Today in history

9 th July 1922 :

  Swimming, world,records:
                                       Johnny Weissmuller swims the 100 meters freestyle in 58.6 seconds breaking the world swimming record and the 'minute barrier'


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

   

   Weissmuller , pictured after his record breaking swim .          

He broke the mark again in 1924, clocking in at 57.4, a record which stood for exactly 10 years and 13 days, when it was broken by Peter Fick.

In addition to his 51 official World Records, it is believed that Weissmuller broke countless other records, but never turned in the record applications. In 1922, without television cameras and the internet, it’s certainly conceivable that a record-setting swim could go unrecorded.

 

   The film star as tarzan.        

While his 5 Olympic golds may appear pedestrian compared to today’s gargantuan medal totals, keep in mind that at the 1924 games, 3 was 50% of the possible golds. He probably could have taken a 4th, but he didn’t even swim the 100-meter backstroke, despite having broken several World Records throughout his career in the 100 yard version.

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

10 th July 1962

   TELSTAR :
                  Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.

           
July 10, 1962
Telstar Satellite Launched
Trans-Atlantic television and other communications became a reality as the Telstar communications satellite was launched. A product of AT&T Bell Laboratories, the satellite was the first orbiting international communications satellite that sent information to tracking stations on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Initial enthusiasm for making phone calls via the satellite waned after users realized there was a half-second delay as a result of the 25,000-mile transmission path.

 

                                  TELSTAR .                    
 
Telstar 1 gained international fame its first day in orbit and opened the public’s eyes to the possibilities of satellite communications, though it would later become a dead end in the formation of what now is a multibillion-dollar industry. Telstar 1 launched from , , aboard a Thor-Delta rocket that placed it in a medium Earth orbit. It transmitted the first intercontinental TV broadcast and the first long distance call via satellite that same day.

 
     
        Final adjustments before launch .
                             
There were communications satellites before Telstar 1: NASA’s AT&T-built balloon-like Echo was launched in August 1960; and the U.S. Defense Department’s Courier 1B was launched in October 1960. But Telstar 1 was the first active communications satellite, which amplified the signal it received and sent it back to Earth, according to the Loral Skynet Web site. Loral acquired the AT&T Telstar group, Skynet, in 1997, to form Loral Skynet. The Echo satellite passively bounced weakened intercontinental television and telephone signals back to Earth, and Courier 1B merely sent out a prerecorded message from then U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstar_1#:~:text=Telstar%201%20is%20a%20communications%20satellite%20launched%20b

11 th July 1962

      First transatlantic satellite television transmission.

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



The technical problems of the first night were traced to a component in the Goonhilly Down aerial - specially constructed by the Post Office - that had been fitted the wrong way round. The following day's transatlantic broadcasts were much more successful, and reported to be so clear as to be indistinguishable from ordinary television. Then the first programmes were beamed the other way, from France to America. Later in the month the BBC took the lead in producing a complex outside broadcast from nine European countries to the US.

Other landmarks achieved by Telstar included the first transatlantic colour transmission, from Britain on 16 July. Today satellite technology has made the most remote parts of the world accessible.

12 th July 1963

  The moors murders :
                                 Pauline Reade, 16, disappears in Gorton, England, the first victim in the Moors murders.

       Pauline became the Moors Murderers’ first victim when she disappeared on 12 July 1963 while on her way to a dance near her Manchester home.

She was on her way to a disco when Hindley persuaded her to get in her car.

They drove Pauline to Saddleworth Moor where she was raped, beaten and stabbed.

The infamous serial killer and Hindley were jailed for life for the killings of John Kilbride, 12, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans, 17.
   t hey went on to admit the murders of Pauline and 12 year old Keith Bennett .

               FRESH AGONY First Moors murder victim’s muddied stilettos finally returned to her family 55 YEARS after killing

      THE family of Moors Murders victim Pauline Reade have finally been reunited with her long-lost belongings - 55 years after she was snatched by twisted couple Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.

Police contacted the family’s lawyer two months ago to reveal they were ready to return the white stilettos the 16-year-old was wearing when she was abducted by the killers in 1963.

   

  The mudded shoes .  


  But the return of Pauline’s belongings have also caused a dilemma for the family because they have been handed a necklace - and are adamant it never belonged to the tragic teenager.

   

   The necklace given to the family by police .      

Jackie, of Wythenshawe, Manchester, said: “I was told by my nana (Pauline’s mother) that the necklace she was wearing was fine gold with a St Christopher on it.

“The chain and pendant the police have returned to us is not gold, is too chunky, and is not the kind of thing Pauline would have worn.

“I don’t think it is hers. I am grateful for the shoes and other items of clothing, which will now be reunited with her remains.

“But we have an issue with the jewellery. And if they aren’t Pauline’s, who do they belong to?”

             
Peter Hall, head of civil litigation for Tranters Solicitors of Stockport, which is representing Jackie, said: “Jackie simply does not accept that the items of jewellery returned by GMP relate to Pauline.

“From all accounts Pauline was wearing a fine gold chain and the Home Office pathologist described finding a gold chain on the body in 1987.

“There was no mention of a medallion or other silver-linked necklace.

“The likelihood is that these items returned to Jackie purporting to relate to Pauline in fact relate to other murder victims.

“It has been another unpleasant twist in an already deeply upsetting matter for Jackie, who desperately wants to put this matter behind her.”

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

13 th July 1985

   Live Aid concerts :  
                          The Live Aid benefit concert takes place in London and Philadelphia, as well as other venues such as Moscow and Sydney .

Live Aid was a dual-venue concert held on 13 July 1985. The event was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for relief of the ongoing Ethiopian famine.

Billed as the "global jukebox", the event was held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom (attended by 72,000 people) and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States (attended by about 100,000 people). On the same day, concerts inspired by the initiative happened in other countries, such as Australia and Germany. It was one of the largest-scale satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time: an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion, across 150 nations, watched the live broadcast.

   

    The London event.

Origins
The 1985 Live Aid concert was conceived as a follow-on to the successful charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which was also the brainchild of Geldof and Ure. In October 1984, images of millions of people starving to death in Ethiopia were shown in the UK in Michael Buerk's BBC News reports on the 1984 famine. Bob Geldof saw the report, and called Midge Ure from Ultravox, and together they quickly co-wrote the song, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in the hope of raising money for famine relief.[3] Geldof then contacted colleagues in the music industry and persuaded them to record the single under the title 'Band Aid' for free. On 25 November 1984, the song was recorded at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London, and was released four days later. It stayed at number-one for five weeks in the UK, wasChristmas number one, and became the fastest-selling single ever in Britain and raised £8 million, rather than the £70,000 Geldof had expected. Geldof then set his sights on staging a huge concert to raise further funds.
The concert grew in scope, as more acts were added on both sides of the Atlantic.

   

  The Philadelphia event .

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

14 th July 1965

    The space programmes :
                                        Mariner 4 flyby of Mars takes the first close-up photos of another planet. The photographs take approximately six hours to be transmitted back to Earth.

       
After an eight-month voyage to Mars, Mariner 4 makes the first flyby of the red planet, becoming the first spacecraft to take close-up photographs of another planet. The images show lunar-type impact craters, some of them touched with frost in the chill Martian evening. A television camera onboard takes 22 pictures, covering about 1% of the planet. Initially stored on a 4-track tape recorder, these pictures take six hours to transmit back to Earth.

Although originally not expected to survive much past the Mars flyby encounter, Mariner 4 lasts about three years in solar orbit, continuing long-term studies of the solar wind environment and making coordinated measurements with Mariner 5, a sister ship launched to Venus in 1967.


   

  Photos were black and white and grainy in 1965.
 


The red planet:
50 years of photos
After centuries of speculation, the first close-up photos of Mars were finally beamed back to earth 56 years ago this month, marking a huge space travel breakthrough. But they weren't quite what the world was expecting...
14th July, 2015

In the summer of 1965 the world finally got some answers to the many questions posed about that mysterious red dot on the horizon.
This was the year that Mariner 4 became the first successful flyby mission to Mars, gaining historic ground where other attempts had failed by capturing the first images of the planet on 15th July - almost 50 years ago to the day that New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto ever, marking the "end of an era" in Solar System exploration.

Back in 1965, the jubilation was similar to that witnessed after the Pluto flyby, but the technology available was very different. And those back at base were so excited when they realised the Mariner 4 camera was working, that they couldn't wait the few hours it would take for the completed image to be processed.

Instead, they took matters into their own hands and tried to interpret the photo's metadata: reams of numbers generated from the real-time data translator machine.


These strips of code were pinned together on the wall, while staff from the Telecommunications Section at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory rushed out to buy pastels. A colour key was devised and staff filled in the code by hand like a “painting by numbers” exercise until an image gradually emerged from lines of numbers.



The historic spacecraft managed to record 21 images as it flew by at a distance of around 6,000 miles. It carried a television camera and six other science instruments to study the Martian atmosphere and surface, including the humble data recorder which saved the day:




  Presenting the first picture to President Lyndon .B. Johnson .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_4

15 th July 1799

 The Rosetta stone :
                             The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.

15 July 1799: the Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta
Rosetta_Stone

In 1799, during Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, a French soldier discovered a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles north of Alexandria.
The irregularly shaped stone contained fragments of passages written in three different languages, which were three versions of the same decree, issued at Memphis, Egypt in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty. The decree was inscribed in Egyptian hieroglyphic (which was used for important or religious documents), in Egyptian demotic (the common script, used for daily communication) and in Ancient Greek (the language of the administration)

   

   Some text from the stone .      

The stone was originally displayed in a temple, then it was probably moved during the early Christian or medieval period, and was eventually used as building material.
Many historians think that the Rosetta Stone text was written in those three languages so that most Egyptians could understand it. This fact was the key to deciphering the hieroglyphic language, and after numerous attempts French scholar Jean-Francois Champollion was able to crack the code in 1822
Meanwhile, British troops had defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, and the original stone had come into British possession and transported to London.
It has been on public display at the British Museum almost continuously since 1802, where it is the most-visited object .


     

        The stone on display at room 4 at the museum.
     
       Why is it important?

The writing on the Stone is an official message, called a decree, about the king (Ptolemy V, r. 204–181 BC). The decree was copied on to large stone slabs called stelae, which were put in every temple in Egypt. It says that the priests of a temple in Memphis (in Egypt) supported the king. The Rosetta Stone is one of these copies, so not particularly important in its own right.

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

16 th July 1677

      King Richard II of England is crowned .
                                                            The 10-Year-Old King Richard II
Richard II was born on the 6 th of January 1367 in Bordeaux, and hence known also as Richard of Bordeaux. He was the second son of Edward, Prince of Wales (known also as the Black Prince ), and his wife, Joan of Kent. Richard had an older brother, Edward of Angoulême, who died in 1370. When Edward died in 1376, the nine-year-old Richard succeeded his father as heir apparent to the English throne, and part of the House of Plantagenet which held the throne from 1154 until 1485.

   
Portrait of Richard II. Source: Public domain

This arrangement for succession was made by the English Parliament, as they were afraid that John of Gaunt, one of Richard’s uncles, would be made heir to the throne, and succeed his father, Edward III . A year after his son’s death, Edward, who had reigned for 50 years, died as well. Thus, the throne of England passed to Richard, who was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey on the 16 th of July 1377.

As Richard was still a minor, he was unable to rule on his own, and therefore the government of the kingdom was in the hands of a group of councilors. Richard’s uncles, especially John of Gaunt, were seen as threats to the king, as were therefore excluded from the council. Nevertheless, in reality, they were still able to exert a significant degree of influence in the affairs of state. In the meantime, the councilors themselves were growing increasingly powerful, so much so that the House of Commons began to view them with suspicion. Consequently, in 1380, the council was discontinued.



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

Coronation of the young king and anne of Bohemia .

17 th July 1937

 "Wrong way" Corrigan.
                                   Douglas Corrigan takes off from Brooklyn to fly the "wrong way" to Ireland and becomes known as "Wrong Way" Corrigan.

July 17, 1938: 'Wrong Way' Corrigan Gets It Right
1938: Douglas Corrigan claims his place in the annals of aviation history when he “mistakenly” flies from New York to Ireland. With a single flight, Corrigan breaks the law, charms the Irish, becomes an American hero and earns an unforgettable nickname.


According to the flight plan he filed beforehand, his destination was California. Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't: Corrigan had wanted to fly to Ireland all along, hoping to emulate Charles Lindbergh's solo trans-Atlantic flight of a decade earlier. But the Bureau of Air Commerce denied the request, on the grounds that Corrigan's plane -- a rather well-used Curtiss Robin OX-5 monoplane -- was too unstable for a long flight over water.

 

Like other early aviators, Douglas Corrigan was drawn to flying at an early age. While still a teenager, he took a paid ride aboard a Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny," and once bitten with the bug, there was nothing else to do but fly. Within a week Corrigan was taking lessons, and he made his first solo flight in 1926, still younger than 20.

Offered a job as an aircraft mechanic with Ryan Aeronautical Company, Corrigan moved to the firm's San Diego factory and wound up on the team that built Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis. In fact, it was Corrigan who pulled the chocks away from the plane as Lindbergh prepared to take off for New York, and history.

Lindbergh's epic solo flight left a lasting impression on young Corrigan, who resolved to make a similar flight. He bought the Robin, used, in 1933 and spent a couple of years modifying the plane, trying to get it rated airworthy enough for certification. He never did, and at one point officials in California grounded the rattling bucket of bolts -- which Corrigan had named Sunshine -- for six months

     


  The New York post's headline . is the "wrong way"

Finally, in 1938, he was ready. Armed with a conditional permit, Corrigan flew to New York. He took off in the early-morning fog of Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn on July 17, ostensibly bound for California. This is where things get a bit murky.

Corrigan steadfastly maintained, with a twinkle in his eye, that he was indeed intending to fly to California but was compelled to take off to the east because of the weather, and got turned around owing to a balky compass on board. He said he didn't discover his navigational error until he was 26 hours into the flight, a claim that lifted more than a few eyebrows.

       

 The Irish people loved him and mobbed him for autographs .

The thing is, Sunshine really was a crate. It was patched up and lashed together and, worse, during the California-New York flight had developed a gas leak that Corrigan decided he didn't have time to repair. Gasoline actually leaked into the cockpit while the plane was over the Atlantic. Corrigan solved that problem by using a screwdriver to punch a hole in the cockpit floor.

So, after a flight of 28 hours, 13 minutes, Corrigan reached Baldonnel Airfield in Dublin in a plane that was structurally unsound, leaking fuel, lacking a reliable compass and equipped with reserve fuel tanks mounted in such a way that they blocked his straight-ahead view.

Corrigan received a warm welcome in Ireland and was taken to Dublin town, where he met Prime Minister Eamon de Valera, as well as eager reporters. The Irish were particularly tickled by Corrigan's assertion that his faulty compass was to blame for the wrong-way flight, and the American press wasted no time in nicknaming him "Wrong Way" Corrigan.

"Wrong Way" and his junk pile of a plane were eventually bundled aboard the liner Manhattan and shipped home, where he received a ticker-tape parade that drew a bigger crowd than turned out for Lindbergh in 1927. Interview followed interview, and Corrigan doggedly stuck to his story, basically: "I got turned around up there and wound up flying east."

Everybody figured Corrigan was pulling a fast one, including President Franklin Roosevelt, who later told him, smilingly, that he believed every word of Corrigan's story.

No doubt some aviation authorities would have loved sticking it to their wayward pilot, but Corrigan's goofy feat had so captured the national imagination -- he received congratulatory telegrams from a number of prominent Americans, including Henry Ford and Howard Hughes -- that the best they could do was a 14-day suspension of his license. Case closed.

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

18 th July 1976

  The perfect 10 :
                         Nadia Comăneci becomes the first person in Olympic Games history to score a perfect 10 in gymnastics at the 1976 Summer Olympics.


On this day: July 18, 1976 - Nadia Comaneci scores first perfect 10 in gymnastics
Before the 1976 Montreal Olympics, the Games’ timekeepers Omega asked the IOC if they needed a new scorecard to display a score of perfect 10, as extra space was required to show 10.00. But the IOC refused, saying a perfect score was not possible.

   

   The scoreboard showed a score of 1 .

On this day back in 1976, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, aged just 14, took part in the team compulsory portion.

Her routine on the uneven bars was simply flawless. The judges awarded her full marks but since the scoreboard couldn’t accommodate the digits, 1.00 was flashed on the screen.

It took some time for everyone to realise that history had been created as Comaneci was given a standing ovation.

                 

 

July 19th 1843

  The SS Great Britain :
Brunel's steamship the SS Great Britain is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull and screw propeller, becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.

    The first ship to have an iron hull and to have screw propulsion. She was steam driven, with masts for sail assistance when the wind was favourable.
Today, the SS Great Britain can be seen in dry dock in Bristol, where she has been restored to Brunel's original design. She is the second of his 'great ships', preceded by the SS Great Western, and followed by the enormous SS Great Eastern.


     

 The ship in Cumberland basin in 1844 is believed to be the first photo of a ship.
 

     On a showery summer morning in 1843 excited onlookers poured into the city of Bristol eager to witness the ‘floating out’ of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s revolutionary new ship – SS Great Britain. The date was 19 July 1843, exactly four years to the day since the start of the ship’s construction. Remarkably, exactly 127 years later – on 19 July 1970 – SS Great Britain returned to her home, the Great Western Dockyard.
   
    THE LAUNCH BY PRINCE ALBERT .
 When the Prince’s carriage approached the harbour shortly after twelve o’clock (having had a quick stop-off in Clifton in order to take in the views) he was greeted by a flotilla of ships and boats of all kinds, each hung with flags of different nations. As he entered the Great Western Dockyard, the crowds cheered and the band of the First Life Guards, stationed aboard the Great Britain, began to play.

Following an escorted tour of the new ship and a banquet held in the company’s engine works, the time came to name the magnificent vessel. At around half past three, as cannon thundered away in all directions, the band struck up ‘Rule Britannia’ and the Great Britain was slowly towed out of her dock by the Avon steamer.

   

 The ship today , in the great western dockyard at Bristol.

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

20 th July 1969

  Apollo 11 , man on the moon :
                                              Apollo program: Apollo 11's crew successfully makes the first manned landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the Moon six and a half hours later .

                     
On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin (1930-) became the first humans ever to land on the moon. About six-and-a-half hours later, Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. As he took his first step, Armstrong famously said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." The Apollo 11 mission occurred eight years after President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) announced a national goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Apollo 17, the final manned moon mission, took place in 1972.


 

  The daily mirror headline next morning . 

It was 1961. John F. Kennedy was the president of the United States. He wanted to land humans on the moon. The United States had just started trying to put people in space. Was NASA ready to go to the moon? The president and NASA knew they could do it. They were ready to put people on the moon. Apollo 11's mission was to land two men on the moon. They also had to come back to Earth safely.


Apollo 11 blasted off on July 16, 1969. Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins were the astronauts on Apollo 11.


Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon. They landed on the moon in the Lunar Module. It was called the Eagle. Collins stayed in orbit around the moon. He did experiments and took pictures.



Plaque left on the moon by the Apollo 11 crew

The sign the astronauts left on the moon says, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind." Image Credit: NASA

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the moon. He and Aldrin walked around for three hours. They did experiments. They picked up bits of moon dirt and rocks.

 

    moon landing montage :            


They put a U.S. flag on the moon. They also left a sign on the moon.


The two astronauts returned to orbit, joining Collins. On July 24, 1969, all three astronauts came back to Earth safely.


President Kennedy's wish came true. It took less than 10 years. Humans had walked on the moon.

It looks like the Eagle is still orbiting the moon

Good find N.M

21 st Jjuly 2005

   The troubles , bloody Friday :
                                           The Troubles: Bloody Friday: The Provisional IRA detonate 22 bombs in central Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom in the space of 80 minutes, killing nine and injuring 130.


   
Bloody Friday: What happened

There have been many terrible events in the history of Northern Ireland's conflict, but few have seared the collective consciousness of its people as those on Friday, 21 July 1972, a day that became known as Bloody Friday.
By the end of the day, the IRA's Belfast brigade had detonated at least 20 bombs across the city.

In just 75 minutes of violence, nine people were dead and some 130 more were mutilated, injured and mentally scarred by what they had witnessed.

You could hear people screaming, crying and moaning. The first thing that caught my eye was a torso of a human being in the middle of the street


From the outset, the IRA's bombing of the city caused widespread chaos and stretched the security forces to the limit.

Such was the scale of the attack, witnesses at the time remember seeing people running in all directions, not knowing where the bombs were being detonated.

As one report at the time described the scene, "it was impossible for anyone to feel perfectly safe".


         

     A ceremony and plaque to remember the victims .

Car bombs

While the scale of the attack was huge, it was two car bombs that between them claimed the nine lives - one at the Oxford Street bus station in the city centre, the other outside shops in Cavehill Road in north Belfast.

At Oxford St, the busiest bus station in Northern Ireland, four Ulsterbus workers and two soldiers were killed.

When the emergency services reached the scene, they found that some of the victims had been literally blown to pieces, leading to initial estimates of a death toll of 11.

At the Cavehill Road bomb, the victims were two women and a 14-year-old schoolboy.

Of the 130 injured, 77 were women or children out shopping in the city centre. One police officer at the scene recalled the events for the BBC series Provos in 1997.

   

  A street scene after the bombings .    

"You could hear people screaming, crying and moaning. The first thing that caught my eye was a torso of a human being lying in the middle of the street," he told the series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Friday_(1972)

22nd July 2005

  wrong man is shot :
                              Jean Charles de Menezes is killed by police as the hunt begins for the London Bombers responsible for the 7 July 2005 London bombings and the 21 July 2005 London bombings.

Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead after he boarded a Northern line train at Stockwell on 22 July 2005.


De Menezes was a 27-year-old electrician who was shot dead by police on 22 July 2005. Officers were hunting terrorists who had tried to bomb London the previous day, two weeks after the 7 July attacks in the capital killed 52 people. He was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder at point-blank range by officers from the Met police’s CO19 firearms unit.

     

  Jean Charles De Menezes.    

Why did police think he was a terrorist?
In the early hours of that day, police traced a gym card found in one of the bags containing the failed bombs to an address at Scotia Road, south London. They believed it was being used by a suspected terrorist called Hussain Osman.

A senior officer drew up a plan that anyone coming out of the address should be allowed to walk a short distance away so they were out of sight of anyone else in the flats, then stopped by armed police and their identity checked.

After he left his flat, for some reason officers allowed him to board a bus towards Stockwell station, They followed him and shot him after he boarded a Northern line train at Stockwell. Rules of engagement introduced by the Met to deal with suicide bombers required armed officers to shoot and kill suspected bombers before they have a chance to detonate any explosives. But it was a case of mistaken identity.

What did the police say in the aftermath of the shooting?
The Met police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, told a press conference that the dead man “was challenged and refused to obey police instructions”, while Scotland Yard said his “clothing and behaviour at the station added to their suspicions”.

These claims were all later found to be false. Blair admitted the force had made a “serious mistake” in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

In 2009, the Met had to pay compensation believed to be just over £100,000 plus the family’s legal costs. In return the family agreed to end their legal (civil) action against Scotland Yard.

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

23 rd July 1943

    Bath chair murder :
                               The Rayleigh bath chair murder occurred in Rayleigh, Essex, England.

July 23, 1943: The Rayleigh bath chair murder takes place. Archibald Brown, his wife Doris, and their two sons (Eric and Collin) lived in Rayleigh, Essex, England. Archibald was 47 at the time. Twenty-three years earlier he had been in a motorcycle accident in which he lost the use of his legs. He used a bath or Bath chair which is a rather luxurious type of wheelchair. It was more like a rolling chaise or light carriage which usually had a folding hood to protect the user from the elements when outdoors. When three-wheeled (one in front and two in back) it was pushed by hand. Sometimes, when it had four wheels, it could be pulled by horse, donkey, or pony. The name came either because it was shaped like an old-fashioned bathtub or because the designer hailed from Bath.

                     
A bath chair at St Johns museum.

At 1:45 PM on this day, Doris Mitchell, one of Archibald’s three nurses, went to the air-raid shelter to get the bath chair only to find the door locked. She went to find Mrs. Brown and together they went back to the shelter where they met Eric, then 19, coming out. Both of the women brought the bath chair back to the house and helped Archibald get in. He was dressed in pajamas and a robe and had a plaid blanket over his legs. Doris left the house with Archibald. They had gone about a mile when Archibald shifted his weight to find a cigarette in his pocket. Doris paused and lit the cigarette and then went back behind the chair to resume pushing.

Just a few steps later, there was a violent explosion. Doris suffered leg injuries and as she looked, the chair and its occupant were simply gone. Police found portions of the Archibald’s body on the sides of the road and in nearby trees and gardens. Since it was wartime, the possibility of enemy action was checked into and discarded. The cause of the explosion was found to be a British Hawkins grenade. It is an anti-tank mine which is detonated when an acid-filled glass ampoule is  broken. The device had been placed under the cushion of the chair. During the investigation, it was found that although Archibald had been unable to walk, he had been a cruel and abusive husband and father.

     

           

His mistreatment of his wife was less volatile than what his son experienced. Eric had been beaten and humiliated for years and it was getting worse. There was also some notice taken by both mother and son that while their abuse was increasing, Archibald had taken a liking to his new nurse and seemed to delight in their walks outdoors together. Eric was charged with the murder. He had attended a lecture on the same mine/grenade as that used in the murder. He was also a veteran and had access to a weapons store in Spilsby. He confessed to the crime, blaming his actions on his father’s increasing abuse of both himself and his mother. He was found guilty and declared insane. He was finally released in 1975.

There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for. – Tom Robbins

If peace can only come through killing someone, then I don’t want it. – Hiro Mashima

The dumber people think you are, the most surprised they’re going to be when you kill them. – William Clayton

“You can die trying to get along with a disagreeable man,” she said, and I put a star beside it when I wrote it down and then taped it to the rear-view mirror for the rest of the drive. She hadn’t said “abusive,” I noticed; she had said that just disagreeable could kill you. – Debby Bull

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

24 th July 1567

   Abdication of Mary :
                    Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate and replaced by her one-year-old son James VI.

Mary_Stuart_Queen On 24th July 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots, who was imprisoned at Lochleven Castle and who had recently suffered a miscarriage, was forced to abdicate. The Scottish crown was passed on to her one year-old son, James, who became James VI of Scotland, with his uncle, Mary's illegitimate half brother, James Stewart, Earl of Moray, acting as regent.

Claude Nau de la Boisseliere, Mary's private secretary, recorded this event in his memoirs, which were translated from French into English as The History of Mary Stewart: From the Murder of Riccio Until Her Flight Into England:

         

   Mary Queen of Scots.

"On the afternoon of the ... day of ... 1567, the Lords Lindsay and Ruthven, accompanied by two notaries and the said Melvil, came into the queen's chamber. She was lying on her bed, in a state of very great weakness, partly by reason of her extreme trouble (partly in consequence of a great flux, the result of a miscarriage of twins, her issue by Bothwell), so that she could move only with great difficulty. With extreme audacity and anger Lindsay gave her to understand of the commission with which he was charged by the nobility, namely, to make her sign certain letters for the resignation of the crown; which he required her to be pleased to read. Although she had already been assured by Melvil, in the name of the nobles mentioned above, that she need make no difficulty, she plainly refused to do so; she could not in conscience (her heart telling her that she was innocent) prejudice her honour by sanctioning such an unjust statement. At the same time she knew that her life was in great and immediate danger. And of a truth it was the intention of the rebels, if she did not sign these letters, to take her from Lochleven, and as they were crossing the lake to throw her into it, or secretly to
convey her to some island in the middle of the sea, there to be kept unknown to the whole world, in close custody for the remainder of her life. Lindsay confirmed this; for, as soon as he saw that her Majesty resolutely refused to sign these letters, he told her to rise from bed, and that he had charge to carry her to a place where he would give a good account of her to the lords of the country. Several times he advised her to sign, for if she did not, she would compel them to cut her throat, however unwilling they might be.

This poor princess, seeing herself thus treated by her own subjects, and being without any of her domestics (for the two femmes-de-chamhre, whom only she had with her, had been turned out), asked where she was to be taken. She demanded very earnestly to be admitted
before the estates of the country and the parliament to answer to the points mentioned in these letters. Lindsay replied that he had no instructions on these heads, and could say nothing more. Thus, without any form of legal proceeding or knowledge of the cause, they compelled her Majesty by threats and present violence to sign these instruments, which they caused to be read by the said notaries. When they asked her what she thought of the matter, she answered several times that she did not consent to the contents of these instruments,
that she had signed them in direct opposition to her intention and will, and that they had been extorted from her by force and constraint. She protested, therefore, that she would observe and keep them no longer than during her imprisonment, and she frequently asked those who were present to be her witnesses."

Mary signed the deeds, in the hope that they would be found invalid because they were signed under duress, but it was the end of her reign, and her son was crowned on 29th July at the Church of the Holy Rude, Stirling.

Nau goes on to write that after Mary had signed the papers "she was taken (with great altercation on both sides) into a great gloomy tower in Lochleven. She was there shut up, within an iron gate, in such a miserable condition, that no poor criminal could be treated worse." He also claims that she was deprived of ink, paper and books, and that attempts were made to poison her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_Queen_of_Scots#:~:text=Mary%2C%20Queen%20of%20Scots%20%288%20December

25 th July 1978

     Test tube baby :
                             Birth of Louise Joy Brown, the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation.

WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO GROW UP AS THE WORLD'S FIRST 'TEST-TUBE BABY'


Louise Brown doesn’t mind if you call her a test-tube baby, “but I prefer IVF – since there weren’t any test tubes involved,” she says with a laugh, gesturing to the large glass jar in which she started her life.

That jar is now displayed at the Science Museum in London, because — exactly forty three years ago today — Louise Brown became the first person to be born after being conceived outside of the human body, through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Her embryo was taken from the jar — called a “desiccator” — and transferred into her mother Lesley’s womb.

Nine months later, Louise arrived, and so did the world’s media. Hordes of reporters, representing outlets from the U.S. to Japan, descended on the small southwestern English town of Oldham, determined to bear witness to what TIME then called “the most awaited birth in perhaps 2,000 years.”

The mood before the birth was tense. British scientist Robert Edwards and his gynecologist colleague Patrick Steptoe had been working toward it for more than a decade. Edwards had first fertilized an egg outside the womb in 1969, later calling in Steptoe to help him refine the technique for people. The pair had attempted implantation in 282 women. Five had become clinically pregnant but none had so far given birth to a live baby. Alongside Jean Purdy, the world’s first embryologist and an essential but often forgotten member of the team, Edwards and Steptoe worked under secretive conditions, owing to intense competition between fertility researchers and opposition from religious groups and the public.

   

  Louise at birth.

When the big day came, doctors filmed the caesarean section in order to capture Lesley’s damaged Fallopian tubes and prove to the public that Steptoe and Edwards’ claims were not a hoax. Some were critical of Lesley and her husband John for making their daughter’s birth so public. “By turning the birth of their child into a media event, the Browns have […] degraded and institutionalized the child, and for that act, not for their act of medically assisted birth, the Browns should be viewed as symbols of the degeneration of Western morals,” TIME reader Grant Parsons of Ann Arbor, Mich., wrote in after the magazine reported the news of Louise’s birth.

   

  Louise with her naturally conceived son ,

“My parents didn’t have a choice about making it public,” Brown tells TIME. “If they didn’t, they would have had people asking ‘Why can’t we see her? What’s wrong with her?'” Steptoe and Edwards needed the birth to be public, Brown says. “Had there been anything at all wrong with me, it would have been the end of IVF.”
   
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Brown

26 th July 1803

    Public railways :
                          The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opens in south London, United Kingdom.

     

BRITISH HISTORY
On this day in history : 26th July 1803 – The Surrey Iron Railway opens in South London – it could be argued that it is the world’s first public railway….

 
 
Watercolour showing the Surrey Iron Railway – Unknown artist – Public domain
.
The railway ran from the Thames at Wandsworth to Croydon via Mitcham – it then joined the Croydon, Mertsham and Godstone Railway….then all towns in Surrey but now part of the suburbs of London….

The original plan, proposed in 1799, had been to construct a canal system to transport particularly chalk, dug from the Surrey Hills around Epsom, to the Thames – but also coal, building supplies, lime, manure and animal feed between Wandsworth and the industries of the Wandle Valley…. However, a canal system relied on drawing water from the River Wandle – not surprisingly mill and factory owners also using water from the river voiced concerns as to there being enough water to go around…. So an idea was formed to use a plate way – a type of tramway or wagon way, which used rails laid on stone sleepers to transport horse drawn wagons….

   

   

  Plaque and an original piece of track.

The railway was designed by Benjamin Outram – which incidentally is where the name ‘tram’ comes from…. The architect was Edward Banks, who had previously worked on the railways…. The nine mile track became a public toll railway, independent goods hauliers used their own wagons and horses, paying a toll for the use of the rails…. The railway was in use until 1844, when it was sold to a steam railway company…. The old tracks were lifted in 1848….

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

27 th July 1890

     Vincent Van Gogh :
                               Vincent van Gogh shoots himself and dies two days later:
On 27 July 1890, Vincent van Gogh, an unkempt, unknown 37-year-old Dutchman, walked out of his lodgings in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, just north of Paris, where he had been living and working since May.
That day instead of his usual easel and paints, he carried a handgun he had perhaps borrowed from a farmer ‘to scare away the crows’. He intended to kill himself. An habitual self-harmer, only two years before Vincent had mutilated his ear.

Wracked by mental torment, frustrated by his illness (probably a deadly cocktail of bipolar disorder and porphyria combined with alcoholism, poor diet, overwork and insomnia) he now feared he was a burden to his beloved brother Theo. Theo had supported him – believed in him – in every possible way for the past 10 years but Theo now had a wife and baby son to support too.

       

   Self portrait of Van Gogh .

Desperately lonely, his once overwhelming christian faith long evaporated, Vincent only had his painting left to believe in. But no one was buying.

No one knows exactly where he was when he pulled the trigger.
Legend has it he was in the rolling wheatfields at the back of the village. More likely he scurried quietly into a barn. He shot himself in the stomach. Bleeding heavily he somehow managed to stagger back to his lodgings. He went to bed, lit his pipe and waited for the inevitable.

Vincent’s quack homeopathic doctor, Paul Gachet, who Vincent believed to be as mentally unstable as he was, was called for. The bullet was too deep. There was nothing to be done to save him. Infection quickly set in. Theo arrived on the next train from Paris. Theo stayed with him until 1.30am on 29 July 1890; where he died in Theo’s arms in that pokey, gloomy attic room.

“…sadness and extreme loneliness.”
An unposted letter to Theo was found on Vincent’s body. In it, Vincent described a painting he had recently finished: Wheatfield with crows.  He said it depicted “vast fields of wheat beneath troubled skies,” adding “I did not have to go out of my way to express sadness and extreme loneliness.”

The church at Auvers, which Vincent had only recently painted, refused to host Vincent’s funeral because he had killed himself. So much for god’s mercy. The service took place across the river at Mery-sur-Oise the next day.

Vincent’s friend, the young painter Emile Bernard, was there:

“The coffin was already closed. I arrived too late to see the man again who had left me four years ago so full of expectations of all kinds. On the walls of the room where his body was laid out all his last canvases were hung making a sort of halo for him and the brilliance of the genius that radiated from them made this death even more painful for us artists who were there.”

“The coffin was covered with a simple white cloth and surrounded with masses of flowers, the sunflowers that he loved so much, yellow dahlias, yellow flowers everywhere. It was his favourite colour, the symbol of the light that he dreamed of being in people’s hearts as well as in works of art. Many people arrived, mainly artists, among who I recognised Lucien Pissarro … also some local people who had known him a little, seen him once or twice and who liked him because he was so good-hearted, so human…

“At three o’clock his body was moved, friends of his carrying it to the hearse, a number of people in the company were in tears. …his brother, who had always supported him in his struggle to support himself from his art was sobbing pitifully the whole time…

“The sun was terribly hot outside. We climbed the hill outside Auvers [towards the cemetery] talking about him, about the daring impulse he had given to art, of the great projects he was always thinking about, and about the good he had done to all of us. We reached the cemetery on the little hill above the fields that were ripe for harvest under the wide blue sky that he loved. Then he was lowered into the grave.

“Doctor Gachet (who is a great art lover and possesses on of the best collections of impressionist painting at the present day) wanted to say a few words about Vincent and his life, but he too was weeping so much that he could only stammer a very confused farewell. He was, Gachet said, an honest man and a great artist, he had only two aims, humanity and art. It was art that he prized above everything and which will make his name live.”

             

   The gun believed to be used , sold at auction .

Vincent has been my teacher and inspiration since the muscular yellows of ‘The
Sunflowers’ hit me squarely in my 16-year-old face like a lightening bolt at the National Gallery, London. If you think you know this painting from the zillions of reproductions, I can assure you, you don’t. Make the trek to London and see it for real. And take sunglasses.

Every year on 29 July I think of Vincent lying in Theo’s arms as death finally healed him. Heartbroken, 33-year-old Theo followed Vincent to the grave just six months later. Theo’s widow, Johanna, inherited all but a handful of Vincent’s 900 canvases and more than 1,000 drawings. She would spend the rest of her life promoting her brother-in-law’s ground-breakingly colourful, life-affirming paintings.

The legend had begun.

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

28 th July 1939

 The Sutton Hoo helmet :
                                    The Sutton Hoo helmet is discovered .
                       

         
The Discovery of the Sutton Hoo Helmet.


 -  28thJuly 1939  -  

What was the purpose of the Sutton Hoo helmet?

The Sutton Hoo helmet is a decorated Anglo-Saxon helmet which was discovered during the 1939 excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial. It was buried around 625 and is widely believed to have been the helmet of King Rædwald of East Anglia, and its elaborate decoration may have given it a secondary function akin to a crown.

“I think it’s fair to say that the Sutton Hoo helmet is the face of the Anglo-Saxons, perhaps even all of the early middle ages in Europe. It is shown on numerous book covers, got its own commemorative stamp for the 250th anniversary of the British Museum and features in countless documentaries on the period.” Sonja Marzinzik, curator, British Museum and author of the Sutton Hoo Helmet sets out the importance of this find. It has also been labelled as the most important archaeological find in England’s history. It is an image known by millions of school children too, who study the Anglo-Saxon period.

   

     The first reconstruction of the pieces was done by 70-year-old Herbert Maryon, who admitted that he had to carry out the work with mainly one eye. It took him six months’ continuous work to complete the helmet which was like doing a jigsaw puzzle without a picture, with missing pieces and broken edges. This was done between 1945 and 1946. Unfortunately, his work came in for some criticism about the moving pieces and the design – particularly from historians in Sweden who had similar finds.

       

  The Sutton Hoo helmet .

   A description of the helmet is best given by the British Museum itself. “Iron and tinned copper alloy helmet, consisting of many pieces of iron, now built into a reconstruction, forming cap, cheek-pieces, mask and neck-guard. Covered with panels of tinned copper alloy sheeting. The copper alloy sheets are stamped with various patterns including animal interlace, and warrior motifs depicted in two panels. Three different dies were used for the figural scenes and two for the interlace. The warrior motifs are known as the "Dancing Warrior" and "Fallen Warrior". A crest runs over the cap of the helmet and leads down the face in a straight line, forming the nose, which is gilt copper alloy. The crest itself is of iron and has gilt animal terminals at the forehead and back of the head, the animals having cloisonné garnet eyes. The iron crest and copper alloy eyebrows are inlaid with silver wire; the eyebrows have gilt zoomorphic terminals consisting of boar heads, and strips of garnet cloisonné work immediately above the eye sockets. The nose and mouth-piece are cast as one; they are made of parcel-gilt and partly tinned copper alloy, with engraved detail and silver inlay.”

   

29th July 1981

  A Royal wedding :
                           A worldwide television audience of over 700 million people watch the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul's Cathedral in Londo


1981: Charles and Diana marry
Crowds of 600,000 people filled the streets of London to catch a glimpse of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer on their wedding day.
The couple were married at St Paul's Cathedral before an invited congregation of 3,500 and an estimated global TV audience of 750 million - making it the most popular programme ever broadcast.

Britons enjoyed a national holiday to mark the occasion.

Lady Diana, 20, arrived almost on time for the 1120 BST ceremony after making the journey from Clarence House in the Glass Coach with her father, Earl Spencer.

         

  Arriving with the 25 ft train .

She made the three-and-a-half minute walk up the red-carpeted aisle with the sumptuous 25 ft (7.62 m) train of her Emmanuel designed, ivory taffeta and antique lace gown flowing behind her.

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Robert Runcie led the traditional Church of England service, but he was assisted by clergymen from many denominations.

The bride's nerves showed briefly when she mixed up the Prince's names - calling him Philip Charles Arthur George, rather than Charles Philip.

Charles, 32, in the full dress uniform of a naval commander, slightly muddled his vows too, referring to "thy goods" rather than "my worldly goods".

After a brief private signing ceremony the Prince and Princess of Wales walked back down the aisle to the refrain of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance.
   
 
   
Balcony kiss


The newlyweds took the open-topped state landau to Buckingham Palace where they emerged on the balcony at 1310 BST to give the crowds the kiss they had been longing to see.

Afterwards Charles and Diana retired from the public gaze to enjoy toasts and a wedding breakfast with 120 family guests.

A "just married" sign attached to the landau by Princes Andrew and Edward raised smiles as the married couple were driven over Westminster Bridge to get the train to Romsey in Hampshire to begin their honeymoon.

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

31 st July 2006
                     Top Of The Pops :
                                            – The world's longest running music show Top of the Pops is broadcast for the last time on BBC Two. The show had aired for 42 years.

        The 30th of July 2006 AD TOTP

That’s Top of the Pops for those of a very young persuasion. The show first was broadcast on New Year’s Day 1964, from a studio in Rusholme , Manchester. Jimmy Savile was the original host; Jimmy Savile was the last, though the final programme also featured more recent presenters like Edith Bowman and Reggie Yates, along with blasts from the past Dave Lee Travis, Tony Blackburn , and Mike Read.
For decades TOTP was a must see on a Thursday night (though it later moved to Friday), its mix of chart rundown, hits and new releases the foundation of the programme, though it was also wonderful in other ways: terrible dancing by girls in big glasses and teenage boys in appalling shirts; and gorgeous professional hoofers like Pan’s People, compulsive (male)-viewing for their skimpy costumes – Babs, the 13-year-old me will always love you.
The Rolling Stones were the first band on the first show, and again on the last. Stars from across the decades featured on the last show, filmed in London : Bowie ; Bolan ; Robbie Williams and The Who among many others. Shakira, with Hips Don’t Lie was the last ever song played on the show, the current number one traditionally rounding off the programme. And then a sad Jimmy Savile turned out the lights and 42 years of poptastic television came to an end.

               

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

31 st July 1588

 The Spanish armada :
                              The Spanish Armada is spotted off the coast of England.

   
 
 

The San Martín, Medina-Sidonia’s flagship.

On 31 July 1588 what became known as the Spanish 'Invincible Armada' encountered the English Navy off the coast of Plymouth.

In May that year, during the undeclared Anglo-Spanish war (1585-1604), as Spain's King Felipe II wanted to remove the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I from the English throne and restore Catholicism in England, the Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon under the command of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia.

When the fleet was sighted off the English coast in July, Sir Francis Drake ordered 100 English vessels to prepare to confront it.

Over the following days, English ships continued to pursue the Spanish Armada as it headed eastwards along the English Channel, according to the website History.com. There were two duels, one near Portland Bill and another off the coast of the Isle of Wight, but both battles ended in stalemate.

The Armada continued eastwards and then strong winds pushed the fleet northwards up the east coast of England.
The Spanish ships sailed around Scotland before making it to the west coast of Ireland in autumn 1588, where they were anchored.

According to the diary of Francisco de Cuéllar, a captain aboard one of the Spanish ships, after five days the fleet was ravaged by severe storms.

Approximately one third of the Spanish fleet was destroyed in the Atlantic ocean; three of the ships were moored off the coast of Streedagh Strand, in what is now County Sligo.

De Cuéllar kept a detailed account of the shipwreck and the time he spent in Ireland.

The accounts suggest a mixed reception by the Irish when he and his fellow Spanish sailors came ashore.

The captain wrote in his accounts that some Irish clans helped the stranded sailors and even managed to secretly stow some of them back to Spain, while others were said to have been butchered to death by the locals.

   The most famous (but probably apocryphal) anecdote about Drake relates that, prior to the battle, he was playing a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. On being warned of the approach of the Spanish fleet, Drake is said to have remarked that there was plenty of time to finish the game and still beat the Spaniards. There is no known eyewitness account of this incident and the earliest retelling of it was printed 37 years later. Adverse winds and currents caused some delay in the launching of the English fleet as the Spanish drew nearer, perhaps prompting a popular myth of Drake's cavalier attitude to the Spanish threat.

       

   Drakes plaque in Plymouth .

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