Today in history

19 th June 1906

The battle of Methven :
The Battle of Methven took place at Methven, Scotland on 19 June 1306, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. The battlefield was researched to be included in the Inventory of Historic Battlefields in Scotland and protected by Historic Scotland under the Scottish Historical Environment Policy of 2009, but was excluded due to the uncertainty of its location
Bruce was crowned King of Scots by Bishop William de Lamberton at Scone, near Perth, on Palm Sunday (25 March 1306).
Enraged by the killing of John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch by Bruce and his followers at Dumfries and Bruce’s coronation Edward I of England named Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, special lieutenant for Scotland. Pembroke moved quickly, and by the middle of summer he had made his base at Perth, along with Henry Percy and Robert Clifford and an army of about 3000 men drawn from the northern counties. Edward I gave orders that no mercy was to be granted and all taken in arms were to be executed without trial.

20 th June 1877

      Worlds first commercial telephone service :
       
       Hugh Cossart Baker Jr. starts the first commercial telephone service in Canada in Hamilton. Baker and friends T. C. Mewburn and C. D. Cory organize the West Side Domestic Telegraph Co., with principal offices at their respective homes. Telegraph linemen string the single line from house to house across roofs, attached to trees and a few handily located telegraph poles.




https://www.thespec.com/life/local-history/2016/09/23/june-20-1877-first-telephone-exchange-opens-in-hamilton.html

21 st June 2012

Indian Ocean migrant boat disaster :
      The 2012 Indian Ocean migrant boat disaster occurred on 21 June 2012, when a boat carrying more than 200 refugees capsized in the Indian Ocean between the Indonesian island of Java and the Australian external territory of Christmas Island. 109 people were rescued, 17 bodies were recovered, and approximately 70 people remain missing.[1] The boat's passengers were all male and were mostly from Afghanistan.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Indian_Ocean_migrant_boat_disaster

June 22 nd 1948


       The Windrush generation :
                                             H.M.T. Empire Windrush , brought the first group of 802 , West Indian
immigrants to Britain .
 June 22nd 1948, the day that the Windrush discharged its passengers at Tilbury, has become an important landmark in the history of modern Britain; and the image of the Caribbeans filing off its gangplank has come to symbolise many of the changes which have taken place here.



https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/windrush_01.shtml

23 rd June 1973


The Hull arsonist :
A fire at a house in Hull, England, which kills a six-year-old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by serial arsonist Peter Dinsdale.


      https://depressinghistory.tumblr.com/post/53658893141/june-23-1973-peter-dinsdale-begins-a-years-long

24 th June 1981

 The Humber bridge :
                              The Humber Bridge opens to traffic, connecting Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. It
remained the world's longest bridge span for 17 years.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humber_Bridge

25 th June 1876

    Custers last stand :
                                The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass and also commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. The battle, which resulted in the defeat of U.S. forces, was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876. It took place on June 25–26, 1876, along the Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn

26 th June 1974

  The bar code :
    A supermarket cashier scans a multipack of chewing gum across a bar-code scanner in Troy, Ohio. It's the first product ever checked out by Universal Product Code.
Some readers may be unable to remember when grocery clerks had to put price stickers on nearly every item in the store. And retail cashiers had to read a price tag by eye and key in the price by hand. But that's the way things were. The process was not only laborious, but it left the store manager with no idea of how much of each of thousands of different products had been sold and how much remained in stock.



https://www.wired.com/2008/06/june-26-1974-by-gum-theres-a-new-way-to-buy-gum/

27 th June 1556


  The Stratford martys :
The Stratford Martyrs were eleven men and two women who were burned at the stake together for their Protestant beliefs, either at Stratford-le-Bow, Middlesex or Stratford, Essex, both near London, on 27 June 1556 during the Marian persecutions.
The executions were said to have been attended by a crowd of 20,000. The exact place of the execution is unknown; the most likely site
is thought to have been Fair Field in Bow (then known as Stratford-le-Bow), An alternative suggested location is Stratford Green,much of which is now occupied by the University of East London Stratford Campus. This theory seems to date only from the erection of a monument to the martyrs in the nearby churchyard of the Parish Church of St John the Evangelist , "eleven men were tied to three stakes, and the two women loose in the midst without any stake; and so they were all burnt in one fire


   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratford_Martyrs

28 th June 1838


   Coronation of Victoria :
    The coronation of Queen Victoria took place on Thursday, 28 June 1838, just over a year after she succeeded to the throne of the United Kingdom at the age of 18. The ceremony was held in Westminster Abbey after a public procession through the streets from Buckingham Palace, to which the Queen returned later as part of a second procession.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_of_Queen_Victoria

29 th June

     The Globe theatre fire :
                                      The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, on land owned by Thomas Brend and inherited by his son, Nicholas Brend and grandson Sir Matthew Brend, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and closed by an Ordinance issued on 6 September 1642



          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globe_Theatre#Shakespeare's_Globe_Theatres

30 th June 2017

Glasgow airport terror attack :
                        The Glasgow Airport attack was a terrorist ramming attack which occurred on 30 June 2007, at 15:11 BST, when a dark green Jeep Cherokee loaded with propane canisters was driven at the glass doors of the Glasgow Airport terminal and set ablaze.It was the first terrorist attack to take place in Scotland since the Lockerbie bombing in 1988. The attack took place three days after the appointment of Scottish MP Gordon Brown as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, but Downing Street dismissed suggestions of a connection. A close link was quickly established to the 2007 London car bombs the previous day. Although the doors were damaged, security bollards outside the entrance stopped the car from entering the terminal, where there were 4,000 people, with the potential for many fatalities




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Airport_attack

1 st July 2007

  The smoking ban :
                            A smoking ban in England, making it illegal to smoke in all enclosed work places in England, came into force on 1 July 2007 as a consequence of the Health Act 2006. Similar bans had already been introduced by the rest of the United Kingdom: in Scotland on 26 March 2006, Wales on 2 April 2007 and Northern Ireland on 30 April 2007.






https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_ban_in_England

2 nd July

 The live 8 benefit concerts :
                                         Live 8 was a string of benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 conference and summit held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland from 6–8 July 2005. Both events also coincided with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid. Run in support of the aims of the UK's Make Poverty History campaign and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, ten simultaneous concerts were held on 2 July and one on 6 July. On 7 July, the G8 leaders pledged to double 2004 levels of aid to poor nations from US$25 billion to US$50 billion by the year 2010. Half of the money was to go to Africa. More than 1,000 musicians performed at the concerts, which were broadcast on 182 television networks and 2,000 radio networks.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_8

3 rd July 1938

   steam locomotives speed records :
                             The Mallard :
                                                     Number 4468 Mallard is a London and North Eastern Railway Class A4 Pacific steam locomotive built at Doncaster in 1938. It is historically significant because it is the holder of the world speed record for steam locomotives at 125.88 mph. The record was achieved on 3 July 1938 on the slight downward grade of Stoke Bank, south of Grantham on the East Coast Main Line, and the highest speed was recorded at milepost 90¼, between Little Bytham and Essendine.



https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3652624&p=18&pos=18

Dan-Air Flight 1903 was a de Havilland Comet 4 aircraft operated by Dan Air Services Limited that, on Friday, 3 July 1970, crashed into the wooded slopes of the Serralada del Montseny near Arbúcies (Girona), Catalonia, Spain. The flight was on a non-scheduled international passenger service from Manchester to Barcelona. British tour operator Clarksons Holidays had contracted the aircraft to carry a group of holidaymakers who had booked an all-inclusive package holiday with it. The crash resulted in the aircraft's destruction and the deaths of all 112 on board. It was the deadliest aviation accident in 1970, and remains the highest death toll of any accident or incident involving the De Havilland Comet anywhere in the world.[1]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan-Air_Flight_1903

The crash claimed 6 Wigan lives

4 th July  1826 , 1831

  Death of 3 American Presidents , Just coincidence ? :
                                                                              It is a fact of American history that three Founding Father Presidents—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe—died on July 4, the Independence Day anniversary. But was it just a coincidence?
The New York Commercial Advertiser wrote on July 5, 1831:  “It would be difficult to find a parallel in history, three of them have been called away in a good all age, on the same proud anniversary."

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/three-presidents-die-on-july-4th-just-a-coincidence/&p=4&pos=4

5 th July 1996


  Dolly the sheep , the fist cloned mammal :
                                                              Dolly was cloned from a cell taken from the mammary gland of a six-year-old Finn Dorset sheep and an egg cell taken from a Scottish Blackface sheep. She was born to her Scottish Blackface surrogate mother on 5th July 1996. Dolly’s white face was one of the first signs that she was a clone because if she was genetically related to her surrogate mother, she would have had a black face.

Because Dolly’s DNA came from a mammary gland cell, she was named after the country singer Dolly Parton.


https://dolly.roslin.ed.ac.uk/facts/the-life-of-dolly/index.html

6 th July 1988

           Piper Alpha oil disaster :
                                              On the evening of 6 July 1988, an explosion ripped through the Piper Alpha oil and gas platform 120 miles north-east of Aberdeen. Out of the 228 men on board, 167 died in the world’s deadliest oil rig disaster.
Faulty maintenance procedures on one of the platform’s pipelines led to a gas leak igniting. The resulting blast almost completely destroyed the platform structure with flames reaching up over 300 feet into the air. The fire on the burning rig could be seen from 70 miles away.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2ZzmcqPgyWLrDRWP6tfBbnt/the-day-167-men-perished-in-the-piper-alpha-oil-platform-disaster

7 th July 2005

   The July 7th London bombings :
                                                The 7 July 2005 London bombings, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of coordinated Islamic terrorist suicide attacks in London, England, that targeted commuters travelling on the city's public transport system during the morning rush hour.
Four terrorists separately detonated three homemade bombs in quick succession aboard London Underground trains across the city and, later, a fourth on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. The train bombings occurred on the Circle line near Aldgate and at Edgware Road, and on the Piccadilly line near Russell Square.
Apart from the bombers, 52 UK residents of 18 different nationalities were killed and more than 700 were injured in the attacks, making it Britain's deadliest terrorist incident since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 near Lockerbie, Scotland, and England's deadliest since World War II, as well as the country's first Islamist suicide attack.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings

8th July 1947

 The Roswell UFO incident :
                                      In mid-1947, a United States Army Air Forces balloon crashed at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. Following wide initial interest in the crashed "flying disc", the US military stated that it was merely a conventional weather balloon. Interest subsequently waned until the late 1970s, when ufologists began promoting a variety of increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories, claiming that one or more alien spacecraft had crash-landed and that the extraterrestrial occupants had been recovered by the military, which then engaged in a cover up .


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident

9 th July 1922

  "Tarzan " busts the record :
July 9th was the anniversary of Johnny Weissmuller breaking one of the most significant barriers in swimming history. He  became the first swimmer to swim the 100-meter freestyle in under a minute. In 1922, at Neptune Beach in Alameda, California, Weissmuller swam a 58.6, to break the old mark held by Kahanamoku. These days, a 58.6 100-meter freestyle makes an average high school swimmer. In 1922, it broke the old record of 1:00.4 by nearly 2 seconds. Consider that Weissmuller swam a 58.6 without blocks or flip-turns.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Weissmuller

10 th July 1962

   Telstar :
               Telstar is the name of various communications satellites. The first two Telstar satellites were experimental and nearly identical. Telstar 1 launched on top of a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. It successfully relayed through space the first television pictures, telephone calls, and telegraph images, and provided the first live transatlantic television feed.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstar

11 th July 1962

 Transatlantic television :
                                    On 11 July 1962 British television viewers saw pictures beamed live from the US via the Telstar satellite. Raymond Baxter and Richard Dimbleby were on hand to provide commentary, although the precise time of the broadcast was not known in advance. The first pictures, received in Britain just after 1am, were of the chairman of AT&T, Frederick Kappel, and of poor quality, while in France they were picked up clearly. However this landmark transmission marked the beginning of satellite broadcasting, and changed the face of telecommunications.


https://www.inventionandtech.com/content/first-transatlantic-reception-television-signal-satellite

12 th July 1963

The moors murders :
Sixteen year old Pauline Reade
disappears in Gorton , and becomes the first victim
in the moors murders

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors_murders