This Day in History

[Trigger]

Latest post of the previous page:

Also on January 12, 1949 – from the Daily Mail archives:

Paris, city of the undressed revue, is short of nudes so none can be spared for the Folies Bergere’s British tour. Bernard Delfont, who is importing the show, will have to find six British girls. He was told: “You’ve come to wrong place for nudes. We’re sending to England for ours. We can’t get French girls to take off their clothes these days.”

[Dave]

We can’t get French girls to take off their clothes these days.”

I wish I'd found that one, Trigger, I know where to come now when I get stuck for items.

[boatbuilder]

Trigger was probably there Dave, that's how he probably knows about it.

[Trigger]

Trigger was probably there Dave, that's how he probably knows about it.

Wrong! (a) The item posted was, as stated, from the archives of a newspaper. Not personal knowledge or recollection! (b) However, I have seen the movie "Mrs Henderson Presents" a couple of times . . .

[Trigger]

We can’t get French girls to take off their clothes these days.”

I wish I'd found that one, Trigger, I know where to come now when I get stuck for items.

A mine of useless information, me!

[Dave]

January 13th

1832 The death of Thomas Lord, English professional cricketer and founder of Lord's Cricket Ground in 1787. He is buried in the churchyard of St. John's Church at West Meon in Hampshire.

1842 Dr. William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British East India Company Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War is famous for being the only member of an army of 4,500 men and 12,000 civilians to survive a massacre after the army's long retreat from Kabul. He safely reached the British sentry post at Jalalabad, Afghanistan 'On This Day'. The episode was made the subject of a famous painting by the Victorian artist Lady Butler, who portrayed an exhausted Dr. Brydon approaching the gates of the Jalalabad fort perched on his dying horse. The painting is titled Remnants of an Army.

1893 The birth of a new political party in Britain when James Keir Hardie and others formed the Independent Labour Party. It was an action that worried the Liberals, who were afraid that the new party might, at some point in the future, win the working-class votes that they traditionally received. The last Independent Labour Party MP joined the Labour Party itself in 1948.

1908 Henry Farman, born in Paris and the 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. On 29th March he became the first to take passenger into the air, and on 30th October, Farman went on to make the first cross-country flight in Europe, flying from Châlons to Rheims (a distance of 27 kilometres in 20 minutes).

1929 Wyatt Earp died in Los Angeles at the age of 80 best known for the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

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, although he is suspected of having killed as many as eighteen. Manuel was hanged in Barlinnie prison on 11th July 1958. He was one of the last prisoners to die on the Barlinnie gallows.

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

1968 Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom State Prison. The album “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison” became a huge success.

2004 Dr Harold Shipman, who is believed to have killed more than 200 of his patients, was found hanged in his prison cell. To date Shipman is the only British doctor to have been proved guilty of murdering his patients, in addition to being one of the most prolific serial killers in recorded history.

2012 The cruise ship Costa Concordia sinks, killing 32. The ship's captain was later accused of imprudence, negligence, and incompetence.

2017 The death (aged 86) of the photographer and film maker Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones, commonly known as Lord Snowdon. He was married to Princess Margaret, the Queen's sister, from 1960 - 1978.

And Finally.

1981 The world's longest sneezing attack saw Donna Griffiths, of Great Britain, start sneezing without stopping for 978 days.

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[Dave]

January 14th

1898 The death, at Guildford, of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who wrote under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll and who was author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

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

1954 Marilyn Monroe married baseball star Joe DiMaggio and they were divorced nine months later.

1969 Football legend Sir Matt Busby announced that he would retire as manager of Manchester United at the end of the season. Formerly a Scottish football player and manager he was most noted for his time as managing Manchester United between 1945 and 1969. His manager records and longevity at the helm of Manchester United are only surpassed by Sir Alex Ferguson.

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.

1983 A man was shot by police hunting escaped prisoner David Martin. He had absconded from custody at Marlborough Street magistrates' court where he was due to face a charge of attempting to murder a police officer.

1984 Paul McCartney was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Pipes Of Peace.' With this release McCartney made chart history by becoming the first artist to have a No.1 in a group, (The Beatles), in a duo, (with Stevie Wonder) in a trio, (with Wings) and as a solo artist.

1989 Muslims in Bradford ritually burned a copy of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in the first serious protest in Britain. The book had been banned in some Muslim countries.

2013 Music and DVD chain HMV appointed an administrator, making it the latest casualty on the High Street and putting 4,350 jobs at risk. Quote from retail analyst Neil Saunders - "In the digital era, where 73.4% of music and film are online .... there is no real future for physical retail in the music sector."

And Finally.

2014 Monkeys at Paignton Zoo in Devon were banned from eating bananas. Keepers said - "Giving monkeys bananas that have been cultivated for humans is like giving them cake and chocolate. Reducing the sugar in their diets has calmed them down and made their group more settled."

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[Dave]

January 15th

1559 Elizabeth I was crowned Queen of England at the age of 26. She was the daughter of Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn and the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.

1790 Fletcher Christian, eight fellow mutineers from the ship Bounty, six Tahitian men and 12 women, landed on the remote Pacific island of Pitcairn following the mutiny led by Christian. They stripped the Bounty of all that could be floated ashore before setting it on fire.

1867 Crowds flocked onto the frozen surface of the lake in London’s Regent's Park during a severe frost. The ice broke, and 40 people died.

1870 Britain's first woman doctor, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, passed the final exam of the Medical Faculty of the Sorbonne and became a fully qualified MD.

1893 The birth, in Cardiff, of Ivor Novello, Welsh composer and actor. His first big hit was 'Keep the Home Fires Burning, which was very popular during World War I. The Ivor Novello Awards for songwriting were established in 1955 in Novello's memory and are awarded each year by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.

1973 President Nixon ordered a halt to American bombing in North Vietnam following peace talks in Paris.

1997 Princess Diana, the Princess of Wales, angered government ministers after calling for an international ban on landmines.

2001 Wikipedia goes online and becomes the largest reference work on the internet.

2009 US Airways Flight 1549 ( Airbus 320 ) runs into a large flock of Canada Geese during take-off from New York City's LaGuardia Airport resulting in immediate and complete loss of thrust from both engines due to ingesting birds. The Pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger glides over the Hudson river finally ditching the airliner near the USS Intrepid museum about three minutes after losing power. The ditching and evacuation proved a complete success with all passengers and crew evacuated safely.

2013 Horse DNA was found in beef burgers being sold in supermarkets in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Health officials stated there was no risk to public health and that the contaminated batches were being recalled from retailers.

2014 The death, aged 69, of actor Roger Lloyd-Pack, who played Trigger in Only Fools And Horses. He appeared in dozens of TV shows and films, including Dr Who, The Vicar Of Dibley, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire.

And Finally.

1797 The first top hat was worn by John Hetherington, a London haberdasher. He was fined £50 the first time he wore his new creation, 'for causing a disturbance'.

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[Dave]

January 16th

1707 The Act of Union was passed, merging the English and Scottish parliaments and paving the way for the new country of Great Britain.

1950 Listen With Mother began on radio with the words "Hello children. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin". When the series ended in 1982 there was a national outcry.

1957 The Cavern Club opened in Liverpool. It provided a showcase for many young rock ‘n’ roll musicians, among them the Beatles.

1970 Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has taken direct control of Libya four months after a bloodless coup that brought an end to the monarchy under King Idris.

1981 The Northern Ireland civil rights campaigner and former Westminster MP, Bernadette McAliskey, and her husband, were shot by gunmen at their home in County Tyrone.

1985 David Bowie's schizophrenic half-brother Terry Burns killed himself aged 47 after laying down on the railway lines at Coulsdon South station, London. He was killed instantly by a passing train. This incident was to be immortalized in the line ‘a crack in the sky and a hand pointing down at me’ in Bowie’s song ‘Oh, You Pretty Things’.

1991 After midnight of this date, war was to be declared in the Persian Gulf if Iraq did not pull out of Kuwait. Since Iraq did not pull out voluntarily, the Pentagon had begun acting on its preparations to begin an offensive attack on the Iraqi army. By evening of this day, Operation Desert Storm had begun. The United States had begun the attack on Iraq on Kuwait's behalf. Operation Desert Storm was led by Norman Schwarzkopf and 32 nations total were involved-including Britain, France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and of course, Kuwait.

2001 Mitchell Quy, a former casino croupier from Southport, who made television appeals for his 'missing' wife Lynsey to get in touch admitted killing her, cutting up her body with DIY tools and then dumping her dismembered body on waste ground. She was missing for 18 months before police discovered her torso in a shallow grave near a roller-coaster at the seaside resort. Her arms and legs were found a day later, dumped in bushes next to a railway line but her head and hands were never located.

2005 Adriana Iliescu gave birth at the age of 66. The Romanian university lecturer broke the record for the world's oldest birth mother.

And Finally.

1749 One of the worst riots in theatre history occurred at the Haymarket Theatre, London. Crowds had packed out the venue to see a conjuror who claimed he would get himself into a quart tavern bottle. The conjuror never arrived, and the crowd erupted.

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[Dave]

January 17th

1784 The birth, in Todmorden - West Yorkshire of John Fielden British industrialist and Radical Member of Parliament for Oldham. John Fielden despaired that the concerns of the poor would never be given adequate attention and he and Lord Ashley passed 'The Ten Hours Act' to ensure that women and children only worked up to 10 hours a day in factories.

1907 Alfred Wainwright, whose books for walkers did much to popularise the Lake District, was born, in Blackburn, Lancashire. In 1952, he began the task of walking every fell in Lakeland and recording his walks with pen and ink drawings. It took him 13 years to climb the 214 fells, travelling on foot or by public transport from his Kendal home, as he never learnt to drive. His ashes are scattered on Haystacks, Cumbria.

1912 Captain Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole, only to find that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him by one month.

1942 Muhammad Ali, one of the most celebrated sports figures of the 20th century, was born in Louisville, Kentucky. An Olympic gold medallist and three-time world heavyweight champion, Ali was widely regarded as one of the finest fighters of his or any generation and transcended the sport with his polarising views during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Diagnosed with Parkinson's syndrome in 1984, he was cared for by his family until his death on June 3, 2016.

1945 The Nazis began the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces closed in. Nearly one and a half thousand British prisoners of war were sent to the Auschwitz death camps.

1983 BBC wakes up to morning TV as people were switching on their televisions a little earlier than usual to catch Britain's first breakfast news programme.

1997 Gary Gilmore, the convicted murderer, was executed today by firing squad in the Utah state prison in Salt Lake City.

1995 A massive quake destroys whole areas of Japan's industrial heartland, leaving many hundreds of people dead.

2011 Liverpool's Ryan Babel became the first footballer to be fined for comments made on Twitter. He was fined £10,000 for posting a doctored picture of referee Howard Webb wearing a Manchester United shirt with the tweet 'And they call him one of the best referees. That's a joke.'

And Finally.

2014 Cambridge City Council said that apostrophes on new street signs would be abolished, a decision that was condemned by language traditionalists. The naming policy also banned street names which would be "difficult to pronounce or awkward to spell" and any that "could give offence" or would "encourage defacing of nameplates". After an intervention by cabinet minister Eric Pickles, local people in Cambridge started to edit street signs, adding apostrophes if they were necessary.

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[Dave]

January 18th

1670 Henry Morgan captured Panama. Morgan was a privateer who made a name for himself during activities in the Caribbean, primarily raiding Spanish settlements. The privateers were private people or ships, authorized by a government to attack foreign shipping during wartime. It was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers. Morgan was one of the most notorious and successful privateers of all time, and one of the most ruthless.

1778 English navigator Captain James Cook became the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands. He named them the Sandwich Islands, after Lord Sandwich, who was then first Lord of the Admiralty.

1788 A British fleet of eleven ships and 800 convicts landed at Botany Bay, Australia. They created the first British penal colony, in Port Jackson - Sydney.

1879 The first edition of Boy’s Own Paper was published. The editor was S.O. Beeton, the husband of Mrs. Beeton, the cookery book writer.

1884 Dr William Price, a vegetarian nudist who believed in free love and herbal remedies, was arrested for cremating the body of his infant son, Iesu Grist (the Welsh for Jesus Christ), in front of onlookers on a Llantrisant hillside. Price was arrested and put on trial by those who believed that cremation was illegal in Britain. However, he successfully argued that there was no legislation that specifically outlawed it, which paved the way for the Cremation Act of 1902.

1888 Birth of Sir Thomas Sopwith, British aviation pioneer. It was a Sopwith Camel that shot down Von Richthofen, the Red Baron. On Sopwith’s 100th birthday, a Sopwith Pup built after World War I, led a fly-past over his home in Hampshire.

1967 The man who claimed to be the 'Boston Strangler' was jailed for life after being found guilty of assault and armed robbery against four women in Connecticut.

1981 Nine people were killed and 20 injured in a blaze which engulfed a house in the early hours of the morning in New Cross, London. Police launched a murder inquiry after survivors described how they saw a car being driven away from the incident as the fire broke out.

1995 The longest time between the birth of surviving twins saw Celeste Keys being born 95 days after her twin brother Timothy.

2014 Lewis Clarke, a 16-year-old boy from Bristol set a new record by becoming the youngest person to trek to the South Pole. He spent 48 days at temperatures as low as -50C (-58F) and winds of up to 120 mph (193 kmh), covering a distance of 702 miles.

And Finally.

2014 UKIP councillor David Silvester blamed the recent storms and heavy floods across Britain on the Government's decision to legalise gay marriage.

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[Dave]

January 19th

1848 The birth of Matthew Webb, the first person to swim the English Channel - (25th August 1875, in a time of 21 hours & 45 minutes).

1937 The 18 year old English ballet dancer Margot Fonteyn made her debut in 'Giselle' at Sadler's Wells in London.

1937 The millionaire Howard Hughes flew his monoplane from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds, breaking the record he set a year earlier by about two hours. He averaged 332 miles an hour during the 2,490-mile journey.

1973 The Statesman, an unarmed ocean going tug, was sent to protect British trawlers from Icelandic patrol boats as the dispute over cod fishing rights intensified.

1977 Snow fell on Miami for the first time in history.

1983 Klaus Barbie (the Butcher of Lyon) is arrested in Bolivia and extradited to France to face trial for crimes against humanity. He was later convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

1988 Christopher Nolan, a 22-year-old Irish writer, won the £20,000 Whitbread Book of the Year Award for his autobiography, Under the Eye of the Clock. Completely paralysed, Nolan used a ‘unicorn’ attachment on his forehead to write the novel at a painfully slow speed.

1990 Police in Johannesburg, armed with batons and dogs, broke up a demonstration against English cricketers who had defied a ban on playing in segregated South Africa.

2001 It was reported that Paul McCartney was set to become the world’s first pop star billionaire. McCartney was said to be worth £725 million ($1,233) and was expected to become a billionaire after huge sales from The Beatles compilation hits album.

2015 The death of Anne Kirkbride, known for her long-running role as Deirdre Barlow in the ITV soap Coronation Street, which she played for 42 years from 1972 to 2014.

And Finally.

2013 A piece of music that was composed by waiting for bird droppings to fall onto giant sheets of manuscript paper received its premiere at the Tate Liverpool art gallery. Artist Kerry Morrison said that the music represented the role that birds play in the environment.

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[Dave]

January 20th

1936 George V died and was succeeded by Edward VIII who abdicated 325 days later because of his insistence on marrying American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

1961 The Democrat John F Kennedy is sworn in as the youngest ever elected president of the United States.

1986 Mrs. Pauline Williams of Luton won her three year fight to prosecute the man who injected her drug addict son with a fatal painkiller. She was the first person to bring a private prosecution for manslaughter to a Crown Court trial.

1986 France and Britain finally decided to undertake the Channel Tunnel project, promising that trains would run under the Channel by 1993. When it eventually opened, on 6th May 1994, it left Eurotunnel with debts of £925m a year later.

1987 The Archbishop of Canterbury's special envoy to Lebanon, Terry Waite, was kidnapped in Beirut whilst attempting to win freedom for Western hostages.

1987 Police carried out a series of dawn raids and made 26 arrests in their biggest operation so far against violence in and around football stadiums.

1997 Her Majesty's Royal Yacht Britannia began her final voyage, to Hong Kong, before being decommissioned. She is now based in Edinburgh, as a visitor attraction.

2002 The publication of photographs of prisoners being held at a US military camp in Cuba has led to concern that their human rights are being abused.

2009 Barack Obama is sworn in to become the country's first black president.

2015 A six-day-old baby became Britain's youngest organ donor when her kidneys were transplanted into a patient with renal failure, and liver cells were transfused into a second recipient.

And Finally.

2014 Dr Michael Ramscar and a team of scientists suggested that the brains of older people only appear to slow down because they have so much information to compute, much like a full-up hard drive. “The brains of older people do not get weak. On the contrary, they simply know more.”

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[Dave]

January 21st

1925The birth of the comedian Benny Hill, in Southampton, Hampshire. One of his biggest fans was the silent film star, Charlie Chaplin.

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

1950The British writer George Orwell died after a three year battle against tuberculosis. His books included 1984 and Animal Farm. They were controversial and 1984, like Animal Farm, was widely viewed as an attack on the Communist system.

1966The 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.

1977 U.S. President Jimmy Carter pardoned the Vietnam draft dodgers. This pardoned those who violated the draft between August 4, 1964 and March 28, 1973. It is estimated that over 500,000 men had dodged the draft. However, this did not pardon military personnel who went AWOL.

1978 The soundtrack album 'Saturday Night Fever' started a 24 week run at No.1 on the US album charts, it went on to sell over 30 million copies world wide, making it the best selling soundtrack album of all time.

1992 The UN has ordered Libya to surrender intelligence agents accused of the Lockerbie and French airliner bombings or sanctions will be imposed against Libya.

1997 Peter Shilton played his 1005th and last match in the Football League for Leyton Orient against Wigan Athletic. The 9 matches he had played for the O's had seen him become the first person ever to play in 1000 League matches. Wigan won 2-1 and went on the win the Division 3 title.

1997 'Colonel' Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's manager and agent died of a stroke in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the age of 87. Born Andreas van Kuijk, a Dutch immigrant who changed his name as soon as he arrived in the US, Parker never applied for a green card and feared deportation his entire life.

2009 Following a minor mistake during the first oath-taking, President Barack Obama was been sworn in as US president for the second time in two days, because one word was given out of order during Tuesday's ceremony. ( The Oath was done behind closed doors in the Map Room of the White House ).

2012 Sixteen year old Laura Dekker became the youngest solo sailor to complete a voyage around the world. Dekker began her journey on January 20th of 2011 and completed the trip when she reached St. Maarten in the Caribbean.

And Finally.

1961 Fulham's Alan Mullery scored an own-goal just 30 seconds after the kick off before the opposition had even touched the ball! Sheffield Wednesday made the perfect start without trying in the First Division match at Craven Cottage and it didn't get much better for the Londoners - they lost 6-1.

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[boatbuilder]

1997 'Colonel' Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's manager and agent died of a stroke in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the age of 87. Born Andreas van Kuijk, a Dutch immigrant who changed his name as soon as he arrived in the US, Parker never applied for a green card and feared deportation his entire life.

It's good job Donald Trump wasn't President when he was alive, then.

1961 Fulham's Alan Mullery scored an own-goal just 30 seconds after the kick off before the opposition had even touched the ball! Sheffield Wednesday made the perfect start without trying in the First Division match at Craven Cottage and it didn't get much better for the Londoners - they lost 6-1.

I must try and remember that if I ever meet Richard Osman, who is an ardent Fulham fan.

[Dave]

It's good job Donald Trump wasn't President when he was alive, then.

There's an entry coming up in a few days about Hadrian's Wall, perhaps in a few years there'll be one about Trump's Fence. If he's around long enough to complete it of course

I must try and remember that if I ever meet Richard Osman, who is an ardent Fulham fan.

I bet he's seen a few matches where Fulham finished pointless.