On this day

[K.H]

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.

[K.H]

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.

[K.H]

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.

[Julian]

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.

[K.H]

A queen, more like!

[GedsJeep]

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.

[Jamesrl]

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?

[K.H]

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.

[Julian]

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 ...

[K.H]

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 

[K.H]

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"

[Julian]

2014 Julian was punched for saying "according to my mum"

My Mum warned me about people like you!

[K.H]

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.

[Tony]

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?

[Julian]

8th September
1921 Sir Harry Secombe, entertainer and singer was born.

Ahh, Harry Secombe,  My cousin once told me ...