On This Day

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1547 Ivan the Terrible, first Russian to assume title of Tsar, was crowned.

1780 British forces under Admiral Rodney defeated the Spanish at Cape St Vincent.

1909 The magnetic South Pole was found by Ernest Shackleton, who was knighted later the same year.

1920 Prohibition started in United States, banning the manufacture, sale or involvement with alcohol.

1928 Thomas Hardy was buried beside Charles Dickens in Westminster Abbey.

His heart was buried in the grave of his first wife, Emma, in Wessex.

1950 Listen With Mother started on radio, setting nursery rhymes to music.

The catchphrase ‘‘Are you sitting comfortably?’’ originated in this series.

1970 Colonel Gadaffi became Prime Minister of Libya.

1979 The Shah of Iran fled to Egypt from theran after being ousted by Ayatollah Khomeini.

1991 US-led allied air forces launched Operation Desert Storm, the campaign to expel Iraqi invaders from Kuwait.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1258 Baghdad was captured and destroyed by the Mongols.

1536 Henry VIII, 44, fell from his horse while jousting and was unconscious for several hours.

Experts believed this triggered his mental instability.

1773 Captain Cook's ship Resolution became the first to cross the Antarctic circle.

1874 The original Siamese twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, died within three hours of each other, aged 62.

1880 Slapstick king Mack Sennett, creator of the Keystone Cops, was born in Quebec.

1899 Chicago Mafia mobster Al Capone was born in Naples.

1940 The River Thames froze over for first time since 1880 as bitterly cold weather engulfed Europe.

1977 Double murderer Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad at Utah State Prison.

1983 Start of BBC's Breakfast TV with Frank Bough and Selina Scott.

1989 A gunman shot dead five children and injured 39 others in a Californian school playground.

1992 An IRA bomb, placed next to a remote country road in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, killed seven building workers and injured seven others.

1995 Over 3,500 people were killed when an earthquake measuring 7.

2 on the Richter scale hit the city of Kobe, Japan.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1778 Captain Cook discovered Hawaii.

1788 A penal settlement was established in Botany Bay, Australia.

1871 Wilhelm, King of Prussia from 1861, was proclaimed the first German Emperor.

1879 The first England-Wales football international was played at Kennington Oval in London.

England won 2-1.

1892 US comedian Oliver Hardy was born.

1904 Actor Cary Grant was born.

1911 US pilot Eugene Ely, in a Curtiss aircraft, made the first landing on the deck of a ship - the cruiser Pennsylvania moored in San Francisco Bay.

1912 British explorer Captain Scott reached the South Pole - only to find the Norwegian Amundsen had arrived 35 days earlier.

1913 Actor and comedian Danny Kaye was born.

1919 The Versailles Peace Conference opened.

1944 The 900-day siege of Leningrad ended.

1972 Former Rhodesian prime minister Garfield Todd and his daughter were placed under house arrest for campaigning against Rhodesian independence.

1977 In the worst rail disaster in Australian history, 82 people died when a Sydney-bound train was derailed.

1989 Knuckledusters, hand claws and other offensive weapons were officially banned by the British Home Office.

[Raistlin]

Events

1419 Rouen surrendered to Henry V, completing his conquest of Normandy.

1764 John Wilkes was expelled from the British House of Commons for seditious libel.

1793 King Louis XVI was tried by the French Convention, found guilty of treason and sentenced to the guillotine.

1853 Verdi's opera Il Trovatore was first staged in Rome.

1915 More than 20 people were killed when German zeppelins bombed England for the first time; the bombs were dropped on Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn.

1942 The Japanese invaded Burma (now Myanmar).

1966 Indira Gandhi became prime minister of India.

1969 In protest against the Russian invasion of 1968, Czech student Jan Palach set himself alight in Prague's Wenceslas Square.

1984 The Islamic Conference Organization voted to invite Egypt back to membership, which was suspended since the Camp David accord.

1993 IBM announced a loss of $4.97 billion for 1992, the largest single-year loss in US corporate history.

1995 Russian forces overwhelmed the resistance forces in Chechnya.

Births

1736 James Watt, Scottish inventor

1809 Edgar Allan Poe, US author and poet

1839 Paul Cézanne, French painter

1943 Janis Joplin, US rock singer

1946 Dolly Parton, US country singer

1966 Stefan Edberg, Swedish tennis player

Deaths

1576 Hans Sachs, German poet and composer

1729 William Congreve, English dramatist

1833 Louis Hérold, French composer

1865 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French journalist and anarchist

1990 Bhagwam Shree Rajneesh, Indian guru

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1265 The first English Parliament met at Westminster Hall.

1649 The trial of Charles I began.

1763 Theobald Wolfe Tone born.

1779 David Garrick, English actor and theatre manager, died and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

1841 Hong Kong was ceded to Britain by China after the Opium Wars.

1892 The first game of basketball was played at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1901 Six states formed the Commonwealth of Australia.

1902 Kevin Barry, the first IRA volunteer to be executed during the War of Independence, was born in Dublin.

1936 George V died, and Edward VIII acceded to the throne.

He abdicated after 325 days.

1944 The RAF dropped 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin.

1961 John F Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th President of the United States.

1968 Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, engineer and art collector, died.

Beatty was also the first honorary citizen of Ireland.

He was born in New York, and began his mining career as a labourer, eventually rising to owning his own mines and millionaire status.

He came to Ireland in 1950 and made many valuable gifts to the nation including £1m in paintings to the National Gallery.

1981 Fifty-two Americans, held hostage in the US embassy in theeran for 444 days by followers of Ayatollah Khomeini, were released.

1987 Terry Waite, the Archbishop of Canterbury's special envoy in the Middle East, disappeared on a peace mission in Beirut, Lebanon.

[Bizarra]

OOps! I have just noticed that J.F.Kennedy was inaugurated on this day, the same day as Barak Obama :(

Not a good omen, if you believe in them

Barak is much more likely to be a target of the many Yank loonies than J.F.K. was

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

AD 304 Saint Agnes was martyred — burnt at the stake at the age of 13 when she refused to marry the husband chosen by her father.

1793 Louis XVI, King of France since 1774, was guillotined after being found guilty of treason.

1813 John Charles Fremont, US explorer, was born.

1846 The Dáily News, the newspaper edited by Charles Dickens, was first published.

1907 Taxi cabs were officially recognised in Britain.

1911 The first Monte Carlo automobile rally was held; it was won seven days later by French racer Henri Rougier.

1924 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Father of the Russian Revolution, died of a brain haemorrhage at Gorki, outside Moscow.

Comedian Benny Hill was born.

Thomas Jonathan Stonewall Jackson, US Confederate general, was born.

1950 George Orwell (pen name of British author Eric Arthur Blair) died.

His best known works include Animal Farm and 1984.

1951 Atomic bombs were tested in Nevada for the first time.

1954 The USA launched the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine.

1976 British and French Concordes made their maiden flights from London to Bahrain and Paris to Rio de Janeiro.

[Raistlin]

Events

1771 The Falkland Islands were ceded to Britain by Spain.

1879 British troops were massacred by the Zulus at Isandhlwana.

1905 Insurgent workers were fired on in St Petersburg, Russia, resulting in 'Bloody Sunday'.

1924 Ramsay MacDonald took office as Britain's first Labour prime minister.

1959 British world racing champion Mike Hawthorn was killed while driving on the Guildford bypass.

1972 The United Kingdom, the Irish Republic, and Denmark joined the Common Market.

1973 In the USA, the Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade, legalized abortion (in the first six months of pregnancy) in all states.

1973 US boxer George Foreman knocked out Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica, becoming the world heavyweight boxing champion.

1992 Rebel soldiers seized the national radio station in Kinshasa, Zaire's capital, and broadcast a demand for the government's resignation.

1995 Two Palestinian suicide bombers from the Gaza Strip detonated powerful explosives at a military transit point in central Israel, killing 19 Israelis, and themselves.

1996 A mass grave containing nearly 3,000 Muslim and Croat victims of Serb ethnic cleansing was discovered near the Bosnian town of Brcko.

Births

1440 Ivan III (the Great), Grand Duke of Muscovy

1561 Francis Bacon, English politician and philosopher

1788 Lord Byron, English poet

1875 D W Griffith, US film producer and director

1940 John Hurt, English actor

1948 George Foreman, US boxer

Deaths

1719 William Paterson, Scottish financier

1900 David Edward Hughes, English inventor

1901 Victoria, Queen of Great Britain

1973 Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US president

1978 Herbert Sutcliffe, English cricketer

1985 Arthur Bryant, British historian

1993 Abe Kobo, Japanese novelist and playwright

1993 Brett Weston, US photographer

1994 Jean-Louis Barrault, French actor and stage director

1994 Telly Savalas, US actor

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1556 An earthquake in Shensi Province, China, killed 830,000.

1608 Plans for the plantation of Ulster are announced.

1803 ‘Uncle’ Arthur Guinness, the founder of the Guinness Brewery, died.

1806 William Pitt the Younger, twice British Prime Minister, died aged 47.

1849 English-born Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from a New York medical school to become the first woman doctor.

1900 The Battle of Spion Kop was fought during the Boer War1931 Anna Pavlova, Russian prima ballerina, famous as the Dying Swan, died aged 49.

1943 The British captured Tripoli from the Germans.

1956 Sir Alexander Korda, Hungarian-born film producer and director, died.

1960 The US Navy bathyscaphe Trieste, designed by Dr Piccard, descended to a record depth of 10,750 m /35,820 ft in the Pacific Ocean.

1963 Kim Philby, double agent, defected to Russia.

1976 Paul Robeson, US actor/singer, died, neglected and almost alone, in Harlem, New York, aged 77.

[JadeGTI]

On This Day Over The Years

1556 An earthquake in Shensi Province, China, killed 830,000.

1608 Plans for the plantation of Ulster are announced.

1803 ‘Uncle’ Arthur Guinness, the founder of the Guinness Brewery, died.

1806 William Pitt the Younger, twice British Prime Minister, died aged 47.

1849 English-born Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from a New York medical school to become the first woman doctor.

1900 The Battle of Spion Kop was fought during the Boer War1931 Anna Pavlova, Russian prima ballerina, famous as the Dying Swan, died aged 49.

1943 The British captured Tripoli from the Germans.

1956 Sir Alexander Korda, Hungarian-born film producer and director, died.

1960 The US Navy bathyscaphe Trieste, designed by Dr Piccard, descended to a record depth of 10,750 m /35,820 ft in the Pacific Ocean.

1963 Kim Philby, double agent, defected to Russia.

1976 Paul Robeson, US actor/singer, died, neglected and almost alone, in Harlem, New York, aged 77.

1984 Jade was born!! Woo Yeah!!!!

xxxx

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1556 An earthquake in Shensi Province, China, killed 830,000.

1608 Plans for the plantation of Ulster are announced.

1803 ‘Uncle’ Arthur Guinness, the founder of the Guinness Brewery, died.

1806 William Pitt the Younger, twice British Prime Minister, died aged 47.

1849 English-born Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from a New York medical school to become the first woman doctor.

1900 The Battle of Spion Kop was fought during the Boer War1931 Anna Pavlova, Russian prima ballerina, famous as the Dying Swan, died aged 49.

1943 The British captured Tripoli from the Germans.

1956 Sir Alexander Korda, Hungarian-born film producer and director, died.

1960 The US Navy bathyscaphe Trieste, designed by Dr Piccard, descended to a record depth of 10,750 m /35,820 ft in the Pacific Ocean.

1963 Kim Philby, double agent, defected to Russia.

1976 Paul Robeson, US actor/singer, died, neglected and almost alone, in Harlem, New York, aged 77.

1984 Jade was born!! Woo Yeah!!!!

xxxx

Sorry, Hun My bad

[Red Yaris 54]

On this Day - 1961 - Hollywood screen star Marilyn Monroe divorced her husband of five years, playwright Arthur Miller.

On this Day - 1965 - Sir Winston Churchill died at the age of 90 with his wife Lady Clementine Churchill and other members of the family at his bedside

On this Day - 1966 - 117 passengers and crew were killed after an Air India Boeing-707 plane crashed into Mont Blanc

On this day - 1986 - Trade and Industry Secretary Leon Brittan becomes the second cabinet minister to resign over the Westland affair

On this Day - 2001 - Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson resigned from the Cabinet over a passports-for-cash scandal

On this Day - 1984 - Jade was ONE DAY OLD :P ;)

[Bizarra]

On this Day - 1961 - Hollywood screen star Marilyn Monroe divorced her husband of five years, playwright Arthur Miller.

On this Day - 1965 - Sir Winston Churchill died at the age of 90 with his wife Lady Clementine Churchill and other members of the family at his bedside

On this Day - 1966 - 117 passengers and crew were killed after an Air India Boeing-707 plane crashed into Mont Blanc

On this day - 1986 - Trade and Industry Secretary Leon Brittan becomes the second cabinet minister to resign over the Westland affair

On this Day - 2001 - Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson resigned from the Cabinet over a passports-for-cash scandal

On this Day - 1984 - Jade was ONE DAY OLD :P ;)

Will we start a "Jade was 2 days old, / Jade was 3 days old " thread & amuse everyone?

[Red Yaris 54]

Will we start a "Jade was 2 daysl old, Jade was 3 days old " thread & amuse everyone?

Maybe NOT a good idea :P ;)

[Raistlin]

Events

1504

The English Parliament passed statutes against retainers and liveries, to curb private warfare.

1533

King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn were secretly married.

1917

The USA purchased the Danish West Indies (now the Virgin Islands) for $25 million.

1924

The 1st Winter Olympic Games were inaugurated in Chamonix in the French Alps.

1938

Due to intense sunspot activity, the aurora borealis, or 'northern lights', were seen as far south as western Europe.

1971

Idi Amin led a coup that deposed Milton Obote and became president of Uganda.

1971

At a US court, Charles Manson and others were found guilty of murdering actress Sharon Tate and four others.

1981

Jiang Qing, Mao's widow, was tried for treason and received a death sentence, which was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment.

1985

President Botha opened South Africa's new three-chamber Parliament for Whites, Indians, and Coloureds.

1997

At sixteen, the Czech-born Swiss tennis prodigy Martina Hingis defeated France's Mary Pierce in the final of the Australian Open in Melbourne, becoming the youngest grand slam tennis champion this century.

Births

1627

Robert Boyle, Irish physicist and chemist

1759

Robert Burns, Scottish poet

1874

William Somerset Maugham, English author

1882

Virginia Woolf, English author

1886

Wilhelm Furtwängler, German conductor

1928

Edvard Shevardnadze, Russian politician

Deaths

AD98

Marcus Cocceius Nerva, Roman emperor

1586

Lucas Cranach the Younger, German painter

1855

Dorothy Wordsworth, English writer

1947

Al Capone, US gangster

1990

Ava Gardner, US film actress

[Bizarra]

1500 Vincente Yanez Pinzon discovered Brazil and claimed it for Portugal.

1788 The first consignment of convicts from England arrived in Australia, at Sydney Cove.

1841 Hong Kong was proclaimed British sovereign territory.

1847 As a measure to relieve famine, duties on corn imports were suspended until September 1.

1871 The Rugby Football Union was founded.

1905 The world's largest diamond was found at the Premier Mines in Pretoria, South Africa.

The Cullinan Diamond weighed more than one and a quarter pounds.

1907 "Foul language" caused a riot in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on the first night of J M Synge's Playboy Of The Western World.

1939 In the Spanish Civil War, Franco's forces, with Italian aid, took Barcelona.

1942 The first US troops arrived in Belfast.

De Valera's protest the next day was rejected by PM Andrews.

1947 Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden was killed in an air crash near Copenhagen.

1950 India became a republic within the Commonwealth.

1979 Nelson Rockefeller, US statesman, died.

1982 Seán Rourke, republican activist who claimed a major role in the escape of George Blake from Wormwood Scrubs, died.

1992 Russian President Yeltsin announced that his country would stop targeting US cities with nuclear weapons

[Raistlin]

Events

1606 The trial of Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators began; they were executed 31st January.

1879 Thomas Edison patented the electric lamp.

1926 The first public demonstration of television was given by John Logie Baird, at his workshop in London.

1943 In World War II, the US Air Force carried out its first bombing raid on Germany.

1945 Soviet forces entered the death-camp at Auschwitz.

1967 Three US astronauts died in a fire which broke out aboard the spacecraft Apollo during tests at Cape Kennedy.

1967 A treaty banning nuclear weapons from outer space was signed by 60 countries, including the USA and the USSR.

1973 The Vietnam cease-fire agreement was signed by North Vietnam and the USA.

1992 Former world boxing champion Mike Tyson went on trial for allegedly raping an 18-year-old contestant in the 1991 Miss Black America Contest.

1997 It was revealed that French national museums were holding nearly 2,000 works of art stolen from Jews by the Nazis during World War II.

Births

1756 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer

1805 Samuel Palmer, artist

1859 Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany

1891 Jerome Kern, US composer

1903 John Eccles, Australian physiologist

1931 Mordecai Richler, Canadian novelist and dramatist

1937 John Ogden, English pianist

Deaths

1851 John Audubon, US artist and naturalist

1901 Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer

1922 Giovanni Verga, Italian novelist and dramatist

1951 Carl Mannerheim, Finnish soldier and statesman

1972 Mahalia Jackson, US gospel singer

1989 Thomas Sopwith, British aircraft designer

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1596 Sir Francis Drake died at sea off Panama.

1613 Thomas Bodley, English scholar and diplomat, died.

1829 Body-snatcher William Burke was hanged in front of a huge crowd.

1928 Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Spanish writer and politician, died.

1932 The Japanese occupied Shanghai, starting a full-scale invasion of China.

1935 Iceland became the first country to legalise abortion.

1939 Irish poet W B Yeats died.

1953 Derek Bentley, 19, was hanged at Wandsworth Prison, despite public protests.

Bentley and Christopher Craig, 16, had been found guilty of murdering a policeman, but Craig escaped the gallows because of his age.

1986 US space shuttle Challenger exploded 72 seconds after take-off, killing seven astronauts.

1993 Solicitors for British Prime Minister John Major issued writs for libel against the New Statesman and Scallywag for publishing stories detailing rumours of an affair between Major and Clare Latimer, a caterer.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1728 John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera was first performed, with a score derived from popular ballads of the time.

1820 George III, longest-lived and longest-reigning King of England, died aged 81.

1852 Louis Brennan, inventor, born in Castlebar, Co Mayo.

1856 Queen Victoria instituted Britain’s highest military decoration, the Victoria Cross.

1879 WC Fields, US comedian who claimed he wouldn’t act with children or animals, was born in Philadelphia.

1886 Karl Benz patented the first practical car with petrol-driven internal combustion engine.

It had three rubber-tyred wheels and went at 93mph.

1916 Zeppelins bombed Paris for the first time.

1942 Desert Island Discs started on BBC Radio, presented by Roy Plomley.

1978 The use of environmentally damaging aerosol sprays was banned in Sweden.

1980 Jimmy ‘Schnozzle’ Durante, American comedian, died aged 87.

1985 Oxford University dons refused to grant Mrs Thatcher an honorary degree.

1988 Failed opera singer Bantcho Bantchevsky leapt to his death from the balcony of New York’s Metropolitan Opera House during a performance of Verdi’s Macbeth.

1991 In the Gulf War, Iraq began its first major ground offensive into Saudi Arabia.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1858 The Halle Orchestra was founded by Charles Halle in Manchester.

1889 17-year-old Baroness Marie Vetsera and her lover, Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf, were found dead at the royal hunting lodge of Mayerling, near Vienna.

It remains a mystery whether it was a double suicide or murder.

1933 Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.

1947 James Larkin, labour leader and founder of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, died.

1948 Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic in New Delhi.

1951 Actress Elizabeth Taylor, 19, divorced her first husband, hotel chain heir Nicky Hilton.

1958 Yves Saint Laurent, aged 22, held his first major fashion show in Paris.

1965 Big Ben was silenced for the funeral procession of Sir Winston Churchill.

1972 ‘Bloody Sunday’: 13 demonstrators were shot dead by soldiers of the 1st Parachute Regiment following a banned civil rights march in Derry.

Taoiseach jack Lynch withdrew the Republic’s ambassador from London as a result of the incident, and also declared February 2 a national day of mourning.

The Widgery Tribunal into the events of that day has long been suspected of bias.

1982 Stanley Holloway, actor, comedian and singer, died.

[Raistlin]

Events

1606 The executions of Winter, Rockwood, Keys, and Guy Fawkes, the Gunpowder Conspirators, took place in London.

1747 The first clinic specializing in the treatment of venereal diseases was opened at London Dock Hospital.

1858 The Great Eastern, the five-funnelled steamship designed by Brunel, was launched at Millwall.

1876 All Native American Indians were ordered to move into reservations.

1929 The USSR exiled Leon Trotsky; he found asylum in Mexico.

1943 The German Sixth Army surrenders to the Soviet Army at Stalingrad.

1946 A new constitution in Yugoslavia created six constituent republics (Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia) subordinated to a central authority, on the model of the USSR.

1950 In the USA, President Truman instructed the Atomic Energy Commission to proceed with development of the hydrogen bomb.

1958 Explorer I, the first US Earth satellite, was launched from Cape Canaveral.

1971 Telephone service between East and West Berlin was re-established after 19 years.

1976 Population of the world reached 4 billion.

1983 The wearing of seat belts in cars became compulsory in Britain.

1994 Gerry Adams, president of Irish republican party Sinn Féin, was granted a visa to visit the USA.

1995 US President Clinton invoked presidential emergency authority to provide a $20 billion loan to Mexico to stabilize its economy.

Births

1797 Franz Schubert, Austrian composer

1872 Zane Grey, US novelist

1882 Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina

1893 Freya Stark, English traveller and writer

1923 Norman Mailer, US novelist

1929 Jean Simmons, English film actress

Deaths

1788 Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender to the English throne

1933 John Galsworthy, English novelist

1944 Jean Giraudoux, French novelist and dramatist

1951 C B Cochran, British theatrical producer

1956 A A Milne, English author

1974 Samuel Goldwyn, US film producer

1995 George Abbott, US playwright, theatre director, and producer

[Red Yaris 54]

On this Day - 1953 - A car ferry sank in the Irish Sea in one of the worst gales of the winter, claiming the lives of up to 130 passengers and crew

On this Day - 1961 - A chimpanzee sent into space in a United States rocket is recovered alive and well from the sea near Florida

On this Day - 1996 - A lorry carrying heavy explosives crashes into a bank in Colombo (Sri Lanka) bank killing more than 50 people

On this Day - 2000 - Family GP Dr Harold Shipman is jailed for life for murdering 15 of his patients, making him Britain's most prolific convicted serial killer

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1650 Death of Rene Descartes, father of French philosophy.

1815 Duel between Daniel O’Connell and John D’Esterne took place on the estate of Lord Ponsonby at Bishopscourt, Co.

Kildare.

D’Esterne died of his wounds three days later.

1865 US Bill to abolish slavery was signed.

1873 Dame Clara Butt was born.

She was the contralto who first performed the song version of Land Of Hope And Glory.

1884 The first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary, A-Ant, was published.

1893 Thomas Edison opened the first film studio - to produce films for peepshow machines - in New Jersey, US.

1896 Mimi’s tiny hand was frozen for the first time as Puccini’s La Bohéme opened in Turin.

1901 Actor Clark Gable was born in Ohio.

1930 The Times published its first crossword.

1974 Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave and PM Faulkner met at Hillsborough, Co.

Down, to discuss law enforcement and the proposed Council of Ireland.

1979 Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran after 14 years in exile in France.

1994 US talk show host Larry King interviewed Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Féin.

1990 Bulgaria’s communist government resigned.

[Red Yaris 54]

On this Day - 1952 - A new method for tracking down users of unlicensed television sets is unveiled in the UK..........TV Detector vans

On this Day - 1953 - Violent storms wreak havoc up and down the East coast of Britain claiming hundreds of lives

On this Day - 1979 - Religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini made a triumphant return to Iran after 14 years in exile

On this Day - 2003 - Seven astronauts died as Columbia shuttle breaks up on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere leaving Nasa and the world in a state of shock and disbelief

[Bizarra]

Over The Years

1650 Nell Gwynn, orange seller who became a comedy actress and then mistress of Charles II, was born in London.

1709 The real Robinson Crusoe, Alexander Selkirk, on whom Daniel Defoe based his famous novel, was rescued after spending five years on the uninhabited islands of Juan Fernandez.

1878 Greece declared war on Turkey.

1880 Parnell addressed the US House of Representatives.

1882 Author James Joyce was born in Dublin.

His masterpiece Ulysses was published on this same day in 1922.

1922 John Butler Yeats, painter and father of WB and jack, died in New York.

1943 The German Sixth Army under Field Marshal Von Paulus surrendered to the Soviet army at Stalingrad.

1972 The British embassy in Dublin was burned down by protesters angered by the Bloody Sunday shootings in Derry.

1979 Sex Pistol Sid Vicious, on bail charged with killing girlfriend Nancy Spungen, died of a heroin overdose in New York.

1986 Women in Liechtenstein went to the polls for the first time.

1989 The USSR’s military occupation of Afghanistan ended after nine years.

1990 The 30-year ban on the ANC was lifted.

1991 In Britain, a protest against the Gulf War was held in London’s Hyde Park, attended by more than 40,000 people.