1856 - Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest military decoration.
1940 - A petrol-carrying train explodes nr Osaka, Japan, killing 180.
1942 - Desert Island Discs 1st broadcast.
1996 - The opera house in Venice, La Fenice, burns down.
2004 - Cannabis is downgraded from class B to class C.
(Reversed a coupla days ago.)
Born today:
1939 - Germain Greer, writer
1940 - Katherine Ross, actress
1945 -Tom Selleck, actor
1950- Jody Scheckter, racing driver
1954 - Oprah Winfrey, talk show host
Died today:
1964 - Alan Ladd, actor
1980- Jimmy Durante, actor
1986 - Leif Ericson, actor - High Chapperral
1999 - Lili St Cyr, nude burlesque dancer
30th
1661 - Oliver Cromwell is executed, having been dead for 2 years.
1826 - The Menai suspension bridge is opened, between Anglesey & N Wales.
1847 - Yerba Buena is renamed San Francisco.
1943 - Nazis shoot 7,000 Jews in the Letychiv Ghetto.
1945 - Russian sub torpedoes a refugee ship in the Baltic Sea; 9,000 drown.
1972 - Bloody Sunday: Paras shoot 14 protesters in NI.
2000 - A Kenyan plane crashes off the Ivory Coast, killing 170.
Born today:
1930 - Gene Hackman, actor
1937 - Vanessa Redgrave, actress
1937 - Boris Spassky, chessman
1951 - Phil Collins, musician
1981 - Peter Crouch, footballer
Died today:
1649 - Charles I, King (beheaded)
1948 - Mahatma Gandhi, Indian activist
1948 - Orville Wright, aviator
1951 - Ferdinand Porshe, car engineer
1958 - Ernst Heinkel, plane engineer
2008 - Jeremy Beadle, TV host
is that it XK?!.................blimey, thats gotta be the shortest post you've put on here for a while!..either yer well busy, or it just happens to be a crap date in history:o)...................
1953 - 300 drowned in Kent/Essex when the Thames estuary flooded following a storm (1,800 were killed in Holland).
1983 - Seat belts were made compulsory.
1990 - 1st McDonalds opens in USSR, in Moscow.
1994 - BMW buys Rover for £800m.
2000 - Dr Harold Shipman jailed for life for killing 15 patients. He may have killed 250 over 23 years.
Born today:
1929 - Jean Simmons, actress
1931 - Chris Chataway, athlete
1956 - Johnny Rotten, punk
1970 - Minnie Driver, actress
1981 - Justin Timberlake, singer
Died today:
1606 - Guy Fawkes, Gunpowder Plotter, hung,drawn & quartered
1788 - Bonnie Prince Charlie, Pretender
1933 - John Galsworthy, author
1956 - A A Milne, author
1974 - Samuel Goldwyn, film magnate
1814 - Mayon Volcano, Philippines, erupts - 1,200 die.
1884 - 1st edition of the Oxford English Dickenberry is published.
1930 - 1st Times crossword
1952 - 1st TV detector vans
1974 - A fire in the 25-storey Joelma Building in Sao Paulo, Brazil, kills 190.
1979 - Tevor Francis becomes the 1st £1m footballer.
2003 - The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates on re-entry, killing all 7 astronauts.
2004 - 250 worshippers are trampled to death in a stampede during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
2004 - Janet Jackson has a wardrobe malfunction.
1709 - Alexander Selkirk was rescued from a Pacific island after 4 years. This inspired 'Robinson Crusoe'.
1901 - The funeral of Queen Victoria took place.
1943 - The German VI Army surrenders at Stalingrad.
1982 - Syrian troops attack Hama, killing thousands.
Born today:
1940 - David Jason, aka Del Boy, actor
1947 - Farrah Fawcett, actress
Died today:
1969 - Boris Karloff, actor
1979 - Sid Viscious, punk
1987 - Alistair MacKean, author
1995 - Donald Plesence, actor
1996 - Gene Kelly, dancer
1377 - Papal troops slaughter the 3,000 inhabitants of Cesena, Italy.
1957 - Floods along the east coast drown 180.
1963 - Learner driver Margaret Hunter was fined for driving on after her instructor bailed out shouting "It's suicide!"
1998 - A low-flying US jet sliced thru the cable sending the 20 occupants of the cable-car to their deaths.
Born today:
1927 - Val Doonican, singer
1950 - Morgan Fairchild, actress
Died today:
1959 - Buddy Holly, singer
1976 - An earthquake in Guatamala kills 22,000.
1998 - An earthquake in Afghanistan kills 5,000.
Born today:
1915 - Sir Norman Wisdom, OBE, comedy actor
1948 - Alice Cooper, musician
Died today:
1983 - Karen Carpenter, singer
1987 - Liberace, piano player
1788 - Sir Robert Peel, Prime Minister, and founder of the Metropolitan Police, was born. At first the constables were nick- named 'peelers', now known as 'bobbies'.
1954 - Britain's 1st atomic power station built, at Harwell.
1958 - Britain's 1st parking meters appeared, in Mayfair.
1982 - Laker Airlines, created by Sir Freddy Laker, collapsed with debts of £270m.
1988 - Comic Relief holds its 1st Red Nose Day.
2004 - 23 Chinese cockle-pickers drown in Morecambe Bay.
Born today:
1937 - Stuart Damon, actor
1948 - Charlotte Rampling, actress
1948 - Sven-Goran Eriksson, football manager
1985 - Cristiano Ronaldo, footballer
1819 - Singapore is founded by Sir Thomas Raffles.
1862 - The Yankees score the 1st victory in the American Civil War when Ulysses S Grant captures Fort Henry.
1952 - Elizabeth II becomes Queen on the death of her father George VI. She was in a treehouse in Kenya at the time.
1958 - 7 Busby Babes are killed in the Munich air disaster. MUFC had just won the European Cup.
1996 - A Boeing 757 crashes off the coast of the Dominican Republic, killing 190.
2004 - Chechen rebels bomb the Moscow metro; 40 die, 130 injured.
Born today:
1917 - Zsa-Zsa Gabor, actress
1922 - Patrick Macnee, aka Steed, actor
1922 - Denis Norden, TV host
1940 - Jimmy Tarbuck, comedian
1966 - Rick Astley, singer
Died today:
1783 - Capability Brown, landscape gardener
1993 - Arthur Ashe, tennis player
1807 - Napoleon defeats the Russians & Prussians at the Battle of Eylau.
1863 - HMS Orpheus is wrecked off New Zealand, 185 sailors drown.
1991 - The IRA fire 3 morter shells at 10 Downing St during a cabinet meeting.
1992 - The European Union is formed.
2005 - Ellen MacArthur becomes the fastest person to sail solo around the world.
Born today:
1812 - Charles Dickens, novelist
1945 - Pete Postlethwaite, actor
1962 - Eddie Izard, comedian
Died today:
1985 - Matt Munro, singer
1943 - THe US Marines finally kick the Japs off Guadalcanal.
1983 - A dust cloud 320m deep descends on Melbourne, Australia, turning day into night.
1983 - Shergar is kidnapped, never to be seen again.
1987 - A Boeing 707 crashes into a mountain in the Azores, killing 144.
Born today:
1941 - Nick Nolte, actor
1944 - Roger Lloyd-Pack, aka Trigger, actor
1964 - Trinny Woodall, fashion guru
Died today:
1587 - Mary, Queen of Scots, beheaded for treason
1998 - Enoch Powell, politician
2007 - Anna Nicole Smith, gold-digger
1355 The St. Scholastica's Day Riots began in Oxford when University students clashed with townspeople in a three-day street battle, following a dispute about beer in The Swindlestock Tavern. 64 students were killed and 30 locals. The dispute was settled in favour of the university with a special charter. Annually thereafter, on 10th February, the town mayor and councillors had to march bareheaded through the streets and pay to the university a fine of one penny for every scholar killed. The penance ended in 1825 when the mayor refused to take part.
1763 Following the Seven Years War, the Treaty of Paris was signed, with France ceding Quebec to Britain.
1824 The birth of Samuel Plimsoll, British politician and social reformer. He devised the Plimsoll Line, to thwart unscrupulous ship owners who regularly overloaded their 'coffin ships'. His safe loading line painted on the ships acted as a regulation for the weight that ships could safely carry. Rope sandals for sailors were also named after him.
1840 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, both aged 20, were married in St James' Palace, London.
1906 Britain's first modern & largest battleship, HMS Dreadnought, was launched. It established the pattern of the turbine-powered, “all-big-gun” warship, a type that dominated the world's navies for the next 35 years.
1933 - Boxer Ernie Schorf is killed in a match at Madison Square Gardens.
1995 The first Briton to walk in space was Cambridge educated Dr. Michael Foale.
1996 - Chess computer 'Deep Blue' beats Grand Master Garry Kasparov.
2005 Clarence House announced the engagement of the Prince of Wales and his long-term shag partner Camilla Parker Bowles.
Born today:
1930 - Robert Wagner, actor
1937 - Roberta Flack, singer
1940 - Mary Rand, athlete
1947 - Nickolas Owen, TV presenter
1950 - Mark Spitz, swimmer
1955 - Greg Norman, golfer
1956 Two British spies, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, who vanished in mysterious circumstances five years ago re-appeared in the Soviet Union.
1975 Margaret Thatcher won the Conservative Party Leadership and became the first woman leader of a British political party.
1976 John Curry became the first Briton to win a gold medal for men’s figure skating.
1983 Police launched a mass murder investigation in London after discovering human remains in drains. Civil servant Dennis Andrew Nilsen, 37, was later charged with 12 murders and sentenced to six life sentences.
1990 - Nelson Mandela released from prison in South Africa, after 27 years.
1993 Queen Elizabeth II and the Prince of Wales both volunteered to pay income tax and capital gains tax on their private income. The Queen also took over civil list payments to junior members of the royal family.
Born today:
1934 - Mary Quant, fashion designer
1934 - John Surtees, only man to have won GP's on both 2 & 4 wheels.
1936 - Burt Reynolds, actor
1962 - Sheryl Crow, singer
1969 - Jennifer Aniston, friend
1554 At the tender age of 16, the "nine days queen", Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley were beheaded; he on Tower Hill, she on Tower Green, after being implicated in the Wyatt rebellion.
1688 The conclusion of the ‘Glorious Revolution’. James II fled with his family to France, and the Prince of Orange and Princess Mary were declared King and Queen of England, France and Ireland.
1809 Charles Darwin, English naturalist and author of The Origin of Species, was born.
1943 William Morris (Lord Nuffield), the founder of Morris Motors, created the Nuffield Foundation, Britain's biggest charitable trust, with a gift of £10 million.
1954 The British Standing Advisory Committee on cancer claimed that the illness had a definite link with cigarette smoking.
1993 A 2 year old boy, Jamie Bulger, was abducted from the Strand Shopping Centre, Bootle, and later killed by two 10 year old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. They were the youngest people to be charged with murder in England and Wales during the 20th century. A mere eight years later, in June 2001, the parole board ruled that the boys were no longer a threat to public safety and could be released. They were given new identities and moved to secret residence locations.
1994 One hundred people made history by walking from France to England for the first time in millions of years. Each represented charities and voluntary organisations and walked the 31 mile Channel Tunnel which took, on average, 13 hours to complete.
Died today:
1929 - Lillie Langtry, singer & actress
2000 - Charles Schulz, peanut
1692 The massacre of the MacDonalds at Glencoe in Scotland was carried out by English forces led by John Campbell, Earl of Breadalbane.
1945 1400 RAF and 450 US Airforce planes bombed Dresden in three waves over a 14-hour period, devastating one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Over a three-day period, 3,900 tons of explosives and incendiaries reduced much of the city to smouldering rubble and killed between 35,000 and 135,000 civilians.
1978 - Anna Ford becomes ITN's 1st female newsreader.
1988 - Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards soars (well,plummets..) at the Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada.
Born today:
1933 - Kim Novak, actress
1934 - George Segal, actor
1942 - Peter Tork, Monkee
1974 - Robbie Williams, singer
Died Today:
1883 - Richard Wagner, composer
1980 - David Janssen, actor
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