This day in history

[faceless]

[Skylace]

Jan. 8 1918-US President Woodrow Wilson Introduces His Fourteen Points

[luke]

for anyone interested in what the fourteen points were - http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/President_Wilson%27s_Fourteen_Points

8th January

1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie occupied Stirling. Such early successes would prove short-lived for the pretender to the throne. The Bonnie Prince Charlie monument at Glenfinnan.

1800 London opened its first soup kitchens for the poor.

1815 Britain lost the last battle it ever fought against the US in the War of 1812. General Sir Edward Pakenham and his men were defeated at New Orleans.

1871 Birth of James Craig, the first prime minister of Northern Ireland and the first Viscount Craigavon.

1921 David Lloyd George became the first Prime Minister to reside in Chequers, a country mansion in Buckinghamshire which had been given by Lord Lee of Fareham as a gift to the nation.

1941 Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scout movement, died, aged 83.

1942 The birth of Stephen Hawking, possibly the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Albert Einstein. He wrote A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. His book sold at least 25,000,000 copies, was no doubt read by thousands and maybe understood by hundreds!

1967 The Forsyte Saga, the television adaptation of Galsworthy’s novel, screened its first episode. It was so popular that for the six months of its run, many churches had to change the times of their services!

1982 Spain reopened the frontier of the British colony of Gibraltar. In return, Britain agreed to open negotiations on Gibraltar’s future, and ended its opposition to Spain joining the EEC.

1989 47 people were killed and over 80 injured when a British Midland 737-400 jet crashed on the M1 motorway, less than half a mile from East Midlands Airport. One engine had had to be switched off and the other had suddenly shut down, forcing the plane into an emergency landing.

2001 The High Court ruled that the identities and whereabouts of the two boys who murdered toddler James Bulger in 1993 would be kept secret for the rest of their lives.

2004 The liner RMS Queen Mary 2, was named by Queen Elizabeth II. She is the largest, longest, widest, tallest and most expensive passenger ship in history.

[luke]

9th January

1735 The birth of British admiral, John Jervis (Earl of St. Vincent). In 1797, he and Nelson, who was then a captain, defeated the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent.

1799 Income tax was introduced into Britain by William Pitt the Younger, to raise funds for the Napoleonic War. The rate was two shillings in the pound. ( not to self - if i ever invent a time machine, this is when to go back to, remove the word 'tax' from the dictionary - forever! damn you william pitt the younger! )

1806 Lord Nelson, (born in Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk) naval commander and hero of the Battle of Trafalgar, was buried beneath the dome of St Paul's cathedral, in London, after a grand and solemn procession along the river to Whitehall and thence to the City.

1854 Birth of Jenny, Lady Randolph Churchill, wife of Lord Randolph and mother of Winston.

1854 The first free lending Library opened, on Marylebone Road, London.

1888 The London Financial Guide was launched. It became The Financial Times on 13th February.

1898 The birth, in Rochdale, Lancashire, of Dame Gracie Fields, internationally famous singer.

1909 Shackleton’s polar expedition was forced to turn back, only 11 miles away from the South Pole.

1929 Alexander Fleming successfully treated his assistant Stuart Craddick’s infection with a penicillin broth, at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.

1957 Sir Anthony Eden resigned as prime minister of Britain due to ill health, after just one year and 279 days in the post. He was succeeded by Harold Macmillan.

1972 The Queen Elizabeth, the liner that had been turned into a sailing university, caught fire and sank in Hong Kong harbour. She had been the world’s largest passenger liner for over thirty years.

1972 British miners began their first strike since 1926. They were campaigning for improved pay and conditions. A season of power cuts followed.

1997 The lone yachtsman, Tony Bullimore, feared drowned after his boat, (Exide Challenger) capsized in the Southern Ocean five days previously, was found safe and well.

1998 Northern Ireland Secretary Dr. Mo Mowlam made a controversial visit to the Maze Prison in Belfast, Northern Ireland to talk to Loyalist and Republican terrorists.

[Skylace]

January 9 1793-First Hot air balloon flight in America.

[Skylace]

January 11, 2008-Sir Edmund Hillary dies

1922-Insulin first used to treat diabetes

[luke]

11th January

1569 The first state lottery in England. Lots were sold at the West Door of St Paul’s Cathedral. National lotteries continued until 1826 when it was felt that " the inducement to gambling held out by lotteries is a great moral evil, helping to impoverish many and diverting attention from the more legitimate industrial modes of moneymaking"

1815 Birth, in Glasgow, of Sir John Alexander Macdonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada.

1857 Birth of jockey Fred Archer. He won 2749 races, including five Derby winners.

1859 Birth of George Nathaniel Curzon (Lord Curzon of Kedleston), Viceroy of India. He had hopes of becoming Prime Minister, but Baldwin was chosen in his place. The love of his life was Elinor Glyn, the romantic novelist.

1922 Birth of Neville Duke, English test pilot. He took the World Air Speed Record on 7th September 1953 in a Hawker Hunter MK 3, achieving 727.6 mph over a 3 km course.

1928 Thomas Hardy, the English playwright and poet, died aged 87.

1954 All Comet airliners were grounded. The day before, 35 people had died in a mysterious crash off the island of Elba. In 1953, another Comet had crashed inexplicably near Calcutta when 'it fell out of the sky for no apparent reason’. The cause was finally traced to a structural fault, with serious consequences for British aviation.

1973 The first 867 graduates from the Open University were awarded their degrees after two years studying from home.

1980 Nigel Short, age 14, from Bolton, Lancashire, became the youngest International Master in the history of chess.

1984 French farmers hijacked British lorries in a dispute against meat imports.

1993 British Airways was forced into an embarrassing climb-down in relation to a campaign of 'dirty tricks' it launched against rival airline Virgin Atlantic. BA was forced to pay damages to both Virgin Atlantic and its boss Richard Branson.

1994 The Duchess of Kent announced that she was converting to Catholicism, the first member of the Royal Family to become a Roman Catholic since James II in the 17th century.

[Skylace]

12th of January

1908-Open up a bottle of French wine and commemorate the first ever long-distance radio message transmitted from the Eiffel Tower.

1872-Emperor Yohannes Crowned in Ethiopia

[Skylace]

13th of January

1930 First Mickey Mouse Comic Strip Released

[luke]

13th January

1691 George Fox, English founder of the religious group of the Society of Friends, (the Quakers), died.

1832 Thomas Lord, founder of Lord's Cricket Ground in 1787, died.

1874 A British army doctor reached the British sentry post at Jalalabad, Afghanistan, the only survivor of a 16,000 strong Anglo-Indian expeditionary force that was massacred during its retreat from Kabul.

1893 The birth of a new political party in Britain as James Keir Hardie united socialists under the banner of the Labour Representation Committee. It dominated the Labour Party until 1914. The last Independent Labour Party MP joined the Labour Party in 1948.

1908 Henry Farman, son of an English newspaper correspondent, won the Deutsch-Archdeacon prize for the first heavier than air aircraft flight to cover a circuit of at least 1 Km.

1921 Mills Munitions of Birmingham registered the patent for windscreen wipers.

1926 Birth of Michael Bond, English children’s writer and creator of ‘Paddington Bear’.

1958 In Scotland, the serial killer Peter Manuel was arrested after a series of attacks over a two year period that left nine people dead.

1964 Capital Records grudgingly released the first Beatles record, ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’, in the US ‘to see how it goes’. It became their fastest selling single ever. Within only three weeks, a million copies had been sold.

1993 American, British and French planes bombed a series of targets over southern Iraq. The action was taken in response to repeated Iraqi breaches of the 'no fly zone' implemented after the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

1995 In response to British animal rights protesters, the British Meat and Livestock Commission announced that calves exported from Britain to the Netherlands would be housed in spacious group pens rather than be confined in so called veal crates.

2004 Harold Shipman, who is believed to have killed more than 200 patients, was found hanged in his prison cell.

[Skylace]

14th of January
1954 Marilyn Monroe Marries Joe DiMaggio

[luke]

14th January

1742 Sir Edmund Halley, the British Astronomer Royal who gave his name to a comet, died aged 86.

1878 Queen Victoria watched a demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, by W.H. Preece at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

1886 Birth of Hugh Lofting, creator of ‘Dr Dolittle’.

1896 The first public screening of a film in Britain, at the London headquarters of the Royal Photographic society.

1898 Lewis Carroll, English author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, died.

1904 Birth of Sir Cecil Beaton, photographer, writer and theatrical designer.

1937 The first Gallup Opinion Poll was conducted in Britain. It was the invention of George Horace Gallup who founded the Gallup Institute in 1935.

1943 World War II: Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt met in Casablanca, Morocco, to discuss their strategy for the next phase of the war.

1947 The Covent Garden Opera Company opened with Karl Rankl’s production of Carmen, in the newly renovated theatre which had been a dance hall during the war.

1969 Football legend Sir Matt Busby announced that he would retire as manager of Manchester United at the end of the season.

1975 A 17-year-old heiress, Lesley Whittle, was kidnapped from her home in Shropshire. Her body was found on 7th March, 1975, hanging from a wire at the bottom of a drain shaft in Bathpool Park, Staffordshire. Donald Neilson, also known as the Black Panther, was convicted of her murder (and three others) in July 1976.

2002 After three months of no cases being reported, the United Kingdom was finally declared free from the 'Foot and Mouth' infection, after a crisis that started in 2001 in which millions of cows and sheep were destroyed.

[Skylace]

January 15

1759-The British Museum Opens Its Doors
_______
That's one of the things that amazes me when I go into places like the British Museum. To think how many other people walked through there before I did.

[Skylace]

January 21

1924 Vladimir Lenin Dies

[luke]

21st January

1549 Parliament passed the first of four Acts of Uniformity, the first requiring the exclusive use of the Book of Common Prayer in all public services of the Anglican Church.

1799 Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccination was introduced.

1846 The publication of the first edition of the Daily News, edited by Charles Dickens. It merged with the Daily Chronicle to form the News Chronicle in 1930, and was ultimately absorbed by the Daily Mail in 1960.

1907 Taxi cabs were officially recognized in Britain.

1925 Birth of the comedian Benny Hill, in Southampton, Hampshire.

1937 Marcel Boulestin became the first television cook when he presented the first of the Cook’s Night Out programmes on BBC.

1941 The British communist newspaper, the Daily Worker, was suppressed in wartime London.

1950 The British writer George Orwell died after a three year battle against tuberculosis. His books included 1984 and Animal Farm. His books were controversial and 1984, like Animal Farm, was widely viewed as an attack on the Communist system. ( but in the suppressed introduction, orwell says it doesn't work much different in england! )

1966 The Monte Carlo rally ended in uproar over the disqualification of the British cars expected to fill the first four places. They were all ruled out of the prizes, along with six other British cars, for alleged infringements of regulations about the way their headlights dipped.

1976 The first Concorde jets carrying commercial passengers simultaneously took off, at 11:40 a.m. from London's Heathrow Airport and Orly Airport outside Paris. The London flight was to Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, and the Paris flight was to Rio de Janeiro. Nearly 3 hours was knocked off the normal flying time to Bahrain by the British Concorde but the Air France Concorde arrived 38 minutes late.

1997 More than 80 people were named as child abusers in statements to a North Wales inquiry into claims of abuse of children in care in Clwyd and Gwynedd over 20 years.