This day in history

[Skylace]

There are 365 days of the year and something historically important has happened on each one. So here's the place to post it and talk about it.

Today-November 24, 2007
Tasmania was sighted by the Dutch. It was originally named Anthoonij van Diemenslandt, by Abel Tasman.

[11antoniacourt]

Thank you Sky. I'm meeting friends in an hour and I'll try to work it in to the conversation this evening.

[Skylace]

I guess you could raise a glass to good old Tasmania!

[Skylace]

November 25
In 1758, in the French and Indian War, the British captured Fort Duquesne in present-day Pittsburgh.

Interesting for me to learn for sure!

[luke]

heres some more for today;

1120 Henry I's only legitimate son, William, was drowned when the ship carrying him from Normandy to England sank off Barfleur. This set up a conflict for the English crown between Stephen and Henry's daughter, Matilda.

1823 The first pleasure pier, The Chain Pier at Brighton, opened. It closed in 1896 and was destroyed in a storm in the same year.

1835 Birth of Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-born US industrialist and philanthropist who rose from telegraph boy to iron and steel multimillionaire. He devoted his vast wealth to libraries and universities including the Carnegie Hall in New York which opened in 1891.

1896 William Marshall became the first person in Britain to receive a parking summons after leaving his car in Tokenhouse Yard in the City of London, but the case was dismissed.

1932 British Equity, the actors' union, voted for a 'closed shop' to begin operating in 1933.

1937 An inter-regional spelling competition became the first British quiz programme to be broadcast.

1952 The play, The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie, opened in London, at the Ambassador's Theatre where it remained for 21 years. By Saturday 12 April 1958 it had become the longest running production of any kind in the history of British Theatre.

1953 Hungary, led by their talented footballer Ferenc Pushkas, beat England 6-3 at Wembley to become the first foreign team to achieve an away win at Wembley.

1969 John Lennon returned his MBE in protest against British involvement in Biafra and British support of US involvement in Vietnam.

1981 The inquiry into the Brixton riots in April blamed serious social and economic problems affecting Britain's cities.

1984 Band Aid rock stars gathered at Sarm Studios in London to record 'Do They Know It's Christmas', to aid famine relief in Ethiopia.

1991 Winston Silcott became the first of the 'Tottenham Three', convicted for the 1985 killing of a policeman in Tottenham, North London, to have his conviction overturned.

[Skylace]

Thanks for those luke I wish I could have been at the opening of Mousetrap!

[Skylace]

November 26th 1922
Carter Breaches Entrance to Tutankhamun's Tomb

[luke]

i guess i should thank carter - i'm taking my mum over christmas to see the tutankhamun exhibition, and the terracotta army. i'm really looking forward to them both - i love all that kinda stuff, old aztec, mayan and african as well

26th November

1703 The day of 'The Great Storm', in which 8,000 people died. Henry Winstanley, the English engineer who built the first Eddystone lighthouse, was among those who died when it was destroyed in a gale.

1864 Oxford professor Charles Dodgson presented a little girl called Alice Liddle with a story she had inspired him to write. It was called Alice in Wonderland and was written under the pen name of Lewis Carroll.

1867 Mrs Lily Maxwell of Manchester became the first ever woman to vote in a British election, due to a mistake in the electoral register. She had to be escorted to the polling station by a bodyguard to protect her from those opposed to women’s suffrage.

1908 Birth of Lord Forte (Charles Forte), British business magnate and Chairman of Trusthouse Forte, one of the largest hotel and restaurant groups in the world.

1922 Howard Carter and the Earl of Carnarvon, Carter’s sponsor, became the first men to see inside the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun near Luxor since it was sealed 3,000 years ago. Having escaped detection by tomb robbers, it was complete with gold statues and a gold throne inlaid with gems.

1953 Peers backed the Government's proposals for commercial television.

1968 The new Race Relations Act made it illegal to refuse housing, employment or public services to people because of their ethnic background.

1983 The Brinks Mat security warehouse at London’s Heathrow Airport was robbed of £25 million worth of gold bars weighing three tons.

1987 Drawings of English bank notes by US artist James Boggs were declared works of art and not illegal replicas of UK currency by an Old Bailey jury.

1988 Mrs Rita Lockett of Torquay, Devon, spent £10,000 to repeat her daughter’s wedding two months after the event, because she did not like the video. The couple went through the reception with all 200 wedding guests wearing the same outfits and having to listen to the same speeches, this time with a professional video crew on hand.

1992 It was announced that as from 1993 the Queen would make arrangements to pay income tax, the first British monarch to do so since the 1930s.

[Skylace]

Rock on Mrs. Lily Maxwell!

I am so jealous luke you are getting to see all that. You'll have to let me know. It's on my lists of things to see and do!

[luke]

[Skylace]

[luke]

27th November

1582 William Shakespeare, aged 18, married Anne Hathaway. They had a daughter in 1583 and a twin boy and girl in 1585. The boy died aged 11.

1874 The birth of Chaim (Azriel) Weizmann, first president of Israel, who was a chemistry professor in Geneva where he became active in the World Zionist Movement. After settling in Britain in 1904 he assisted the British munitions industry during the First World War when he devised a way of extracting acetone (needed for cordite) from maize. In return, the British government promised to help his cause and establish a Jewish state in Palestine.

1914 Miss Mary Allen and Miss E F Harburn became the first two trained policewomen to be granted official status in Britain when they reported for duty at Grantham, Lincolnshire.

1925 Ernie Wise, 'straight man' to comedian Eric Morecambe, was born.

1944 Between 3,500 and 4,000 tons of explosives stored in a cavern beneath Staffordshire detonated, killing 68 people and wiping out an entire farm. The explosion was heard over 100 miles away in London, and recorded as an earthquake in Geneva.

1967 President de Gaulle said ‘Non’ to British entry into the Common Market.

1975 Ross McWhirter, TV presenter and co-editor of The Guinness Book of Records, was assassinated by two Provisional IRA gunmen after he had offered a £50,000 reward for information leading to a conviction for several recent high-profile bombings.

1976 The four millionth 'Mini' car left the production line.

1987 A young man in Somerset tried seven times to kill himself following a row with his girlfriend. He threw himself in front of four cars, and jumped under the wheels of a lorry. He tried to strangle himself and jumped from a window. The real victims were a driver of one car who suffered a heart attack, a policeman who injured his back trying to restrain the man, and a doctor who was kicked in the face when the struggling man reached hospital.

1990 John Major won his second ballot for leadership of the Conservative Party and became Prime Minister. (Mrs. Thatcher had resigned as Prime Minister 5 days previously.)

2000 A 10-year-old schoolboy, Damilola Taylor, died after being stabbed in the leg by a gang of hooded attackers near his home in Peckham, south London.

[Skylace]

And November 27 1926 Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg Begins

[Bat]

[Skylace]