On This Day

raveydavey · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:08 pm Post subject:

July 18th:

1817 Jane Austen, English novelist of Pride and Prejudice died, aged 41.

1848 W.G Grace, cricketing legend, was born

1870: The Vatican Council proclaimed the dogma of Papal infallibility in faith and morals - that is, that the Pope could not be mistaken in these matters.

1872 Britain introduced the concept of voting by secret ballot.

1877: Edison had his first success in his experiments with recording and storing the sounds of the human voice. He worked to improve his methods, and early the next year he demonstrated his invention at the offices of the Scientific American.

1901 The water supply was turned off in Scumchester as a heat wave hit the U.K. with the temperature reaching 35 degrees Centigrade.

1920 The unveiling of the Cenotaph War memorial in Whitehall, London to commemorate the war dead. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and takes its name from the Greek words kenos and taphos meaning empty tomb.

1923 Under the Matrimonial Causes Bill, British women were given equal divorce rights with men.

1925: Publication of Hitler’s Mein Kampf (My Struggle), written while he was in jail.

1934 The official opening, by King George V, of the first Mersey Road Tunnel in Liverpool.

1936: General Francisco Franco led the army in a revolt against Spain’s Republican government, beginning over three years of Civil War.

1950 Richard Branson, British entrepreneur, was born.

1955: Disneyland opened at Anaheim, California. It had cost $17 million to build Walt Disney’s 160-acre theme park.

1970 Radio 1 DJ Kenny Everett was sacked after he joked on air that the wife of the conservative transport minister, Mary Peyton, had 'crammed a fiver into the examiner's hand', when taking her driving test.

1975 Former British MP John Stonehouse was flown back from Australia to face charges relating to his attempt to falsify his own death.

1992 John Smith was elected leader of the Labour party, with Margaret Beckett as his deputy. How different things could have been.

2000 Police confirmed that the body they had found in a West Sussex field the previous day was that of missing eight-year old Sarah Payne.

2003 The body of government scientist Dr David Kelly was found in woodland, in Oxfordshire. Dr Kelly had been at the centre of a row between the British Government and the BBC about the use of intelligence reports in the run up to the war against Iraq.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

raveydavey · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 7:25 pm Post subject:

July 19th:

1545 The Mary Rose, the pride of Henry VIII's battle fleet, sank in the Solent with the loss of 700 lives. (The ship was raised on 11th October 1982 to be taken to Portsmouth Dockyard.)

1553 Lady Jane Grey was replaced by Mary I as Queen of England after having the title for just nine days.

1814: Birth of Samuel Colt. Colt spent time at sea, during which he created a six-shot revolver out of wood. He patented his invention in 1835, but it was not immediately successful, and his manufacturing business suffered. His guns had gained popularity by the time he invented the first remote-controlled naval mine, and Colt made his fortune. He was a progressive businessman, with advanced ideas about the welfare of his workers.

1837 Isambard Kingdom Brunel's 236 ft steamship, the Great Western, was launched at Bristol. On the same day in 1843, his 'Great Britain', the first Atlantic liner built of iron, was launched at Wapping Dock. It ended up a rusting ruin in the Falkland Islands, but was brought back to Britain on this day in 1970.

1903: The first Tour de France cycle race, devised and promoted by journalist Henri Desgranger, saw its first winner as Maurice Garin crossed the finish line.

1918 The end of World War I approached as the German army began retreating across the Marne River in France.

1941 Winston Churchill introduced his 'V for Victory" campaign which rapidly spread through Europe. The BBC took the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which matched the dot-dot-dot-dash Morse code for the letter V, and played it before news bulletins.

1969 British rower John Fairfax arrived at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after becoming the first person to row across the Atlantic alone. He had left the Canary Islands on January 20th in a 24’ rowing boat and after 180 days and 4000 miles he had finished his journey. Three years later, with his girl friend, he rowed the 8000 miles from San Francisco to the Hayman Islands off the Queensland Coast

1976 British fishermen urged the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Crosland, to secure a 50-mile fishing zone around the UK.

1986 English boxer Frank Bruno was beaten in a heavyweight world championship contender fight by American Tim Witherspoon.

1990 MPs voted in favour of permanent televising of the House of Commons.

1997 The Irish Republican Army (IRA) restored its cease-fire (broken on 9 February 1996) in order to participate in talks on the future of Northern Ireland.

1999 An academic study revealed that four million children in Britain were living in "poverty". While many of the aims of this study are laudable, the fact you are living in "poverty" if you don't have central heating in your home is laughable.

2001 Ex Conservative MP Lord Jeffrey Archer, was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice and sentenced to four years in prison.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

raveydavey · Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 2:58 pm Post subject:

July 20th:

1588: The Spanish Armada set sail from Coruña. They had originally intended to sail a month earlier, but a severe storm forced the fleet to disperse.

1807 Round-arm (over-arm) bowling was introduced to English cricket by John Willes in the Kent v England match at Fenenden Heath.

1837 London’s first railway station opened, in Euston Grove. The new Euston station was described as ‘mightier than the pyramids of Egypt’.

1871 The English Football Association Challenge Cup Competition was formed, to become better known as the FA Cup. The first final saw the Wanderers beat the Royal Engineers by one goal to nil, watched by a crowd of 2,000.

1875: Professional football was legalized in England.

1889 John Reith, Scottish engineer and first director general of the BBC, was born.

1938 Diana Rigg, English actress, was born.

1940: In the US, Billboard published the first singles charts. No. 1 was ‘I’ll Never Smile Again’ by the Tommy Dorsey Band, vocal by Frank Sinatra.

1944 World War II: Adolf Hitler escaped death after a third attempt on his life when a bomb exploded in Rastenberg.

1957: British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan invited ridicule when he said ‘Let’s be frank about it. Most of our people have never had it so good,’ at a meeting in Bradford, and again five days later in the House of Commons. It became a catchphrase, spoken in the same derisory tones as his nickname, ‘Supermac’.

1968 During a BBC radio interview, actress Jane Asher announced that her engagement to Beatle Paul McCartney was off. He was not the first to find out!

1982 An IRA terrorist bomb in Hyde Park, London, killed 3 members of the Blues and Royals during the Changing of the Guard ceremony. Two hours later 8 bandsmen were killed by an IRA bomb planted at the bandstand in Regent's Park.

1990 An IRA bomb blew a 10-foot hole in the London Stock Exchange.

2000 Families of the victims of serial killer GP Harold Shipman won their High Court battle for an open inquiry into how their loved ones came to die.

2002 Charles Kennedy, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, and his fiancee Sarah Gurling, were married in the House of Commons chapel.

2003 The BBC confirmed that weapons expert Dr David Kelly, found dead two days earlier, was the source for reports that the government had "sexed up" an Iraq dossier.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

raveydavey · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 3:52 pm Post subject:

July 21st:

National day of Belgium, marking the day in 1831 when Belgium broke from the Netherlands to become a kingdom in its own right. Prince Leopold became King Leopold I of Belgium. This is quite possibly the most interesting fact about Belgium.

1796 Robert Burns, Scottish poet died, aged 37.

1897 London's Tate Gallery, built on the site of the Millbank Prison, was opened, with 67 paintings.

1909 Six suffragettes, jailed for breaking windows in Whitehall, were released for insubordination, kicking and biting female wardens and for going on strike.

1931 A Bill proposing the sterilisation of the mentally defective was defeated in the House of Commons.

1960 English yachtsman Francis Chichester docked in New York in his boat Gypsy Moth II - setting a new record of 40 days for a solo crossing of the Atlantic.

1962 British group The Rolling Stones made their first public appearance at the Marquee Club in London.

1969: Man takes first steps on the Moon. American Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the Moon. Possibly.

1974 The Police national computer (PNC) began operating.

1976 The British Ambassador to Ireland, Christopher Ewart-Biggs, was killed by a terrorist car bomb in Dublin.

1982 The flagship of the British taskforce to the Falklands, HMS Hermes, arrived back in Portsmouth.

1994 The MP for Sedgefield, Tony Blair, was confirmed as the new leader of the Labour Party following the unexpected death of John Smith. The euphoria would soon be replaced with contempt and shame.

2000 Downing Street insisted they would not intervene after Home Secretary Jack Straw's car was stopped by the police for speeding. As well all know it's one rule for them and another for the rest of us....

2001 Police met community leaders in Brixton after a demonstration against the fatal shooting by police of a man waving a cigarette lighter shaped like a gun.

2005 London's underground network was plunged into chaos after explosions on two trains and a bus - exactly a fortnight after four suicide bomb blasted the capital.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

30 Mill · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:33 pm Post subject:

raveydavey · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 3:43 pm Post subject:

July 22nd:

National day of Poland.

1298 The English used longbows for the first time, when they defeated the Scots at the Battle of Falkirk. The Scottish pikemen were cut to pieces by Edward I's archers.

1812 The Duke of Wellington defeated the French in the Battle of Salamanca, in Spain.

1844 The Rev. William Archibald Spooner, Anglican clergyman and warden of New College, Oxford, was born. He was famous for 'Spoonerisms' such as 'Come into the arms of the shoving leopard' instead of 'Come into the arms of the loving shepherd'.

1934: Death of bank robber John Dillinger, ‘public enemy No. 1’. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, had offered a $10,000 reward for his capture, dead or alive. FBI agents received a tip-off that a particular man coming out of the Biograph Cinema, Chicago, would be Dillinger. The man appeared in the crowd, and when he appeared to reach for a gun, the agents shot him dead. However, some people have compared US Naval records of Dillinger’s description when he was a crewman, and suspect that he was not the man who was shot.

1938 Terence Stamp, actor, was born, in Stepney, London. He had an off-screen romance with Julie Christie, while they were filming Far from the Madding Crowd.

1946 More than a year after the end of World War Two, bread was rationed in Britain. The shortage was blamed on a poor harvest and drought.

1965 The leader of the Opposition, Alec Douglas-Home, surprised colleagues by resigning from his post.

1972 Paul and Linda McCartney were arrested in Sweden for possession of drugs.

1986 MPs voted to abolish corporal punishment in state schools.

1991 British prime minister John Major unveiled the government's Citizen's Charter aimed at improving public services.

1997 Diana, Princess of Wales was among 3,000 people at a Mass in Milan in memory of murdered Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace.

1999 The first Royal Horticultural Society Flower Show in the North of England was held at Tatton Park in Cheshire.

2003 Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay Hussein, were killed in a gun battle in northern Iraq.

2005 Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was mistaken for a terrorist suspect and was shot dead at Stockwell Tube station in south London.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

raveydavey · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 3:48 pm Post subject:

July 23rd:

The National days of Ethiopia and the United Arab Republic.

1745 Charles Stuart, the 'Young Pretender' landed in the Outer Hebrides in his attempt to win back the throne for the Stuarts.

1884: The Australian owner and crew of four on a yacht sailing from Britain to Sydney, were forced to abandon ship when the pump failed during a storm. Their provisions ran out; the cabin boy drank sea water and went mad. The others dealt with the problem by killing and eating him on this day. They were eventually rescued, and made no effort to hide what they had done. They were tried and sentenced to death, but as a result of public sympathy their sentence was reduced to six months’ imprisonment.

1886 Arthur Whitten Brown, British aviator was born. He was the navigator of the first successful non-stop transatlantic flight, (14th June 1919), with John Alcock as pilot.

1892: Birth of Ras Tafari Makonnen, Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia. He modernized his country, but went into exile when the Italians invaded in 1936. Ethiopia was liberated by British and Ethiopian forces in 1941, whereupon he returned and resumed his position.

1901 Tim Henman's great-grandmother (Ellen Stawell Brown) became the first woman to serve overarm at the All England Tennis Club.

1913 Michael Foot, Former Labour Party leader (1980-83), was born.

1940 The Local Defence Volunteers were renamed the Home Guard by Winston Churchill.

1943: In Essex, there was a huge explosion when a grenade mine designed to blow up tanks, went off under the seat of a wheelchair occupied by a domestic tyrant. The man was accompanied by a resident nurse, and she survived, but there was no trace left of the wheelchair or its occupant. The man’s son, Eric, a soldier, who had been on the receiving end of his father’s tyranny, was charged with murder. He was found guilty, but insane. Parents, eh?

1955 British speed enthusiast Donald Campbell broke the world water speed record on Ullswater in the Lake District when he reached 202.32mph in his craft 'Bluebird'.

1957 There were violent scenes around Britain as the strike by busmen entered its fourth day.

1980 Cliff Richard received his OBE from the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

1984 A government report into cancer levels near the controversial nuclear plant at Sellafield in Cumbria confirmed suspicions of higher than-normal levels of leukaemia in the area, but said it could not definitely link this to the nuclear plant itself.

1986 Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson and was created Duke of York.

1995 Britain sent 1,200 troops to relieve the besieged Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

1996 The BSE scare was extended to sheep after research showed that mad cow disease could be transmitted to sheep in laboratory tests.

1997 Tony Blair's Government announced that students would have to pay tuition fees and that maintenance grants would be abolished.

1997 History was made when for the first time in 127 years hen harriers were raised in Derbyshire, 1500 feet above the Goyt Valley near Buxton.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

raveydavey · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:49 pm Post subject:

July 24th:

1567 Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned and forced to abdicate her throne to her 1 year old son, James VI of Scotland - (James I of England).

1701: The city of Detroit was founded by Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, administrator in French North America, as a fur trading post which he called Font-Pontchartain du Détroit.

1704: Gibraltar was captured from Spain by Admiral Sir George Rooke and Sir Cloudesley Shovel.

1837 Robert Cocking made a parachute jump from a hot air balloon 5,000 feet above Kennington Common. Unfortunately the cone-shaped parachute inverted and he became the first person to die in a parachute jump.

1851 The window tax in Britain was abolished.

1883 Captain Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the English channel (1875) drowned whilst attempting to swim the rapids at Niagara Falls.

1908 Fifty six runners began the London Marathon from Windsor Castle as part of the London Olympic Games.

1926 The first greyhound racing track in the UK was opened, at Belle Vue, in Scumchester.

1936 The GPO (General Post Office) introduced TIM - the automated speaking clock using the voice of Miss Ethel Cain - a telephonist at the GPO's Victoria telephone exchange in London.

1966 After a local and national campaign, the Cavern Club in Liverpool, where the Beatles first performed, was re-opened. Prime Minister Harold Wilson performed the opening ceremony.

1986 'Live Aid' organiser Bob Geldof was made an honorary knight of the most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

1987 Former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, Jeffrey Archer, was awarded record libel damages at the High Court. The Daily Star newspaper was ordered to pay the MP £500,000 damages, along with up to £700,000 costs, for a front-page story in November 1986 alleging that Mr. Archer had paid to have sex with a prostitute.

1996 Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen's Christmas broadcast would no longer be a BBC exclusive.

2000 Loyalist paramilitary hit man Michael Stone was released from the Maze prison in Northern Ireland. He was given a 684 year sentence in 1989 for six murders and five attempted murders, but was set free as part of the Good Friday peace agreement.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

30 Mill · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:58 pm Post subject:

raveydavey · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:07 pm Post subject:

July 25th:

1797 British naval commander Horatio Nelson's right arm was shattered by grapeshot during an assault on Tenerife. The injured arm was amputated later. He's not the only Brit to have sustained an injury there.

1814 The chief engineer at the Killingworth colliery, George Stevenson, unveiled Blutcher, his steam powered locomotive that could haul eight carriages loaded with 30 tons of coal at the break-neck speed of 4 mph.

1834 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet (whose works included 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner') died.

1843 Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist and inventor died. He invented waterproof clothing, hence the term macintosh or mac.

1865 Dr. James (Jane) Barry, the first woman doctor (because she masqueraded as a man), died.

1907 Sir Robert Baden-Powell began an experimental camp on Brownsea Island near Poole to test the feasibility of Scouting. Four days later he formed the Boy Scout organisation.

1917: The Dutch spy Mata Hari (Margaretha Geertruida Zelle) was sentenced to death.

1944 The first jet fighter to engage an enemy in combat was a Messerschmitt 262, over Munich, when it was intercepted by a Mosquito of 544 Squadron.

1948 Bread rationing in Britain ended.

1959 A hovercraft, the SRN 1, made its first English Channel crossing from Dover to Calais.

1962 In London, the Buckingham Palace Art Gallery officially opened to the public.

1978 The first test-tube baby in Britain was born Louise Joy Brown, at Oldham General Hospital, Lancashire. It had taken 12 years of research by gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe and Dr Robert Edwards to make the birth possible. Louise weighed 5lb 12 oz and was delivered by caesarean section.

1992: World unites at Barcelona Olympics. The Olympic Games opens in Barcelona with all countries present for the first time in modern history.

2000: Concorde crash kills 113. Concorde crashes minutes after take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris killing 113 people.

2002 The Queen opened the Commonwealth Games in Scumchester. Around one million visitors are thought to have gone to Scumchester to see the event live and the world television audience was estimated to top one billion.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

raveydavey · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 3:55 am Post subject:

July 26th:

1745 The first recorded women's cricket match was played near Guildford, Surrey, between teams from Hambledon and Bramley.

1845 The Great Britain, (the first iron ship designed by Brunel), sailed from Liverpool on her maiden voyage.

1858 Lionel Rothschild took his seat in the House of Commons to become Britain's first Jewish member of Parliament.

1890 From the roof of the General Post Office in Aldersgate, Guglielmo Marconi made the first public transmission of wireless (radio) signals.

1943 Mick Jagger, British rock singer with the Rolling Stones, was born.

1943 World War II: The Allies mounted one of the largest raids of the war – sending more than 1,000 aircraft to bomb the German industrial city of Hamburg. An estimated 60,000 people were killed.

1945 Winston Churchill resigned as Britain's prime minister after his Conservatives were defeated by the Labour Party in a landslide victory. Clement Attlee became Prime Minister. He said: 'Labour can deliver the goods'.

1958 In Britain, debutantes were presented at the Royal Court for the last time.

1983 A mother of 10 failed to prevent doctors prescribing contraception to under 16s without parental consent.

1989 56-year-old Leslie Merry was knocked off his feet, a rib broken and his spleen ruptured, by a turnip thrown from a passing car in east London. He finally died of respiratory failure brought on by the accident.

1990 It was announced that the Fraud Squad would investigate the National Union of Mineworkers' accounts over Soviet miners' untraced donations.

2001 Prime Minister Tony Blair was greeted by dozens of angry farmers in crisis-torn Cumbria on a visit to help boost the region's struggling tourist industry following the foot and mouth crisis.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

eddiesleftfoot · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 7:36 pm Post subject:

Jagger becomes a pensioner today?? Time to quit methinks.

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Down but not out

raveydavey · Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 6:39 am Post subject:

July 27th:

1586 Sir Walter Raleigh brought the first tobacco to England, from Virginia.
Within hours groups of youths were hanging round outside his house asking if he had any spare....

1694 The Bank of England was founded by act of Parliament.

1866 The Great Eastern arrived at Heart's Content in Newfoundland, having successfully laid the transatlantic telegraph cable. More good work courtesy of Mr Brunel.

1914 British troops invaded the streets of Dublin, Ireland, and began to disarm Irish rebels.

1929: Birth of Jack Higgins (Harry Patterson), author of The Eagle Has Landed. He was a senior lecturer in education for mature students at a Leeds college.

1942 The Battle of El Alamein ended after 17 days, with the British having prevented the German and Italian advance into Egypt.

1944 The first British jet fighter was used in combat, the Gloster Meteor.

1949 The British De Havilland Comet, the first jet-propelled airliner, made its maiden flight. It was a 40-passenger airliner.

1958 Christopher Dean, British ice skater was born.

1965 Shadow Chancellor Edward Heath beat off his rivals to become the new leader of the Conservative Party.

1969 English rower Tom McLean arrived off the Irish coast to become the first man to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean - from west to east - a distance of 2000 miles. His voyage took 72 days.

1974 At Ascot, another win for English champion jockey Lester Piggott in his 3,000th race.

1978 Two British balloonists battling to be the first to cross the Atlantic got into difficulties half way across the ocean. Their balloon finally collapsed into the sea, just 110 miles from land.

1985 English athlete Steve Cram set a new world record for the mile at 3 minutes 46.32 seconds in Oslo.

1988 British pole vault record holder Jeff Gutteridge was banned for life by the British Amateur Athletic Board for taking steroids.

2000: Labour publishes plans to revolutionise NHS. The Labour Government announces the most radical re-organisation of the NHS since it was founded in 1948. Looking back I think we'd all agree that it has been a roaring success. Rolling Eyes

2003: Comic legend Bob Hope dies. American icon and legendary comedian Bob Hope dies just two months after celebrating his 100th birthday.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

raveydavey · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 3:55 pm Post subject:

July 28th:

1540 Thomas Cromwell, Chancellor to Henry VIII and his chief minister, was executed. He was beheaded on Tower Hill for promoting the king's failed marriage to Anne of Cleves. Henry also married Catherine Howard (his 5th wife) on the same day.

1586 Thomas Harriot was credited with bringing the first potato to Britain, (from Colombia) ahead of Sir Walter Raleigh.

1858 Fingerprints were first used as a means of identification by William Herschel, who later established a fingerprint register.

1865 A crowd of 100,000 watched the last public execution in Scotland when Dr. Edward Pritchard was hanged for poisoning his wife and mother-in-law.

1866 Beatrix Potter, English author and illustrator was born. When she died in 1943 she left her house to the National Trust, conditionally that it be kept exactly as she left it.

1914 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, beginning World War I.

1929: Birth of Jacqueline Bouvier, later Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of John F Kennedy. After Kennedy was assassinated, she went on to marry the millionaire shipowner Aristotle Onassis after he rejected Maria Callas.

1937: The former Rector of Stiffkey, Harold Davidson, was mauled by a lion. He was reduced to performing in showgrounds to earn a living, and part of his act involved putting his head into a lion’s mouth. He died two days after the incident.

1943 The worst British bombing raid on Hamburg so far during World War II virtually set the city on fire. In just 43 minutes, 2,326 tons of bombs killed 42,000 German civilians.

1959: The Postmaster-General introduced postcodes and new sorting machines into the Royal Mail. LS11 0ES is my favourite postcode.

1972 Thousands of British dockers began an official strike to safeguard jobs.

1977 Cricketer Ian Botham made his Test debut for England.

1986: Disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh, a 25-year-old executive for a London estate agent. She left her office in Fulham at 12.40 pm to show a house to a ‘Mr Kipper’. Her car was later found abandoned, but Lamplugh herself remains missing.

1987 23 year old British golfer Laura Davis won the U.S. Women's Open, becoming the first British woman ever to win the prestigious event.

1988 The MP for Yeovil, Paddy Ashdown, was elected the first leader of the new Social and Liberal Democrat Party.

2005 The IRA formally ordered an end to its armed campaign and said it would pursue exclusively peaceful means.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

raveydavey · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 3:59 pm Post subject:

July 29th:

1565 Mary, Queen of Scots married her cousin Lord Darnley (Henry Stuart) in the Old Abbey Chapel at Holyrood, Edinburgh, thus alienating Scottish protestants and England because Darnley was a Catholic heir to the throne. Married her cousin? Was she from Dewsbury?

1588 The Spanish Armada was sighted off the coast of Cornwall. The English fleet under the command of Charles Howard and Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth, to establish the birth of British naval supremacy.

1833 William Wilberforce, English campaigner for the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire died, a month before the Slavery Abolition Act was passed.

1907: Baden-Powell officially formed the Boy Scouts. This was the fruition of his earlier success in creating a camp on Brownsea Island, off Poole, Dorset.

1913 The birth of Jo Grimond, British politician and Liberal party leader.

1930 The airship R100 began its first passenger-carrying flight from England to Canada.

1938 Dennis the Menace first appeared in the 'Beano' comic

1948 King George VI opened the 14th Olympic Games opened in London - the first time the Games had been held in 12 years, due to World War II.

1964 The Brook Advisory Clinic opened to give family planning advice to unmarried couples.

1966 British pop group The Beatles made their last live appearance - in San Francisco.

1970 John Barbirolli, English conductor died.

1976 Fire destroyed the famous pierhead at the end of the world's longest pier, in Southend, on England's south-east coast.

1981 The Prince of Wales married Lady Diana Spencer at London's St Paul's Cathedral. The televised ceremony was watched by over 700 million viewers around the world.

1993 Charges were dropped against two youths accused of murdering black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

2001 A victim support group condemned a reported £11,000 compensation offer to the parents of murdered seven-year-old Sarah Payne as 'derisory'.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

raveydavey · Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 4:10 pm Post subject:

July 30th:

1718 William Penn, English Quaker leader and founder of the American colony of Pennsylvania died.

1818 Emily Brontë, English novelist and author of Wuthering Heights was born in Thornton, near Bradford, Yorkshire. The family later moved to Haworth where the world famous Bronte parsonage remains to this day.

1900 London Underground's Central Line was opened by the Prince of Wales, with a two pence (tuppence) fare for all destinations.

1935 'Penguin' paperback books, founded by Allen Lane, went on sale in Britain.

1940 Sir Clive Sinclair, inventor and pioneer of the first home computers (Sinclair ZX81 and Spectrum) was born.

1948 The world's first radar station was opened, to assist shipping at the port of Liverpool.

1958 Daley Thompson, British athlete was born.

1963 Kim Philby, British intelligence officer from 1940 and Soviet agent from 1933, fled to the USSR.

1966 England won the Football World Cup in London, beating West Germany 4 - 2. This was England's first (and only) win since the tournament began in 1930. England forward Geoff Hurst became the only man to score a hat-trick in a world cup final.

1968 The Beatles closed the Apple Boutique, and gave clothes away for free to passers-by.

1968: Don Jones of Ventura County, the Californian state public defender, was fined for being too fat. He weighed 238 lb, or 17 stone.

1973 British victims of the drug Thalidomide were awarded £20 million compensation as their 11 year case against the Distillers company ended in victory.

1991 Italian tenor Pavarotti celebrated 30 years in opera with a huge, free concert in Hyde Park.

2000 The News of the World came under mounting pressure to end its 'name and shame' campaign against paedophiles.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

raveydavey · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 5:54 pm Post subject:

July 31st:

1498: Columbus arrived at the island which he named Trinidad. He had been hoping to discover the Amazon, having three days earlier changed from a parallel course with the mainland. He was on his third voyage of exploration.

1703 English novelist Daniel Defoe was made to stand in the pillory as punishment for offending the government and church with his satire The Shortest Way With Dissenters.

1910 Dr Crippen was arrested aboard the SS Montrose as it was docking at Quebec. He was charged with the murder of his wife and was the first criminal to be caught by the use of radio.

1917 The third Battle of Ypres (World War I) commenced as the British attacked the German lines.

1920 The formation of the British Communist Party.

1942 The Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (later called Oxfam) was founded.

1944 Jonathan Dimbleby, broadcaster and TV presenter was born.

1950 Britain's first self-service store, (Sainsbury's) opened in Croydon.

1956 English cricketer Jim Laker took all 10 Australian wickets in the second innings of the Test Match at Old Trafford, Scumchester.

1959 Cliff Richard had his first British No.1 with 'Living Doll'.

1962: Violence flares at Mosley rally. Former fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley is assaulted at a rally in London's east end. Police were forced to close the meeting within three minutes and made 54 arrests - including Sir Oswald's son Max (I wonder if he got a spanking then?).

1965 Cigarette advertising on British television was banned.

1969 The halfpenny ceased to be legal tender in Britain. I assume this means the old pre-decimal halfpenny..?

1973 Militant Protestants, led by Rev Ian Paisley, disrupted the first sitting of the new Northern Ireland Assembly in Belfast.

1990 In the England v India Test Match at Lords, a total of 1603 runs were scored, in exactly 1603 minutes. Graham Gooch broke records by completing 333 and 123 in the same game.

1991: Superpowers to cut nuclear warheads. The US and the Soviet Union sign the Start treaty to reduce stockpiles of nuclear warheads by about a third.

1992 Leonard Cheshire, British pilot and philanthropist died. A true British hero, in every sense of the word. Read more about his work here http://www.lcdisability.org/

1998 The British Government announced a total ban on landmines, a month before the first anniversary of the death of Princess Diana.

_________________

Shhhhhh! It's a secret:
Secret Leeds!

raveydavey · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 3:37 pm Post subject:

August 1st:

Yorkshire Day

10 BC: Birth of Claudius I (Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus), in Lugdunum (now Lyons). He became Roman emperor, and invaded Britain in 43 to make it a province.

1740 Rule Britannia was sung for the first time, for the then Prince of Wales's daughter's third birthday.

1774 Yorkshire chemist Joseph Priestley identified oxygen, which he called 'a new species of air'.

1798 The English, under Nelson, destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile, in Aboukir Bay stopping Napoleon Bonaparte's plans to invade the Middle East.

1831 New London Bridge was opened by King William IV. It lasted for 140 years and was sold and rebuilt in Arizona.

1883 Parcel post started in Britain.

1834 Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire. An estimated 770 000 slaves were freed.

1914 World War I began with Germany's invasion of Luxembourg. The same day, Germany and Russia declared war against each other.

1932: The first Mars Bar, made in Slough, Berkshire, went on sale.

1944: Uprising to free Warsaw begins. The Polish Underground Army begins battle to liberate Warsaw, the first European city to fall to the Germans.

1966 The British Empire officially came to an end as the Colonial Office closed its doors and lowered its flag, giving way to the Commonwealth.

1975 In Britain, cigarette advertising was banned on television.

1976 Elizabeth Taylor got her 6th divorce when she re-divorced Richard Burton.

1976: Lauda fights for life after Grand Prix crash. F1 racing driver Niki Lauda is in a critical condition in hospital after crashing at the German Grand Prix.

1989 Britain's oldest person, Charlotte Marion Hughes from Cleveland, celebrated her 112th birthday.

1992 Linford Christie won the 100m gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics.

1999 Ronan Keating scored his first UK No.1 solo single with the song When You Say Nothing At All.

2001 Officers from Scotland Yard's Child Protection Team investigated a boy's claims that he was held captive in his own home for eight years.

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raveydavey · Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 2:25 pm Post subject:

August 2nd:

1100 King William II of England, son of William the Conqueror, was killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest after allegedly being mistaken for a deer.

1784 The first specially-built Royal Mail coach began its scheduled service from Bristol to London.

1788 Thomas Gainsborough, English painter died.

1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was published but was soon withdrawn because of bad printing. Only 21 copies of the first edition survived, making it one of the rarest 19th century books.

1875 Britain's first roller-skating rink was opened to the public, in Belgravia, London.

1894 Death duties, now known as inheritance tax, were introduced in Britain.

1925 Alan Whicker, broadcaster and writer was born.

1957 The official Elvis Presley Fan Club was launched in the UK.

1970 The British army used rubber bullets for the first time to quell a riot in Northern Ireland.

1973 More than 30 people were killed when fire swept through the Summerland Amusement Centre at Douglas on the Isle of Man.

1984 A Surrey businessman who accused the police of illegally tapping his phone celebrated after the European Court of Human Rights ruled in his favour.

1989 Trade restrictions between Britain and Argentina were lifted for the first time since the 1982 Falklands war.

1990: Iraq invades Kuwait. More than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers backed up by 700 tanks invade the Gulf state of Kuwait in the early hours of this morning.

1993 Following speculative pressure on currencies in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, the Mechanism collapsed and currencies were allowed to fluctuate within broad band of 15% on either side of central rates.

2001 Speed cameras should be made 'bright and visible' said a senior police officer, while a poll showed 50% of drivers backed having more cameras. Eh? Confused

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raveydavey · Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:14 am Post subject:

August 3rd:

216: Hannibal won the Battle of Cannae despite being outnumbered by the Roman infantry, and then seized the large Roman army supply depot.

1460 James II, King of Scotland, died after being injured by an exploding cannon at Kelso, in the Scottish Borders.

1492: Columbus set sail in the Santa María from Palos de la Frontera in Andalucía, Spain. The Pinta and the Niña accompanied him on his first voyage of discovery.

1792 The death, at Cromford, of Richard Arkwright, one of the central figures of the Industrial Revolution and founder of the factory system that transformed England into the workshop of the world.

1805 The first recorded cricket match between English public schools Eton and Harrow.

1856 London was divided into postal districts, in order to speed up letter deliveries.

1858 Lake Victoria, the source of the Nile, was discovered by the explorer John Speke.

1867 The birth of Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister from 1923-29. This term of office saw the General Strike of 1926, and during his third term, (1935-7), Edward VIII abdicated.

1908 The Post Office sent its first parcel mail to the US on the White Star liner, Teutonic

1916 Sir Roger Casement, Irish nationalist, was hanged in London for treason, following his attempts to induce Germany to support the cause of Irish independence.

1926 Britain installed its first traffic lights - at Piccadilly Circus, in London.

1936: Jesse Owens, the great black US athlete, began his series of victories at the Berlin Olympics, lasting from this day until August 5. In that time he won gold medals in the long jump, the 100 metres, and the 200 metres. This conspicuously disproved Hitler’s ideas of Aryan superiority.

1957 Footballer John Charles was transferred from Leeds United to Juventus for a £65,000 fee. He was the first British footballer to be transferred to a foreign club.

1963 The Beatles performed in the Cavern in their home town, Liverpool, for the 294th, and last time. ‘Please, Please Me’ had just been released.

1978 The Queen officially opened the 11th Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada.

1990: UK temperatures reach record high. A weather station in Leicestershire records the highest temperature ever known in Britain of 37.1C, or 99F. The record was broken on 10 August 2003 - first when 37.9C (100.2F) was recorded at Heathrow Airport, then later by a temperature of 38.1C (100.6F) in Gravesend, Kent

2001 A bomb exploded in a busy west London street, injuring seven people. Dissident Irish republicans were blamed for the atrocity.

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