Today in history

18 th May 1812

  End of the Trial of John Bellingham assassinater of Spencer Perceval :
                                                                                                      John Bellingham is found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging for the assassination of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.

           
      A depiction of the murder scene .
            The murder of the Prime Minister
On the afternoon of Monday 11 May 1812 the Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, entered the Lobby of the House of Commons. Perceval was on his way to speak in a debate on the Orders in Council, measures introduced by his predecessor in 1807 as part of an economic blockade against Napoleonic France, with which Britain was at war. The lobby was a place where constituents and 'lobbyists' waited to catch the attention of a passing MP, government minister or even the Prime Minister.

Among those waiting in the lobby that day was John Bellingham, a merchant from Liverpool. His presence had been noticed on previous days as he waited patiently in the lobby or watched debates from the public gallery. As the Prime Minister entered the lobby, Bellingham approached him, pulled a pistol out of a pocket hidden inside his coat and shot him through the breast. Perceval muttered some words as he staggered forward — in some reports it was 'Murder!', in others 'Oh!', before falling to the ground. He was quickly carried from the room and died moments later, while Bellingham sat down on a bench by the fireplace.

The death of Perceval caused an initial panic as rumours of an armed uprising or plot circulated. Surprisingly, it soon became clear that Bellingham had in fact acted alone, and the murder was the result of his frustration following a series of failed attempts to petition the Government for compensation .

 Trial and execution
Bellingham stood trial at the Old Bailey on Friday 15 May 1812. Those present noted how he 'appeared much collected…and, at intervals, appeared serene and careless'. His defence in court demonstrated that he was a man of some education and he showed 'the fluency of a practised orator'. His counsel tried to claim insanity, but Bellingham would have none of it. While he had no personal dislike of Perceval, he believed he was sending a message to those in government, as he made clear in these ominous words: 'when a Minister is so…presumptuous at any time…to set himself above both the Sovereign and the Laws...he must do it at his personal risk, for, by the law, he cannot be protected.' He was found guilty and publicly hanged at Newgate the following Monday the 18 th May .


                    Portrait of Spencer Percival .

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

19 th May 2018

 A Royal wedding :
                            The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is held at St George's Chapel, Windsor, with an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion.

         The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was held on 19 May 2018 in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle in the United Kingdom. The groom, Prince Harry, is a member of the British royal family; the bride, Meghan Markle, is American and previously worked as an actress, blogger and charity ambassador and advocate. On the morning of the wedding, Prince Harry's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, conferred upon him the titles of Duke of Sussex, Earl of Dumbarton and Baron Kilkeel.

On her marriage, Markle became Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Sussex, Countess of Dumbarton and Baroness Kilkeel. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, officiated at the wedding using the standard Anglican church service for Holy Matrimony published in Common Worship, a liturgical text of the Church of England. The traditional ceremony was noted for the inclusion of African-American culture.

         The ceremony .

       
    Windsor, England (CNN)Britain's Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle sealed their wedding vows with a kiss on the steps outside St. George's Chapel in Windsor after a groundbreaking ceremony that didn't challenge royal norms so much as drive a gilded coach and horses through them.

This 15th century royal peculiar -- a church under the direct jurisdiction of the monarch -- echoed to the sounds of a fiery Chicago preacher, a soulful gospel choir and the first black winner of a prestigious British music prize, as a constellation of A-list Americans rubbed shoulders with the bluest-blooded of British royalty.
If anyone came expecting a traditional high-church British state occasion, they must have left sorely disappointed. For everyone else, including the millions who tuned in across the world, this was an electrifying affair that will live long in the memory.

Convention was broken almost from the start. After ascending the 20 or so steps to the chapel's West Door, the bride entered to a traditional fanfare by the State Trumpeters. But then, instead of the customary rousing organ voluntary -- Bach or Wagner, perhaps -- Meghan set off down the aisle to a haunting and ethereal cantata composed by Handel for the birthday of Queen Anne in 1714.
In a striking image, the outspoken biracial American divorcée walked unescorted, followed by her 10 bridesmaids and page boys.
Almost every part of the ceremony made a statement. Meghan's elegant white dress with an open bateau neckline was by British designer Clare Waight Keller, the first female artistic director for the Givenchy fashion house. The 16-foot-long veil was held in place by a diamond bandeau tiara lent to her by the Queen.





  Following the ceremony there was a horse drawn tour of Windsor .

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

20 th May 1932

  Amelia Earhart and aviation firsts :
                                                    Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to begin the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, landing in Ireland the next day

               On May 20–21, 1932, Earhart became the first woman—and the only person since Charles Lindbergh—to fly nonstop and alone across the Atlantic. Flying a red Lockheed Vega, she left Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, Canada, and landed 15 hours later near Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The feat made Earhart an instant worldwide sensation and proved she was a courageous and able pilot.

Later that year, Earhart flew the Vega to another record. On August 24–25, she made the first solo, nonstop flight by a woman across the United States, from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey, in about 19 hours.



   Amelia Earhart

    Unlike Charles Lindbergh, Earhart was well known to the public before her solo transatlantic flight. In 1928, as a member of a three-person crew, she had become the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an aircraft. Although her only function during the crossing was to keep the plane’s log, the event won her national fame, and Americans were enamored with the daring and modest young pilot. For her solo transatlantic crossing in 1932, she was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross by the U.S. Congress.



    The Lockheed Vega plane .

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

21 st May 1894

  The Manchester ship canal is officially opened :
                                                                     The Manchester Ship Canal in the United Kingdom is officially opened by Queen Victoria, who later knights its designer Sir Edward Leader Williams .

           The Official Opening of the Manchester Ship Canal .

       

  The canal was a major boost for business in Manchester .


 -  May 21st1894  -  





Raw cotton, imported from America, was arriving in huge quantities in North West England. The conditions in that area were perfect. The damp, moist environment prevented the fibres from splitting and provided the rivers with the water needed to power the mills that were being established in large numbers to spin the threads and weave the cotton. The mills made, amongst other things the dhootie, or loincloth, worn by most of the Indian population at that time and as a result Lancashire became known as the ‘workshop of the world’.



Manchester itself was expanding at a rapid rate and by the 1830s was known as the greatest industrial city in the world. Not only were there mills but also engineers were making the machines that went into them. There was a lot of general manufacturing and engineering as well as a growing chemical industry that went hand in hand with the dying and bleaching companies needed for the cotton. Thus, by the 1870s, despite the building of the world’s first inter-city railway – the Liverpool/Manchester Railway – supply routes were stretched to breaking point and Manchester’s pre-eminence as a manufacturing hub threatened. Add to this the high taxes charged by the Port of Liverpool and action was needed. It was actually cheaper to send ships to Hull on the other side of the country and transport it across the Pennines. In 1882 Manufacturer Daniel Adamson revived a plan suggested back in the 1660s – to build a waterway that stretched from the Mersey estuary right into the City of Manchester, big enough to take the ships carrying the cargo. This project required legislation to be passed in Parliament. Twice this was rejected due to complaints from Liverpool, who feared losing the revenue from the taxes currently charged.



However in May 1885 it was passed as the Manchester Ship Canal Act and, as a condition, the newly formed company had to raise £8million as share capital. This was achieved and just over two years later, in November 1887, the first turf was cut. The route was 36 miles long and divided into eight sections each with its own chief engineer. By November 1889 bad weather and flooding caused severe delays and in 1891 the Manchester Ship Canal Company ran out of money and had to borrow from the Manchester Corporation before it went bankrupt putting the whole project in severe jeopardy.



12,000 navvies were required on average to dig out the canal and 200 steam trains were needed to haul the 6000 wagons to take away the spoil. The final cost was £15m, which in today’s values would be over £1.25bn. There are also several locks in the canal to raise ships the 18 metres that Manchester is above sea level. Eventually in November 1893 it was flooded on purpose, 11 years after the initial idea was taken up. The canal was then open for business on January 1st1894. Queen Victoria arrived on May 21stto officially cut the ribbon and the Port of Manchester quickly became the third busiest in the UK despite being nearly forty miles from the sea. In that first year the port handled 1,358,875 tonnes of cargo. This rose to 5,881,691 in 1925, to a peak of 18,563,376 in 1955. Since then, due to containerisation, and the subsequent increase in size of the ships carrying these containers, the amount handled by the port started to decrease to 9,767,380 in 1985 and 7,261,919 in 2005.



The maximum size of a ship allowed into the canal is 161.5m with a beam of 19.35m. Compare this to the Panama Canal, which was built from 1904 – 1914, which can take vessels that are 289m long with a beam of 32.3m. The larger of the two docks that made up the Port of Manchester was the Salford Docks and these were closed in 1982. This area, now known as Salford Quays, has seen one of the biggest regeneration projects in the UK and now houses the Lowry Centre, on Pier 8, which has two theatres and a gallery space housing works by LS Lowry, famous for his drawings and paintings of Lancashire, and Salford in particular. Also to be found there is the Imperial War Museum North and Media City, on Pier 9, which plays host to many media organisations including the BBC.



Construction work under way .


The Manchester Ship Canal is one of the greatest engineering feats of the Industrial Revolution period and is somewhat responsible for Manchester’s place as one of the most important cities in the UK and in some people’s eyes, the capital of the North.

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

22nd may 2017

 The Manchester Arena bombing :
                                                 Twenty-two people are killed at an Ariana Grande concert in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.

               2017
May 22
Manchester Arena bombed during Ariana Grande concert
Just moments after Ariana Grande finished the final song of her May 22, 2017 concert at Manchester Arena, a suicide bomber detonated an explosion on the premises, killing 22 concertgoers and injuring 116 more. ISIS claimed responsibility for what was the deadliest act of terrorism in Britain since the 2005 London metro bombings.

     

  The foyer after the bomb detonated .
A scene of youthful fun turned to panic and violence as shrapnel and fire tore through the crowd pouring out of the Arena’s busiest exit. Witnesses said they heard an explosion and saw a flash of light. Some were knocked down by the blast, while others scrambled for safety in the chaos.

Frantic parents, family members and friends began what would be an hours-long search for their children, and those from whom they had been separated when the rush to safety began. Others took to social media with photos of their loved ones, using #manchesterarena to ask if any of them had been seen alive after the explosion. More than 240 emergency calls were made; 60 ambulances and 400 police officers helped in the search. The youngest victim was 8-year-old Lancashire native

   Disorientated victims being led away.

The attacker was later revealed to be 22-year-old Salman Abedi, a Manchester native of Libyan descent whom investigators believe was radicalized after spending time in Libya in 2011. Although he was known to British security services, he was not part of any active terrorist investigation at the time of the bombing. Evidence shows that others, including Abedi’s brother, were aware of his plans, and may have helped to carry them out.

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

23 rd May 1934

    Bonnie "n" Clyde.
                              Infamous American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

On May 23, 1934, the legendary criminals Bonnie and Clyde were shot and killed by police while driving a stolen car in Louisiana.

Both Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker grew up in the slums of Dallas, Texas, but while Clyde ended up on the wrong side of the law by his teen years, Bonnie seemed to stay out of trouble. The two met in 1930, when Clyde was 20 and Bonnie 19; Bonnie was already married but was separated from her husband. Clyde was sent to prison for robbery not long after their meeting, but the two reunited when he was released in 1932. Clyde initially appeared to try to straighten out his life but soon returned to small-time robberies, this time involving Bonnie in some of his criminal activities.

                 

  Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde, along with various accomplices, began a crime spree that would last two years. They mostly robbed gas stations, restaurants, and stores, sometimes hitting small banks as well, and in 1934 they engineered a prison break. Whenever the police caught up with them, Clyde and his accomplices rarely hesitated to shoot, allegedly killing 9 officers of the law—and 13 people total—while they were on the run.

Bonnie was often portrayed in newspapers as a “cigar-smoking gun moll,” after police raided a hideout and found photographs of her with a gun in her hand and a cigar in her mouth. (Bonnie vehemently denied she ever smoked cigars, only cigarettes, and there is little evidence that she ever murdered anyone.)

Their crime spree finally ended in May 1934 when Frank Hamer, a Texas Ranger, and his posse tracked down Clyde and Bonnie in Louisiana. The group set up an ambush, hiding along the side of a road. When they saw Bonnie and Clyde’s car, the posse let loose with a hail of more than 100 bullets, killing both of the car’s occupants.

Clyde’s and Bonnie’s gunshot-riddled bodies were taken back to Texas, and thousands of people came to see their corpses. In accordance with Bonnie’s mother’s wishes, the two were given separate funerals and Bonnie was buried apart from Clyde in a different cemetery. At the time of their deaths, Clyde was just 25 and Bonnie 23.

             

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

26 th May 1930

  Amy Johnson flies solo from England to Australia :
                                                                            Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).


Miss Amy Johnson, who left Timor at dawn on Saturday on the last hazardous oversea hop of 500 miles to Port Darwin, Northern Australia, reached her goal after over eight hours flying.

She thus completed her flight of 9,500 miles from Croydon in a Gipsy Moth ‘plane in 19½ days. She is the first woman to make the flight, and though she failed, owing to difficulties in the latter half of the adventure, to beat Mr, Hinkler’s achievement of 18 days, her time from Croydon to India set up a new record.

               

               Getting attired for the flight .
Early this morning a Reuter telegram from Sydney announced that Miss Johnson had left Port Darwin at 7 30 am to-day on her flight across the Australian continent. She is to do this in stages, the first being one of about 350 miles to Daly Waters, where she will spend the night.

She will reach Brisbane on Wednesday, and is expected in Sydney, after a 2,000-mile journey across the Continent, a week to-day. Later she will proceed to Melbourne and Canberra

Accompanied by three aeroplanes, “Johnnie” (as Miss Johnson is known to Australia since last night’s banquet, when she disclosed that it was her nick-name) will hop off at daybreak tomorrow for Sydney. She will spend the first night on the way at Daly Waters, and from there she will make for Brisbane.

Miss Johnson has received a telegram from the Chinese Consul General in Sydney, couched in picturesque terms, which has caused her great delight. The Commonwealth Government has placed expert stenographers at her disposal to cope with the 500 congratulatory messages which she has received.

Describing her flight from Timor to Port Darwin, Miss Amy Johnson said: “When I sighted Melville Island I stood up and cheered myself. I threw overboard my pneumatic pillow, which I carried in case I crashed into the sea. I also carried a sheath knife for protection against sharks. I cried and laughed alternately until I picked up the Point Charles Lighthouse and turned towards Port Darwin.”

The King’s message
The King sent the following telegram from Buckingham Palace to the Governor General of Australia, Canberra :-

The Queen and I are thankful and delighted to know of Miss Johnson’s safe arrival in Australia, and heartily congratulate her upon her wonderful and courageous achievement.

George R.I.



     After landing in Australia

https://www.smh.com.au/national/from-the-archives-amy-johnson-s-epic-flight-to-australia-20190521-p51psm.html

25 th May 2001


  Blind man climbs Everest  , story of Erik Weihenmayer:
                                        Erik Weihenmayer becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, in the Himalayas, with Dr. Sherman Bull .


Erik Weihenmayer
1969-

American mountain climber

Ninety percent of climbers who attempt Mount Everest—at 29,035 feet, the world's highest mountain—do not make it to the summit. In 2001, Erik Weihenmayer managed to accomplish the grueling and dangerous trek to the "top of the world," making history in the process. Weihenmayer, who suffers from a retina disease, is completely blind. An accomplished mountaineer, Weihen mayer has reached the top of each of the Seven Summits—the highest mountains on each of the seven continents. "I like doing things that are new and thrilling. Blindness," Weihenmayer told People, "is just a nuisance." In climbing, "you just have to find a different way of doing it."


Weihenmayer was born in 1969 and grew up in Hong Kong and then Weston, Connecticut with his parents, Ed and Ellen Suzanne Baker Weihenmayer, and two brothers. A slight irregularity in his eyes when he was an infant alerted his parents to seek medical attention. He was diagnosed with a rare retina disease and, by the time he was three, it was clear that he would be blind before he was a teenager. He wore thick glasses and learned to read, but was legally blind. His parents made sure their son grew up as normal as possible and taught him to be self-sufficient. He played football, one-on-one basketball, and loved to ride bikes, under the careful watch of his father. He was completely blind by the time he was 13.
         

At first, Weihenmayer refused to use a cane or learn Braille, insisting he could live as he had. Incapable of playing ball anymore, he learned to wrestle, and as a senior in high school went all the way to the National Junior Freestyle Wrestling Championship in Iowa. He soon found that his guide dog was a good lure for women, and began dating at age seventeen. He graduated Boston College as an English major, and became a middle-school teacher and wrestling coach. He married his wife, Ellie Reeve, on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in 1997. The two have a daughter, Emma, and live in Golden, Colorado. Weihenmayer now works as a motivational speaker.
   

     Everest a challenge for anyone , without disabilities .

Weihenmayer first hiked with his father, and fell in love with rock climbing at age sixteen at a camp for the blind, where they called him Monkey Boy. After his mother was killed in a car crash, his father took him and his brothers trekking in Peru, Spain, Pakistan, and Papua New Guinea to bond. He began mountaineering in his early 20s. For the blind, environmental patterns are the key to making one's way through the world; city blocks are roughly the same length, curbs are the same height, and household furniture remains in the same place. In climbing, there are no patterns. The natural landscape of mountain, ice, and rock is entirely patternless.

"Watching Erik scramble up a rock face is a little like watching a spider make its way up a wall," according to Time. "His hands are like antennae, gathering information as they flick outward, surveying the rock for cracks, grooves, bowls, nubbins, knobs, edges and ledges, converting all of it into a road map etched into his mind." An accomplished climber, Weihenmayer is rated 5.10, with 5.14 being the highest. "It's like instead of wrestling with a person, I am moving and working with a rock," he told Time. "It's a beautiful process of solving a puzzle." He climbed Alaska's Denali (Mount McKinley) in 1995, California's El Capitan in 1996, Kilimanjaro in 1997, Argentina's Aconcagua in 1999, Canada's Polar Circus in 2000, and Antarctica's Mount Vinson. He follows the shouts of the climbers in front of him, who call out hazards and wear a bell and a rope attached to Weihenmayer. He is an exceptional leader under conditions that challenge the most talented mountaineers—in the dark. Weihenmayer also enjoys skydiving. Strangely, he is mildly afraid of flying.


In 1999, almost as soon as Weihenmayer met Pasquale Scaturro, a geophysicist and mountaineer who had led seven Everest expeditions, the two began setting up an expedition. They put together a nineteen-person team of experienced climbers and friends of Weihenmayer's. The National Federation of the Blind (N.F.B.), pledged $250,000 to sponsor the climb. Aventis Pharmaceuticals, which manufactures the allergy medication Allegra, sponsored a documentary of the climb; Weihen mayer suffers from allergies. All of his existing gear and clothing manufacturers backed the climb. Confident of his mountaineering experience, Weihenmayer felt sure that if he failed, it would be because of his heart, lungs, or brain—not his eyes.

The N.F.B. team arrived in Lukla, Nepal, in March 2001 to begin the trek. At the start of the climb, Weihenmayer was so sure on his feet that some Nepalese Sherpas believed he was lying about his sight. He convinced everyone when he removed one of his glass eyes, and offered to remove the other. Climbing Everest is physically, mentally, and emotionally grueling for the best climbers, under the best conditions, and many considered Weihenmayer foolhardy. By the time they ascended from Base Camp, the lowest camp on the mountain, to Camp One, Weihenmayer looked awful—he was suffering from the altitude and was bloody from getting hit in the face with a trekking pole. But it looked worse than it was and Weihenmayer and the team continued up to Camps Two, Three, and Four, the final stop.


At Camp Four, preparing to head for the summit, a storm came in that almost dashed their hopes. After a break in the weather, they continued to push on to the South Summit, with a 10,000-foot vertical fall into Tibet on one side, and a 7,000-foot fall into Nepal on the other. South Summit is often where climbers turn back. Hillary Step, a 39-foot rock face, is the last obstacle before reaching the true summit of Everest. Because of an approaching storm, Weihenmayer only had a few minutes at the top to soak it all in. After returning home, Weihenmayer added a chapter, titled "Everest," to his autobiography, To Touch the Top of the World, which was originally published before his climb.



   Erik , far left at an audience with President Bush .

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/who-was-the-first-bling-person-to-summit-the-mount-everest.html

26 th May 1940

  World War  11 , Dunkirk :
                                        World War II: Operation Dynamo: In northern France, Allied forces begin a massive evacuation from Dunkirk, France.

       
Evacuation of Dunkirk
by Ben Johnson
The year 2021 will mark the 81st anniversary of the evacuation of more than 300,000 Allied soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk, France between May 26th and June 4th 1940, during World War II.

British, French, Canadian, and Belgian troops had been forced back to Dunkirk by the advancing German army. Nearly all the escape routes to the English Channel had been cut off; a terrible disaster had appeared inevitable. At the time Prime Minister Winston Churchill called it “a miracle of deliverance”.



On 12th May 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion of France. By 14th May 1940, German tanks had crossed the Meuse and had opened up a gap in the Allied front. Six days later they reached the English Channel.

The British, French and Belgium governments had seriously underestimated the strength of the German forces. As a result the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), as well as French, Canadian and Belgian troops, found themselves fighting against overwhelming odds. Before long, the Allied forces had retreated to the harbour and beaches of Dunkirk where they were trapped, a sitting target for the Germans.


In an effort to at least evacuate some of the troops, just before 19.00 on the 26th May, Winston Churchill ordered the start of ‘Operation Dynamo’. This plan took its name from the dynamo room (which provided electricity) in the naval headquarters below Dover Castle, where Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay had planned the operation.

Destroyers and transport ships were sent to evacuate the troops, but they only expected to have time to lift off about 30,000 troops.

     

   Allied troops huddled on the beach awaiting excavation .


However, in one of the most widely-debated and potentially pivotal decisions of the war, Adolf Hitler ordered his generals to halt for three days, giving the Allies time to organise the evacuation. In the end, despite heavy fire from German fighter and bomber planes on the beaches, no full scale German attack was launched and over 330,000 Allied troops were eventually rescued.

The evacuation was by no means straightforward. Before long the harbour became partially blocked by ships sunk during the constant raids from enemy aircraft. It became necessary to take the troops off the nearby beaches, an almost impossible task because of shallow water which prevented large ships from coming in close to shore. Small ships were needed to ferry the troops from the beaches to the larger ships.



700 of these “little ships” were used. Many of the smaller vessels, such as motor yachts, fishing boats etc., were privately owned. Although a large number of these ships were taken across the English Channel by navy personnel, many were also taken over by their civilian owners.

It is thought that the smallest boat to make the journey across the Channel was the Tamzine, an 18 feet open topped fishing boat now on display at the Imperial War Museum, London.



The escape captured the minds and hearts of the British people at a time when it seemed that they too would soon be invaded. What was actually a defeat appeared like a victory when so many men were brought back safely to England… The Miracle of Dunkirk.



Between 27th May and 4th June 1940, nearly 700 ships brought over 338,000 people back to Britain, including more than 100,000 soldiers of the French Army. All heavy equipment was abandoned and left in France, including over 2,000 pieces of artillery and 85,000 motor vehicles. Also left behind were more than 440 British tanks that had been sent to France with the BEF.

The phrase “Dunkirk spirit” is still in use today to describe British people banding together in the face of adversity.



  Some of the small craft used in the evacuation .

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

27 th April 1975

  The Dibbles bridge coach tragedy .

                                                     Dibbles Bridge coach crash near Grassington, in North Yorkshire, England, kills 33 – the highest ever death toll in a road accident in the United Kingdom.


            It remains the worst accident in British motoring history.

It happened at 4pm on May 27, 1975, when a coach carrying women on a day trip from Thornaby-on-Tees to the Yorkshire Dales careered down a steep bank on the B6265 road, Dibble’s Bridge, near Hebden.

The vehicle plunged 16ft (5m) off the bridge in North Yorkshire, landing in a garden and crushing those on board, including the driver. The majority - 33 of the 46 - people on board died in the horrific accident and not a year goes by where Thornaby-on-Tees doesn't fall silent to remember the names of those that perished.

A plaque in the pavilion of the Teeside town, where most of the travellers came from, remembers those that died and in 2015, a 40th anniversary memorial service was held in St Paul’s Church.

Another plaque was unveiled in 2018 by the owner of a funeral directors on Lanehouse Road, which is where the coach of hopeful visitors to the Yorkshire Dales set off from on that fateful day, having paid their £2 entry fee.


The pensioners were on a mystery tour organised by a former mayor of the town Dorothy White and heading in their yellow coach for Grassington where they were to have tea; having already visited Ripon and Knaresborough.

But disaster struck just short of their destination.

On an exceptionally steep downward slope on the B6265 between Pateley Bridge and Hedben the stand-in driver Roger Marriott missed a gear, and when he tried to slow the coach with his brakes they rapidly overheated and failed.
The coach failed to negotiate a sharp right hand bend at the bottom of the one-in-six gradient Fan Carl Hill, tore through a three-foot high stone parapet of Dibbles Bridge and landed on its fibreglass roof in a garden 17 feet below. The sides of the coach buckled on impact and the roof of the coach crumpled uselessly.
           Cranes were used to dispose of the wreckage.
Thirty three people died in total, including Mr Marriott, who told those who arrived first on the scene what had happened whilst he was still trapped. His claim that the brakes had failed, made as his shirt and tie were being loosened so that he could breathe easier, would be confirmed by experts later during the inquest.

Rescuers were quickly on the scene and, for three hours, worked with cutting equipment, jacks and cranes to free the victims. A fleet of ambulances, with a police escort, ferried the dead and injured to Airedale Hospital, where a casualty bureau was set up. Two hospital chaplains waited for the relatives of the victims to arrive and pathologists worked through the night to identify the dead.

           
     The overturned wreckage
One of those first on the scene was then-25-year-old Lincoln Seligman, who had rented Dibbles Bridge Cottage for the Spring Bank Holiday and visited from London.

Recollecting to YorkshireLive 45 years on, Mr Seligman explained that he had been having a BBQ and went inside just before the coach landed in the cottage garden.

He said: " There was a huge noise and then complete silence until people began crying out.

"I think the main problem was that it was such an old coach. When it had turned upside down the weight of the engine and everything underneath crumbled in on itself and down on the occupants."

He recalled that the fact it was a bank holiday meant that the emergency workers were not at full capacity and so it took a "matter of hours" before the police, ambulance and other services arrived to help.

Mr Seligman and a number of other civilians helped the occupants get out of the coach but he recalled that it was too late for some.

Reflecting on that day, he said: "It's the kind of thing you never forget and it changes your expectation and anticipation of things as you can see what can happen all too easily."


A documentary about the crash was released in 2019.
Acting sergeant John Middleton arrived after the accident and said at that time the driver was alive, but unconscious. "I could see that it was hopeless to help him or try to remove him," he said.

"After leaving the driver, I went to the middle of the coach - at this time the centre window was still intact and behind the window was a woman who was quite conscious but whose foot was trapped."

PC Middleton smashed the window and freed the woman using jacks.


Police later praised local people for their help, which had included re-routing the traffic.

The crash was survived by 13 of the pensioners on board. They, and nearly 1,000 others, squeezed into a memorial service at Thornaby Methodist Church, to pay their respects. A disaster fund set up by the Mayor of Stockton raised thousands.


An inquest found that the crash had been caused by a brake failure.
It took experts several weeks to confirm what Mr Marriott had said in the first place: the brakes had failed. At Skipton Magistrates’ Court, Norman Riley, the owner of the coach, pleaded guilty to using a vehicle on which the braking system was not properly maintained. He was fined £75.

An inquest jury returned verdicts of accidental death on the victims. The coroner, James Turnbull, summed up the scale of what had happened.

“This has been described as Britain’s worst motor disaster,” he said. “If it is true, let us all hope that it always retains that title.”

The cause of the terrible accident did not go unnoticed though. Even if before the crash there had been a campaign to improve the braking system of coaches, the Dibbles Bridge crash brought the issue to a wider public and ultimately legislation was passed that required improved braking systems.

Mr Seligman - who has gone on to have an illustrious career as a nationally-renowned sculptor - added: "It seems so extraordinary that it should've happened for such a poor reason. The bus was badly maintained and as I recall there was practically no comeback on the owners at all."



  A view of the wreckage from above .

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

28 th May 1907

    The Manx T.T race:

The first Isle of Man TT race.

        The first Isle of Man TT race

28 May 1907 – First Isle of Man TT
The Isle of Man Tourist Trophy is one of the few remaining untamed road races on the planet. If you were to pitch it anew in the year 2021 you’d be laughed right out of the planning meeting; fatalities have averaged more than one a year since the first race in 1907. Yet year after year, it attracts an enormous roster of both road-racing specialist riders and enthusiastic fans; there really is nothing quite like it.

While the name is the same, the TT has nevertheless changed significantly over the years. That first event, which took place on May 28, 1907, was held not on the Snaefell Mountain Course as it is today, but a smaller circuit of just under 16 miles known as the St John’s Short Course, based around the eponymous town located between Douglas and Peel.

There was a single race of ten laps, comprising two classes – one for single-cylinder motorcycles and the other for twins. A total of 25 riders set off in pairs, and much as today’s TT classes are required to stop for fuel during the longer races, the first TT included a compulsory 10-minute “replenishment” stop.

If that sounds excessive for a race of around 158 miles, then remember these early machines could be as recalcitrant as the horses they replaced. Punctures were common, and for a rider named Oliver Godfrey, the rest stop was less than restful when his five-horsepower Rex caught fire.
     

  The evolution of the iconic race .                  

Charles Collier won the single-cylinder race on a Matchless, averaging 38.21mph over four hours and eight minutes – nearly 100mph slower than Peter Hickman’s TT lap record set in 2018.

His counterpart on the twins, Rem Fowler on a 5hp Peugeot-engined Norton, might have missed out on his own victory were it not for the encouraging words of a spectator. Fowler’s bike suffered multiple problems with spark plugs and drive belts, and skittered down the road when a tyre burst at high speed.

Ready to retire, he was informed that he was over 30 minutes ahead of the next competitor, and struggled home with an average speed of 36.22mph – plus a fastest lap of nearly 43mph. The speeds might have been tame, but it seems the herculean effort needed to win the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy hasn’t changed a bit.

       

  Rem Fowler with his 5hp Peugeot-engined Norton motorcycle at the first Isle of Man Tourist Trophy, 28 May 1907.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1907_Isle_of_Man_TT

29 th May 1985

 The Heysel stadium disaster :
                                            Heysel Stadium disaster: Thirty-nine association football fans die and hundreds are injured when a dilapidated retaining wall collapses.

   Heysel football disaster remembered 36 years on

On 29 May, 1985, 39 football fans died during violent clashes between Liverpool and Juventus supporters at the European Cup final in Brussels.

As a result of the disaster at Heysel Stadium, UEFA banned English clubs from taking part in European football for five years, with Liverpool serving an extra year.

For lifelong Liverpool fan Chris Rowland, the events of that night are as clear today as they were 25 years ago.

"I remember all of it," he said. "The memory has stayed crystal clear in my mind."

More than 60,000 Liverpool and Juventus fans were at the rundown stadium when violence erupted about an hour before kick-off.
   
         

         The collapsed retaining wall.

A retaining wall separating the opposing fans collapsed as the Italian club's supporters tried to escape from Liverpool followers.

Thirty-two Italians, four Belgians, two French and a man from Northern Ireland died while hundreds of fans were injured.

Mr Rowland, who was not involved in the violence, was aged 28 at the time and regularly travelled with friends throughout Europe to support Liverpool.

"It started out like all the European trips," he said. "There was no reason to suspect it would be very different to any of the others."

But when Mr Rowland, now aged 53, arrived at the stadium half an hour before the match, it became clear that something was amiss.

"We saw people charging over the wall and charging towards us," he explained. "Our first thought was that they were attacking us.

"We saw chaos around the turnstiles and the shabby state of the ground."

He said he heard a sound similar to that of a heavy metal gate clanging - which he later realised must have been the wall falling.

A wall separating supporters fell and crushed a number of fans
Mr Rowland, who lives in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, became aware that someone had died later that evening.

But it was not until reading the morning newspapers the following day that he realised the real extent of what had happened.

"It was incredulous that something of that scale could have happened," Mr Rowland added.

"You cannot begin to understand the enormity of it. It was awful, absolutely awful."

Inside the stadium's dressing room waiting to play was Liverpool defender Gary Gillespie.

'Completely useless'
Mr Gillespie said he and his teammates had no idea what was happening.

"We we very much cocooned in that dressing room," he said. "We did not really know what the situation was outside.

"As we were getting changed in the dressing room there was the usual banter, obviously the usual nerves because it was such a big occasion, and then we got conflicting reports about what had happen."

Following the tragedy, there was widespread criticism of the Liverpool fans and English football supporters in general, who had gained a reputation for hooliganism in previous years.

UEFA imposed the ban on English clubs and in 1989, 14 Liverpool fans were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter at a five-month trial in Belgium.

They were given three-year sentences - although half the terms were suspended.

There has never been an official inquiry into the incident to find out exactly what happened.

Some people claimed Juventus supporters provoked Liverpool fans by hurling stones and other missiles, others blamed the lack of police presence, poor organisation and a decrepit stadium.

Italian journalist Giancarlo Galavotti, London correspondent for the Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper, was at the Heysel Stadium on 29 May, 1985.

He described the Belgian policing of the event as "completely useless".

"I could really tell, let's say 15 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour, before the fatal clash occurred that it was a very serious and dangerous situation that was developing," he said.

"Irrespective of what was the behaviour of some sections of the Liverpool fans, if Belgian police had been adept in policing the situation, like the Italian police were the year earlier in Rome, I do not think there would have been such a tragedy happening in Brussels in 1985."

Liverpool supporter Graham Agg, 48, from Netherton, Liverpool, also criticised the Belgian police and the state of the stadium.


"How they got permission to hold a European Cup final was beyond belief," he said. "It was falling down. There was no security.

"The terrace was crumbling - you could pick up bricks. It was a disgrace.

"In Liverpool's history it is one of the dark days, but a very small minority caused the trouble.

"Even when they did cause the trouble, they did not intend for people to die. If it had been held in a proper stadium it would never have happened."

The game eventually went ahead, despite objections from both managers, and Juventus won 1-0 with a second-half penalty.

The Heysel Stadium, built in 1930, was demolished and replaced by the all-seater Stade Roi Baudouin.

A plaque to remember the 39 people killed was unveiled at Liverpool's Anfield stadium .



   Fans flee the scene .


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

30 th May 1842

   Royal assassination attempt :
                                              John Francis attempts to murder Queen Victoria as she drives down Constitution Hill in London with Prince Albert.

                 Exactly 181 years ago today, on May 30 1842, John Francis shot at Queen Victoria, riding in her carriage outside Buckingham Palace on Constitution Hill. This was actually Francis’s second attempt; the day before, he had pulled out his pistol but had either lost courage or his gun had misfired; he slipped away. But three people had witnessed him, and one of these was Prince Albert. The royal couple, then, was aware that an assailant was on the loose, and they thought it more than likely he would strike again. The two made a conscious decision to ride out that day, therefore, in a deliberate attempt to flush Francis out. And they succeeded. A police officer assigned to patrol the park succeeded in grabbing Francis, but not before he had fired his shot at the Queen.
   
               

   A portrayal of the assassination attempt .
    John Francis, 19 at the time (as he is in the portrait below), was the only one of Victoria’s assailants to be found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. His sentence was, however, commuted to transportation for life. He lived the rest of his 63 years in Australia, marrying and fathering ten children. He died in 1885. Many of his descendants live on




https://www.historyofroyalwomen.com/the-year-of-queen-victoria-2019/the-year-of-queen-victoria-the-assassination-attempts-on-queen-victoria/

31st may 1859

    the Birth of Big Ben :
                                   The clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, which houses Big Ben, starts keeping time.

                              1859
May 31
Big Ben rings out over London for the first time
The famous tower clock known as Big Ben, located at the top of the 320-foot-high Elizabeth Tower, rings out over the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, for the first time on May 31, 1859.

After a fire destroyed much of the Palace of Westminster—the headquarters of the British Parliament—in October 1834, a standout feature of the design for the new palace was a large clock atop a tower. The royal astronomer, Sir George Airy, wanted the clock to have pinpoint accuracy, including twice-a-day checks with the Royal Greenwich Observatory. While many clockmakers dismissed this goal as impossible, Airy counted on the help of Edmund Beckett Denison, a formidable barrister known for his expertise in horology, or the science of measuring time.



   Big Ben in its london setting .                    

The name “Big Ben” originally just applied to the bell but later came to refer to the clock itself. Two main stories exist about how Big Ben got its name. Many claim it was named after the famously long-winded Sir Benjamin Hall, the London commissioner of works at the time it was built. Another famous story argues that the bell was named for the popular heavyweight boxer Benjamin Caunt, because it was the largest of its kind.

Even after an incendiary bomb destroyed the chamber of the House of Commons during the Second World War, Elizabeth Tower survived, and Big Ben continued to function. Its famously accurate timekeeping is regulated by a stack of coins placed on the clock’s huge pendulum, ensuring a steady movement of the clock hands at all times. At night, all four of the clock’s faces, each one 23 feet across, are illuminated. A light above Big Ben is also lit to let the public know when Parliament is in session.

   Interesting facts about Big Ben and the Elizabeth tower :
                                                                       https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/big-ben/building-clock-tower/key-dates-/

                  Only British citizens are allowed on tours of Big Ben as security fears force ban on foreigners


Foreigners have been banned from visiting Big Ben over security fears.

Tourists from abroad were until recently allowed to tour the legendary London landmark.

But due to mounting security problems they have now been banned.

Clearance checks for foreigners which were to ensure that terrorists could not target the historic clock tower became too complex and costly.

British citizens are still allowed to visit Big Ben, but must apply by writing to their M

The tour includes a trip to the top of The Great Clock, popularly known as Big Ben but it is now no longer an option for the millions of tourists who flock to the capital each year.

Michael McCann, the Keeper of The Great Clock, said the policy had to change to maintain security at the iconic London monument.

He said: 'We used to get a lot of foreign tourists but you have to be a British citizen now. It just got too complicated with the security checks, as you can imagine.

'We don't do public tours but you can write to your MP with a reason for wanting to see it and they arrange a tour for you. We do a tour up to three times a day which sounds a lot but there are only 16 people on a tour.

1 st June 1494

   First scotch whisky :
                                A monk, John Cor, records the first known batch of Scotch whisky .


                 On this day 1494…first mention of Scotch distilling

On 1 June 1494, the Exchequer Rolls of James IV of Scotland record the granting of malt to a monk in order to make “aqua vitae” in what is considered the first recorded mention of whisky – or at least distilling – in Scottish history.
The Exchequer Rolls of medieval kings were the records of royal income and expenditure and for those interested in drinks they are often filled with sometimes tantalising and sometimes very detailed references to wine, beer and, later on, spirits.
             The entry in question in this instance records: “To Friar John Cor, by order of the King, to make aqua vitae VIII bolls of malt.”



               
                                            King James made the first order for " Scotch "


Historians are broadly in agreement that by specifically referring to ‘aqua vitae’ and the reference to malt (barley) in order to make it, Friar John Cor or one of his fellow friars must have been making spirits.

Aqua vitae means ‘water of life’ in Latin as does the Gaelic ‘uisge-beatha’, which was subsequently anglicised as ‘whisky’. Thus, goes the argument, this mention in 1494 marks the first record of whisky – or at the very least distilling – in Scotland.

There is of course no evidence of exactly the sort of spirit Father Cor was producing. It was certainly not ‘Scotch’ in the sense we understand it today, there is no indication that it was aged in barrels for instance or certainly not for any length of time and given the people of the middle ages tended to prefer their wines to be clear and limpid, it is very likely the first spirits were clear as well and the brown spirits we so prize today were considered undesirable in the same way that Dom Pérignon would later seek to eliminate the bubbles from his wine.

The final spirit would also have been flavoured with herbs and spices and so, in a way, was more like a gin than a whisky. On the other hand, like any Scotch distillery worth its salt the abbey had its own water source (it is extremely close to the River Tay), Holy Burn, with which to help make its spirit.

In an aside, it is said William Wallace and his men satyed at the abbey following their victorious skirmish with the English at Earnside in 1304. Scooping up a handful of water from the burn, the weary Wallace is said to have remarked that: “The wine in France I ne’er thought half so good.”

Nor is much known about Father Cor and his exact involvement in the distilling of this ‘aqua vitae’.

It is known that he was a friar of the Tironensian Order and lived at Lindores Abbey in Fife: the Tironensians being, as so many other orders were, a stricter off-shoot of the Benedictines.

Cor’s exact position in the abbey is unclear but he is often mentioned in the records and must have been a figure of some standing; he is later mentioned in the Exchequer Rolls as receiving a gift of money from the king at Christmas and black cloth for clothing when serving for a period as a clerk in the royal household.

But was he or another brother friar the distiller at Lindores Abbey? It is likely we shall never know for sure and so Friar John Cor shall remain the first person we know of directly connected to distilling in Scotland.

What we can suppose from the records is that distilling pre-dates 1494 and that the amount being produced was not inconsiderable.

The origins of distilling are very old, being known to the ancients who distilled water and made some weak alcohol from the process and it was also used by the Arabs for making perfumes.

Although scholars and alchemists likely experimented with distilling in early medieval Europe, large scale distilling for both medicinal use and general consumption probably didn’t make much headway until the very late 14th and more likely 15th and 16th centuries.

Just six years after its mention in Scotland, over in Germany Hieronymus Brunschwig would publish his book on distillation techniques ‘Liber de arte distillandi de simplicibus’, which suggests it is around this time that the process was being increasingly refined and widespread.

Although the malt for the production of the spirit was provided by the king, there is little indication that the resulting aqua vitae was intended for his consumption and is more likely to have been retained for future use as a medicine.

There would have quite a lot to go round though. A ‘boll’ was an old Scottish measurement derived from the word ‘bowl’ and while these units can be hard to convert accurately in modern terms, it is generally stated to be the equivalent of 1,500 70cl bottles today – evidence indeed that distilling was pretty well established at this point.

Unfortunately, neither the Abbey nor its royal patron came to happy ends. James IV was cutdown by English billmen along with many of his nobles at the Battle of Flodden in 1513 and Lindores was attacked and overthrown by Reformers in the later 16th century, the final time in 1559 by the rabble rousing minister John Knox, and was left in ruins, its buildings quarried for stone and slate and its clock ending up in Edinburgh.

Yet distilling at the site continues today. The site was bought in 1913 by John Howison and his grandson, Drew McKenzie Smith, has revived spirits making there within sight of the abbey ruins.

Permission for a distillery was granted three years ago and the first new spirit was produced in December last year.

Although the Lindores Abbey Distillery is aiming to make Scotch whisky it will not be ready until at least 2021 and the distillery is hoping to age it at least five before release.

In the meantime, however, drawing on the historical record, it has produced an ‘Aqua Vitae’ flavoured with cleavers (goose grass), lemon verbena, douglas fir and sweet cicely which are all grown in the grounds of the old abbey.

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

2 nd June 1953

  Coronation of Queen Elizabeth 11 :
                                                    The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, who is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories & Head of the Commonwealth, the first major international event to be televised.

           
The Coronation 1953

On the 2nd June 1953, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place and the whole country joined in celebration.

This is a personal account of that momentous day:

“The only problem on the actual day was the typical British weather…it poured with rain!

But that didn’t stop people all over the country holding parties in the decorated streets of their towns and cities, and in London the roads were packed with people waiting to see the processions that took place.

   
                       The Royal couple at the ceremony .

The massed London crowds refused to be downhearted by the weather, and most of them had spent the night before on the crowded pavements, waiting for this special day to begin.

And for the first time ever, the ordinary people of Britain were going to be able to watch a monarch’s coronation in their own homes. It was announced earlier in the year that the crowning of the Queen would be televised, and the sales of TV sets rocketed.



Apparently there had been much controversy in the Government as to whether it would be ‘right and proper’ to televise such a solemn occasion. Several members of the Cabinet at the time, including Sir Winston Churchill, urged the Queen to spare herself the strain of the heat and glare of the cameras, by refusing to have the ceremony televised.

The Queen received this message coldly, and refused to listen to their protests. The young queen personally routed the Earl Marshall, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sir Winston Churchill and the Cabinet …she had made her decision!

        Her motivation was clear, nothing must stand between her crowning and her people’s right to participate.
   
       


            The crowning ceremony .

So, on June 2nd 1953 at 11 o’clock over the country people settled down in front of their television sets. Compared to the present day ones, these sets were quite primitive. The pictures were black and white, as colour sets were not available then, and the tiny 14-inch screen was the most popular size.

The Queen arrived at Westminster Abbey looking radiant, but there was a problem in the Abbey: the carpet!

The carpet in the Abbey had been laid with pile running the wrong way, which meant that the Queen’s robes had trouble gliding easily over the carpet pile. The metal fringe on the Queen’s golden mantel caught in the pile of the carpet, and clawed her back when she tried to move forward. The Queen had to tell the Archbishop of Canterbury, ‘Get me started’.

Another problem was that the holy oil, with which the Queen was to be anointed at the ceremony and which had been used at her father’s coronation, had been destroyed during a WWII bombing raid, and the firm who made it had gone out of business.

But fortunately, an elderly relative of the firm had kept a few ounces of the original base and a new batch was quickly made up.

The ‘Crowning Ceremony’ took place exactly as it is laid down in the history books, and when St. Edward’s Crown (this crown is only ever used for the actual crowning) was placed on her head the whole country, watching on their television sets, joined as one in celebration.

So, in spite of the rain, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was certainly a day to remember …’God save the Queen’.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_of_Elizabeth_II#:~:text=The%20coronation%20of%20Elizabeth%20II,and%20executive%20councils%20shortly%20afterwards.

3 rd June 2017

  The London bridge attack :
 
                         

LONDON Bridge was the scene of a brutal and shocking terrorist attack on June 3, 2017.

The attack left eight people dead and 48 injured. Here's how the attack unfolded and how the UK reacted to the horrifying event.
   Police officers and members of the emergency services tend to a person injured in the terror attack on London Bridge
5

Who were the attackers?
Three terrorists wearing stab-proof vests drove a van into pedestrians at 50mph on London Bridge before attacking revellers around Borough Market with hunting knives.

Police identified two of the attackers as Pakistani-born Khuram Shazad Butt, 27, and Morrocan Rachid Redoune, 30.

The third attacker, also Morrocan-born, was Youssef Zaghba.

The 22-year-old had been arrested at Bologna Airport in March 2016 when he tried to travel to Syria via Turkey.

  The terrorists lie on the floor after being taken down by police
5

What happened in the London Bridge attack?
In a rampage lasting little over eight minutes, the terrorist gang stabbed and slashed at innocent victims with 12-inch blades.

After ploughing a white van into several pedestrians on London Bridge, the killers ran down a flight of stairs at the side of London Bridge towards Cafe Brood near Borough Market.

The terrorists then ran down the road and began to attack drinkers in the nearby Mudlark pub before entering Borough Market itself.

An eyewitness said it was not long before they had completed a loop of the market and came back to Cafe Brood before continuing onto the Black and Blue restaurant where they were finally gunned down by police.

After the attack police evacuated many of the survivors from Borough Market to Liverpool Street where they took witness statements and kept them inside until Sunday morning.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the depraved attack as a chilling video emerged showing three jihadis calmly strolling past a pub during their van and knife rampage.

One officer was seriously wounded before heroic cops gunned down extremists minutes after the first emergency call at 10.08pm.

A minute's silence was observed in the UK on June 6 at 11am to remember the victims while events of remembrance will take place on the one-year anniversary of the attack on Sunday, June 3, 2018.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_London_Bridge_attack

4 th June 1913

   Emily Davison . suffragette, and the 1913 Epsom Derby:
                                            Emily Davison, a suffragette, runs out in front of King George V's horse at The Derby. She is trampled, never regains consciousness, and dies four days later.

        Epsom, 4th June 1913 - Emily Wilding Davison, the known suffragette, has died as a result of injuries sustained during her extraordinary protest at this year's Derby at Epsom. As the horses rounded Tattenham Corner, Ms. Davison ducked under the railings and ran in front of Anmer, the horse owned by King George V.

           Attempts by Amner’s jockey, Herbert Jones, to avoid her proved unsuccessful. The horse ploughed into Ms. Davison, somersaulted and landed on top of his jockey.

The incident was seen by the Irish author and critic, St. John Irvine: ‘The King’s horse, Amner, came up and Miss Davison went towards it. She put up her hand, but whether it was to catch hold of the reins or to protect herself, I do not know. It was all over in a few seconds.’

‘I could not see whether any other horses touched her. I was so horrified at seeing her pitched violently down by the horse that I did not think of anything else.’

Mr. Jones was removed to the ambulance room at the back of the grandstand, where he was treated for minor injuries, including a broken rib and slight concussion. He told reporters: ‘I am quite comfortable. I have a broken rib, but I have had that before and it will soon be better.

         

   Herbert Jones (jockey) being taken to the ambulance room .

He expressed concern for the well-being of Ms. Davison and for his horse, Anmer. The horse’s trainer, Mr. March, later confirmed that the horse was uninjured.

Ms. Davison was removed by stretcher to the local Epsom Cottage hospital, without regaining consciousness. Early suggestions that she had been attempting to cross the track to meet a friend before fainting when seeing the horses galloping towards her were quickly discounted.

   

    The scene immediately after the collision .


Ms. Davison has a long record of militant suffragette agitation and was sporting two flags of the Women's Social and Political Union as she made her protest.

In recent years, she has been imprisoned eight times. Her offences include assault, stone-throwing, breaking windows, and setting fire to pillar boxes. During her various stays in prison she has gone on hunger strikes, barricaded herself in her cell, been restricted to solitary confinement, had a hosepipe turned on her and force-fed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1913_Epsom_Derby#:~:text=The%20race%20itself%20was%20overshadowed,she%20died%204%20days%20later.

5 th June 1963

 The Profumo affair :
                              The British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, resigns in a sex scandal known as the "Profumo affair".

                      British Secretary of War John Profumo resigns amid sex scandal
On June 5, 1963, British Secretary of War John Profumo resigns his post following revelations that he had lied to the House of Commons about his sexual affair with Christine Keeler, an alleged prostitute. At the time of the affair, Keeler was also involved with Yevgeny “Eugene” Ivanov, a Soviet naval attache who some suspected was a spy. Although Profumo assured the government that he had not compromised national security in any way, the scandal threatened to topple Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s government.

John Dennis Profumo was appointed secretary of war by Macmillan in 1960. As war minister, he was in charge of overseeing the British army. The post was a junior cabinet position, but Profumo looked a good candidate for future promotion. He was married to Valerie Hobson, a retired movie actress, and the Profumos were very much at the center of “swinging ’60s” society in the early 1960s. One night in July 1961, John Profumo was at the Cliveden estate of Lord “Bill” Astor when he was first introduced to 19-year-old Christine Keeler. She was frolicking naked by the Cliveden pool.



      John Profumo , after admitting his affair with Christine Keeler .

Keeler was at Cliveden as a guest of Dr. Stephen Ward, a society osteopath and part-time portraitist who rented a cottage at the estate from his friend Lord Astor. Keeler was working as a showgirl at a London nightclub when she first met Dr. Ward. Ward took her under his wing, and they lived together in his London flat but were not lovers. He encouraged her to pursue sexual relationships with his high-class friends, and on one or more occasions Keeler apparently accepted money in exchange for sex. Ward introduced her to his friend Ivanov, and she began a sexual relationship with the Soviet diplomat. Several weeks after meeting Profumo at Cliveden, she also began an affair with the war minister. There is no evidence that either of these men paid her for sex, but Profumo once gave Keeler some money to buy her mother a birthday present.


After an intense few months, Profumo ended his affair with Keeler before the end of 1961. His indiscretions might never have come to public attention were it not for an incident involving Keeler that occurred in early 1963. Johnny Edgecombe, a West Indian marijuana dealer, was arrested for shooting up the exterior of Ward’s London flat after Keeler, his ex-lover, refused to let him in. The press gave considerable coverage to the incident and subsequent trial, and rumors were soon abounding about Keeler’s earlier relationship with Profumo. When Keeler confirmed reports of her affair with Profumo, and admitted a concurrent relationship with Ivanov, what had been cocktail-party gossip grew into a scandal with serious security connotations.

On March 21, 1963, Colonel George Wigg, a Labour MP for Dudley, raised the issue in the House of Commons, inviting the member of government in question to affirm or deny the rumors of his improprieties. Wigg forced Profumo’s hand, not, he claimed, to embarrass the Conservative government but because the Ivanov connection was a matter of national security. Behind closed doors, however, British intelligence had already concluded that Profumo had not compromised national security in any way and found little evidence implicating Ivanov as a spy. Nevertheless, Wigg had raised the issue, and Profumo had no choice but to stand up before Parliament on March 22 and make a statement. He vehemently denied the charges, saying “there was no impropriety whatsoever in my acquaintanceship with Miss Keeler.” To drive home his point, he continued, “I shall not hesitate to issue writs for libel and slander if scandalous allegations are made or repeated outside the House.”

     

  Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies are surrounded by press as they leave the old bailey.

Profumo’s convincing denial defused the scandal for several weeks, but in May Dr. Stephen Ward went on trial in London on charges of prostituting Keeler and other young women. In the highly sensationalized trial, Keeler testified under oath about her relationship with Profumo. Ward also wrote Harold Wilson, leader of the Labour opposition in Parliament, and affirmed that Profumo had lied to the House of Commons. On June 4, Profumo returned from a holiday in Italy with his wife and confessed to Conservative leaders that Miss Keeler had been his mistress and that his March 22 statement to the Commons was untrue. On June 5, he resigned as war minister.

Prime Minister Macmillan was widely criticized for his handling of the Profumo scandal. In the press and in Parliament, Macmillan was condemned as being old, out-of-touch, and incompetent. In October, he resigned under pressure from his own government. He was replaced by Conservative Alec Douglas-Home, but in the general election in 1964 the Conservatives were swept from power by Harold Wilson’s Labour Party.

Dr. Stephen Ward fell into a coma after attempting suicide by an overdose of pills. In his absence, he was found guilty of living off the immoral earnings of prostitution and died shortly after without regaining consciousness. Christine Keeler was convicted of perjury in a related trial and began a prison sentence in December 1963. John Profumo left politics after his resignation and dedicated himself to philanthropy in the East End of London. For his charitable work, Queen Elizabeth II named him a Commander of the British Empire, one of Britain’s highest honors, in 1975.

Keeler’s autobiography, The Truth at Last: My Story was published in 2001. She died on December 4, 2017. Profumo died on March 10, 2006, two days after suffering a stroke.

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

6 th June 1944

   D day :
             Commencement of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy, with the execution of Operation Neptune—commonly referred to as D-Day—the largest seaborne invasion in history. Nearly 160,000 Allied troops cross the English Channel with about 5,000 landing and assault craft, 289 escort vessels, and 277 minesweepers participating. By the end of the day, the Allies have landed on four invasion beaches and are pushing inland.

         D-Day

During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion target. By late August 1944, all of northern France had been liberated, and by the following spring the Allies had defeated the Germans. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of war in Europe.

         

  Personnel and equipment arriving at Normandy .

Preparing for D-Day
After World War II began, Germany invaded and occupied northwestern France beginning in May 1940. The Americans entered the war in December 1941, and by 1942 they and the British (who had been evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk in May 1940 after being cut off by the Germans in the Battle of France) were considering the possibility of a major Allied invasion across the English Channel. The following year, Allied plans for a cross-Channel invasion began to ramp up. In November 1943, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), who was aware of the threat of an invasion along France’s northern coast, put Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) in charge of spearheading defense operations in the region, even though the Germans did not know exactly where the Allies would strike. Hitler charged Rommel with finishing the Atlantic Wall, a 2,400-mile fortification of bunkers, landmines and beach and water obstacles.

   

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

7 th June 1977


   Queen Elizabeth 11 , silver jubilee :
                                                     
Five hundred million people watch the high day of the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II begin on television.


        “A jubilant burst of celebrations in London and all over the country officially marks the start of Jubilee Week revelries,” the souvenir 12p edition of the Radio Times of June 4 to 10, 1977, declared.

More than 4,000 street parties were held in London alone with 12,000 in Britain as a whole.


Jubilee Day on June 7 saw the biggest outside broadcast in colour that the BBC had ever mounted, while the Queen joined in the fun by lighting the first bonfire in the biggest chain of beacons seen in Britain since the Spanish Armada, and which linked Windsor Great Park with 103 Fires Of Friendship the length and breadth of the UK.
       

1977: Queen celebrates Silver Jubilee
More than one million people have lined the streets of London to watch the Royal Family on their way to St Paul's at the start of the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations.
The Queen, dressed in pink on her Jubilee Day and accompanied by Prince Phillip, led the procession in the golden state coach.

Despite the rain thousands camped out over night to try to get a better view of the procession as it made its way down the Mall and through Trafalgar Square, Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill.

At St Paul's 2,700 specially selected guests, including politicians and other heads of state joined in the ceremony which began with Ralph Vaughan Williams' arrangement of the hymn "All people that on earth do dwell" which was played at the Queen's coronation in 1953.

Across Britain millions of people tuned in to watch events on the television and many more celebrated with their own street parties. Roads were quiet and many took the day off work.

Sea of Union Jacks

The Queen, speaking at the Corporation of London lunch at the Guildhall said: "I want to thank all those in Britain and the Commonwealth who through their loyalty and friendship have given me strength and encouragement during these last 25 years."

"My thanks go also to the many thousands who have sent me messages of congratulations on my silver jubilee, that and their good wishes for the future" she added.

The Queen and Prince Phillip then mingled with crowds who handed over flowers and cards.

Later the Royal Family delighted the crowds again with an appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

The Queen, along with her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, waved as the crowd on the Mall, which resembled a sea of Union Jack flags, sang the National Anthem.


   


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

Sorry for early posting of this history piece , my daughters got me a new laptop
 and i wanted to be sure i knew how to work it , i got halfway there but had to revert
 go back to the old (outdated machine ) to insert pictures  ,      
  Ill get my daughter to educate me in the art of picture posting ont' new un .





8 th June 1929

   First female cabinet minister :


         Margaret Bondfield is appointed Minister of Labour. She is the first woman appointed to the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.

              
                        MARGARET BONDFIELD


The Guildhall in the middle of Chard in Somerset, might seem an unlikely place to celebrate the life of a local woman who made political history, as well as championing workers rights and equal opportunities for women.

There on the wall, however, is a blue plaque – prominently displayed to the side of the main columns. The town’s pride in one of its former citizens is clear in the opening part of the inscription’s layout:

     
           


‘Margaret Bondfield: The first woman Cabinet Minister…WAS BORN IN THIS TOWN’

Margaret Bondfield’s political achievements form only part of her story, as she blazed a trail in the early part of the 20th century for future social reformers and activists. Nevertheless, January 1924 marks the 90th anniversary of a unique event – her appointment as the first ever female British government minister. A step that was to lead to even greater things five years later.



Margaret was born in 1873, the second youngest of eleven children. At this time, Chard was a busy industrial town – with lace making; the cloth trade and iron working among its trades. Margaret grew up in a family environment that encouraged social fairness and an interest in working class political movements. She was later to write in her book, ‘A Life’s Work’, that …”the old radicalism and nonconformity of Chard…must somehow have got into the texture of my life and shaped my thoughts….” Her anger at injustice may also have been stirred by her father’s dismissal from his lace factory job, after many years as a foreman, when Margaret was only a child.

Attending the local High Street School, the young Margaret was a bright and conscientious student, showing an interest in wider issues. At fourteen however, her life was to change drastically. Following a visit to see relatives in Brighton and keen to start working after leaving school, Margaret was offered an apprenticeship at a draper’s shop in the city. It would be several years before she saw her family again and, although she didn’t know it at the time, the job would set her on the path to political activism and eventual high office.



Although treated well by the shop owner, Mrs White, the long working hours and living-in conditions made a deep impression on Margaret. Mixing with other shop girls, she saw how the daily grind wore down the women and affected their self-respect – leaving them little time or energy to pursue interests away from work. Many of the girls just seemed intent on getting married as early as possible in order to escape the drudgery of shop work. Margaret did not want to follow the same path, but determined to help improve conditions for ordinary workers.



Her desire for action was further stirred after becoming friendly with Louise Martindale, a customer at the shop and activist for women’s rights, who took Margaret under her wing. In 1894, Margaret left Brighton and went to live with her brother in London – working, again, in a shop. By now, she had had become an active Union member and shortly after the move was elected to the Shop Assistants Union District Council.

In 1896, the Women’s Industrial Council asked Margaret to investigate the pay and conditions of shop workers. Her subsequent report and elevation to Assistant Secretary of her Union meant that by the age of 25, her political potential was being noticed in wider circles. Within a few years, Margaret was recognised as the leading authority on shop workers – constantly fighting to improve their rights and reporting her findings to Parliamentary Committees. Her desire to gain equality for women would continue throughout her life.

The first decade of the 20th century saw Margaret co-found the first trade union for women, the National federation of Women Workers, and play an active role in the Women’s Labour League. By 1910, she was working as an advisor to the Liberal government – helping to influence the Health Insurance Bill, giving improved maternity benefits to mothers. This, along with her campaigning efforts for improvements in child welfare; a reduction in infant mortality rates and minimum wage laws cemented her activist reputation and paved the way for her subsequent political career. Her ideals owed much to a prominent role within the Women’s Co-operative Guild, leading to lifelong links with the Co-operative movement.



Prior to the First World War, Margaret was chairperson of the Adult Suffrage Society – working in another area to further gender equality. Her efforts to win the vote for poorer, working class women were not always popular with the more cautious aims of other suffragettes – a powerful speaker, she was not afraid to use her charm and relative youth to win over waverers at times.



Continuing her work for social equality throughout the war years and beyond, Margaret was approached to stand as a Labour candidate for Northampton. Victory at her third attempt, in the 1923 election, meant that she became one of the first female MP’s – reward for her efforts in helping to gain further rights for women, although votes for all adult women would take a little longer to achieve.

History was made in early 1924, when she was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Labour – the first woman ever to become a government minister. This was to be short-lived, however, as Margaret lost her seat in the following year’s general election – regaining her place as an MP in the Wallsend by-election of 1926.

A greater honour was to follow. In 1929, she was made Minister of Labour in the new government – the first time that a woman had been made a British Cabinet minister. She soon found out that political realities could conflict with personal ideals – her support of a government policy to cut unemployment benefit for some married women during the Depression proving particularly unpopular with Labour voters. In the face of rising unemployment, this was a difficult time to be Minister of Labour and Margaret was placed in an almost impossible position. Losing her seat in the 1931 election meant that Margaret’s parliamentary career was over. Despite attempts at a come back, she played no active part in politics again. Suffering from ill health in later life, she died, in Surrey, in 1953.

The reforming efforts of the working class girl from Chard, who started work as a lowly shop assistant, played a huge part in advancing women’s rights in the first part of the last century. She fought for and succeeded in gaining improvements in working conditions; living standards; universal suffrage and overall gender equality. Her pictures in the National Portrait Gallery suggest a strong, determined character – driven to succeed in her life’s work.

   

        The street sign in her honour

Bondfield Way, a small 1940’s-built estate on the outskirts of Chard, and the granting of the freedom of the town are further acknowledgements of the town’s pride in Margaret’s achievements. The last words of the Guildhall’s blue plaque, however, provide the most fitting epitaph:

‘Shop worker, Christian, Socialist, Trades Unionist, she devoted her life to improving the lot of the downtrodden’.

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

9 th June 1944

  The Tulle massacre :
                                World War II: Ninety-nine civilians are hanged from lampposts and balconies by German troops in Tulle, France, in reprisal for maquisards attacks.

             A working class industrial town strung out along the narrow valley of the Corrèze River, Tulle was never a place that France cared much about.  In the 1830’s, the French writer Prosper Mérimée described it as a “little town, squeezed into the depths of a narrow valley by steep mountains that seem to forbid it all expansion.”[i]  The early twentieth-century poet Paul Claudel said that “it’s no more than two or three long winding streets descending to a large factory and a small train station.

        But the date that Tulle was once more famous for and which has haunted the town for decades.  9 Juin 1944—June 9, 1944.  A date far more ingrained into the psyche of Tulle and perhaps Hollande, himself.

That was the day the German SS 2d Panzer (Das Reich) Division indulged itself in a mass hanging of Tulle’s young men and boys.  Tulle had been a Communist Party stronghold before, during and after the Second World War, and the Communist factions of the Resistance in the Limousin region had long been itching for a fight with the Germans.  June 6, D-Day, gave them the opportunity and on June 7 they attacked the German garrison guarding Tulle’s munitions factory.  By June 8th, the Maquis were in control of most of the town, having killed or maimed forty German soldiers and penning the rest up in their garrison.

But this tiny victory in the largest war the world had ever seen would prove to be fleeting.  The Das Reich Division had been ordered to head north to Normandy to bolster German forces trying to stem the Allied invasion.  And a unit of some 500 of the Das Reich’s soldiers was diverted en route to relieve the besieged Tulle garrison.  The Maquis melted back into the forests and hills of the Limousin and when the SS arrived in Tulle on June 9th only the town’s ordinary citizens were available for retribution.

And this was not just some ordinary barbarous SS Division; that would have been bad enough.  For the Das Reich killers had come from the Eastern Front where the year before they had fought at the major Battles of Kharkov and Kursk and whose commander at Tulle, Sturmbannführer Kowatch, remarked to a local official who protested: “In Russia we got used to hanging. We hanged more than 100,000 at Kharkov and Kiev, this is nothing for us here.”[iii]

The SS spent the morning of the 9th busily rounding their victims up, some 3,000 men and boys, out of whttps://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.timetoast.com/public/uploads/photos/12748075/220px-wwii-krakow-04.jpghich two batches of sixty were selected to be killed.  Other SS roamed the town, scavenging for any ropes and ladders they could find.  For the places of execution, the SS used whatever was handy: telephone poles, lamp posts, balconies all along the main thoroughfare, the Avenue de la Gare.  After a long leisurely lunch, the SS spent the afternoon hanging 99 of the 120 selectees, as the rest of the rounded up men and boys were forced to watch.  Also watching from behind their shutters of their homes were many citizens.  The SS left the bodies hanging in plain view for hours before ordering them to be hauled to the local garbage dump for burial. Another 101 young men and boys were deported to death camps in Germany from which they never returned.  This atrocity is less well known throughout the world than the Das Reich’s destruction the next day of the village of Oradour-sur-Glane and the killing of 642 of its inhabitants.  But it is well known to this day in Tulle.

While Oradour had suffered even more terribly, it had almost no survivors and became a symbol in France of German atrocities committed during the war.  Tulle, on the other hand, had plenty of survivors and witnesses, who suffered silently in the shadows of history.  Even today many of their children and grandchildren who had not yet been born on June 9, 1944, carry the same emotional scars as their parents and grandparents.

                        
                  some of the hangings .

For decades, the inhabitants of Tulle were so overwhelmed by grief that they could not even discuss the massacre of June 9th.  There is a small museum of the Resistance in the town as there are such museums in many towns in France.  Few visit it, unable to bear the pain.  Many of the streets have been renamed after victims of the SS; apparitions that permanently hover over the town.  Many of the buildings along the Avenue de la Gare whose balconies were used by the SS to hang their victims have been torn down, but the recovered remains of those hanged are buried in the cemetery on the hill overlooking the town.  A cemetery visible from virtually every street.  The old Hotel St. Martin which housed the Gestapo torture chambers no longer exists either, but when one walks along the narrow river, one cannot help but imagine the terrible suffering of those imprisoned there in 1943 and 1944.  The Souilhac district of the town is now referred to as the Quartier des Martyrs.  Three words that speak volumes about this unspoken tragedy.

Yes, the ghosts remain, in the form of sad and bitter memories that still permeate the collective psyche of its citizens.  For virtually everyone in Tulle either had a family member, friend, neighbor or acquaintance that had either been hanged on June 9th or had been deported to the death camps.   There are other ghosts as well.  The ghosts of injustice.   Sturmbannführer Kowatch disappeared after the war and was never caught and punished for the Tulle Massacre.  The commander of the Das Reich Division, Brigadeführer Heinz Lammerding, was sentenced to death by a French court in 1951 but was never extradited from then West Germany and spent the rest of his life running a prosperous engineering firm in Düsseldorf.  Can there be any doubt that this lack of justice still haunts the town?

     

               

  The citizens were warned with posters on lamposts .

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

10 june 1692

    The Salem witch trials , Bridget Bishop:
                                                           – Salem witch trials: Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, Massachusetts, for "certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft and Sorceries".

                                                   

Bridget Bishop, Hanged, June 10, 1692




Hysteria, wrongly accused for a crime you didn’t commit, tried, and hanged; try and picture what life was like in Salem Village, 1692.  The people of Salem Village had to face an immeasurable number of elements that constantly worked against them: unpredictable weather with no protection against the bitter New England cold, performed back-breaking daily chores their farmland needed, and maintained the mindset of the Puritan religion: the fear that the devil exists and might very well walk among us.

The courts during that time functioned completely different than the ones we know today, and allowed the inclusion of spectral evidence.  Spectral evidence was when the witness would testify that the accused person’s spirit or spectral shape appeared to her/him in a dream at the time that their physical body was at another location.  It was because of this “evidence” that 19 people were hanged and one man was pressed to death during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.


           

The first person to be tried, found guilty, and hanged on June 10, was the innocent Bridget Bishop.  Bridget was known throughout the Salem area for her un-Puritan like behavior of flamboyant dress, tavern frequenting, and multiple marriages.  In an effort to avoid being hanged, Bridget admitted guilt and denounced her good name in the community.  She was found guilty by the testimonials of numerous townspeople (more than any other defendant) and was therefore executed on June 10, 1692.



  Witch's memorial stones , with Bridget Bishops to the forefront.


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

11 th june 1962

  Escape from Alcatraz :
                                   Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island.

           A Mysterious Escape From Alcatraz Baffled Everyone… Until Now
By Charlie Star - January 16, 2017
An Impossible Escape
Alcatraz prison in San Francisco was utilized for 29 years as a prison fortress designed to keep its inmates inside. Opening in 1934 and ending its service in 1983, the prison was said to be impenetrable. Though many inmates attempted to leave the island prison, none had succeeded, all either caught or shot dead by guards or killed in the act of attempting to swim the icy waters to escape. That was until June 11th, 1962 when three prisoners did the seemingly impossible and escaped unseen into the night.

        John and Alfred Anglin
Alfred and John Anglin were brothers and grew up in Donalson, Georgia alongside their eleven siblings. Their parents worked seasonally on farms, so the family traveled around a lot to provide income. As children, the brothers would amaze friends by being able to swim in freezing Lake Michigan when the family ventured north. The siblings began lives of crime in 1953, robbing banks without the use of a weapon. They were detained and imprisoned in Georgia, and after trying to escape many times were relocated to Alcatraz in 1960.

31

Frank Lee Morris
Washington-born Morris was the cellmate of the Anglin brothers. He was a highly intelligent person and was noted in the top 2% of people in the US on the IQ test. He began his criminal career aged just 13. He quickly graduated to narcotics possession and armed robbery and was arrested for these crimes in his late teens. He ended up serving time in Georgia and Florida, and escaped from Louisiana State while being incarcerated for robbing a bank. Later, he was caught committing armed robbery and transferred to the fortress in 1960.

41

Allen Clayton West
West was the fourth member of the group to try to escape. He was moved to Alcatraz prison in 1957 after failing to escape from a Florida prison. He didn’t manage to escape from Alcatraz either. Despite his best plans, he couldn’t remove the ventilation grill in time to meet up with the others for escape. Afterward, he helped with the investigation into the escape. After Alcatraz had been closed, he was sent to Atlanta and then later Florida and Georgia. Later, he died of peritonitis in the Florida prison in 1978, aged 49.

32

The Plan
The men were given nearby cells in Alcatraz and formed a friendship. Frank Morris was the man who came up with the plan for the group’s escape, and between them, many discussions took place to finalize the details. The group would remove the vent covers positioned under their sinks in their cells and dig through the space behind them. They would place decoys in their bed and then sneak out onto the bay to sail away using their own boat without anyone noticing. Their plan seemed perfect, but something was to go wrong.

6

Head Decoys
The group needed to disguise their escape from the guards who did nightly checks of the cell blocks, so decided to create decoys to look like they’re were sleeping soundly in bed. The made human heads out of a papier maché mixture made of toilet paper and soap, painting them with discarded craft paint and giving them convincing heads of hair by picking up leftovers from the barber shop floor. The heads were positioned on their pillow with blankets and stuffed clothes underneath to make it look like they were in bed.

     
     

   One of the home made heads .

7

Digging Out
The convicts utilized the time during ‘music hour’ to dig out the ventilation ducts in the months leading to their escape. They did this by using spoons stolen from the commissary, discarded saw blades, and even a makeshift drill which they had powered using an old vacuum cleaner motor. After six month’s hard work, the holes underneath their cell sinks were finally big enough for them to escape through. They hid their work by covering up the hole with cardboard and other items.

8

One Man Down
As the group finally made their escape on June 11th, 1962, West couldn’t fit through the hole in his cell. He had opted to use cement to tidy up the crumbling concrete, and it toughened, preserving the grill’s grip and narrowing the space, so he got left behind. When interrogated he came clean to the authorities about the plan to escape, on the insistence that he didn’t receive any punishment for telling them the details. While he told the authorities about the escape, he didn’t reveal what would happen when the group arrived on land.

9

Climbing Out
After making their way through the vents, the men would have climbed up to an unmanned utility corridor which ran behind the cell block. The trio then climbed to the prison’s roof, carrying the items they would have needed to escape. They then dropped 50 feet by shimmying the length of a kitchen ventilation pipe, landing on the floor below. The only thing standing between them and their freedom was a pair of 12-foot barbed-wire fences surrounding the prison. Once scaled, they arrived at the shoreline, ready for their next challenge.

10

The Raft
The group had prepared the next phase of their escape carefully. During their time in prison, they collected raincoats and other similar materials, which were used as life preservers and a 6-foot raft which they steamed together using steam pipes, then stitched the edges shut to make them airtight. They even scavenged wood to build makeshift paddles. Using an accordion concertina as makeshift bellows, the group inflated the raft in a searchlight blind spot and made their exit from the island sometime after 10 pm.

   

   One of the home made paddles .

11

Searching The Sea
When the guards discovered the inmates missing the next morning, an intense search was conducted, escalating into one of the largest manhunts in American history. Guards searched Alcatraz Island and the Bay but found nothing. The search extended to nearby Angel Island, looking for any items that may have washed up on the shore there. They were unable to find the Anglin brothers or Morris. Word began to get around that the three men had managed to escape.

121

No Bodies
The next 24 hours revealed no evidence to show what had become of the three escapees. There were no bodies or boats. The guards were adamant that the three inmates would have been dragged out to the Pacific Ocean because the tide came in half an hour after it was believed the prisoners set sail. But the Anglin brothers were excellent swimmers. After all, not many men would have been able to swim in Lake Michigan and Wisconsin lakes as children.

13

Huge Manhunt
It seemed the convict’s plan had gone well, as there were no traces of them or their boat. Law enforcement agencies and the military conducted a 10-day air, sea, and land search and came up with nothing. That was until a Coast Guard found an oar floating around 200 yards, south from Angel Island. Boat workers found a battered wallet, preserved with plastic, near the island with photos, names and addresses of the Anglin brothers’ friends and family on the outside.

14

Evidence Surfaced
June 21st saw a coast guard finding shreds of fabric on Angel Island beach thought to be a raincoat material used to make the raft. The federal marshals became concerned and decided to increase the manpower on the investigation. The next day, a boat sent from the prison found a life jacket of a similar fabric. It was deflated and found just 50 yards from Alcatraz. No bodies or physical evidence has been found. However, a few months afterward, some new information came forward that reinvigorated the investigation.

15

A Floating Body
A few months after the men’s escape, a Norwegian ship sailing through Alcatraz Bay spotted a human body. It was floating just 20 miles from the Golden Gate bridge, but those on board were unable to retrieve it. After hearing of the escape from local fisherman, those on board reported the body, fearing it was one of the escapees. When questioned, the appearance of the body resembled Frank Morris. They described the body as wearing a navy pea coat that prisoners wore. Could it be possible that all three convicts faced the same watery end?

16

The Postcard
After the escape, the law firm that represented the Anglin brothers received a phone call from someone who said they were John Anglin. He asked Eugenia MacGowan who worked for the firm to contact the Marshall’s office. When asked why he became angry asking ‘Do you know who I am?’ He hung up when she said no, telling her to read the papers. Inmate Clarence Carnes received a cryptic postcard with the code words ‘Gone Fishing’ a few weeks after the escape, confirming in his mind that the escape was a success.

17

Outside Help?
Some believe that Morris and the Anglin brothers had help from the underworld kingpin of Harlem Ellsworth ‘Bumpy’ Johnson. The theory goes that he arranged for a small boat to pick up the men from Angel Island. Inmate Carnes believes that the boat took the convicts to San Francisco’s Hunter’s Point district at Pier 13. Whether any of this happened at all still remains speculation. The former Alcatraz Captain of the Guards, Philip Bergen believes Carne’s story to be false and something just dreamed up by the inmate.

18

More Recent Developments
Thomas Kent, a former prisoner of Alcatraz, believes a different scenario took place. He appeared on America’s Most Wanted in 1993 and said that he helped with the escape planning, but didn’t escape with the group because he couldn’t swim. He firmly believes that it was Anglin’s girlfriend that was scheduled to meet with the convicts once they arrived at the island before driving them to a new life in Mexico. His account was met with skepticism as he was paid a total of $2,000 for the televised interview.

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The Anglin Brothers Now?
In 2015, the niece of the Anglin brothers stated that the pair are alive and in their 80s, living in Rio De Janeiro in Brazil. The belief came from this photo which was confirmed to be taken in 1975 and brought to the family by an old friend, Fred Brizzi. Brizzi was a pilot who was arrested for smuggling drugs from Latin America to Florida. The family maintains that at Christmas 1962, the Anglin’s mother received a parcel from John Anglin. Morris’s family also say they’ve kept in touch. His cousin’s daughter says she met ‘dad’s friend Fran

Alcatraz Now
Although Alcatraz was decommissioned in 1964, the prison is still in use today and is utilized as a museum where guests can experience life inside the prison. Operated by the National Park Service’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the corridors of the prison are named after large American streets. Many infamous residents have lined the cells of the prison including Chicago gangster Al Capone, Robert Franklin Stroud ‘The Birdman of Alcatraz’ and gangster Whitey Bulger, who was played by Johnny Depp in a recent biopic of his life.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_1962_Alcatraz_escape_attemp