Today in History

On This Day - 19th November
1600 The birth of Charles I, King of England and Scotland who believed that the king ruled by Divine Right, until his action in dissolving Parliament led to the civil war with Cromwell and his eventual execution.


1620 The ship Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod, America. Its 87 passengers were a Protestant sect, known as The Pilgrim Fathers. (Note:- The Pilgrim Fathers were thwarted in their first attempt to sail to America when they left from Havenside, near Boston, Lincolnshire in September 1607.

In 1850 Lord Tennyson became the Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland. This statue of Tennyson with his Siberian wolfhound Karenina is on Cathedral Green in Lincoln, the county of his birth.


1905 The SS Hilda, a steamship owned by the London and South Western Railway sank, with the loss of 125 lives when she struck the ground at the entrance to Saint-Malo harbour.


1911 Doom Bar (previously known as Dunbar sands or Dune-bar) in Cornwall claimed two ships in a single day, Island Maid and Angele, the latter killing the entire crew, except the captain. There have been over 600 beachings, wrecks and capsizings at Doom Bar since records began early in the 19th century, with about 300 ships being wrecked.


1924 The birth of the actor William Russell. His big break was the title role in The Adventures of Sir Lancelot on ITV in 1956. The series was sold to the American NBC network and became the first UK television series to be shot in colour.


1933 The marriage of Kathleen Ferrier, an English contralto singer who achieved an international reputation as a stage, concert and recording artist. Considered by many the greatest contralto singer ever, she married Albert Wilson and shortly afterwards the couple moved to Silloth in Cumbria. Mrs Wilson's Coffee House & Eaterie in Silloth celebrates her life, features historic photographs and is decorated as it would have been at the time.


1947 George VI created Philip Mountbatten the Duke of Edinburgh in preparation for his wedding to George's elder daughter, Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II), the following day.

 

Today in History

November 22nd

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. while riding in a motorcade in Dallas during a campaign visit. Kennedy’s motorcade was turning past the Texas School Book Depository at Dealey Plaza with crowds lining the streets—when shots rang out. The driver of the president’s Lincoln limousine, with its top off, raced to nearby Parkland Memorial Hospital, but after being shot in the neck and head, Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. He was 46 years old

 

It’s amazing just how divided Americans were about entering the war right up until the Japanese sneak attack at Pearl Harbor.

Before then the debate raged on between intervention and isolationism

 

Yes, but there was a different ending in 1965 because Santa did not fulfill his promise to the Island of Misfit Toys in the original1964 version.

Rudolph and Santa left them hanging in the wind which upset everyone, so they added additional footage in 65'

 

On This Day - 8th December
1542 The birth of Mary Queen of Scots, Scottish Queen who ascended to the throne when she was just 6 days old and was crowned nine months later. A rebellion led to her abdication and later Elizabeth I imprisoned her for a plot to restore the Roman Catholic religion and to take the throne from her. After 19 years in custody, Mary was tried and executed for treason.


1863 The world’s first heavyweight boxing championship took place at Wadhurst, Kent, between Tom King (England) and John C Heenan (US). The fight lasted for 24 rounds and King was the champion. Heenan was America's heavyweight champion under the London Prize Ring, or bare-knuckle rules, but retired after his defeat by the English heavyweight.


1864 The opening of the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the River Avon at Bristol, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel when he was aged just 24. A plaque on the bridge commemorates Brunel's work. There have been over 500 suicides since the bridge was opened, including the tragic death of Charlotte Bevan and her newborn baby Zaani Tiana, whose bodies were discovered at the foot of the gorge on 3rd and 4th of December 2014 respectively.


1941 The US, Britain and Australia declared war on Japan following the Pearl Harbour attack the previous day. The attack sank 9 ships of the American fleet and 21 ships were severely damaged. The overall death toll reached 2,403, including 68 civilians.


1941 The birth of Sir Geoff Hurst, English footballer. He made his mark in World Cup history as the only player to have scored a hat-trick in a World Cup final. His three goals came in the 1966 final for England in their 4–2 win over West Germany at the old Wembley stadium.


1952 Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth announced that she would permit her forthcoming coronation to be televised.


1965 The new Race Relations Act came into force making racial discrimination unlawful in public places.


1980 John Lennon, former member of the Liverpool group The Beatles, was shot dead by Mark David Chapman who opened fire outside the musician's New York apartment.


1981 Arthur Scargill became leader of 'The National Union Of Mineworkers'. Scargill’s last official connections with his old union expired at the end of 2011. His honorary presidency of the NUM was terminated and so was his last remaining paid employment, as an adviser to the NUM’s Yorkshire and Lancashire Area Trust Funds.


1983 The House of Lords voted in favour of allowing live broadcasts from its chamber.


1993 Daisy Adams of Church Gresley, Derbyshire, thought to be Britain's oldest person at the time, died aged 113 years and 161 days.


1995 Head teacher Philip Lawrence, aged 48, died after being stabbed outside his west London school while protecting a pupil who was being assaulted.


2011 Defence Secretary Philip Hammond announced an end to the ban on women serving on submarines. Female officers would begin serving on Vanguard class nuclear-powered submarines towards the end of 2013 and on the new Astute class submarines from 2015.

 

When I saw the last name on the list, I had to look it up to see If he was still alive,

Yep, still kicking at 97 years young

 

Today in History
December 14, 2012

Sandy Hook school shooting


On December 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Adam Lanza kills 20 first graders and six school employees before turning a gun on himself. Earlier that day, he killed his mother at the home they shared.

The Sandy Hook shooting was, at the time, the second-deadliest mass shooting in the United States after the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, in which a gunman killed 32 students and teachers before committing suicide.

Shortly after 9:30 a.m., 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot through a plate-glass window next to Sandy Hook’s locked front entrance in order to gain access to the school. Hearing the noise, the school principal and school psychologist went to investigate and were shot and killed by Lanza, who was armed with a semiautomatic rifle, two semiautomatic pistols and multiple rounds of ammunition. Lanza also shot and wounded two other Sandy Hook staff members.

He then entered two first-grade classrooms, where he gunned down two teachers and 15 students in one room and two teachers and five students in the other room. The children Lanza murdered, 12 girls and 8 boys, were 6 and 7 years old. Twelve first-graders from the two classrooms survived.

When Lanza heard the police closing in on him, he killed himself in a classroom at approximately 9:40 a.m.

Police soon learned that sometime earlier that morning, before arriving at Sandy Hook, Lanza had shot and killed his 52-year-old mother at their home. She owned the weapons her son used in his deadly rampage.

 

Today in History

December 25th to 26th 1996

Six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey made national headlines when she was found murdered inside her Colorado home in December 1996. Her case is still unsolved.

On the morning of December 26, 1996, Patsy Ramsey called the police after finding a three-page ransom note demanding $118,000 for her daughter's safe return. The girl's body, however, was discovered in the basement later that afternoon. JonBenét had a fracture to her skull, she had been sexually assaulted and she was strangled with a garrote made from one of Patsy’s paintbrushes. According to the coroner’s report, JonBenét’s official cause of death was "asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma" and her death was classified as a homicide.

 

• DECEMBER 27th: - 2007

• Benazir Bhutto, assassinated

Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto, the first woman leader of a Muslim nation in modern history, was assassinated in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, while campaigning for upcoming parliamentary elections.

Benazir Bhutto - Wikipedia

 

• DECEMBER 27th: - 1831

• And so it begins...

Charles Darwin begins his voyage onboard HMS Beagle:

It was during this 5-year long voyage that the English naturalist worked on his Theory of Evolution.
-- He published the evidence supporting it in his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species.

Charles Darwin (Naturalist)

 

• DECEMBER 27th: - MUSIC:

1969 - Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin II was at No.1 on the US album charts, (the band's first album to reach No.1 on charts in the UK and the US), it went on to sell over six million copies in the US alone.
The album's cover designer David Juniper was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package.

1970 - George Harrison
George Harrison was at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'My Sweet Lord' making him the first Beatle to score a No.1 US hit.
--- The song was originally intended for Billy Preston.

2002 - 'This Is Spinal Tap'
The mock documentary, directed by Rob Reiner about the fictional heavy metal band, was deemed ’culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant’ by the US Library of Congress and was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry.

 

Today in History January 6th

January 6th 2021 U.S. Capitol Building Insurrection