and Spice'. Jackson was inspired by the skiffle sound of Lonnie Donegan, and then by Buddy Holly and other US 'rollers'.
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1274 The coronation of Edward I, known as 'Longshanks', as he was 6 feet 2 inches tall.
1561 Mary Queen of Scots arrived in Scotland (following the death of her French husband Francis II,) to assume the throne after spending 13 years in France.
1612 Three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury were put on trial, accused of practicing witchcraft. It was one of the most famous witch trials in English history as all three - Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley were acquitted. The charges against the women included child murder and cannibalism. In contrast, the others tried at the Lancaster Castle assizes, including the Lancashire Pendle witches (see picture!), were accused of maleficium i.e. causing harm by witchcraft.
1631 John Dryden, English poet and dramatist was born. He was the first official Poet Laureate of Great Britain.
1685 The beginning of the 'Bloody Assizes' in England with Judge Jeffreys regularly sentencing people to death.
1879 The laying of the foundation stone for the Eddystone Lighthouse.
1897 The London Electric Cab Company began operating the electric-powered taxi cabs in London's West End and the City. They had a range of up to 30 miles, and a top speed of 9 miles an hour. The cabs prove uneconomical and were withdrawn in 1900.
1919 Afghanistan gained full independence from Britain.
1942 British and Canadian troops launched a disastrous attack on German-held Dieppe. Of the 6,000 troops involved, only about 2,500 returned. The rest were killed or captured.
1953 The England cricket team, under captain Len Hutton, won The Ashes against Australia for the first time since the tour of 1932-1933.
1960 Penguin Books received a summons in response to their plans to publish Lady Chatterley's Lover.
1969 The British Army took over control of security in Northern Ireland.
1970 The 1000th episode of Coronation Street was broadcast.
1975 Campaigners calling for the release of robber George Davis from prison vandalised the pitch at Headingley cricket ground in Leeds.
1987 27 year old gunman Michael Ryan shot dead 16 people during a rampage through Hungerford, Berkshire. 14 people were wounded, and one of the dead was Ryan’s own mother. He proceeded to set fire to his mother’s house, and the worst civil massacre in modern British history ended when he shot himself.
1989 The offshore, North Sea pirate radio station, Radio Caroline, was raided and silenced by the British and Dutch governments. However broadcasts resumed on 1st October of that year and continued on low/moderate power until fuel for the generator ran out on 6th November 1990. Radio Caroline currently broadcasts 24 hours a day via the Eutelsat satellite and Internet radio.
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1987 27 year old gunman Michael Ryan shot dead 16 people during a rampage through Hungerford, Berkshire. 14 people were wounded, and one of the dead was Ryan’s own mother. He proceeded to set fire to his mother’s house, and the worst civil massacre in modern British history ended when he shot himself.
Walked straight past the local Pub Landlords' Sister.
Reckons she had no idea why he shot peeps in front of her, and behind her, but decided not too shoot her.
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1989 Manchester United Football Club was sold for £20m in the biggest takeover deal in the history of British football.
25 years later that wouldn't even buy a player, sometimes wouldn't even cover the wages of some.
The biggest reason I can't get into the game anymore, is the mountains and mountains of cash. Given that the average wage has risen by at best 80% the rise in football numbers is astronomical, nothing to appeal to me whatsoever.
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1912 The death of William Booth, British founder of the Salvation Army.
1913 Harry Brearley of Sheffield cast the first stainless steel.
1924 Although considered the likely winner, British sprinter Eric Liddel refused to run in the 100m heats at the Paris Olympics because it took place on a Sunday. He went on to set a new record when he won the 400 metres on a weekday.
1940 As the aerial Battle of Britain raged, Prime Minister Winston Churchill told Parliament: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." With the Battle of Britain won a few months later and German plans postponed, the Allied airmen of the battle ultimately became known as 'The Few'.
1944 World War II: American and British forces destroyed the German Seventh Army at Falaise-Argentan Gap, west of Paris, capturing 50,000 German troops.
1944 World War II: 168 captured allied airmen, accused by the Gestapo of being 'terror fliers', arrived at Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Opened in July 1937, it was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.
1956 Calder Hall, Britain's first nuclear power station, began operating.
1970 England's soccer captain, Bobby Moore, was cleared of charges of stealing, in a trial in Colombia.
1971 Prince Charles got his 'wings' at RAF College Cranwell, in Lincolnshire.
1971 The birth of David Walliams (born Williams), the English comedian known for his partnership with Matt Lucas on the TV sketch show Little Britain. He and Lucas wrote and starred in Come Fly with Me, a spoof of the British documentaries Airport and Airline.
1988 During 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland, 8 British Army soldiers were killed and 28 wounded when their bus was hit by a Provisional IRA roadside bomb in County Tyrone. The event is sometimes referred to as the 'Ballygawley bus bombing'.
1989 In London, the pleasure cruiser Marchioness was hit by a dredger, the Bowbelle, on the River Thames - 51 people attending a party on the boat were killed. The formal investigation put the time elapsed from the instant of collision at 1.46 a.m. to complete immersion of the Marchioness at a mere 30 seconds.
1990 Iraq confirmed that Western hostages held after the outbreak of the Gulf War were being moved to military and other vital installations as a human shield to deter attacks.
1992 The Daily Mirror published compromising photographs of Sarah Ferguson (the Duchess of York), sunbathing topless, on holiday in France with John Bryan, a Texan financial manager. The event contributed to her further estrangement from the Royal Family and after four years of official separation, the Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson announced the mutual decision to divorce, in May 1996.
1992 Iraq sentenced a British man (Paul Ride, a catering manager from east London) to seven years in jail for alleged illegal entry into the country.
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1987 27 year old gunman Michael Ryan shot dead 16 people during a rampage through Hungerford, Berkshire. 14 people were wounded, and one of the dead was Ryan’s own mother. He proceeded to set fire to his mother’s house, and the worst civil massacre in modern British history ended when he shot himself.
Walked straight past the local Pub Landlords' Sister.
Reckons she had no idea why he shot peeps in front of her, and behind her, but decided not too shoot her.
And all because his mother asked him to shoot up town and get her a newspaper.
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1987 27 year old gunman Michael Ryan shot dead 16 people during a rampage through Hungerford, Berkshire. 14 people were wounded, and one of the dead was Ryan’s own mother. He proceeded to set fire to his mother’s house, and the worst civil massacre in modern British history ended when he shot himself.
Walked straight past the local Pub Landlords' Sister.
Reckons she had no idea why he shot peeps in front of her, and behind her, but decided not too shoot her.
And all because his mother asked him to shoot up town and get her a newspaper.
That's a bit like the programmer's joke:
A programmer's wife asks him to go to the shop and buy a loaf of bread, and if they have eggs, get 12.
So he comes back with 12 loaves of bread.
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1987 27 year old gunman Michael Ryan shot dead 16 people during a rampage through Hungerford, Berkshire. 14 people were wounded, and one of the dead was Ryan’s own mother. He proceeded to set fire to his mother’s house, and the worst civil massacre in modern British history ended when he shot himself.
Walked straight past the local Pub Landlords' Sister.
Reckons she had no idea why he shot peeps in front of her, and behind her, but decided not too shoot her.
And all because his mother asked him to shoot up town and get her a newspaper.
That's a bit like the programmer's joke:
A programmer's wife asks him to go to the shop and buy a loaf of bread, and if they have eggs, get 12.
So he comes back with 12 loaves of bread.
(http://i316.photobucket.com/albums/mm323/KRH01/Funnies/YVOTYnf_zps1c0ad471.jpg)
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1689 The Battle of Dunkeld took place, between Jacobite clans supporting the deposed King James VII of Scotland and a government regiment of covenanters, led by the 27 year old Colonel William Cleland supporting William of Orange, King of Scotland. Fighting took place in the streets around Dunkeld Cathedral (see picture) and the Jacobites were routed, having lost around 300 men. Losses on the government side are unclear, but they included Colonel Cleland, who is buried in the cathedral.
1754 The birth of William Murdock, Scottish engineer and long-term inventor who invented the oscillating steam engine and coal-gas lighting. He was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt and worked for them in Cornwall as a steam engine erector for ten years, spending most of the rest of his life in Birmingham. Murdoch remained an employee and later a partner of Boulton & Watt until the 1830s, but his reputation as an inventor has been obscured by the reputations of Boulton and Watt and the firm they founded.
1770 James Cook formally claimed eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.
1858 Victoria Cross winner Sir Sam Browne invented the Sam Browne belt to hold his sword and pistol after he had lost an arm in action. It soon became standard military kit.
1879 English pioneer aviator Claude Grahame-White was born. He gained the first English aviator’s certificate of proficiency, established the Hendon Aerodrome and entered many flying races. He was also the first to make a night flight; during the Daily Mail sponsored 1910 London to Manchester air race.
1914 Private John Parr became the first British man to be shot and killed during World War 1. Official registers showed that he was 20 years old but, like many young soldiers, he had lied about his age and he was just 16.
1918 World War I: The beginning of the Second Battle of the Somme. The battle formed the central part of the Allies' advance to the Armistice of 11th November, which went into effect at 11 a.m. 1918. It marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany.
1930 Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, and sister of England's Queen Elizabeth II, was born in Glamis Castle, Scotland.
1936 The BBC made its first television broadcast from Alexandra Palace.
1939 Civil Defence, to mitigate the effects of enemy attack, was started in Britain.
1973 The coroner presiding over the Derry / Londonderry 'Bloody Sunday' inquest accused the British army of 'sheer unadulterated murder' after 13 were killed in a civil rights march on 30th January 1972.
1976 Mary Langdon became Britain's first female firefighter when she joined the East Sussex Brigade.
1988 More flexible licensing laws allowed public houses to stay open 12 hours in the day, except on Sunday.
1990 British conservationist George Adamson, whose work featured in the film Born Free, was murdered by bandits in Kenya.
1996 The new Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in Southwark, London, opened with a production of Two Gentlemen of Verona.
2000 The NHS revealed that missed appointments cost the organisation £18.5 million a year.
2001 Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel began legal action to shut the Sangatte camp in France which was used by asylum seekers.
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On this day I've had nothing better to read than "On this day"
Sad innit.
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Come on keef you're slacking, what happened today?
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On this day K.H forgot to post on the On this day thread.
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:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
565 St. Columba reported seeing a monster in Loch Ness. It was the first reported sighting of the monster. The loch is Scotland's second largest loch by surface area after Loch Lomond, but, due to its great depth, it is the largest by volume.
1138 The English defeated the Scots at Cowton Moor. Banners of various saints were carried into battle, which led to its being called the Battle of the Standard.
1485 Richard III of England was defeated and killed at The Battle of Bosworth Field, (see also plaque close up) in the last of the Wars of the Roses between the Houses of Lancaster and York. He was the last English king to die in battle.
1642 The English Civil War began, between the supporters of Charles I (Cavaliers) and of Parliament (Roundheads), when the king called the English Parliament traitors and raised his standard at Nottingham.
1780 James Cook's ship HMS Resolution returned to England; Cook having been killed on Hawaii during the voyage.
1788 The British settlement in Sierra Leone was founded, the purpose of which was to secure a home in Africa for freed slaves.
1922 Irish republican Michael Collins, the founder of Sinn Fein, was assassinated by extremist republicans in County Cork.
1925 The birth of Honor Blackman, English actress best known for her role of Cathy Gale in The Avengers and as the Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger (1964).
1932 The BBC began its first experiments with television broadcasting.
1957 The birth of Steve Davis, professional snooker player. He has won more professional titles in the sport than any other player, including six World Championships during the 1980s, when he was the world number one for seven years.
1962 The first live TV appearance of the Beatles was recorded by Granada, in a lunchtime session at The Cavern Club, Liverpool.
1963 William Richard Morris, British car manufacturer died.
1985 Following an aborted take-off, a Boeing 737 burst into flames on the runway at Manchester Airport, killing 55 people.
1986 Deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester police John Stalker was cleared of misconduct. It had been alleged that he was associating with criminals.
1989 British Telecom launched the world's first mobile phones.They had a very limited operating range that restricted their use to 100 yards from a public base station.
1998 The Republican terrorist group the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) announced a 'complete ceasefire'.
2008 Paedophile and former pop singer Gary Glitter was ordered to sign the sex offenders' register after arriving back in the UK. He had spent 27 months in a Vietnam jail for abusing two girls.
2012 Tony Nicklinson, a man with locked-in syndrome who lost his High Court case on 12th August to allow doctors to end his life, died after refusing food following the Court's judgement.
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About bloody time too.
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1305 Scottish patriot William Wallace was hanged, beheaded, and quartered in London, and his body parts were later displayed in different cities. His barbaric murder came as a result of Wallace's efforts to free Scotland from the occupying English forces. The 1995 movie Braveheart was based on Wallace's life. The National Wallace Monument is on the outskirts of Stirling.
1617 The first one-way streets were introduced in London.
1650 Colonel George Monck of the English Army formed Monck's Regiment of Foot, which later became the Coldstream Guards.
1839 Britain captured Hong Kong as a base as it prepared for war with China. The ensuing 3 year conflict was later to be known as the First Opium War.
1858 The Round Oak rail accident occurred in Brierley Hill in the Black Country. At the time, the Board of Trade inspector said 'It is decidedly the worst railway accident that has ever occurred in this country.' 14 were killed and 50 injured and the guard, who had six passengers drinking and smoking with him in the rear van was convicted of manslaughter as they had broken the train couplings whilst playing around with the train's brakes. (Note: The worst rail disaster in Britain to date took place at Quintinshill (Gretna Green) in Scotland on 22nd May 1915, killing 227 people and injuring 246.)
1914 World War I: The Battle of Mons - the first major battle of World War I.
1938 England's Test cricketer Len Hutton scored what was then a new world record test score of 364 against Australia at the Oval.
1940 The German Luftwaffe began night bombing London.
1961 Police launched a murder hunt after a man was found shot dead and his companion seriously wounded in a lay-by in Bedfordshire. Valerie Storie, who survived the shooting, identified James Hanratty as her attacker. Hanratty was convicted of the murder in 1962 and sentenced to death, becoming one of the last people to be hanged in Britain before capital punishment was abolished.
1962 John Lennon, founder-member of The Beatles, married his childhood sweetheart Cynthia Powell.
1965 Security guards at a Manchester TV Studio hosed down 200 Rolling Stones fans who broke down barriers while waiting for the band to arrive for a performance.
1977 New, smaller pound notes, were introduced into the UK.
1990 Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein appeared on state television with western hostages, provoking a storm of outrage.
2001 J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter creator) was given the Walpole Medal of Excellence for promoting British Excellence.
2005 Hilary Lister, from Kent, became the first quadriplegic sailor to cross the English Channel. She achieved this by using controls powered by her breath to navigate her boat and made the crossing in six hours thirteen minutes.
2010 Publisher Harper Collins and the BBC began a court battle over a book that revealed the identity of Top Gear's The Stig to be the former Formula Three driver Ben Collins. Henceforth Collins was always referred to by the Top Gear presenters as 'Sacked Stig'.
2012 Former fugitive Asil Nadir (71) was jailed for 10 years for the theft of almost £29m from his Polly Peck empire more than 20 years previously. The company collapsed in 1990 after a Serious Fraud Office investigation.
2013 A Super Puma helicopter crashed off Shetland killed 4 of the 18 on board. In 2012 two helicopters had ditched in the North Sea only six months apart in incidents which were found to be caused by gearbox problems. Super Puma EC 225s were grounded in the wake of the two earlier accidents but were given approval to fly again and services had only resumed on 7th August 2013.
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1200 King John of England, signee of the first Magna Carta, married Isabella of Angouleme in Bordeaux Cathedral.
1482 The town and castle of Berwick upon Tweed were captured from Scotland by an English army. The border town has remained English ever since.
1662 The second statute of the Act of Uniformity required England to accept the Book of Common Prayer in religious service. Upwards of 2000 clergy refused to comply with the act, and were forced to resign.
1680 The death of Colonel Blood, an Irish adventurer who stole the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London in 1671. He had been captured after the theft, but insisted on seeing King Charles II, who pardoned him.
1682 Englishman William Penn, an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, received the area that is now the state of Delaware, and added it to his colony of Pennsylvania.
1759 William Wilberforce, English philanthropist, was born. He campaigned for many important causes, most notably the abolition of slavery in Britain and its colonies.
1787 James Wedell, English explorer, was born. He explored the edge of the Antarctic, reaching the most southern point at that time, three degrees below Cook’s furthest journey.
1814 British forces captured Washington DC and set the White House on fire.
1847 Charlotte Brontë, alias Currer Bell, sent her manuscript for Jane Eyre to her London publishers, Smith, Elder & Company.
1875 Matthew Webb (Captain Webb) started his attempt from Dover England to become the first person to swim the English Channel. He reached Calais, France at 10.40 am the following morning, having been in the water for 22 hours.
1903 Graham Sutherland, painter of the tapestry in Coventry Cathedral, was born.
1947 The first Edinburgh Festival was held.
1967 Two penguins from Chessington Zoo were taken on a day trip to a local ice-rink to cool off during sweltering London temperatures.
1975 The first ever nude performance in a British opera took place at Glyndebourne.
1981 American Mark Chapman was given a 20 year life sentence for shooting John Lennon - the former member of the British group, The Beatles - in New York.
1985 Five year old John Shorthouse was shot dead in Birmingham after armed officers stormed into his house looking for his father.
1998 Britain, the United States and the Netherlands agreed to put two Libyans on trial for planting the bomb which blew up a Pan Am airliner over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all those on board and several on the ground.
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1975 The first ever nude performance in a British opera took place at Glyndebourne.
Bit racey today! Never has opera appealed so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH0sngODIu8
Shh, it's art.
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1975 The first ever nude performance in a British opera took place at Glyndebourne.
Bit racey today! Never has opera appealed so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH0sngODIu8
Shh, it's art.
Oi, you kids shouldn't be watching stuff like that. I blame your parents for not keeping you under control whilst you're on the poota.
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At least its not two fat birds
(I think that is the non pc term) ;D
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1975 The first ever nude performance in a British opera took place at Glyndebourne.
Bit racey today! Never has opera appealed so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH0sngODIu8
Shh, it's art.
Oi, you kids shouldn't be watching stuff like that. I blame your parents for not keeping you under control whilst you're on the poota.
You're right, there's a risk of tainting us with culture - we should only be watching modern music videos!
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1975 The first ever nude performance in a British opera took place at Glyndebourne.
Bit racey today! Never has opera appealed so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH0sngODIu8
Shh, it's art.
Oi, you kids shouldn't be watching stuff like that. I blame your parents for not keeping you under control whilst you're on the poota.
You're right, there's a risk of tainting us with culture - we should only be watching modern music videos!
No no no not the opera, the naughty naked nudy bits, the next thing you'll have 3 kids and won't know what caused'm so close your eyes next time.
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1537 The Honourable Artillery Company was formed. It is the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, and the second most senior.
1804 Alicia Meynell rode Vingarillo over a four-mile racecourse at York to become the first recorded woman jockey. She was in the lead most of the way against only one other contestant, but lost.
1830 Stephenson’s locomotive 'Northumbrian' took a trial run to prepare for the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Actress Fanny Kemble rode on the footplate, the first woman to do so.
1867 The death, aged 75, of the English scientist Michael Faraday. His inventions formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became viable for use in technology.
1917 The Order of the British Empire (OBE), and the Companion of Honour (CH), were awarded for the first time
1919 The world's first international daily air service began between London and Paris.
1928 The opening of the famous Kop End at Liverpool Football Club's ground at Anfield. It was most likely named after the Battle of Spion Kop during the Boer War, the word 'Kopje' meaning 'small hill'.
1931 Ramsay MacDonald formed a National Government.
1939 Britain and Poland formed a military alliance in which the UK promised to defend Poland in case of invasion by a foreign power.
1940 The RAF made the first air raid on Berlin.
1942 The Duke of Kent, youngest brother of King George VI, was killed in a plane crash during a war mission to Iceland. He was the first member of the Royal family to be killed on active service.
1944 World War II - The Allies liberated Paris.
1986 Britain staged its first street motor race - along roads around the centre of Birmingham.
1988 The first GCSE results were published.
1988 Romanian Chess master Mihai Suba & his son defected to the West during an international tournament in London.
2009 The British Steam Car, driven by Charles Burnett III, broke the existing land speed record by a steam powered vehicle with an average speed of 139.843 mph over two consecutive runs over a measured mile at the Edward's Air Force Base in California, USA.
2009 A man was stabbed in the chest during "large-scale trouble" involving hundreds of fans at West Ham's Carling Cup match against Millwall. Fights were still raging five hours later.
2010 Gareth Williams, 30, an MI6 worker was found in a holdall in the bath at his central London flat. Police believed that he may have been murdered two weeks previously.
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55BC Julius Caesar crossed the English Channel for his invasion of Britain.
1346 The English, led by Edward III and his son Edward the Black Prince, won the Battle of Crécy against Philip VI of France. Legend has it, that it was at this battle that the English first used the gesture of holding up two fingers as an insult, as this was how they held their new, and far superior weapon, the longbow.
1676 Sir Robert Walpole was born. He was a Whig politician who became the first Prime Minister. He was also the first Lord of the Treasury and the first Chancellor of the Exchequer.
1819 Prince Albert, (Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) and consort to Queen Victoria, was born in Bavaria. He persuaded Victoria towards more progressive views in some areas, took a keen interest in the arts, and organized the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace.
1936 Over 7,000 people queued to see the first high definition television pictures on sets at the Olympia Radio Show, west London. The pictures were transmitted by the BBC from Alexandra Palace, introduced by Leslie Mitchell, their first announcer.
1942 World War II: The beginning of the Holocaust in western Ukraine. At 2.30 am the German security police evicted Jews from their houses, divided them into groups of 120, packed them in freight cars and deported 2000 to Belzec death camp. 500 of the sick, along with children, were murdered on the spot.
1959 British car manufacturers Austin and Morris launched a small family car - the 'Mini'.
1959 The Radio Show opened at Earls Court in London, with the appearance of some of the first 'transistor' radios.
1963 Cilla Black made her first major concert appearance at The Odeon Cinema, Southport, on a bill with the Beatles.
1967 The birth of Michael Gove, former Secretary of State for Education and Conservative Party Member of Parliament for the Surrey Heath constituency. He is also an author and former Times journalist who remains on friendly terms with proprietor Rupert Murdoch.
1981 Steve Ovett recaptured the mile-run record which had been taken from him just a week earlier by Sebastian Coe. Ovett's new world record time was 3:48.40.
1994 A man was given the world's first battery-operated heart in a pioneering operation in Britain.
1997 Diana, Princess of Wales, condemned the previous Conservative Government as 'hopeless' over the issue of the banning of landmines.
2001 It was announced that thousands of patients facing long delays in British hospitals could have the chance to be treated abroad in a Government bid to reduce waiting lists.
2011 The death of John McAleese, British Army soldier and leader of the SAS team that assaulted the Iranian Embassy in London in May 1980 to end the Iranian Embassy siege.
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1660 John Milton's books were burned in London, because of the author's attacks on King Charles II.
1784 The first balloon ascent was made in Britain, by James Tytler at Edinburgh.
1877 Birthday of The Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls, English motor manufacturer. The Rolls family were substantial landowners and benefactors in and around Monmouth, hence this bronze statue in front of the Shire Hall in Agincourt Square, Monmouth. Rolls was also an aviator, being the first to fly non-stop across the English Channel and back in 1910. He was a keen motorist, and participated in several long-distance races. In 1906 he formed a partnership with Henry Royce to manufacture luxury cars.
1896 The start (and end) of the Anglo-Zanzibar War. It was the shortest war in world history and lasted for just 38 minutes.
1899 The birth of C.S. Forester, the English novelist who rose to fame with tales of naval warfare; his most notable works being the 12 book Horatio Hornblower series and The African Queen.
1900 Britain's first long distance bus service began between London and Leeds. The journey took 2 days!
1950 The BBC transmitted the first ever live television pictures across the Channel.
1966 Francis Chichester began the first solo circumnavigation of the world, when he set out from Plymouth in Gypsy Moth IV.
1967 Brian Epstein died, from an accidental overdose of brandy and barbiturates. He managed The Beatles and worked with Gerry and The Pacemakers, The Fourmost, Billy J. Kramer and Cilla Black.
1976 The Labour MP John Stonehouse resigned following his conviction for theft and fraud
1979 The death of Lord Louis Mountbatten, Prince Philip's and the Queen’s cousin (strictly second cousin once removed). The IRA exploded a 50lb, remote-controlled bomb on his boat Shadow V off the coast of County Sligo, Ireland. Lord Mountbatten was a former Admiral of the Fleet, the last Viceroy of India (1947) and the first Governor-General of the independent Union of India. He served as Chief of the Defence Staff until 1965, making him the longest serving professional head of the British Armed Forces to date.
1984 The death (aged 69) of Bernard Youens, British character actor, best remembered for his portrayal of the workshy, beer-swilling Stan Ogden in Coronation Street from 1964 until his death.
1995 Giles, British cartoonist died.
1995 The Rugby Union authorities announced that the amateur game was turning professional.
1996 Police at Stansted Airport arrested seven Iraqis who had hijacked a Sudanese jet with 199 people on board to London, where they were seeking political asylum. All were arrested and jailed but their convictions were quashed a year later.
1997 A Cambridgeshire family who sold everything to sail around the world were rescued from their crippled yacht by the Royal Navy in the Bay of Biscay.
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1640 The Scots, under Sir Alexander Leslie, defeated royalist English forces under Lord Conway at the battle of Newburn near Newcastle. Newcastle was then occupied by the Scots in the English-Scottish wars.
1833 The House of Commons approved the Abolition Act, introduced earlier by Thomas Buxton, abolishing slavery throughout most of the British Empire.
1906 The birth of Sir John Betjeman, poet, broadcaster, a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture. Starting his career as a journalist, he ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate to date and a much-loved figure on British television.
1914 The Battle of Heligoland Bight, the first major naval battle of World War I, was fought. The Germans lost four ships and 1,000 sailors. British casualties numbered 33.
1933 For the first time, a BBC-broadcasted appeal was used by the police in tracking down a wanted man (murder suspect Stanley Hobday).
1972 Prince William of Gloucester was killed when his light aircraft crashed and burst into flames.
1973 Princess Anne visited Russia, to ride for Britain in an equestrian event, thus becoming the first member of the Royal Family to visit the country.
1981 For the third time in 10 days, a world record in the mile run was set. Sebastian Coe, who broke Steve Ovett's record on August 19th and lost it to Ovett on August 26th , broke it again - by a full second - in Brussels, Belgium. Coe's new record time was 3:47.33.
1986 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was at the re-opening of the Grand Hotel in Brighton in which she and Conservative Party members had been staying in 1983 when it was bombed by the IRA.
1988 Kylie Minogue set a new UK record when her debut album Kylie, became the biggest selling album by a female artist in Britain, with sales of almost 2 million.
1994 Thousands of shops throughout England and Wales opened legally for the first time on a Sunday, following a change in the Sunday trading laws.
1996 The divorce of Charles, the Prince of Wales, and Princess Diana was finalized in a decree absolute issued in London's High Court. Under the terms of the divorce settlement, Diana was stripped of her 'Royal Highness' title.
2003 An electricity blackout cut off power to around 500,000 people living in the south east England and brought 60% of London's underground rail network to a halt.
2004 British athlete Kelly Holmes secured a place in Olympic history by winning the 1500m gold in Athens. The runner won the 800m earlier and thus became the first Olympic Briton in 84 years to achieve the middle-distance double.
2013 Leeds businessman Lee Beaumont who became tired of 'cold calls' offering to help him reclaim payment protection insurance (PPI), or install solar panels set up his home phone as a premium rate 0871 number. Companies who phone him now spend 10p per minute on calls, from which he receives 7p. The number of 'cold calls' to his 0871 number fell by 66% in one month.
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"2013 Leeds businessman Lee Beaumont who became tired of 'cold calls' offering to help him reclaim payment protection insurance (PPI), or install solar panels set up his home phone as a premium rate 0871 number. Companies who phone him now spend 10p per minute on calls, from which he receives 7p. The number of 'cold calls' to his 0871 number fell by 66% in one month."
Not a bad idea. Keep meaning to try that.
I managed to wind a PPI caller up so bad the other day. She was ranting hysterically, then I just left the phone on the bench till she calmed down and ended the call. Brightens up an otherwise mundane existence.......
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1782 The British battleship HMS Royal George sank off Spithead with the loss of more than 900 crew while repairs were being carried out beneath the ship's waterline.
1831 Michael Faraday successfully demonstrated the first electrical transformer at the Royal Institute, London.
1833 Legislation to settle child labour laws was passed in England. The legislation was called the 'Factory Act'.
1842 The Treaty of Nanking was signed between the British and the Chinese, ending the Opium War, and leasing the Hong Kong territories to Britain.
1882 The England cricket team lost to Australia, in England, for the first time. An 'obituary' printed in the Sporting Times, talked of 'the Ashes' of English Cricket being taken back to Australia. Test Series between the two countries are now played for 'The Ashes'.
1895 At the George Hotel, Huddersfield, twenty-one rugby clubs met to form the Northern Union. In 1922 the Union was renamed the Rugby League.
1918 Britain’s first police strike began at midnight, as 6000 policemen campaigned for better pay.
1923 The birth of Richard Attenborough, English actor and director. He won two Academy Awards for Gandhi in 1982 and has also won four BAFTA Awards. As an actor he is perhaps best known for his roles in The Great Escape, 10 Rillington Place and Jurassic Park.
1930 The last 36 remaining inhabitants of St Kilda (40 miles west-northwest of North Uist in the North Atlantic Ocean) were voluntarily evacuated to other parts of Scotland. The entire archipelago is owned by the National Trust for Scotland and it became one of Scotland's five World Heritage Sites in 1986.
1947 James Hunt, grand prix racing driver was born. He won the 1976 world championship and retired in 1979 only to die prematurely from a heart attack at the age of 45.
1966 British group The Beatles gave their last live concert performance to a crowd of around 25,000 at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, USA.
1981 Vandals slashed the picture of Diana, Princess of Wales hanging at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
1986 Britain's oldest twins, May and Marjorie Chavasse, both received telegrams from the Queen, to celebrate reaching their 100th birthday.
1997 Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam invited Sinn Féin, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), to all-party talks on Northern Ireland.
2011 Private security firm G4S sacked two members of staff who tagged the false leg of 29 year old Rochdale offender Christopher Lowcock, allowing him to remove it and flout a court-imposed curfew for driving and drug offences, as well as possession of an offensive weapon.
2013 Lorry driver Ethen Roberts was jailed for five years and three months after admitting causing the deaths of two people when his lorry toppled on to their car on the M62 in West Yorkshire as he read a text message. Investigators found that Roberts had sent and received almost 100 messages to and from the same friend in the three days leading up to the crash, all when the lorry's tachograph showed that the vehicle was being driven.
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1146 A conference of European leaders outlawed the crossbow. It was hoped that by banning the weapon, wars would eventually end. Despite the prohibition, crossbows continued to be used until the 16th century, when they were replaced by firearms.
1682 William Penn sailed from England. He later established the colony of Pennsylvania. A statue of him now stands on top of City Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1720 The birth of Samuel Whitbread, English brewer and Member of Parliament. When he died on 11th June 1796, the Gentleman's Magazine claimed that he was 'worth over a million pounds'.
1791 The British Ordnance Survey (mapping agency) was founded.
1791 HMS Pandora, the ship sent in 1790 to search for the Bounty and the mutineers who had taken her, sank after having run aground on a reef the previous day.
1860 The first British tramway, operated by the Birkenhead Street Railway, was inaugurated by an American, George Francis Train.
1871 The birthday of Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford, British experimental physicist who was the first to split an atom.
1901 Scottish inventor Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner.
1917 Lord Dennis Healey, Labour politician & former Chancellor was born.
1926 Jack Hobbs scored 316 at Lords, the highest individual score recorded at the ground.
1928 Indian politician Jawahrlal founded the Independence of India League to campaign for freedom from British rule.
1930 Morris Cars announced the arrival of the Morris Major costing £215.
1936 The record for crossing the Atlantic was gained by the liner 'Queen Mary', winning the 'Blue Riband'.
1939 In anticipation of German bombing, the great evacuation of children from British cities began, four days before the outbreak of World War II.
1950 The birth of the sculptor Antony Gormley. His best known works include the Angel of the North, Gateshead and 'Another Place' on Crosby Beach near Liverpool where 100 cast iron figures face out to sea.
1976 More than 100 police officers were taken to hospital after clashes at the Notting Hill Carnival in west London.
1996 Former heavyweight boxing champion Frank Bruno announced his retirement.
2008 Police revealed that two bodies recovered from the burnt-out Shropshire home of a millionaire and his family were Jillian Foster, 49, and daughter Kirstie, 15. A coroner's verdict recorded that the failed businessman, Christopher Foster unlawfully shot his wife and daughter before burning the house and then killing himself.
2013 MPs rejected possible UK military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government and their alleged use of chemical weapons in which hundreds had died. After the vote, Prime Minster David Cameron said it was clear that Parliament did not want action and 'the government will act accordingly'.
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1950 The birth of the sculptor Antony Gormley. His best known works include the Angel of the North, Gateshead and 'Another Place' on Crosby Beach near Liverpool where 100 cast iron figures face out to sea.
walk the dog past these most days
(http://i754.photobucket.com/albums/xx184/gedsjeep/IMAG0061_zpsxh9vy2am.jpg) (http://s754.photobucket.com/user/gedsjeep/media/IMAG0061_zpsxh9vy2am.jpg.html)
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That's cool.
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the coastguard are used to the "theres a bloke walking into the sea" calls by now.
almost anatomically correct too.....
(http://i754.photobucket.com/albums/xx184/gedsjeep/IMAG0042_zpspkwqtrbb.jpg) (http://s754.photobucket.com/user/gedsjeep/media/IMAG0042_zpspkwqtrbb.jpg.html)
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Those are some crazy nipples, nothing correct about them ;)
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I just love Gormley's stuff.
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Yep, quite nice that stuff :)
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The only time I saw the Angel of the North, I had an overwhelming urge to chop it up and weigh it in............
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The only time I saw the Angel of the North, I had an overwhelming urge to chop it up and weigh it in............
Palestine, bloody typical.
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The only time I saw the Angel of the North, I had an overwhelming urge to chop it up and weigh it in............
Palestine, bloody typical.
You plonker ... it's in Gateshead.
Palestine is miles away!
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The only time I saw the Angel of the North, I had an overwhelming urge to chop it up and weigh it in............
Palestine, bloody typical.
You plonker ... it's in Gateshead.
Palestine is miles away!
I don't think you can weigh in the iron dome, as such...
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1422 King Henry V of England died of dysentery whilst in France. His son, Henry VI, became King of England at the age of 9 months.
1688 The birth of John Bunyan, English Christian writer and preacher, who is best known for his book The Pilgrim's Progress.
1848 Accurate and scientific ' state of the weather' reports were first published by Charles Dickens's newspaper - The Daily News.
1888 The body of Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols, the first victim of Jack the Ripper, was found mutilated in Buck's Row, London. The unidentified serial killer's attacks involved female prostitutes from the slums whose throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to proposals that their killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge. In 2006, Jack the Ripper was selected by the BBC History magazine and its readers as the worst Briton in history.
1900 Coca Cola first went on sale in Britain, fourteen years after it was first sold in the U.S.A. Charles Chandler, the eldest son of the founder came to Britain with a jug of cola syrup. It proved so popular that five more gallons were ordered immediately from America.
1908 At the age of 60, and after a career spanning 43 years , the legendary English cricketer W.G. Grace retired from first class cricket. He had scored a total of 54,896 runs (including 126 centuries), taken 2,879 wickets and held 871 catches.
1913 The birth of Sir Bernard Lovell, OBE, English physicist, radio astronomer and the first Director of Jodrell Bank Observatory, Cheshire from 1945 to 1980. With University funding, he constructed the then-largest steerable radio telescope in the world, which now bears his name - the Lovell Telescope. Sir Bernard died on 6th August 2012.
1936 The 1st woman TV announcer, Elizabeth Cowell, made her debut at Alexandra Palace.
1939 Nazi forces, posing as Poles, mounted a staged attack on the German radio station at Gleiwitz, in Poland, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day, thus starting World War II in Europe.
1962 Mountaineers Chris Bonington and Ian Clough become first Britons to conquer the north face of the Eiger. The 13,040 ft. climb took them two days and was one of the fastest ever. Within three hours of reaching the summit they were back in their hotel room.
1968 West Indian cricketer Gary Sobers becomes the first batsman to score six 'sixes' in one over while playing for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan at Swansea. The unfortunate bowler was Malcolm Nash.
1986 The death of Henry Moore, English sculptor and artist, best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures.
1989 Buckingham Palace issued a brief statement stating that the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, was separating from her husband, Captain Mark Phillips.
1994 The IRA agreed to a complete cessation of military operations.
1997 Diana, Princess of Wales, her companion Dodi Fayed, and their driver were killed in a car crash in the Place de l'Alma underpass in Paris, France. Tests conducted by French police indicated that the driver was intoxicated, may have been travelling at over 100 mph and likely caused the accident while trying to escape the paparazzi photographers.
2013 BT turned off its dial-up internet (DUN) access service. The best dial-up modems despatched data along telephone lines at speeds of up to 56 kilobits per second compared with most broadband technologies that work in the megabits per second range. In 2010, the last year for which figures were available, an Ofcom spokesman said that about 800,000 people in remote areas still used 'dial-up'.
2013 The death, at the age of 74, of veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost, after a heart attack while on board a cruise ship. His career spanned journalism, comedy writing and daytime television presenting, including The Frost Report.
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The only time I saw the Angel of the North, I had an overwhelming urge to chop it up and weigh it in............
Palestine, bloody typical.
You plonker ... it's in Gateshead.
Palestine is miles away!
No! HE'S a palistine, y'know one of those unsuffacated people wot don't appreciate the fina fings in life.
Bleedin' 'ell do I have to explained very fing for you?
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Palastine? Thats crap, playdoh wuz soooo much better
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Palastine? Thats crap, playdoh wuz soooo much better
Oh now it weren't, y'can't beet a dirty gert lump a mud.
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The only time I saw the Angel of the North, I had an overwhelming urge to chop it up and weigh it in............
Palestine, bloody typical.
You plonker ... it's in Gateshead.
Palestine is miles away!
No! HE'S a palistine, y'know one of those unsuffacated people wot don't appreciate the fina fings in life.
Bleedin' 'ell do I have to explained very fing for you?
You mean philistine? :)
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Palastine? Thats crap, playdoh wuz soooo much better
Oh now it weren't, y'can't beet a dirty gert lump a mud.
I can see you as Patrick Swaziland in Ghost
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You mean philistine? :)
Do I, are you shaw?
Malapropism?
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The thing is all rusty. Its to far gone to paint. It was just the scrap dealer in me coming out, and no, I haven't been suffacated. Would that help?
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No, I haven't been suffacated. Would that help?
Without a doubt.
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suffragette city.
good tune that
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suffragette city.
good tune that
Bowie?
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not any more. they accused me of being rambo and confiscated it.
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not any more. they accused me of being rambo and confiscated it.
More a laughing gnome then ;D
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1st September
1159 The death of Pope Adrian IV, (Nicholas Breakspeare), the only English pope.
1532 Lady Anne Boleyn was made Marquess of Pembroke by her fiancé, King Henry VIII. Less than 4 years later Henry had her investigated for high treason. She was found guilty of adultery and incest and was executed on 19th May 1536.
1865 Joseph Lister performed the first antiseptic surgery.
1886 The Severn Tunnel, (railway tunnel) between England and Wales, was opened for goods traffic.
1931 The birth in Carnforth, Lancashire of Cecil Parkinson, Conservative politician and former Cabinet Minister. Parkinson was forced to resign in October 1983 after it was revealed that his former secretary, Sara Keays, was carrying his child.
1939 At dawn on 1st September, Germany made a massive invasion of Poland and bombed Warsaw at 6am, beginning World War II in Europe. The service to 2,000 televisions also ceased in Britain. There would be no more TV for seven years.
1951 The Premier supermarket opened in Earl’s Court, London; the first supermarket in Britain.
1958 Iceland expanded its fishing zone, putting it into conflict with the United Kingdom and the beginning the Cod Wars.
1960 The Government announced that Britain's first betting shops would be allowed to open for business from May 1961.
1971 The British penny and the threepenny piece coins ceased to be legal tender as decimalization continued.
1976 The first of 11,500 standpipes were connected in Yorkshire as local reservoirs reached their lowest levels in years.
1981 Garages in Britain began selling petrol in litres.
1982 Former Ipswich manager Bobby Robson was appointed England football manager.
1985 After 73 years the wreck of the liner 'Titanic' was found, by Dr. Robert Ballard.
1989 In Britain, the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher began the controversial privatisation of the public water authorities.
2000 Channel services were disrupted after two separate groups of stowaways jumped from freight trains as they arrived in Kent.
2001 England beat bitter rivals Germany 5-1 in the World Cup qualifying tie, with Michael Owen scoring a hat-trick.
2001 The death of Brian Moore, sports commentator and television presenter who covered nine World Cups, six European Championships and every FA Cup Final on ITV from 1969 to 1988 and again in 1998.
2011 The introduction of an EU-wide ban on the manufacturing and importing of 60W incandescent clear light bulbs, in favour of energy-saving fluorescent and halogen bulbs and LED lights.
2013 Real Madrid broke the world transfer record to sign Tottenham forward Gareth Bale for £85.3m. It eclipsed the £80m Real paid Manchester United for Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009.
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not any more. they accused me of being rambo and confiscated it.
You! Rambo, neva.
Do the authorities round your way all have white sticks and nice doggies?
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2011 The introduction of an EU-wide ban on the manufacturing and importing of 60W incandescent clear light bulbs, in favour of energy-saving fluorescent and halogen bulbs and LED lights.
I've been largely unimpressed with LED lighting so far, got to say the newer COB ones are definitely step forward though, nice and bright and similar colour balance to compact fluorescent.
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When the ban came in, wasn't there a company in Ireland who started selling 60W heaters with either a bayonet or ES fitting.
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Ive still got a stock of 150W bulbs for the garage
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When the ban came in, wasn't there a company in Ireland who started selling 60W heaters with either a bayonet or ES fitting.
Ehh heaters?
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When the ban came in, wasn't there a company in Ireland who started selling 60W heaters with either a bayonet or ES fitting.
Ehh heaters?
Can't sell 60W light bulbs, but as they give off heat there was presumably nothing stopping him selling them as heaters ... all be rather inefficient ones.
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Farmers co op still sells 100W incandescents, and lower wattage ones too. Only for "industrial use" mind, so be sure not to put them in your bathroom.......
There was an exemption made for industrial use, coz moving things, like lathes, can look still under the tree hugger lights. Something to do with the light frequency.
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No, I haven't been suffacated. Would that help?
Without a doubt.
Would it cure the ringworm on my bolercks?
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No, I haven't been suffacated. Would that help?
Without a doubt.
Would it cure the ringworm on my bolercks?
Pretty good cure for most things except stiffness i imagine!
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When the ban came in, wasn't there a company in Ireland who started selling 60W heaters with either a bayonet or ES fitting.
Ehh heaters?
Can't sell 60W light bulbs, but as they give off heat there was presumably nothing stopping him selling them as heaters ... all be rather inefficient ones.
I like that, nice thinking
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At the risk of sounding racist, something rather Irish about it!
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At the risk of sounding racist, something rather Irish about it!
Racist!
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as a resident of the capital city of northern ireland, you are excused....
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2nd September
1666 The Great Fire of London began in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane, and rapidly spread throughout the city, destroying most of London's buildings and houses. Although 13,000 buildings were destroyed in the four-day blaze only six people died.
1726 The birth of John Howard, English prison reformer.
1752 The Julian calendar was used in Britain and the Colonies 'officially' for the last time, almost two centuries after most of Western Europe had adopted the Gregorian calendar. As in the rest of Europe, the following day in Britain became 14th September.
1807 The Royal Navy bombarded Copenhagen with fire bombs and phosphorus rockets to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to Napoleon.
1812 The birth, in the Dumfriesshire village of Kieof, of Kirkpatrick Macmillan, widely-credited as the inventor of the modern pedal-driven bicycle.
1834 Thomas Telford, Scottish civil engineer died. He built the Menai suspension bridge in Wales (click for a picture) plus a further 1200 bridges and more than 1000 miles of roads in Britain.
1939 Under the National Service Bill, men aged 19 - 41 were conscripted in Britain.
1945 World War II officially ended when Japanese officials, aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, surrendered on behalf of their country.
1949 The birth of Moira Stuart, British journalist and the first African-Caribbean female newsreader on British television. Her 26-year career with BBC Television News was brought to a close on 3rd October 2007, when the BBC announced her departure. The BBC initially declined to comment on why she was no longer being used, although rumours circulated within the BBC and commercial newsrooms that Stuart had been removed because she was considered 'too old' at 57.
1974 Edward Heath's Morning Cloud III was sunk in a Force 9 gale in the English Channel. Two people were killed - including Mr Heath's godson.
1979 Police discovered the body of a young woman - thought to be the twelfth victim of the 'Yorkshire Ripper' - in an alleyway near the centre of Bradford.
1980 John Arlott, cricket commentator, retired at Lord's after 35 years of broadcasting for the BBC.
1994 Entertainer and television presenter Roy Castle died from lung cancer at his Buckinghamshire home, just two days after his sixty second birthday. He was a lifelong non-smoker and blamed his illness on years of playing the trumpet in smoky jazz clubs. His widow, Fiona, worked with the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation for many years after her husband's death. She was a key figure in campaigning for the British smoking ban which came into effect during 2007 and has seen smoking banned in virtually all enclosed public places.
1996 British boxer Frank Bruno achieved his dream of becoming world heavyweight champion when he outpointed Oliver McCall to win the WBC title at Wembley Stadium in London.
1997 Six freelance photographers and a dispatch rider were jointly charged with manslaughter following the car crash in Paris in which Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed were killed.
2013 The death, aged 87, of broadcaster and presenter David Jacobs whose career spanned 7 decades. He had been at the BBC since 1945 and hosted shows including Housewives' Choice, Pick of the Pops, Juke Box Jury and Any Questions.
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2013 The death, aged 87, of broadcaster and presenter David Jacobs whose career spanned 7 decades. He had been at the BBC since 1945 and hosted shows including Housewives' Choice, Pick of the Pops, Juke Box Jury and Any Questions.
According to my Mum, David Jacobs once told me not to get my socks wet on Angmering beach when I was 7 years old.
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2013 The death, aged 87, of broadcaster and presenter David Jacobs whose career spanned 7 decades. He had been at the BBC since 1945 and hosted shows including Housewives' Choice, Pick of the Pops, Juke Box Jury and Any Questions.
According to my Mum, David Jacobs once told me not to get my socks wet on Angmering beach when he was 7 years old.
edited for accuracy....
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Wheres the like button? ;D
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I just wanted everyone to know I been mixing with the stars from an early age.
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in light of recent investigations i`d be wary of admitting that.....
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Best duck that one!
(http://x4.fjcdn.com/gifs/Safety+is+our+number+1+priority_30e5d9_5279779.gif)
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3rd September
1189 Following the death of his father Henry II, Richard the Lionheart was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
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.
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 Dick' by Royalists.
1783 Britain finally recognised the United States of America by signing the Treaty of Paris which officially ended the American War of Independence.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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4th September
1609 English navigator Henry Hudson, working for the Dutch East India Company, arrived at the island of Manhattan, before sailing up the river that now bears his name.
1815 Sir Humphrey Davy invented the miner's safety lamp.
1860 The first weather forecast appeared in The Times.
1884 Britain stopped sending convicts to New South Wales in Australia.
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. Her house, Hill Top, at Sawrey is now in the care of the National Trust.
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'.
1909 The first Boy Scout rally was held at Crystal Palace, near London.
1932 The birth of Dinsdale Landen, British actor known mainly for his television appearances. He made his television debut in 1959 as Pip in an adaptation of Great Expectations and his film debut in 1960, with a part in The League of Gentlemen.
1939 World War II: The British liner Athenia was sunk by a German submarine off Ireland.
1939 World War II: A Bristol Blenheim bomber became the first British aircraft to cross the German coast following the declaration of war. German ships were bombed but the aircraft stood little chance against the German Messerschmitt Bf 109 during daylight operations, although it proved successful as a night fighter.
1944 In World War II, the Allies liberated Brussels and Antwerp (Belgium).
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.
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.
1988 British customs officers intercepted a helicopter landing on its way in from Holland. It was the first helicopter known to have been used in an attempt to smuggle drugs into Britain.
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5th September
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.
1800 Following a blockade by Admiral Horatio Nelson, French troops surrendered the Mediterranean island of Malta to Britain.
1887 A fire at the Theatre Royal in Exeter killed 186.
1914 The First Battle of the Marne began. German, British and French troops fought for six days. Half a million people were killed.
1935 The birth of the actor Johnny Briggs. He is best known for his role as Mike Baldwin in the soap opera Coronation Street, in which he appeared from 1976 to 2006. He received a lifetime achievement award at the 2006 British Soap Awards for his thirty years of contribution to the show.
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, singer and songwriter Freddie Mercury. As a songwriter, Mercury composed many hits for Queen, including 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 'Don't Stop Me Now' and 'We Are the Champions'. He died of bronchopneumonia brought on by AIDS on 24th November 1991, only one day after publicly acknowledging that he had the disease.
1959 The first trunk dialling system from a public call-box was launched during a ceremonial phone call from Bristol to London.
1963 Christine Keeler, one of the women involved in the Profumo scandal in Britain, was arrested and charged with perjury.
1969 The British commercial television channel, ITV, began broadcasting in colour.
1975 Two people were killed and 63 injured as a suspected IRA bomb exploded in the lobby of the Hilton hotel in central London.
1979 The Queen led the nation in mourning as the body of her husband's uncle (Lord Mountbatten) was buried after a day of pageantry in London.
1979 The BBC began broadcasting the hit American series 'Dallas' which soon became one of the most popular programmes on British TV.
1982 Douglas Bader, British fighter pilot died.
1988 No Sex Please We're British, the longest running comedy, closed in London (after 6,671 performances over 16 years).
2008 £20,000 of petrol was given away in north London to promote a computer game. Traffic was gridlocked outside the Last Stop garage in Finsbury Park as drivers queued for £40 worth of free fuel each.
2013 More than 130 vehicles were involved in a series of crashes in thick fog on the Sheppey crossing in Kent. The A249 bridge was closed for more than nine hours.
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1979 The Queen led the nation in mourning as the body of her husband's uncle (Lord Mountbatten) was buried after a day of pageantry in London.
According to my Mum, the Queen once told me not to get my socks wet on Angmering beach when I was 7 years old.
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A queen, more like!
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1946 The birth (in Stone Town, Zanzibar) of the British musician, singer and songwriter Freddie Mercury. As a songwriter, Mercury composed many hits for Queen, including 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 'Don't Stop Me Now' and 'We Are the Champions'. He died of bronchopneumonia brought on by AIDS on 24th November 1991, only one day after publicly acknowledging that he had the disease.
According to my Mum, freddie once told me not to get my socks wet in a mancunian shopping centre when I was 37 years old.
(http://i754.photobucket.com/albums/xx184/gedsjeep/IMAG0370_zps767459ad.jpg) (http://s754.photobucket.com/user/gedsjeep/media/IMAG0370_zps767459ad.jpg.html)
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1979 The Queen led the nation in mourning as the body of her husband's uncle (Lord Mountbatten) was buried after a day of pageantry in London.
According to my Mum, the Queen once told me not to get my socks wet on Angmering beach when I was 7 years old.
Why the feck were you on that bloody beach getting your soddin' socks wet, where were your wellies?
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6th September
1620 149 Pilgrims, The Pilgrim Fathers, set sail from Plymouth in the Mayflower bound for America - the New World. The Pilgrims' story of seeking religious freedom has become a central theme of the history and culture of the United States.
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.
1766 The birth of John Dalton, English chemist, meteorologist and physicist. He is best known for his pioneering work in the development of modern atomic theory, and his research into colour blindness.
1852 Britain's first free lending library opened, in Manchester.
1866 Three British tea clippers reached London wihtin 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.
1907 The Lusitania set sail from Liverpool for New York on her maiden voyage. She set a record, crossing the Atlantic in five days at an average speed of 23 knots.
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.
1963 Cilla Black signed a contract with Beatles manager Brian Epstein. She changed her name from White to Black after a misprint in the music paper Mersey Beat.
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.
1990 Sir Len Hutton, cricketer, and the first professional to captain England, died at the age of 74.
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.
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1963 Cilla Black signed a contract with Beatles manager Brian Epstein. She changed her name from White to Black after a misprint in the music paper Mersey Beat.
According to my Mum, Cilla Black once told me ...
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1963 Cilla Black signed a contract with Beatles manager Brian Epstein. She changed her name from White to Black after a misprint in the music paper Mersey Beat.
According to my Mum, Cilla Black once told me to get lost you irritating little oik
Ahh, that wasn't nice, understandable tho :)
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7th September
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. You can read more about Eyam and the Plague on the Beautiful Britain website.
1735 The birth of Thomas Coutts, son of a wealthy Scottish merchant. He and his brother James founded a banking house in London.
1838 Grace Darling and her father rescued the crew of the Forfarshire, a steamer wrecked off the Northumberland coast, close to the Longstone Lighthouse. She became a national heroine.
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.
1917 The birth of Group Captain (Geoffrey) Leonard Cheshire, British airman. He was awarded the Victoria Cross during the Second World War and he and his wife Sue Ryder founded the Cheshire Foundation Home for the Incurably Sick in 1948.
1929 Britain won the prestigious Schneider Trophy for air speed. The winner was Flying Officer Waghorn.
1931 King George V announced he would be taking a £50,000 a year pay cut while the economic crisis continued.
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.
1973 Jackie Stewart became world champion racing driver for the third consecutive year.
1978 Keith Moon, drummer with 'The Who', died of a drugs overdose.
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.
1984 Three more people died in the food poisoning epidemic at hospitals in Yorkshire, bringing the total number of deaths to 22.
2001 The Government suffered a shock legal defeat predicted to result in the release of hundreds of asylum seekers from an immigration centre.
2009 Sir Terry Wogan announced that he was to step down as presenter of BBC Radio 2's breakfast show. The veteran broadcaster first hosted the breakfast show in 1972, returning to the role in 1993. Wake Up to Wogan was the UK's most popular breakfast radio show with 7.93 million listeners each week.
2013 New Yorker Marin Alsop become the first woman to lead the Last Night of the Proms in its 118-year history.
2014 Julian was punched for saying "according to my mum"
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2014 Julian was punched for saying "according to my mum"
My Mum warned me about people like you!
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8th September
1157 King Richard I (the Lion Heart) was born.
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. On 8th September 2005, a plaque was unveiled at the site of the barn in memorial of the fire.
1760 British troops under Jeffrey Amherst defeated the French in the Battle of Montreal. After the loss, the French surrendered their arms throughout Canada.
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 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 Sir Harry Secombe, entertainer and singer was born.
1925 Peter Sellers, English actor and comedian was born.
1944 The first German V2 flying bombs fell on Britain, exploding at Chiswick in London, killing 3 people.
1960 Publishers Penguin Books were charged with public obscenity for publishing D.H. Lawrence's controversial book - 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'.
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.
2000 Protests about high fuel costs that had been crippling France the previous week reached Britain, with actions across the country.
2007 Portuguese police named both parents of missing schoolgirl Madeleine McCann (who disappeared on 3rd May) as formal suspects. Gerry McCann was officially given "arguido" status as was his wife Kate after they had been questioned separately for more than 24 hours.
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2000 Protests about high fuel costs that had been crippling France the previous week reached Britain, with actions across the country.
I remember it well. Diesel average 80.8ppl.
What is interesting is that wikipedia reports that back then 131,000,000 litres daily was the expected level of sales. That's a lot of fuel. I wonder what it is today?
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8th September
1921 Sir Harry Secombe, entertainer and singer was born.
Ahh, Harry Secombe, My cousin once told me ...
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8th September
1921 Sir Harry Secombe, entertainer and singer was born.
Ahh, Harry Secombe, My cousin once told me ...
Not to forget Neddie Seagoon :)
Announcer: Ten miles he swam. The last three were agony.
Neddie: They were over land. Finally I fell in a heap on the ground. I've no idea who left it there.
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9th September
1087 William the Conqueror died in Maine (France) from injuries he sustained after a fall from his horse.
1513 The Scots were heavily defeated by the English at the Battle of Flodden Field and James IV was killed, along with all his nobles. Flodden Field is close to the village of Branxton, Northumberland. The slain, including King James IV were taken to Branxton Parish Church.
1543 Mary Stuart, at just nine months old, was crowned 'Queen of Scots' in the Scottish town of Stirling.
1754 Birth date of William Bligh, British naval officer who was the victim of two mutinies, the most famous on the HMS Bounty which was taken over by Fletcher Christian.
1855 Crimean War: The Siege of Sevastopol (Sebastopol) came to an end when Russian forces abandon the city. Although defended heroically and at the cost of heavy Allied casualties, (almost 130,00 in total), the fall of Sevastopol led to the Russian defeat in the Crimean War.
1911 The launch of the first airmail service in England, between Hendon and Windsor.
1949 The birth of John Curry, English figure skating champion and 1976 Olympic and World Champion.
1958 There were race riots in London's Notting Hill Gate, with television crews accused of encouraging the rioting by staging reconstructions in the streets.
1960 The birth of Hugh Grant, English actor and film producer who achieved international stardom after appearing in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
1963 Scotsman Jim Clark became the youngest person to win the world motor racing championships, driving Colin Chapman’s Lotus. He was aged 27 and 188 days. The youngest winner to date is Sebastian Vettel (in 2010), aged 23 years and 133 days.
1985 Champion jockey Lester Piggott announced his retirement, having won more than 5,000 races around the world. In 1987 he was jailed following an investigation over tax evasion, but resumed his career following his release and rode his last winner in October 1994.
1987 Twenty five English football fans involved in the Heysel stadium disaster were extradited to Belgium.
1988 The Indian cricket tour was cancelled as English cricket captain Graham Gooch and seven other members of his squad were refused visas to travel to India.
1996 The European Court of Human Rights agreed to hear a case in which a 12-year old boy was challenging British laws allowing parents to use corporal punishment on their children.
2001 Days before Home Secretary David Blunkett met his French counterpart, he admitted Britain was "particularly attractive" to asylum seekers.
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10th September
1224 The Franciscans, founded in 1209 by St. Francis of Assisi, first arrived in England. They were originally called Grey Friars because of their grey 'habits'.
1515 Thomas Wolsey was invested as a Cardinal. When Wolsey failure to secure Henry VIII's annulment to Catherine of Aragon it caused his downfall and arrest and he was stripped of his government office and property, including Hampton Court.
1547 The Duke of Somerset led the English to victory over the Scots at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, Musselburgh. It was the last full scale military 'pitched battle' confrontation between England and Scotland and is seen as the first modern battle in the British Isles.
1813 The first unqualified defeat of a British naval squadron in history took palace when US Captain Oliver Hazard Perry led a fleet of nine American ships to victory over a squadron of six British warships at the Battle of Lake Erie.
1891 Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-E, the most popular song in Victorian England in the 1890s was written by former Canadian bandsman Henry J Sayers. Sayers later admitted to copying an Austrian song after hearing the tune being played in a brothel.
1897 George Smith, a London cab driver, became the first person to be convicted for drunken driving. He was fined £1.
1933 English tennis player Fred Perry became the first Briton to win the US Open Championship since 1903.
1939 World War II: The submarine HMS Oxley was mistakenly sunk by the submarine HMS Triton near Norway and became the Royal Navy's first loss. There were only two survivors.
1942 In a single raid, the RAF dropped 100,000 bombs on Dusseldorf.
1960 A goal-less draw between Blackpool and Bolton Wanderers became the first English League game shown live on TV.
1963 American Express opened a credit card service in Britain.
1967 Almost 100 per cent of the voters of Gibraltar rejected Spanish rule in favour of retaining British sovereignty.
1973 Scotland Yard began hunting for a teenage suspect after two bombs at mainline stations injured 13 people and brought chaos to central London.
1987 Hypnotist Andrew Newton was permitted to perform on stage, as Westminster Council lifted a 35 year ban on acts of that type. Doctors raised objections to lifting the ban, but Newton was not allowed to demonstrate regression on stage (taking hypnotized people back to their childhood).
2001 Charles Ingram won one million pounds on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. He was later accused of cheating by having his wife, Diana, and an accomplice, Tecwen Whittock, cough as Ingram announced the correct answer from the available choices. The Ingrams and Tecwen Whittock were convicted, on 7th April 2003, by a majority verdict of 'procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception'. All three were fined and given suspended prison sentences. In October 2004 Diana and Charles Ingram were declared bankrupt.
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11th September
1297 Scottish hero William Wallace defeated the English at Stirling Bridge. The Wallace Monument at Stirling. Wallace's statement before the battle was - 'We come here with no peaceful intent, but ready for battle, determined to avenge our wrongs and set our country free.'
1777 American troops led by George Washington were defeated by the British at the Battle of Brandywine Creek, in the American War of Independence.
1836 Register Office marriages were introduced in Britain.
1841 The London to Brighton commuter express train began regular service, taking just 105 minutes.
1879 268 miners died in an explosion at the Prince of Wales Colliery, at Abercarn, South Wales.
1885 D H Lawrence, controversial English author of Sons and Lovers, Women in Love and Lady Chatterley's Lover, was born.
1895 The prestigious FA Cup trophy was stolen from football outfitters William Shillock of Birmingham. 68 years later an 83 year old man confessed he'd melted it down to make counterfeit halfcrown coins.
1915 The opening of Britain’s first Women’s Institute at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, Anglesey, Wales. (Llanfair PG sign)
1950 Barry Sheene, British racing motor cyclist was born.
1962 The Beatles completed the recording of their first single 'Love Me Do' at the Abbey Road Studios in north London.
1968 The housing charity, Shelter, said up to three million people in Britain were living in damp, overcrowded slum conditions.
1987 Four men were arrested on charges of plotting to steal a dolphin worth £25,000 from the Marineland Oceanarium in Morecambe, Lancashire.
1997 In a national referendum on devolution, the people of Scotland voted 'Yes' to creating their own Parliament, for the first time in more than 300 years.
2001 The '911' terrorist attacks in New York. In the aftermath, Prime Minister Tony Blair deployed British troops in the invasion of Iraq (March 2003), supporting the US President George Bush and his 'War on Terror'. On This Day hijackers crashed two airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and thousands of those working in the buildings. Both towers collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. A third airliner was crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth plane was redirected towards Washington, D.C., targeting either the Capitol Building or the White House, but it crashed in a field near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to retake control of the airliner. There were no survivors from any of the flights.
2012 25 year old tennis player Andy Murray finally emulated Fred Perry's 1936 achievement and became the first British player to win the US Open in 76 years when he beat Novak Djokovic. Murray also reached the 2012 Wimbledon final and won Olympic gold in the same year.
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12th September
1440 Eton College was founded by Henry VI. Prefects were warned to look out for "ill-kempt heads and unwashed faces."
1609 English explorer Henry Hudson sailed his ship 'Half Moon' into New York harbour and 150 miles further inland to Albany, along the waterway now called Hudson River.
1846 Poet Elizabeth Barrett eloped to Italy with poet Robert Browning to escape Elizabeth's domineering father who disapproved of marriage for any of his children. Mr. Barrett then disinherited Elizabeth, as he did for each of his children who married:
1852 The birth of Herbert Henry Asquith, British Liberal Prime Minister. It was Asquith who introduced old age pensions and Lloyd-George was his Chancellor of the Exchequer.
1878 Cleopatra's Needle, the obelisk of Thothmes II, was erected on London's Embankment.
1885 The Scottish football team of Arbroath beat Bon Accord (from Aberdeen) by 36 goals to nil in the first round of the Scottish Cup, making it a record breaking score for professional football. Thirteen goals were scored by centre-forward John Petrie.
1890 Salisbury, Rhodesia, was founded as a military fort by by Cecil Rhodes. They originally named the city Fort Salisbury after the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, then British prime minister.
1908 The marriage of Winston Churchill to Clementine Hozier.
1936 Britain’s Fred Perry won the US Tennis Championships against Donald Budge, the first non-US player ever to win. Britain had to wait a further 76 years for a male singles champion and on 11th September 2012 Andy Murray won the US Open, beating Novak Djokovic.
1960 Ministry of Transport (MoT) tests on motor vehicles were introduced in the UK.
1963 The Beatles had their second UK No.1 single with She Loves You.
1970 The supersonic Concorde passenger jet landed at Heathrow Airport for the first time to a barrage of complaints from nearby residents about noise.
1972 Two British trawlers were sunk by Icelandic gunboats during the 'cod war'
1987 The BBC filmed the first 'Top of the Pops' to be sold in America.
1988 Roger Hargreaves, author and creator of the Mr. Men books died.
2000 Britain was brought to a standstill as fuel tax protesters, backed by tanker drivers, caused petrol shortages.
2005 England took the Ashes from Australia for the first time since 1987.
2008 XL Leisure Group (the UK's third largest package holiday group)was placed into administration and left 90,000 stranded abroad.
2012 It was announced that a new inquest and possible criminal prosecutions of key figures in the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster were likely to be mounted after the extent of the establishment cover-up in the wake of the event which saw the death of 96 fans.
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13th September
1759 British troops, under the command of General Wolfe, secured Canada for the British Empire after defeating the French at the Battle of Quebec. Wolfe and the French commander were killed during the battle.
1806 The English statesman Charles James Fox was taken ill and died at his home in London, just as he was about to introduce a bill abolishing slavery.
1894 The birth of John Boynton Priestley, the English author generally referred to as J.B. Priestley. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions (1929), as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls (1945).
1902 The first conviction in Britain using finger-prints as evidence was in the case against Harry Jackson by the Metropolitan Police at the Old Bailey. He had left his thumbprint in wet paint on a window sill and was tracked down through it. He was sentenced to seven years.
1916 The birth, in Wales, to Norwegian parents of the author Roald Dahl. Some of his notable works include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox, George's Marvellous Medicine and The BFG (Big Friendly Giant).
1938 John Smith, former leader of the Labour Party was born.
1940 Buckingham Palace was hit by a bomb during 'The Blitz'.
1944 The birth of Carol Barnes, British television newsreader and broadcaster who worked for ITN from 1975 to 2004. In 1994 she was voted Newscaster of the Year at the TV and Radio Industries Club Awards
1957 The Mousetrap became Britain's longest running play, reaching its 1,998th performance.
1958 Cliff Richard made his British TV debut on Jack Good's Oh Boy, performing Move It.
1970 In Colombia, en route to the World Cup finals in Mexico, the captain of the England football team, Bobby Moore was accused of stealing a diamond bracelet from a shop. After being kept under house arrest, he was released and all charges were dropped.
1980 Hercules, the bear who went missing on Benbecula (in the Outer Hebrides) while being filmed for a Kleenex television commercial, was recaptured after 24 days 'on the run'.
1988 Medina Perez, a Cuban diplomat opened fire in a crowded London street because of an American plot to make him defect, (his government said).
1989 Britain's biggest ever banking computer error gave customers an extra £2 billion in a period of 30 minutes; 99.3 per cent of the money was reportedly returned.
2001 Iain Duncan Smith became the new leader of the Tory party.
2001 British defence experts said that forces could be involved in retaliatory strikes against those responsible for the US terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Centre two days previously.
2012 Jo Shuter, head teacher since 2001 of Quintin Kynaston School in St John's Wood, north-west London was suspended after an investigation into its finances. (Shuter resigned on August 28th when it was announced that she had spent £30,000 of public money on luxury hotels, flowers and her 50th birthday party.) She had earlier had been credited with turning around a school's fortunes, was named head teacher of the year at the 2007 Teaching Awards and was awarded a CBE in June 2010.
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14th September
1607 The 'Flight of the Earls' from Lough Swilly, Donegal, in Ireland took place when Hugh Ó Neill (the earl of Tyrone) and about ninety followers left Ireland for mainland Europe following their earlier defeat in battle. They hoped to recruit an army for the invasion of Ireland with Spanish help, but King Philip III of Spain wanted to preserve the recent peace with England under its new Stuart dynasty so it was all to no avail. Nevertheless he persisted with the invasion plan until his death in exile in 1616.
1682 Bishop Gore School, in Swansea was founded. It is one of the oldest schools in Wales and its most famous former pupil is almost certainly the poet, playwright and author Dylan Thomas who, it is said, was not a distinguished pupil . His father was Senior English Master at the school, which was then known as Swansea Grammar School.
1752 The 3rd of September became the 14th as the Gregorian Calendar was introduced into Britain. Crowds of people rioted on the streets demanding, 'Give us back our 11 days.'
1759 The earliest dated board game in England was sold on this day by its inventor John Jeffreys, from his house in Chapel Street, Westminster. The game was called 'A Journey Through Europe', or 'The play of Geography'.
1852 The Duke of Wellington, victor at Waterloo, died aged 83.
1868 At the Open Championships at Prestwick, the legendary Scottish golfer Tom Morris scored the first recorded hole-in-one, on the 8th hole (166 yards).
1891 The first penalty kick in an English League football game was taken by Heath of Wolverhampton Wanderers against Accrington.
1909 Peter Scott, British artist and ornithologist was born.
1910 The birth of the actor Jack Hawkins. He mostly appeared in character roles, often in epic films such as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Zulu, The Cruel Sea and Lawrence of Arabia. A 60 a day smoker, Hawkins began experiencing voice problems in the late 1950s. His entire larynx was removed and his performances were dubbed. Hawkins continued to smoke after losing his voice and died aged 62.
1951 Prime Minister Clement Attlee opened the largest oil refinery in Europe, at Fawley on Southampton Water.
1964 The British daily newspaper, the Daily Herald, ceased publication and was replaced by the Sun.
1974 Two giant pandas, Chia-Chia and Ching-Ching, arrived at London Zoo.
1981 A teenage boy who fired blank shots at the Queen in June 1980, pleaded guilty to a charge under the 1848 Treason Act.
1988 A London taxi reached New Delhi with the meter showing a fare of £13,200. It was part of a six-man expedition on the way to Sydney.
1997 Pete Townshend unveiled an English Heritage Blue Plaque at 23, Brook Street, Mayfair, London to mark where Jimi Hendrix had lived in 1968-69. He was the first pop star to be commemorated with the plaque.
2001 Offices, shops and factories across the UK fell silent for three minutes as the nation mourned the victims of the US terrorist attacks.
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15th September
1830 George Stephenson's Manchester and Liverpool railway opened. During the ceremony, William Huskisson, MP, became the first person to be killed by a train when he crossed the track to shake hands with the Duke of Wellington.
1859 The death of the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He was involved in dock design, railway engineering and marine engineering. He built the Great Western (1837), Great Britain (1843) & Great Eastern (1858), each the largest in the world at launch date.
1871 The first British-based international mail order business was begun by the Army and Navy Co-operative. They published their first catalogue in February 1872.
1890 Agatha Christie, English detective novelist was born.
1901 The birth of Sir Donald Bailey, English civil engineer who invented the Bailey bridge, a wood and steel bridge small and light enough to be carried in trucks and lifted into place by hand, yet strong enough to carry tanks. Field Marshal Montgomery is recorded as saying that without the Bailey bridge, we would not have won the war.
1916 Military tanks, designed by Ernest Swinton, were first used by the British Army, in the Somme offensive.
1928 Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming discovered, by accident, a bacteria killing mould growing in his laboratory, that later became known as penicillin.
1940 The tide turned in the Battle of Britain as the German air force sustained heavy losses inflicted by the Royal Air Force. The defeat was serious enough to convince Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to abandon his plans for an invasion of Britain. The day was chosen as "Battle of Britain Day". (A picture of a Spitfire at the RAF Museum in Cosford, Shropshire.)
1960 London introduced Traffic Wardens onto the streets of the capital.
1966 HMS Resolution, Britain’s first nuclear submarine, was launched at Barrow.
1981 The death of the actor Harold Bennett, best remembered as 'Young Mr. Grace' in the 1970s British sitcom Are You Being Served? and as the character Mr. Blewitt in Dad's Army from 1969 to 1977.
1984 Prince Harry, 3rd in succession to the throne, was born.
1985 Tony Jacklin's team of golfers beat the United States in the Ryder Cup for the first time in 28 years.
2000 The fuel protests which had paralysed Britain for seven days, ended.
2000 Home Secretary Jack Straw decided that parents would not be allowed access to the sex offenders' register.
2006 The death of Raymond Baxter, television presenter and writer who is best known for being the first presenter of Tomorrow's World, continuing for 12 years, from 1965 to 1977. He also gave radio commentary at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, the funerals of King
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16th September
1387 King Henry V was born at Monmouth Castle. He went on to win the Battle of Agincourt against the French on St Crispin’s Day.
1485 The Yeoman of the Guard, the bodyguard of the English Crown - popularly known as 'Beefeaters' - was established by King Henry VII.
1701 James Francis Edward Stuart, sometimes called the 'Old Pretender', became the Jacobite claimant to the thrones of England and Scotland.
1785 Birth of Thomas Barnes, editor of The Times. Barnes took over the editorship in 1817 and did much to improve it. The newspaper was nicknamed ‘the Thunderer’ because of the forcefulness of its content.
1847 The United Shakespeare Company bought the house in which playwright William Shakespeare was born at Stratford Upon Avon in Warwickshire for £3,000. It became the first building in Britain to be officially preserved.
1859 British explorer Dr. David Livingstone discovered Lake Nyasa - now Lake Malawi, in central Africa.
1861 The Post Office Savings Banks opened in Britain.
1888 Walter Bentley, British car designer, was born.
1945 World War II: Japanese troops in Hong Kong surrendered. The surrender was accepted by Royal Navy Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt.
1947 John Cobb set a world land speed record of 394.2mph.
1947 The birth of Russ Abbot, musician, comedian and actor who first came to public notice during the 1970s as the singer and drummer with the British comedy showband the Black Abbots. He later forged a solo career as a television comedian with his own weekly show on British television.
1960 Donald Campbell destroyed Bluebird in a crash at 350mph. He was only slightly hurt.
1968 Britain introduced a 'two tier' postal system - First and Second Class. Letters and parcels bearing the more expensive 1st class stamps would be given priority of delivery.
1981 Two British political parties - the SDP and the Liberals - voted for an alliance.
1992 Black Wednesday, when the GB Pound Sterling was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism by currency speculators and was forced to devalue against the German mark.
2000 Cyclist Jason Queally claimed Britain's first medal of the Sydney Olympics.
2002 The world's first self cleaning glass was launched after being developed by scientists at the leading glass company of Pilkington's in St Helens.
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17th September
1701 King James II of England died whilst in exile in France.
1745 The Jacobite supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie occupied Edinburgh.
1827 'Wides' in cricket were first scored in the Sussex v Kent game at Brighton.
1877 William Henry Fox Talbot, English photographic pioneer, died. He made the earliest known surviving photographic negative in the late summer of 1835, with a photograph of the oriel window at his home at Lacock Abbey. Click here to see his famous picture of the window at Lacock Abbey, and my, (not quite so famous) picture, of the same window!
1901 The birthday of Sir Francis Chichester, British yachtsman and aviation pioneer. He made a solo circumnavigation of the world at the age of 65 in his yacht Gipsy Moth IV.
1929 Stirling Moss, English racing driver, was born.
1939 World War II: A German U-boat U 29 sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous. She sank in 20 minutes with the loss of 519 of her crew.
1944 Blackout regulations eased in Britain to allow lights on buses, trains and at railway stations for the first time since the beginning of World War II in 1939.
1956 Norman Buckley, a 48-year-old solicitor from Manchester broke the one-hour world water speed record in his motorboat, Miss Windermere III when he averaged 79mph during his hour on the course on Lake Windermere.
1961 Police made 1,314 arrests during sit-down demonstrations by CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) members in Trafalgar Square, London.
1985 The death, aged 60, of Laura Ashley, Welsh designer and fabric retailer.
1993 The British National Party won its first council seat in a by-election in East London, provoking fear in the local Asian community.
1998 There was chaos in Staffordshire, when animal rights activists release around 6,000 animals from a mink farm. Mink are now devastating British wildlife, so it was not a particularly wise or humanitarian move!
2000 Paula Yates, television personality and former wife of Bob Geldof, was found dead in bed from a suspected drug overdose. She was 40 years old.
2007 Worried savers continued to flock to some Northern Rock bank branches to withdraw their savings when the bank applied to the Bank of England for emergency funds. Chancellor Alistair Darling appealed for calm, nevertheless £2bn was withdrawn from Northern Rock accounts in just 3 days.
2008 Lloyds TSB announced that it was in advanced merger talks with HBOS to create a UK retail banking giant worth £30bn.
2012 Italy's Chi magazine pushed ahead with its plan to publish a series of topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge, complete with a curt dismissal of the protests raised by the royal family.
2013 It was announced that the abandoned NHS patient record system has so far cost the taxpayer nearly £10bn. The project would have been the world's largest civilian computer system, with the final bill likely to be several hundreds of millions of pounds higher.
2013 A wedding service was delayed when an owl that was bearing the wedding rings fell asleep in the church roof. Darcy the barn owl was meant to fly down the aisle at Holy Cross Church in Sherston, Wiltshire, and deliver rings to Sonia Cadman and Andrew Matley but flew into the church roof to roost. It took about an hour to get her down, using a long ladder.
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18th September
1709 Dr Samuel Johnson, English writer and compiler of the first English dictionary was born. Published in 1755, Johnson’s dictionary was the definitive reference for over a century.
1809 The Royal Opera House opened, in Covent Garden, Central London. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House The current building is the third theatre on the site following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1857.
1879 The famous illuminations in Blackpool were switched on for the first time, a month before electricity was generally available in London. The first display was known as 'Artificial sunshine', and consisted of just eight Arc lamps which bathed the Promenade.
1894 Blackpool Tower was officially opened.
1911 Britain's first twin-engined aeroplane, the Short S.39, was test flown.
1914 The Irish Home Rule Act (intended to provide self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) became law, but was delayed until after World War I.
1939 William Joyce, whose upper-class accent earned him the nickname Lord Haw-Haw, made his first Nazi propaganda broadcast from Germany to the UK.
1944 World War II: The British submarine HMS Tradewind torpedoed Junyō Maru, a Japanese cargo ship used to transport prisoners. It was the world's greatest sea disaster at the time with 5,620 dead. 723 survivors were rescued, only to be put to work in conditions similar to those of the Burma Railway where death was commonplace.
1949 Peter Shilton, English footballer was born.
1949 The British pound was devalued by 30% by Chancellor Sir Stafford Cripps.
1949 Mo Mowlam, former Northern Ireland Secretary and Labour MP, was born. She was the Member of Parliament for Redcar from 1987 to 2001 and her time as Northern Ireland Secretary saw the signing, in 1998 of the historic Good Friday Peace Agreement. She died in 2005, aged 55, from a brain tumour.
1972 The first Ugandan refugees fleeing the persecution of the country's military dictatorship arrived in Britain.
1994 Warwickshire became the first side to win the County Cricket Championship, the Benson and Hedges Cup and the Sunday League title in one season.
1995 A Carlisle motorist was fined £140 for throwing a doughnut at a traffic warden.
1997 In Britain, a controversial portrait of Moors murderer Myra Hindley at the Royal Academy in London was damaged by protesters.
2000 Survivors of the Southall and Ladbroke Grove rail crashes that killed 39 and injured more than 650, accused Railtrack of putting costs before safety.
2012 Two unarmed female police officers PC Nicola Hughes (23) and PC Fiona Bone (32) were killed in a gun and grenade ambush attack in Mottram - Greater Manchester. It led to the arrest of a wanted man Dale Cregan. Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy said it was one of the force's 'darkest days'.
2014 A referendum is being held in Scotland, with one single question on the ballot paper - "Should Scotland be an independent country?"
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19th September
1356 Led by Edward, the Black Prince, the English defeated the French, and captured the French king, John II at the Battle of Poitiers in the Hundred Years' War. The battle resulted in the second of the three great English victories of the Hundred Years' War, the other two being Crécy, and Agincourt.
1839 Birth of George Cadbury, the chocolate manufacturer. A Quaker, he believed in taking care of the welfare of his workforce, and he created a model village for his employees at Bournville, Birmingham.
1851 Birth of William Hesketh Lever. He changed the process of soap manufacture by using vegetable oils instead of tallow. Like George Cadbury he cared about the welfare of his workers, and established the new town of Port Sunlight, Merseyside, to house them.
1905 Thomas John Barnardo, British philanthropist (Barnardo's Children's Homes), died.
1934 The birth of Brian Epstein, best known for being the manager of The Beatles until his death in 1967. Decca declined to sign the Beatles to a contract and after approaching nearly all of the major recording companies in London and being rejected, Epstein met a record producer, George Martin, who offered a contract on behalf of EMI's small Parlophone label.
1945 The Nazi propaganda broadcaster William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) was sentenced to hang for treason.
1946 The Council of Europe was founded following a speech by Winston Churchill at the University of Zurich. It promotes co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation.
1949 The birth of the model Twiggy. She became an icon of the 'swinging sixties' and in 1966 was voted British Woman of the Year.
1952 The United States prevented the English born film legend Charlie Chaplin from returning to his Hollywood home until he was investigated by the Immigration Services.
1960 The new traffic wardens issued the first 344 parking tickets in London. Britain's first parking ticket was issued to Dr. Thomas Creighton, who had parked his car outside a London hotel while treating a patient.
1970 The first Glastonbury Festival was held at Michael Eavis's farm in Glastonbury, starring T. Rex. The first festivals in the 1970s were influenced by hippie ethics and the free festival movement.
1975 The first episode of comedy show Fawlty Towers was broadcast by the BBC.
1986 Two passenger trains crashed in Staffordshire, killing two people and injuring almost a hundred more.
1997 An Intercity 125 ploughed into a freight train in Southall, west London, killing six and injuring more than 150.
1998 Robbie Williams scored his first solo UK No.1 single with Millennium.
2000 Chancellor Gordon Brown rejected a 60-day deadline to reduce petrol tax set by fuel price protesters.
2014 The result of yesterday's Scottish Referendum - "Should Scotland be an independent country?" was a victory for the "No" campaign which won 55% of the votes cast. Scotland is to remain a member of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Turnout was more than 84%. It was anticipated that by the end of Friday's trading that the Financial Times Share Index would rise to its highest ever level in response.
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1839 Birth of George Cadbury, the chocolate manufacturer. A Quaker, he believed in taking care of the welfare of his workforce, and he created a model village for his employees at Bournville, Birmingham.
If you're going to be remembered for something, that's certainly a legacy worth leaving :)
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20th September
1258 The consecration of Salisbury Cathedral.
1854 The Russian army was defeated by the British and French at the Battle of Alma, considered to be the first battle of the Crimean War. The first six Victoria Crosses to be awarded to the British Army for acts of bravery during the fighting were won at this battle.
1860 The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) visited the United States. It was the first tour of North America by an heir to the British throne. The four-month tour throughout Canada and the United States considerably boosted Edward's self-esteem, and had many diplomatic benefits for Great Britain.
1906 The Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania was launched at the Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard in Newcastle upon Tyne. At the time, she was the largest and fastest ship in the world. She captured the Blue Riband for the fastest transatlantic crossing during her 1907 inaugural season and held the speed record for twenty-two years.
1911 White Star Line's RMS Olympic collided with British warship HMS Hawke. Olympic was the lead ship of the White Star Line's trio of Olympic-class liners, that also consisted of the Titanic and Britannic. The fact that Olympic endured such a serious collision and stayed afloat, appeared to vindicate the design of the Olympic-class liners and reinforced their 'unsinkable' reputation.
1917 The first RSPCA animal clinic was opened, in Liverpool.
1930 Edward Elgar's Fifth Pomp and Circumstance March was performed for the first time.
1931 Devaluation set in when Britain came off the gold standard to prevent foreign speculation against the pound. It sparked off strikes, and in Scotland the crews of 15 navy ships nearly mutinied.
1932 Four branches of Methodism in England united to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain and Ireland. These were the Wesleyan Methodists, the Primitive Methodists, the United Methodist Free Churches and the United Methodists.
1964 The Beatles' first US tour ended with a charity concert in New York.
1967 The liner Queen Elizabeth II (QE2) was launched at Clydebank, Scotland by ...... Queen Elizabeth II.
1978 Police launched a massive manhunt for the killers of 13 year paperboy Carl Bridgewater. He had been shot in the head at close range at an isolated farmhouse near Stourbridge in Staffordshire.
1997 Elton John started a six week run at No.1 in the UK singles chart with "Candle in the Wind '97'' as a tribute to Princess Diana. It became the best-selling single of all time.
2001 The Government was considering 'targeted support' for airlines after British Airways axed 7,000 jobs in the wake of the US terrorist attacks.
2004 Legendary former Nottingham Forest and Derby County boss Brian Clough died from stomach cancer at the age of 69.
2012 Apple's new mapping service for iPhone users was launched, with many errors. It relocated London - England to London - Ontario, Paddington station vanished and Dublin was gifted a previously undiscovered airport on a 35 acre working farm. Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon, was nowhere to be found while the Welsh town of Pontypridd was transplanted six miles north-west and placed where Tonypandy should have been.
2013 The RAF's last Vickers VC10 jetliners completed their final mission after 47 years of service when they took off from RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, at 10:00 BST
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21st September
1327 Deposed King Edward II of England was murdered, with a red hot poker in Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire by order of his wife, to ensure the succession of his son Edward III.
1411 The birth of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and claimant to the English throne. Although he never became king he ultimately governed the country as Lord Protector during Henry VI's madness. His conflicts with Henry's court were a leading factor in the political upheaval of mid-fifteenth-century England, and a major cause of the Wars of the Roses.
1745 Bonnie Prince Charles and his Jacobite army defeated the English at the Battle of Prestonpans, in Scotland.
1746 After a short siege the French, under Admiral La Bourdonnais, captured Madras, India, from the English.
1756 John Loudon McAdam, the engineer who invented and gave his name to macadamised (tarmac) roads, was born in Ayr, Scotland.
1776 Part of New York City was burned shortly after being occupied by British forces.
1866 H G Wells, English writer, was born. His books included The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds.
1874 The birth, in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire of the composer Gustav Holst, most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets.
1915 Stonehenge was sold at auction to Mr C H Chubb for £6,600 as a present for his wife. Mr Chubb presented it to the nation three years later as his wife didn't think it suited her.
1949 The Republic of Ireland beat England 2-0 at Goodison Park - England's first home defeat by a foreign football team.
1955 The Admiralty announced that Britain had formally claimed uninhabited Rockall, a rocky islet 300 miles west of Scotland, to stop the Soviets spying on missile tests.
1962 Bamber Gascoigne's University Challenge was screened for the first time.
1964 Malta became independent from Britain. The island became a republic in 1974, but retained membership of the Commonwealth.
1965 BP found oil in the North Sea.
1972 The birth of Liam Gallagher (born William John Paul Gallagher) musician and singer-songwriter. He was formerly the frontman of the rock band Oasis until the band split up in 2009 and he formed Beady Eye.
1979 An RAF Harrier plane crashed onto houses in a Cambridgeshire town, killing two men and a young boy.
1984 Police and miners clashed at a pit in Maltby, South Yorkshire, in one of the biggest pickets since the miners' strike began.
1985 Madonna scored her first UK No.1 album with Like A Virgin, ten months after its release.
1986 Prince Charles admitted that he talked to his plants.
2012 50 year old Jessica Harper, a former Lloyds Bank worker in charge of online security was jailed for five years for fraud. She submitted 93 false and doctored invoices to pay herself £2,463,750, giving large sums to friends and her three brothers to invest in property.
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"1756 John Loudon McAdam, the engineer who invented and gave his name to macadamised (tarmac) roads, was born in Ayr, Scotland."
I knew the story, but didn't realise he was born so long ago.
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22nd September
1515 Anne of Cleves, 4th wife of Henry VIII, was born.
1598 The English playwright Ben Jonson, a contemporary of William Shakespeare, killed an actor in a duel and was put on trial for manslaughter. Jonson pleaded guilty but was released by benefit of clergy, a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reciting a brief bible verse, forfeiting his 'goods and chattels' and being branded on his left thumb.
1692 The last people were hanged for witchcraft in Britain's North American colonies.
1735 Sir Robert Walpole became the first prime minister to occupy 10 Downing Street.
1761 The coronation of George III. In the later part of his life, George III suffered from mental illness. After a final relapse in 1810, a regency was established, and George III's eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, ruled as Prince Regent until his father's death in 1820.
1791 Michael Faraday, English chemist and physicist, was born. He was the inventor of the dynamo, the transformer and the electric motor. The Unit of capacitance - Farad - was named after him.
1896 Queen Victoria surpassed her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history.
1910 The Duke of York's Picture House opened in Brighton. It is now the oldest continually operating cinema in Britain.
1914 Three British cruisers, Aboukir, Hogue, and Cressy, were torpedoed and sunk by German U-boats, killing more than 1,400.
1934 The worst pit disaster in Britain for 21 years killed more than 260 miners in an explosion and fire at the Gresford Mine in Wales.
1955 Independent Television (ITV) began operating. Only six minutes of advertisements were allowed each hour and there was no Sunday morning TV permitted. The first advertisement screened was for Gibbs SR toothpaste.
1967 The liner Queen Mary began her 1000th and last Atlantic crossing. A New York docks strike meant that passengers had to carry their own luggage aboard.
1986 Surgeons at Harefield Hospital performed a heart & lung transplant operation on the world's youngest patient - a10 week old baby.
1989 An IRA bomb attack on the Royal Marines School of Music killed 11 people, (10 of them young soldiers) and injured twelve of the bandsmen.
1991 Bryan Adams made chart history when his song - Everything I Do, I Do It For You, had its twelfth consecutive week as the UK No.1.
1999 Screaming Lord Sutch's Official Monster Raving Loony Party honoured his memory with a two minute scream at a pub in Ashburton, Devon. The singer, born David Sutch, hanged himself on 16th June 1999.
1999 Singer Diana Ross was arrested on Concorde after an incident at Heathrow Airport. The singer claimed that a female security guard had touched her breasts when being frisked, and she retaliated by rubbing her hands down the security guard.
2013 Sir Bradley Wiggins added the Tour of Britain title to his collection after sealing an emphatic victory in London. Wiggins, who won the Tour de France and Olympic time trial in 2012, had led since winning the third stage and began stage eight with a 26-second advantage.
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23rd September
1338 The first naval battle of the Hundred Years' War between England and France took place On This Day. It was the first naval battle using artillery, as the English ship Christofer had three cannons and one hand gun.
1459 In the first major 'Wars of the Roses' battle, the Yorkists, in spite of being heavily outnumbered by 2 to 1, defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Blore Heath, Staffordshire.
1641 The Merchant Royal, a 17th century English merchant ship was lost at sea off Land's End. On board were at least 100,000 pounds of gold (nearly one billion pounds in today's money), 400 bars of Mexican silver and nearly 500,000 pieces of eight and other coins, making it one of the most valuable wrecks of all times. The wreck remains undiscovered.
1779 During the American Revolution, John Paul Jones on board the USS Bonhomme Richard beat British forces at the Battle of Flamborough Head (Yorkshire). It became one of the most celebrated naval actions of the American War of Independence.
1817 Spain signed a treaty with Britain to end slave trade.
1940 The George Cross and the George Medal for civilian acts of courage were instituted.
1951 Crowds gathered outside Buckingham Palace for news of King George VI following an operation to remove part of his lung.
1952 The star of the silent movies, Charlie Chaplin, returned to his native England after 21 years in the US.
1955 Quizmaster Michael Miles first invited contestants to 'Open the box' in the long running show Take Your Pick.
1961 The Shadows debut album 'Shadows' started a four week run at No.1 on the UK charts.
1974 The world's first Ceefax teletext service was begun by the BBC.
1976 A fire on one of the Royal Navy's latest guided missile destroyers (HMS Glasgow) killed eight men.
1986 England and Yorkshire batsman Geoff Boycott was controversially sacked from Yorkshire Cricket Club after playing for the county side for 24 years.
1987 An Australian court lifted the ban on the publication of Peter Wright's autobiography, Spycatcher.
1987 Britain ended arms sales to Iran.
1996 London police raided several suspected IRA hideouts across the city, seizing around 10 tons of homemade explosives and killing one suspected IRA member.
2000 British rower Steve Redgrave won his fifth consecutive gold medal at the Sydney Olympic Games, a feat surpassed only by Sir Chris Hoy at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Redgrave is the third most decorated British Olympian with six medals, after the seven of Hoy and the seven of cyclist Bradley Wiggins.
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24th September
1564 The birth, in Gillingham, of William Adams, the English navigator who travelled to Japan and is believed to be the first Englishman ever to reach the country. Adams was the inspiration for the character of John Blackthorne in James Clavell's best selling novel Shōgun.
1645 The Battle of Rowton Heath took place some 2 miles to the south-east of Chester.The Parliamentarian victory over a Royalist army, commanded in person by King Charles, prevented Charles from relieving the Siege of Chester.
1776 The oldest of the British classic horse races, the St Leger, was run for the first time at Doncaster Racecourse.
1842 Bramwell Bronte, brother of the Bronte sisters, died of drugs and drink. He was the model for the drunkard Hindley Earnshaw in Wuthering Weights. More about the Brontes and Haworth.
1853 Liverpools' Northern Daily Times became England's first provincial daily newspaper.
1916 A local policeman rounded up and took into custody the crew of the German Zeppelin LZ-76 that had been forced down near Colchester.
1931 The birth of Anthony Newley, actor, singer and songwriter. He won the 1963 Grammy Award for Song of the Year for 'What Kind of Fool Am I?' He also wrote songs that others made hits including the title song for the James Bond film 'Goldfinger'.
1942 The birth of Gerry Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers. In 1963 he reached the UK No.1 with his record 'You'll Never Walk Alone', now the anthem of Liverpool Football Club. We saw him perform at Great Yarmouth in 2009. Ah ..... nostalgia!
1957 BBC Television for schools began.
1967 The two 'Queens' of the Cunard Line, the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth, passed each other in the Atlantic for the last time.
1971 Over 100 Russian diplomats were expelled from Britain for spying, following revelations made by a Soviet defector.
1975 The world's highest mountain, Mount Everest, was successfully scaled for the first time via its southwest face by British climbers Dougal Haston and Doug Scott.
1976 The Rhodesian Government agreed to introduce black majority rule to the country within two years. Prime Minister Ian Smith was not happy with the conditions.
1991 In Beirut, the British hostage Jackie Mann was freed by the Shi'ite Muslim Revolutionary Justice Organisation after spending more than two years in captivity. He had been kidnapped in May 1989.
1992 David Mellor resigned as heritage minister, blaming his departure on a constant barrage of hostile stories in the tabloid press.
2009 The UK's largest haul of Anglo-Saxon treasure was discovered buried in a field in Staffordshire. Terry Herbert, who found it on farmland using a metal detector, said that it was a metal detectorist's dream. Experts said that the collection of 1,500 gold and silver pieces, which may date to the 7th Century, was unparalleled in size and worth "a seven-figure sum".
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25th September
1066 England's King Harold II defeated the King of Norway (Harald Hardrada), at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire. After a horrific battle, Hardrada and most of the Norwegians were killed. Although Harold repelled the Norwegian invaders, his victory was short-lived and he was defeated and killed by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings less than three weeks later.
1687 Sir Isaac Newton published his theories on gravitation.
1818 The first blood transfusion using human blood took place at Guy's Hospital in London.
1852 Birth of Field Marshal Sir John French. From 1914-15 he was the supreme commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France; after that, of the Home Forces.
1885 It snowed in London - the earliest recorded winter fall despite reports that on 12th June 1791 snow was sighted over the capital.
1897 The start of Britain’s first motorized (as opposed to horse-drawn) bus service, in Bradford.
1929 Comedian Ronnie Barker was born. TV programmes included - Porridge, Open all Hours and The Two Ronnies.
1944 World War II: Surviving elements of the British 1st Airborne Division withdrew from Arnhem in the Netherlands, thus ending the Battle of Arnhem and Operation Market Garden. It was the largest airborne operation up to that time.
1956 A Transatlantic telephone service was inaugurated. It consisted of 4,500 miles of cable, laid in waters up to 2.5 miles deep between Gallanach Bay, near Oban and Clarenville, Newfoundland and initially carried 36 telephone channels.
1967 Britain, France and West Germany signed an agreement to co-operate on an 'airbus' airliner, intended to rival American production.
1977 In Britain, independent airline owner Freddie Laker took on the main commercial airlines with his first 'Skytrain' service between London and New York.
1983 Thirty eight republican prisoners, armed with 6 handguns, hijacked a prison meals' lorry and smashed their way out of the Maze prison in County Down, Northern Ireland, considered one of the most escape-proof prisons in Europe. The escape was the biggest in British history, and the biggest in Europe since World War II when 76 Allied POW's managed to escape from German Stalag Luft III.
1996 The last of the 'Magdalene Asylums' closed in Waterford, Ireland. The asylums, for 'fallen women' and others believed to be of poor moral character, such as prostitutes, operated for much of the 19th and well into the 20th century.
1997 The British Thrust SCC car, driven by Andy Green, set a new world record land speed record of 714.44 mph in Nevada.
2010 Ed Miliband won the Labour leadership after narrowly beating brother David in a dramatic run-off vote ahead of the party's conference.
2012 In what was claimed to be a world first, the Tullibardine whisky distillery in Perthshire signed a deal to turn by-products from their distillery into butanol to power cars.
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26th September
1580 The Devonshire born seaman Francis Drake returned to Plymouth, in the Golden Hind, becoming the first British navigator to circumnavigate the earth. Drake plundered a few Spanish ships en-route to keep morale high!
1687 The city council of Amsterdam voted to support William of Orange's invasion of England, which became the Glorious Revolution. King James II of England (James VII of Scotland and James II of Ireland) was overthrown and William ascended the English throne as William III of England, jointly with his wife Mary II of England.
1748 The birth of Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, an admiral of the Royal Navy, notable as a partner with Lord Nelson in several of the British victories of the Napoleonic Wars.
1861 The first British Open Golf Championship began at Prestwick, Ayrshire.
1879 The world's first railway dining car was introduced in Britain on the line between London and Leeds.
1887 The birth of Sir Barnes Wallis, scientist, engineer and inventor of the bouncing bomb used by the RAF in the 'Dambusters' raid to attack the dams of the Ruhr Valley during World War II.
1934 The liner Queen Mary was launched at Clydebank, Scotland, by ........ Queen Mary.
1938 Concerned about the prospect of war with Germany (which turned out to be a year away) British civilians were issued with gas masks.
1953 Sugar rationing in Britain came to an end.
1955 Frozen Birdseye fish fingers first went on sale in Britain.
1956 The highest score in a single match in the European Cup was won by Manchester United, who beat Anderlecht 10-1.
1973 Concorde made its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time, cutting the previous record in half, and flying at an average speed of 954 mph.
1979 Compulsory metrication in Britain was abandoned.
1984 Britain agreed to transfer full sovereignty of Hong Kong to China in 1997, ending 150 years of British rule.
1997 Queen Elizabeth II and the British Government announced that the Royal Yacht Britannia would neither be refitted nor replaced because of the high cost. She is now a floating tourist attraction in Edinburgh. See pictures of the State Drawing Room and the Queen's bedroom.
2011 The wreck of SS Gairsoppa, a UK cargo ship sunk by a German U-boat in 1941, was found in the Atlantic, around 300 miles off the coast of Ireland by US exploration firm Odyssey Marine. The wreck contained 200 tonnes of silver worth about £150m making it the largest haul of precious metal ever discovered at sea.
2013 The funeral service was held for 5 year old April Jones, in her hometown of Machynlleth, mid Wales. She was murdered by 47-year-old Mark Bridger almost a year previously, sparking the biggest missing person search in UK police history. Her body was never found.
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27th September
1066 William the Conqueror and his army set sail from the mouth of the Somme River in Picardy, northern France, beginning the Norman Conquest of England.
1672 A new British company, the 'Royal Africa Company' was given a monopoly of the African slave trade to America, with discounts for those who purchased entire shiploads.
1825 The world’s first public railway service began with the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Built by George Stephenson, the track was 27 miles long, and the steam locomotive Active pulled 32 passenger wagons at ten miles per hour.
1888 The first use of the name, 'Jack the Ripper' in an anonymous letter to the Central News Agency. He went on to kill five women, and it's believed he may have been responsible for the deaths of four more.
1938 The 83,000 ton liner 'Queen Elizabeth' was launched at John Brown's Yard on Clydebank in Scotland by the Queen Mother. With her sister ship Queen Mary, she provided luxury liner service between Southampton and New York via Cherbourg in France.
1960 Bank Underground Station in London opened Europe's first 'moving pavement' .
1967 The Queen Mary arrived in Southampton at the end of its last transatlantic voyage.
1968 The musical Hair, (which took advantage of the end of British stage censorship by including a scene cast in the nude), had its first London performance. It played 1,998 performances until its closure was forced by the roof collapsing in July 1973.
1979 Gracie Fields, the Rochdale born wartime singer, died aged 81, in Canzone Del Mare, Capri. Her most famous song was 'Sally' which she sang at nearly every performance she made from 1931 onwards.
1979 The BBC's Question Time aired for the first time, chaired by Robin Day, who stayed with the programme for ten years.
1979 The death (aged 26) from heart failure caused by a heroin overdose of Jimmy McCulloch, Scottish musician and songwriter best known for playing lead guitar in Paul McCartney's Wings from 1974 to 1977.
1987 Tony Jacklin led a team of 12 golfers, including Seve Ballesteros, to win the Ryder Cup. It was the first time the US team had been defeated on their home ground.
1991 The first Scrabble Championship was held in London, with 20 countries competing.
1993 The Government announced its plans to privatise the Post Office.
1995 There was anger within the Government when a European Court of Human Rights ruling condemned the killing, by the British SAS, of three IRA terrorists in Gibraltar in 1988.
2011 David Croft died, aged 89. He was particularly noted for producing and co-writing a string of popular BBC sitcoms including Dad's Army, 'Allo 'Allo!, Hi-De-Hi!, Are You Being Served?, You Rang M’Lord? and It Ain't Half Hot Mum.
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28th September
1066 Claiming his right to the English throne, William, Duke of Normandy (or William the Bastard, as he was often called at the time, due to his illegitimate status ) landed at Pevensey in East Sussex to begin his invasion of England.
1106 Henry I of England defeated his brother, Robert Curthose, the Duke of Normandy at the Battle of Tinchebray, in Normandy. It was a decisive victory and the battle lasted just one hour. The Duke was captured and imprisoned in England and then at Cardiff Castle until his death. England and Normandy remained under a single ruler until 1204.
1745 At the Drury Lane Theatre, London, God Save the King, the national anthem, was sung for the first time. The score used was prepared by Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778) leader of the orchestra and composer of Rule Britannia.
1864 'The First International' was founded in London, when Karl Marx proposed the formation of an International Working Men's Association.
1865 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson became the first qualified woman physician in Britain. Along with Benjamin Britten, artist J.M.W. Turner and the poet George Crabbe, she had connections with Aldeburgh in Suffolk.
1884 Simon Marks, a Polish immigrant, and Yorkshireman Tom Spencer opened their Penny Bazaar in Leeds, setting the foundations for the Marks and Spencer chain.
1912 Unionists in Northern Ireland signed the Solemn League and Covenant, pledging resistance to Home Rule for Ireland.
1918 World War I: The start of the Fifth Battle of Ypres. The British sustained almost 5,000 casualties but advanced the front line by up to 18 miles and captured approximately 10,000 German soldiers, 300 guns and 600 machine guns.
1923 The Radio Times was first published.
1928 Parliament passed the Dangerous Drugs Act outlawing cannabis.
1928 The Scottish born pharmacologist Sir Alexander Fleming noticed a bacteria-killing mould growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.
1946 Future England football captain Billy Wright played in his first England international.
1984 A high court judge ruled that the miners' strike was unlawful because a union ballot was never held.
1985 Riots broke out on the streets of south London after a woman was shot and seriously injured in a house search. Local people had already been very critical of police tactics in Brixton and a mood of tension exploded into violence as night fell.
1986 British boxer Lloyd Honeyghan won the world welterweight title.
1996 At Ascot, Frankie Dettori became the first jockey to win all seven races at a meeting. The odds on this happening were 25,095 to 1. Bookmakers lost over £18 million pounds as a result.
2013 Baroness Thatcher's ashes were laid to rest in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London. Lady Thatcher died, aged 87, on 8th April. A simple headstone bore the inscription Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013. She was Britain's first and only woman prime minister and the longest-serving prime minister of the twentieth century,
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29th September
1399 The first English monarch to abdicate, Richard II, was replaced by Bolingbroke, who ascended the throne as Henry IV.
1650 Henry Robinson opened the first marriage bureau, in England.
1755 Robert Lord Clive, (Clive of India), founder of the British empire in India, was born.
1758 Lord Horatio Nelson was born, in the village of Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk. He defeated the French and her allies on numerous occasions during the age of Napoleon Bonaparte and was naval hero at the Battle of Trafalgar. Nelson's parents were married in St. Michael's Parish Church, Beccles, Suffolk.
1793 Tennis was mentioned for the first time in an English sporting magazine.
1829 The Metropolitan Police of London, later also known as the Met. was inaugurated and was London's first regular police force, The officers became known as 'bobbies' after Robert Peel, the home secretary who founded the modern police force.
1885 The first practical, public electric tramway in the world was opened in Blackpool. (Picture of a Blackpool tram).
1913 The birth of Trevor Howard, film, stage and television actor. Over time he became one of Britain's finest character actors whose works included such films as Mutiny on the Bounty, Von Ryan's Express, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Ryan's Daughter, Superman and Gandhi. It is alleged that throughout his film career Howard insisted that all of his contracts held a clause excusing him from work whenever a cricket Test Match was being played.
1938 England, France, Germany and Italy signed the Munich Pact, under which the Sudetenland was given to Nazi Germany. In return, Hitler promised not to make any further territorial demands in Europe. World War II began the following year!
1946 BBC launched the 'Third Programme', later to become Radio 3.
1952 British and world water speed record holder John Cobb was killed on Loch Ness in Scotland when his craft 'Crusader' broke up after hitting waves at 240 mph.
1956 Sebastian Coe was born. As a 1500m runner he won Olympic gold in 1980 & 1984. He headed the successful London bid (2005) to host the 2012 Summer Olympics and became chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games.
1963 The Rolling Stones started their first tour, as the opening act for Bo Diddley and the Everly Brothers.
1997 British scientists said they had established a link between a human brain disease - vCJD - and one found in cows - BSE.
2007 Calder Hall, the world's first commercial nuclear power station, was demolished in a controlled explosion. When it closed on 31st March 2003, the first reactor had been in use for nearly 47 years.
2011 Britons basked in record-breaking temperatures of 29C (84F). The mercury peaked in the East Midlands, beating the previous 29th September high of 27.8C (82F), which was recorded in York in 1895.
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30th September
1630 John Billington, one of the original pilgrims who sailed to the New World on the Mayflower, became the first man executed in the English colonies. He was hanged for having shot another man during a quarrel.
1772 James Brindley, British canal builder and one of the most notable engineers of the 18th century was buried, just nine days after the completion of his Birmingham Canal.
1788 Lord Raglan, British field-marshal was born. He lost his arm in battle, thus giving his name to a design of sleeve.
1840 The foundation stone for Nelson's Column was laid in Trafalgar Square.
1888 Jack the Ripper murdered two more women - Liz Stride, found behind 40 Berner Street, and Kate Eddowes in Mitre Square, both in London's East End. Unlike murderers of lesser fame, there is no waxwork figure of Jack the Ripper at Madame Tussauds' Chamber of Horrors, in accordance with their policy of not modelling persons whose likeness is unknown. He is instead depicted as a shadow.
1933 The birth, in Oldham, Lancashire of Barbara Knox, best known for playing Rita Tanner (née Littlewood, previously Fairclough and Sullivan) in the television soap opera Coronation Street . She has been a 'regular' since 1972 and In 1989 she won the TV Times award for best actress following her involvement in the dramatic Alan Bradley storyline.
1936 Pinewood Film Studios opened near Iver, in Buckinghamshire, to provide Britain with a film studio to compete with America's Hollywood Studios in California.
1938 The League of Nations unanimously outlawed 'the intentional bombings of civilian populations'.
1939 Identity cards were issued in Britain.
1944 Calais was reoccupied by the Allies.
1945 The Bourne End rail crash, in Hertfordshire killed 43 when an overnight sleeping-car express train from Scotland to London Euston derailed due to a driver's error when he took a turn at nearly 60 mph when the maximum speed was 15 mph. The engine and the first six carriages overturned and fell down an embankment into a field, only the last three coaches remained on the rails.
1951 Big crowds attended the final ceremonies which marked the official end of the Festival of Britain.
1967 The BBC Light Programme, Third Programme and Home Service were replaced with BBC Radio 2, 3 and 4 Respectively. BBC Radio 1 was also launched, with Tony Blackburn, a former Radio Caroline DJ, presenting the first show.
1971 The British Government named Oleg Lyalin as the Soviet defector who, the previous week had exposed dozens of Russians alleged to be spying in the UK.
1987 Keith Best, MP, was sentenced to four months in prison for trying to obtain British Telecom shares by deception.
1988 A court in Gibraltar declared that the killing of three unarmed IRA suspects by British soldiers was lawful.
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1st October
959 Edgar the Peaceable became king of all England. 'The Peaceable', was not necessarily a comment on the deeds of his life, for he was a strong leader, shown by his seizure of the Northumbrian and Mercian kingdoms from his older brother. His reign though, was a remarkably peaceable one, thanks to draconian laws that involved having one's tongue ripped out, at best, for stealing an apple.
1207 The birth of King Henry III, the son and successor of King John. He reigned for 56 years, from 1216 until his death.
1553 The Coronation of Queen Mary I. She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. As the fourth crowned monarch of the Tudor dynasty, Mary is remembered for her restoration of Roman Catholicism and she had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian Persecutions.
1843 The News of the World, Britain's most popular Sunday newspaper, was first published. It was, at one time, the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, but amid a public backlash after allegations of phone hacking, News International announced the closure of the newspaper on 7th July 2011.
1869 The Midland Railway opened St Pancras station in London. Designed by William Henry Barlow its arched engine shed (the Barlow train shed) was, at the time of opening, the largest single-span roof in the world.
1870 The first British halfpenny postage stamp, in lilac, was issued.
1906 The first hot-air balloon race was staged at Whitley, Yorkshire and was won by US Army Lieutenant Frank Lahm.
1935 Julie Andrews, English actress and singer was born.
1936 The BBC began regular TV broadcasts from Alexandra Palace, north London.
1943 World War II: The Italian city of Naples fell to Allied soldiers.
1946 Germany's Deputy Fuhrer, Rudolph Hess - captured in Scotland after mysteriously parachuting from a plane during World War II - was sentenced to life imprisonment.
1954 The UK Top 12 Pop Chart became a Top 20.
1957 A vaccine against the strain of influenza that had been sweeping around the world was made available to the British public.
1974 The first McDonalds restaurant opened in London.
1974 British boxer John Conteh became Light Heavyweight Champion of the World.
1985 Police closed off areas of Liverpool & London after outbreaks of violence & vandalism.
1993 RAC patrolman Mervyn Jacobs was called out to jump start a minesweeper. It was not a problem for him. He just ran a 50 foot lead from his van!
2012 Surrey police confirmed that the late Sir Jimmy Savile was questioned over allegations of child sex abuse in 2007. In the aftermath, towns and organisations distanced themselves from their associations with the former TV presenter, commemorative plaques were removed and Savile's triple gravestone was sent to a landfill site after being removed from a Scarborough cemetery.
2014 The vehicle tax disc, first introduced in 1921, ceased to exist in paper form from 1st October, with a new electronic system being put in its place.
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And 40 years ago today I passed my driving test, how old do I feel.
Should have gone to that brand new McDonalds place to celebrate!
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"1946 Germany's Deputy Fuhrer, Rudolph Hess - captured in Scotland after mysteriously parachuting from a plane during World War II - was sentenced to life imprisonment."
My Grandmother did the paperwork to get him food rations. She thought it was a joke at first.