On This Day

nlag · Guest

Ok....A new thread which I will try to update most days with little snippets of history. Feel free to contribute on any given day.

nlag · Guest

1st April

All Fools' Day (April Fools' Day).

1578 William Harvey, the English physician who explained the circulation of blood, was born.

1841 The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, originally created from the 9 acres of Princess Augusta's botanic garden, was opened to the public.

1908 The Territorial Army, a force of volunteer soldiers mainly for home defence, was formed in Britain.

1918 The Royal Air Force was formed. It incorporated the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service.

1935 Green Belt legislation was introduced to stop indiscriminate building on many areas of the countryside.

1973 Britain introduced VAT (Value Added Tax). It replaced Purchase Tax and Selective Employment Tax.

1980 Britain's first nudist beach opened at Brighton.

1983 Tens of thousands of peace demonstrators formed a human chain stretching for 14 miles, lining a route along what the protesters called "Nuclear Valley" in Berkshire.

1989 Despite threats of non-payment and other protests, the Community Charge or Poll Tax was introduced in Scotland.

1990 Up to 1,000 prisoners staged a riot at Strangeways Prison in Scumchester in a violent protest against overcrowding. It was the longest prison riot in British history and lasted until April 25th. One remand prisoner died.

1998 A world record price for a musical instrument. A 1727 Stradivarius violin was sold at Christie's for £947,500.

2000 The Enigma machine, used by the Germans to encrypt messages in the Second World War, was stolen from Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire.

nlag · Guest

3rd April

1043 Edward the Confessor was crowned King of England in Winchester Cathedral

1367 The birth of Henry IV, (son of John of Gaunt). He became the first Lancastrian king of England in 1399. His reign was marked by many uprisings from home and abroad.

1721 Sir Robert Walpole was appointed first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, effectively Britain's first prime minister.

1862 The death of Sir James Clark Ross, English polar explorer who has the Ross Barrier, Sea and Island named after him.

1901 Death of the British Impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte, founder of the Savoy Theatre and Hotel and manager of the Gilbert & Sullivan opera company.

1913 English suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst was sentenced to 3 years in prison for inciting supporters to place explosives at the London home of British politician David Lloyd George. The Home Secretary banned all future public meetings of suffragettes.

1933 Everest was conquered for the first time by plane when 2 specially built British planes made aviation history by flying over the summit. The pilots were the Marquis of Douglas and Clydesdale and Fl. Lt. David McIntyre.

1954 Oxford won the 100th Boat Race in rough conditions on the River Thames.

1981 Mobs of youths went on the rampage in Brixton, South London, throwing petrol bombs and looting shops. Police harassment over a long period was given as the cause.

1987 The jewels of the late Duchess of Windsor, (the former Mrs Wallis Simpson who married Edward VI of England after his abdication in 1936,) fetched more than £31 million at auction, six times more than the expected figure.

1993 The Grand National was declared void after a series of events at the start reduced the world-famous horse race to a shambles. 30 of the 39 riders failed to realise a false start had been called and set off around the racetrack, completing both laps of the course and passing the finish line before they realised their mistake.

2000 A controversial plan to give asylum seekers vouchers instead of cash came into force.

raveydavey · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 5:42 pm Post subject:

nlag · Guest

4th April

1581 Queen Elizabeth I knighted Francis Drake aboard his ship the Golden Hind at Deptford after his successful circumnavigation of the world.

1617 John Napier, the Scottish mathematician who invented logarithms died.

1934 Yorkshireman Percy Shaw laid the first "cats' eyes" along the centre of the road at an accident black spot near Bradford.

1949 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established by 12 Western states including Great Britain. The military alliance provided for a collective self-defence against Soviet aggression and greatly increased American influence in Europe.

1958 The first Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) protest march left Hyde Park in London towards Aldermaston in Berkshire.

1964 British pop group The Beatles occupied the first five places in the US singles pop charts with:- 'Can't Buy Me Love', 'Twist and Shout', 'She Loves You', 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' and 'Please Please Me'.

1981 An emotional Aintree saw Bob Champion win the Grand National on Aldaniti. Champion, suffering from cancer, had been given eight months to live, while Aldaniti, who had led all the way, had been plagued with tendon problems and a broken back.

1984 The women from the main peace camp at Greenham Common in Berkshire were evicted, but said it would not end their protest.

1985 Royal Assent was given for the Bill to hand Hong Kong to China in 1997.

1988 The British TV soap opera 'Crossroads' came to an end after 24 years with the transmission of the last of its 4,510 episodes.

1991 Children at the centre of 'satanic abuse allegations' in the Orkney Islands were reunited with their families after the case was thrown out of court.

1997 The residents of Eigg, a small island off the west coast of Scotland, bought their island with help from an anonymous English millionairess, after an eight-month ownership battle.

raveydavey · Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 5:32 pm Post subject:

nlag · Guest

nlag · Guest

5th April

1827 Joseph Lister, the English physician who introduced the idea of using antiseptics during surgery, was born.

1843 Queen Victoria proclaimed Hong Kong a British crown colony.

1895 The start of the trial of Irish playwright Oscar Wilde who was accused of homosexuality.

1902 25 football fans were killed at Ibrox Park, Glasgow, Scotland when a stand collapsed during a Scotland / England international match. At least another 200 were injured.

1955 Sir Winston Churchill, the British leader who guided Great Britain through the crisis of World War II, retired as Prime Minister, aged 81, handing over to Anthony Eden.

1964 Automatic, driverless trains began operating on the London Underground.

1976 Harold Wilson resigned as Prime Minister and was succeeded by James Callaghan.

1976 James Callaghan won the Labour leadership contest and took over at Number 10 Downing Street.

1982 A British Task Force set sail from Southampton to recapture the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic after the invasion by Argentina.

1997 The 150th running of the Grand National at Aintree, Liverpool was cancelled because of an IRA bomb scare.

1999 Richard Dunwoody became the most successful jump jockey of all time, when he clocked up his 1,679th win at Wincanton. (The record is now held by Tony McCoy with over 2,000 winners.)

2001 Perry Wacker, a Dutch lorry driver was sentenced to 14 years in prison for his part in the deaths of 58 Chinese illegal immigrants. They were found suffocated in the back of his lorry when it was searched at Dover in June 2000.

2002 People queued for miles beside the Thames to pay their last respects to the Queen Mother, whose body was lying in state in Westminster Hall, London.

NE1 · Neither Shallow Nor Sexist Joined: 15 May 2007 Posts: 1604

nlag · Guest

6th April

1199 King Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) died after being wounded by a crossbow bolt during a siege in France.

1580 An earth tremor damaged several London churches, including the old St Paul's Cathedral.

1843 English poet William Wordsworth was appointed Poet Laureate, a day before his 73rd birthday.

1913 Suffragettes increased their militant activities by cutting telephone lines and damaging post boxes.

1944 Pay As You Earn (PAYE) income tax was introduced into Britain. It was devised by Cornelius Gregg.

1963 Britain and the USA signed the Polaris missile agreement. Polaris was a submarine launched, nuclear tipped weapon designed as a nuclear deterrent.

1975 'Operation Babylift'. A plane carrying 99 Vietnamese orphans, victims of the war in Vietnam, landed at Heathrow airport.

1984 The 17-year-old South African barefoot long and middle distance runner, Zola Budd, was granted British citizenship by Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, after only a matter of weeks, enabling her to compete as a British citizen in the Olympic games. The decision provoked considerable controversy.

1989 The government announced it was to abolish legislation which guarantees 'jobs for life' for more than 9,000 dockers.

1990 Married women in Britain became independent entities for income tax purposes for the first time, making them responsible for their own tax declarations. Their income was no longer assessed with that of their husbands.

1993 Following public disquiet, Queen Elizabeth II began paying income tax.

1997 BBC news reporter Martin Bell announced that he would be standing as an independent 'anti-sleaze' candidate against Tory MP Neil Hamilton at the forthcoming General Election.

30 Mill · Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 9:19 pm Post subject:

nlag · Guest

7th April

1739 English highwayman Dick Turpin was hanged in York for murdering an inn-keeper. Before becoming a highwayman, he had been a butcher's apprentice.

1770 William Wordsworth, English romantic poet and Poet Laureate, was born.

1827 Chemist John Walker of Stockton on Tees sold the world's first box of matches.

1832 Joseph Thompson, a farmer, went to Carlisle to sell his wife, both having agreed to part. A large crowd gathered as he offered her for 50 shillings. After an hour, the price was knocked down to 20 shillings, together with a Newfoundland dog as an incentive.

1853 Queen Victoria became the first monarch to receive chloroform. It was administered to ease the birth of her eighth child, Prince Leopold.

1914 The House of Commons passed the Irish Home Rule Bill.

1936 Butlins opened its first family holiday camp at Skegness.

1958 An Easter march to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston attracted 3,000 anti-atomic bomb marchers and a further 12,000 members of the new CND movement (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament).

1968 British world motor-racing champion Jim Clark died in a crash at the Hockenheim circuit in Germany.

1976 MP John Stonehouse resigned from the Labour Party, leaving James Callaghan's government in a minority of one. Stonehouse was accused of faking his own death, and also faced 18 charges of theft, forgery, attempted insurance frauds and conspiracy.

1986 Home computing pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair sold the rights to his machines to Amstrad.

1997 The 150th Grand National (cancelled on the 5th) due to bomb threats by the IRA, was held for the first time ever on a Monday, with the organisers offering free admission. Some 20,000 people had been left stranded over the weekend, as their cars and coaches were locked in the course. There was limited accommodation space in the city and surrounding areas, and those local residents not affected by the incident opened their doors and took in many of those stranded.

cardboardbox?Youwerelucky · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 8:01 am Post subject:

raveydavey · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 5:54 pm Post subject:

NE1 · Neither Shallow Nor Sexist Joined: 15 May 2007 Posts: 1604

I drove a Sinclair C5 once..............they were brilliantly crap Laughing

nlag · Guest

8th April

1838 The day before his 32nd birthday, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s 236 ft steamship Great Western sailed from Bristol on her maiden voyage to New York. The journey took 15 days, half the time of the fastest sailing ship. She became the first steamship to make regular Atlantic crossings.

1889 Adrian Boult, English conductor was born.

1904 Britain and France settled their foreign affairs differences with a newly negotiated 'Entente Cordiale'. Britain recognised the Suez Canal Convention and surrendered its claim to Madagascar.

1908 King Edward VII appointed Liberal politician Herbert Asquith as Prime Minister following the death of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.

1919 The birth of Ian (Douglas) Smith, Rhodesian Prime Minister who advocated white supremacy and unilaterally declared independence (UDI) from Britain in 1965. After the transfer of power to the black majority in 1979, he was elected a member of parliament in the government of Robert Mugabe.

1925 The Australian Government and the British Colonial Office offered low interest loans to encourage Britons to borrow the money to emigrate to Australia.

1946 The League of Nations held its last meeting in Geneva before dissolution. It was replaced by the United Nations (UN).

1953 British colonial authorities in Kenya sentenced Jomo Kenyatta to seven years' imprisonment. He allegedly organized the extremist Mau Mau in their violence against white settlers and the colonial government.

1990 British golfer Nick Faldo won his second successive US Masters after a play-off.

1995 British-born Nicholas Ingram was executed in the electric chair in the US after two appeals to the US Supreme Court were turned down. He had been on death row since 1983 for murdering J C Sawyer and injuring his wife, Eunice Sawyer, during a robbery.

1997 The results of the first ultrasonic scan of the front of the Titanic revealed a series of six short slits as the principal damage to the ship after it struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic in 1912

raveydavey · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 6:05 pm Post subject:

NE1 · Neither Shallow Nor Sexist Joined: 15 May 2007 Posts: 1604

raveydavey · Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 6:35 pm Post subject:

9 April

2001: The £8million trial of two Leeds footballers, Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate, accused of a street attack on an Asian student, was halted after the judge at Hull Crown Court ruled a newspaper article could unfairly prejudice the case against them.

2003: Saddam statue topples with regime
Iraqis turn on symbols of their former leader, pulling down a statue and tearing it to pieces as US tanks roll into the centre of Baghdad.

1976: Young Liberal leader cleared of robbery
The president of the Young Liberals, Peter Hain, has been acquitted of robbing a branch of Barclays bank. (Thats the same Peter Hain who is now a cabinet minister for Labour - fickle thing, politics)

2005: Prince Charles marries Camilla
The Prince of Wales weds Camilla Parker-Bowles at a civil ceremony followed by a blessing.

1984: Dozens arrested in picket line violence
About 100 pickets are arrested during violent clashes with police outside two working coal pits in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. The so-called "flying pickets" - striking miners bussed in from other parts of the country - targeted Cresswell colliery in Derbyshire and Babbington in Nottinghamshire.

1983: Jenny Pitman became the first woman trainer to saddle a Grand National winner when 13-1 shot Corbiere, ridden by Ben de Haan, won at Aintree. This was despite having to stop for directions twice.

1988: Alan Shearer, then a Southampton player, became the youngest person, at 17 years and 240 days, to score a top-flight hat-trick, against Arsenal.

2001: John Aloisi, then of Coventry, scored six goals as Australia set a new record with a 22-0 defeat of Tonga in an Oceania World Cup qualifier. The Socceroos went on to set a new mark with their 31-0 win over American Samoa two days later, striker Archie Thompson chalking up 13 goals at Coffs Harbour.

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halfaperson · Allan Clarke Joined: 13 Jun 2007 Posts: 776

I don’t know if I enjoy nlags facts or raveys comments best on this thread. Great stuff chaps keep it up.

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