Today in history

28 th August 1648

  Siege of Colchester :
                               The Siege of Colchester ends when Royalists Forces surrender to the Parliamentary Forces after eleven weeks, during the Second English Civil War.

            The Siege of Colchester
Colchester was perhaps most famously destroyed by Boudicca as she burnt the town to the ground, reblling against its Roman population. However to a present day visitor it is the destruction caused by the 1648 Siege of Colchester which has more notably left its mark on the town.

The English Civil War ran from 1642 - 1651 and it was during a relative lull in 1648 that Royalist supporters arrived in Colchester and occupied it. The Parliamentarian army pursued them and after losing an initial battle, laid siege to the town with the Royalists trapped inside.

   

     Oblisk in castle park

The siege lasted 73 days before the Royalist surrendered on 28th August. Their commanders were executed with the site now marked by an obelisk in Castle Park.

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

29 th August 1966

   Beatles last concert :
                                  The Beatles perform their last concert before paying fans at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

         
The Beatles Bible


Although they made an unannounced live appearance in January 1969 on the rooftop of the Apple building, The Beatles’ final live concert took place on 29 August 1966 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California.

There was a big talk at Candlestick Park that this had got to end. At that San Francisco gig it seemed that this could possibly be the last time, but I never felt 100% certain till we got back to London.
John wanted to give up more than the others. He said that he’d had enough.

The Park’s capacity was 42,500, but only 25,000 tickets were sold, leaving large sections of unsold seats. Fans paid between $4.50 and $6.50 for tickets, and The Beatles’ fee was around $90,000. The show’s promoter was local company Tempo Productions.

   

The Beatles took 65% of the gross, the city of San Francisco took 15% of paid admissions and were given 50 free tickets. This arrangement, coupled with low ticket sales and other unexpected expenses resulted in a financial loss for Tempo Productions.

The Beatles at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, 29 August 1966

Candlestick Park was the home of the baseball team the San Francisco Giants. The stage was located just behind second base on the field, and was five feet high and surrounded by a six-foot high wire fence.

The compère was ‘Emperor’ Gene Nelson of KYA 1260 AM, and the support acts were, in order of appearance, The Remains, Bobby Hebb, The Cyrkle and The Ronettes. The show began at 8pm.

       

   The Beatles take to the stage .    

I was the MC, and, as any Giants fans will know, Candlestick Park in August, at night, was cold, foggy and windy. The funniest thing this night was one of the warm-up acts, Bobby Hebb. He stood up on the stage at Candlestick Park, with the fog, and the wind blowing, and he was singing ‘Sunny’! It was tough anyway to work a ballpark as an MC, especially as The Beatles were taking their time to get out. I was trying to entertain a crowd that was shouting, ‘Beatles, Beatles, Beatles.’
The dressing room was chaos. There were loads of people there. The press tried to get passes for their kids and the singer Joan Baez was in there. Any local celebrity, who was in town, was in the dressing room. They were having a party in there. They were having a perfectly wonderful time, while I was freezing my buns off on second base!


The Beatles Off The Record, Keith Badman
The Beatles took to the stage at 9.27pm, and performed 11 songs: ‘Rock And Roll Music’, ‘She’s A Woman’, ‘If I Needed Someone’, ‘Day Tripper’, ‘Baby’s In Black’, ‘I Feel Fine’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’, ‘Nowhere Man’, ‘Paperback Writer’ and ‘Long Tall Sally’.

The group knew it was to be their final concert. Recognising its significance, John Lennon and Paul McCartney took a camera onto the stage, with which they took pictures of the crowd, the rest of the group, and themselves at arm’s length.

Before one of the last numbers, we actually set up this camera, I think it had a fisheye, a wide-angle lens. We set it up on the amplifier and Ringo came off the drums, and we stood with our backs to the audience and posed for a photograph, because we knew that was the last show.

   

          John Lennon , taken from the on stage camera.      

As The Beatles made their way to Candlestick Park, Paul McCartney asked their press officer Tony Barrow to make a recording of the concert on audio cassette, using a hand-held recorder. The cassette lasted 30 minutes on each side, and, as Barrow didn’t flip it during the show, the recording cut off during final song ‘Long Tall Sally’.

There was a sort of end of term spirit thing going on, and there was also this kind of feeling amongst all of us around The Beatles, that this might just be the last concert that they will ever do. I remember Paul, casually, at the very last minute, saying, ‘Have you got your cassette recorder with you?’ and I said, ‘Yes, of course.’ Paul then said, ‘Tape it will you? Tape the show,’ which I did, literally just holding the microphone up in the middle of the field. As a personal souvenir of the occasion, it was a very nice thing to have and the only difference was that it wasn’t a spectacular occasion. It was nothing like Shea Stadium, there was nothing special about it at all, except that The Beatles did put in extra ad-libs and link material which they hadn’t put in before on any other occasion.

   Tony Barrow


Barrow gave the original tape of the Candlestick Park concert to McCartney. He also made a single copy, which was kept in a locked drawer in Barrow’s office desk. The recording has since become widely circulated on bootlegs, although quite how is not known.

At San Francisco airport, as our plane prepared to take off, Paul’s head came over the top of my seat from the row behind: ‘Did you get anything on tape?’ I passed the cassette recorder back to him: ‘I got the lot, except that the tape ran out in the middle of Long Tall Sally.’ He asked if I had left the machine running between numbers to get all the announcements and the boys’ ad lib remarks. I said: ‘It’s all there from the guitar feedback before the first number.’ Paul was clearly chuffed to have such a unique souvenir of what would prove to be an historic evening – the farewell stage show from the Fab Four.
Back in London I kept the concert cassette under lock and key in a drawer of my office desk, making a single copy for my personal collection and passing the original to Paul for him to keep. Years later my Candlestick Park recording re-appeared in public as a bootleg album. If you hear a bootleg version of the final concert that finishes during Long Tall Sally it must have come either from Paul’s copy or mine, but we never did identify the music thief!

https://www.classicfox.com/news/55-years-ago-the-beatles-play-final-official-concert/

30 th August 1936

    The Queen Mary and the blue riband:
                                                        – The RMS Queen Mary wins the Blue Riband by setting the fastest transatlantic crossing.

RMS Queen Mary

The RMS Queen Mary is a retired British ocean liner that sailed primarily on the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard-White Star Line and was built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland. Queen Mary, along with RMS Queen Elizabeth, were built as part of Cunard's planned two-ship weekly express service between Southampton, Cherbourg (Cherbourg-Octeville in 2000, then Cherbourg-en-Cotentin in 2016) and New York. The two ships were a British response to the express superliners built by German, Italian and French companies in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

In August 1936, Queen Mary captured the Blue Riband from Normandie, with average speeds of 30.14 knots (55.82 km/h; 34.68 mph) westbound and 30.63 knots (56.73 km/h; 35.25 mph) eastbound. Normandie was refitted with a new set of propellers in 1937 and reclaimed the honor, but in 1938 Queen Mary took back the Blue Riband in both directions with average speeds of 30.99 knots (57.39 km/h; 35.66 mph) westbound and 31.69 knots (58.69 km/h; 36.47 mph) eastbound, records which stood until lost to United States in 1952.

     

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

31 st August 1997

  Death of Diana :
                         1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales, her companion Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul die in a car crash in Paris.

On this day, August 31 1997: Death of Princess Diana shook the world

It was a terrible day that most of us will never forget.

The nation woke, rubbing their eyes in disbelief, to breaking news that Princess Diana had been killed in a car crash.

It was an incident nobody could have foreseen.

Diana, Princess of Wales, had been on holiday in the French Riviera with her boyfriend, the Egyptian-born socialite Dodi Fayed, and had not long arrived in Paris when the tragedy happened.


The couple left the Ritz Paris just after midnight, intending to go to Dodi’s apartment on the Rue Arsene Houssaye.

As soon as they departed the hotel, a swarm of paparazzi on motorcycles began aggressively tailing their car. About three minutes later, the driver lost control and crashed into a pillar at the entrance of the Pont de l’Alma tunnel.

     

    Wreckage of car in the tunnel

Dodi, son of Egyptian billionaire Mohamed al-Fayed, the former owner of Harrods department store, and the driver, Henri Paul, were pronounced dead at the scene. Diana was taken to the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital, but was later declared dead at 6am.

A fourth passenger, Diana’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, was seriously injured but survived.


Diana’s former husband Prince Charles, as well as her sisters and other members of the royal family, arrived in Paris that morning. Diana’s body was then taken back to London.

Diana was one of the most popular public figures in the world. Her death was met with a massive outpouring of grief. Mourners began visiting Kensington Palace immediately, leaving bouquets at the home where the princess, also known as Lady Di, would never return.

She was the first genuine royal celebrity according to Andrew Marr, and her death shook the British in a way no other royal event in modern times has done.

On the day of her death, Tony Blair, still fresh in his job as Prime Minister, addressed the nation from outside St Mary Magdalene Church in Trimdon in his Sedgefield constituency.


“She was the people’s princess and that’s how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and in our memories forever,” Mr Blair declared.

The speech, scribbled by Mr Blair on the back of an envelope following discussions with Alastair Campbell, his director of communications, was watched by millions and featured in the 2006 film, The Queen.

Diana’s death was a full-blown media sensation, and the subject of many conspiracy theories. At first, the paparazzi hounding her car were blamed for the crash, but later it was revealed that the driver was under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs. A formal investigation concluded the paparazzi did not cause the collision.

Diana’s funeral at Westminster Abbey on September 6 was attended by 2,000 people. Thirty-two million people watched the service on TV in the UK and an estimated 2.5 billion people watched it worldwide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Diana,_Princess_of_Wales

1 st September 1958

         The cod wars :
                              Iceland expands its fishing zone, putting it into conflict with the United Kingdom, beginning the Cod Wars.



The First Cod War lasted from 1 September until 12 November 1958. It began as soon as a new Icelandic law that expanded the Icelandic fishery zone from 4 nautical miles (nmi) to 12 nmi (from 7.4 to 22.2 km), came into force at midnight of 1 September.

The British declared that their trawlers would fish under protection from their warships in three areas, out of the Westfjords, north of Horn and to the southeast of Iceland. All in all, 20 British trawlers, 4 warships and a supply vessel were inside the newly declared zones. This deployment was expensive, in February 1960 Lord Carrington, the minister responsible of the Royal Navy, reported that his ships near Iceland had expended half a million pounds sterling worth of oil since the new year and that a total of 53 British warships had taken part in the operations. Against this Iceland could deploy seven Patrol vessels and a single PBY-6A Catalina flying boat.

Many incidents followed, such as the one on 4 September, when the V/s Ægir, an Icelandic patrol vessel, attempted to take a British trawler off the Vestfjords, but was thwarted when HMS Russell intervened, and the two vessels collided.
On 6 October, V/s María Júlía fired three shots at the trawler Kingston Emerald, forcing the trawler to escape to sea.

   

  An Icelandic gunboat confronts a British trawler .    

On 12 November, V/s Þór encountered the trawler Hackness which had not stowed its nets legally. Hackness did not stop until Þór had fired two blanks and one live shell off its bow. Once again, HMS Russell came to the rescue and its shipmaster ordered the Icelandic captain to leave the trawler alone as it was not within the 4 nmi (7.4 km) limit recognised by the British government. Þór’s captain, Eiríkur Kristófersson, said that he would not do so, and ordered his men to approach the trawler with the gun manned. In response, the Russell threatened to sink the Icelandic boat if it so much as fired one shot at the Hackness. More British ships then arrived and the Hackness escaped.

     

    Icelandic boats used net cutters (as above) to thwart fishermen.      

Eventually Britain and Iceland came to a settlement, which stipulated that any future disagreement between Iceland and Britain in the matter of fishery zones would be sent to the International Court of Justice in the Hague. In total the First Cod War saw a total of 37 Royal Navy ships and 7,000 sailors protecting the fishing fleet from 6 Icelandic gunboats and their 100 coast guards.


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

2 nd September 1666

    Great fire of London :
                                   The Great Fire of London breaks out and burns for three days, destroying 10,000 buildings, including Old St Paul's Cathedral.

   
At about midnight on September 2 1666 a fire started in the bakery of one Thomas Farriner (also spelled Farynor at times) in Pudding Lane, and spread through his house before a servant was woken by the flames. The baker and his family escaped, but one maid was too panicked to get out, and became the first victim of the fire.
   
THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON 2ND TO 6TH SEPTEMBER 1666 – RJ SCOTT

The Great Fire of London swept through the central parts of the English city from Sunday, 2 September to Thursday, 6 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall. The people of London had managed to survive the Great Plague in 1665.

“A fire started on September 2nd in the King’s bakery in Pudding Lane near London Bridge. Fires were quite a common occurrence in those days and were soon quelled. Indeed, when the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas Bloodworth was woken up to be told about the fire, he replied “Pish! A woman might piss it out!”. However that summer had been very hot and there had been no rain for weeks, so consequently, the wooden houses and buildings were tinder dry.”

“Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, the diarists, both gave dramatic, first-hand accounts of the next few days. Samuel Pepys, who was a clerk of the Privy Seal, hurried off to inform King Charles II.”

“In the immediate aftermath of the fire, a poor demented French watchmaker called (Lucky) Hubert, confessed to starting the fire deliberately: justice was swift and he was rapidly hanged. It was sometime later however that it was realized that he couldn’t have started it, as he was not in England at the time!” – RJ – this I find incredibly sad – poor guy!

     

   The fire portrayed in a painting .

I found this out as well – some buildings survived and one of them, The Olde Wine Shades Pub (Now a wine bar), built 1663 – “Once a favourite haunt of Charles Dickens, this historic pub was built in 1663 and even features an old smuggling tunnel leading down to the River Thames! Unfortunately, there is limited information on how it managed to escape the Great Fire, especially curious as the pub is located just a few streets away from Pudding Lane.” . Also, St Helen's Bishopsgate Church, built in the 12th century – The largest surviving church in the City of London, St Helen's was also the local parish church of William Shakespeare during his time in the area.


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

3 rd September 1935

    Land speed records :
                                  Sir Malcolm Campbell reaches a speed of 304.331 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, becoming the first person to drive an automobile over 300 mph.

       On September 3rd 1935, a new land-speed record was set by Britain’s famed speed demon, Sir Malcolm Campbell. On the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah, Campbell and his 2,500-hp motor car Bluebird made two runs over a one-mile course at speeds averaging 301.129 mph. In breaking the 300-mph barrier, he surpassed the world record of 276.82 mph that he had set earlier in the year.

   

  Sir Malcolm Campbell with his car Bluebird .

Malcolm Campbell, born in a suburb of London in 1885, served as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. After the war, he took up automobile racing and was a favourite at the old Brooklands racing track in Weybridge, Surrey.

In 1922, a new land-speed record of 133.788 mph was set at Brooklands, and Campbell dedicated himself to breaking it. Searching for an optimal racing surface, he conducted speed trials on a beach in Denmark and at Saltburn in England. At Saltburn, he surpassed the world record, but the result was not recognised by the international governing body of speed records.

4 th September 1972

  A lot of medals :
                         Mark Spitz becomes the first competitor to win seven gold medals at a single Olympic Games.

           At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich (West Germany), Spitz was back to maintain his bid for the six gold medals. He did even more, winning seven Olympic gold medals. Further, Spitz set a new world record in each of the seven events (the 100 m freestyle [00:51:22], 200 m freestyle [01:52:78], 100 m butterfly [00:54:27], 200 m butterfly [02:00:70], 4 × 100 m freestyle relay [03:26:42], 4 x 200 m freestyle relay [07:35:78] and the 4 × 100 m medley relay [03:48:16]). Originally Spitz was reluctant to swim the 100m freestyle fearing a less than gold medal finish. Minutes before the race he confessed on the pool deck to ABC's Donna de Varona, "I know I say I don't want to swim before every event but this time I'm serious. If I swim six and win six, I'll be a hero. If I swim seven and win six, I'll be a failure." Spitz won by half a stroke in a world-record 51.22.

                     

    Mark Spitz with his 7 gold medals .

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

5 th September 1972

  Munich olympic massacre :
                                         Munich massacre: A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" attacks and takes hostage 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. Two die in the attack and nine are murdered the following day.

     
     
        A terrorist attacks the apartments .

       Attack on the Olympic Village
For more than a week, the Games unfolded without incident. The day of terror began at 4:30 AM on September 5, 1972, when eight Palestinian militants affiliated with Black September—a militant offshoot of the Palestinian group Fatah—scaled a fence surrounding the Olympic Village in Munich. Disguised as athletes and using stolen keys, they forced their way into the quarters of the Israeli Olympic team at 31 Connollystrasse. As they attempted to enter Apartment 1, they were confronted by Yossef Gutfreund, a wrestling referee, and Moshe Weinberg, a wrestling coach. Weinberg was shot while fighting with the attackers, who forced him at gunpoint to lead them to the rooms of the remaining Israeli coaches and athletes. It has been proposed that Weinberg led the attackers past Apartment 2—which was also being used by the Israeli team—because he believed that the wrestlers and weightlifters in Apartment 3 would be better able to fight back. However, Black September had detailed plans of the Olympic Village and the dispositions of the Israeli athletes. Shaul Ladany, a race walker who survived the attack after escaping from Apartment 2, suggested that it was much more likely that his room was bypassed because he was housed with members of the Israeli shooting team. The terrorists had struggled to subdue the unarmed men in Apartment 1; it is unlikely that they had wished to engage in a close-quarters gun battle with world-class marksmen in the opening minutes of their operation.

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

6 th September 1620

        The Pilgrim fathers ;
The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England on the Mayflower to settle in North America.
                                     
Thanksgiving is celebrated in the USA on the fourth Thursday of November and it lasts four days. The Pilgrim Fathers, who were the founders of a colony in North America started this long standing tradition. These people were ‘puritans’ who wanted to escape from the persecution of The Church of England. They sailed on a ship from Plymouth called The Mayflower on 6th September 1620. There were 102 men, women and children aboard The Mayflower.

                               

                      The Mayflower .

They arrived at their destination, on the north-east coast of America on 11th December that year and called the place Plymouth. Having arrived in winter, it was very cold and food was scarce, so they set about building small houses and planting crops. However, the crops died from the frost and cold. Many of the settlers died of hunger that winter. By spring, they had befriended local native Americans; The Wampanoag, who taught them how to hunt, breed animals for food, live in the wilderness and helped them plant crops. By the following winter, everyone had enough food and no-one died. There was now hope for the future.

         

      Mayflower memorial in Southampton .

Governor William Bradford, who was the pilgrim leader decided to celebrate with a dinner for the natives and pilgrims together. This was the very first Thanksgiving celebration, it lasted three whole days and they thanked God for saving them. Today, the Thanksgiving meal is very similar to that first meal; turkey, with cranberry sauce, potatoes, local vegetables or salad and pumpkin pie. It is also a time for charity with many organisations giving generously to the poor and underprivileged people. In New York and other parts of the country there are parades and celebrations with over 2 million visitors to New York alone for this event.

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

7 th September 1940

    World War 11, the blitz :
                                       
1940 – World War II: The German Luftwaffe begins the Blitz, bombing London and other British cities for over 50 consecutive nights.

        It was dangerous living in a big city during the war. Cities were the target of enemy aircraft that flew over at night and dropped bombs.

At 4:56pm on 7 September 1940, the air raid sirens wailed as the German Air Force, the luftwaffe, launched a massive raid on London. Over 350 bombers flew across the Channel from airfields in France and dropped 300 tonnes of bombs on the docks and streets of the East End of London.

       

  Some of the damage in South East London.

Germany launched its bombing raids on British cities – the Blitz – on 7th September 1940 – ‘Black Saturday’, beginning with the London Docks. During this first phase of the Blitz, raids took place both day and night. German bombers attacked London every night but one between mid-September and mid-November. Birmingham and Bristol were attacked in mid-October.

From mid-November 1940 to February 1941, the Luftwaffe attacked industrial and port cities. This second phase began on 14th/15th November 1940 when the Luftwaffe made a devastating 12-hour bombing raid on Coventry. Three-quarters of the city centre was devastated, including the ancient cathedral. The Germans coined a phrase – ‘to Coventrate’ – to describe the intense destruction. Other targets included Birmingham, Bristol,


In February 1941 Hitler issued orders to concentrate on port facilities. Between 19 February and 12 May, Germany mounted 51 attacks against those targets, with only seven directed against inland metropolitan areas including London, Birmingham, and Coventry.

The government feared that aerial bombardment could destroy civilian morale and perhaps in Coventry those fears were put to their sternest test; in the immediate aftermath of the attack mass graves were dug (over 560 people died) and there was some looting. However within weeks the city and its factories revived and no where did sustained loss of morale occur.



   Morale wasn't lost and life went on in London .

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

8 th September 188

  Jack the ripper :
                          In London, the body of Jack the Ripper's second murder victim, Annie Chapman, is found.

     
ANNIE CHAPMAN - MURDERED 8TH SEPTEMBER 1888

        An illustration showing Annie Chapman before and after death.


JACK THE RIPPER'S SECOND VICTIM
Annie Chapman (1841 - 1888) led a somewhat nomadic existence around Spitalfields. She was 47 years old at the time of her death, a short plump, ashen-faced consumptive who, for four or so months prior to her death, had been living at Crossingham's lodging house at number 35 Dorset Street where she paid eight pence a night for a double bed.

She appears to have enjoyed a cordial relationship with the other tenants and the deputy keeper, Timothy Donovan, remembered her as being an inoffensive soul whose main weakness was a fondness for drink.

Like many of the women in the area Annie supplemented the meager income she obtained from crochet work and making and selling artificial flowers with prostitution.

She had two regular clients, one known as Harry the Hawker, and the other a man named Ted Stanley, a supposed retired soldier who was known to her fellow lodgers as "the Pensioner."

WHO WAS "THE PENSIONER"
As it later transpired, Stanley was neither a retired soldier nor a pensioner, but was in fact a bricklayer's labourer who lived at number 1 Osborn Place, Whitechapel.

According to Timothy Donovan, Stanley would frequently spend Saturdays to Mondays with Annie at Crossingham’s.

He also claimed that Stanley had told him to turn Annie away should she ever arrive at the lodging house with other men. Stanley, however, vehemently denied this and claimed to have visited Annie only once or twice.

     
Dorset Street, Spitalfields.


AN ARGUMENT AT THE LODGING HOUSE
Whatever Annie's relationship with the "Pensioner" he seems to have been the cause of the only trouble that Timothy Donovan could remember her being involved in during all her time at Crossingham’s.

At some stage in the month before her death, (different witnesses remembered different dates) there had been a fracas between Annie and fellow lodger Eliza Cooper.

The full details of the argument told by the different witnesses are confusing and contradictory, with some even claiming that Harry the Hawker was the cause.

According to Eliza Cooper in her inquest testimony she had loaned Annie Chapman a bar of soap which Annie had given to Ted Stanley who then went to wash with it. Over the next few days Eliza asked several times for the return of the soap, only to be dismissed by Annie who on one occasion contemptuously tossed a ha'penny onto the lodging house kitchen table and told her to "Go and get a halfpenny of soap."

The animosity was still evident when the two women met a few days later in the Britannia pub on the eastern corner of Dorset Street. However, on this occasion, Annie slapped Eliza across the face screaming as she did so, "think yourself lucky I don't do more." Eliza retaliated by punching Annie in the eye and then hard across the chest. Annie appears to have come off worse from the exchange of blows and the bruises she sustained were still evident when Dr Phillips carried out her post mortem.

Of course it should be remembered that this is the account given by Eliza Cooper at Annie Chapman's inquest and she was no doubt anxious to portray herself as the injured party.


ANNIE CHAPMAN BRUISED AND IN PAIN
Whatever the cause of the argument, Annie Chapman's last days were spent bruised and in pain, her health rapidly failing.

On Monday 3rd September, when she met her friend Amelia Palmer on Dorset Street, the bruising to her right temple was more than evident. "How did you get that?" Amelia Palmer asked. Annie's response was to open her dress and show her the bruising on her chest.

Amelia bumped into Annie again the next day close to Spitalfields church and commented on how pale she looked. Annie told her that she felt no better and that she might admit herself to the casual ward for a few days. When Amelia asked if she had had anything to eat that day Annie replied "No, I haven't had a cup of tea today." Amelia handed her two pence to buy some food and warned her not to spend it on rum.

ONE OF THE LAST SIGHTINGS
Three days later at around 5pm on 7th September Amelia again saw Annie in Dorset Street.

She looked even worse and complained of feeling "too ill to do anything."

She was still standing in the same place when Amelia passed her again ten minutes later, although she was now trying desperately to rally her spirits. "It's no use giving way, I must pull myself together and get some money or I shall have no lodgings," were the last words Amelia Palmer heard Annie Chapman speak.

https://www.jack-the-ripper.org/murder-of-annie-chapman.htm

9 th September 1543

   Monarchs are getting younger :
                                                 Mary Stuart, at nine months old, is crowned "Queen of Scots" in the central Scottish town of Stirling.

         Weaving the Tapestry
TextSeptember 10, 201983 notes
9th September 1543- Coronation of Mary I of Scotland
image
On 9th September 1543, the coronation of Mary I of Scotland took place in the Chapel Royal of Stirling Castle. An infant of barely nine months, she had been recognised as the kingdom’s next monarch at just six days old, after the premature death of her father King James V, leaving no other legitimate heirs of his body. She had been described as queen of Scotland in most official government documents since, but her official coronation had been preceded by nine months of political intrigue and tension, culminating in a double-edged triumph for the faction led by her mother Mary of Guise and Cardinal Beaton.

   

     A painting of the coronation .

The little queen had been resident in Stirling for just over a month, after her mother, the dowager queen Mary of Guise, supported by Cardinal Beaton along with the Earls of Huntly, Argyll, Lennox, Bothwell, Sutherland, Menteith, lords Erskine, Ruthven, Fleming, Crichton, Drummond, Lisle, Hume, the bishops of Moray, Orkney, Galloway, Dunblane, and several thousand others, had finally succeeded in removing her from her birthplace in the palace of Linlithgow at the end of July 1543. This was achieved in the face of opposition from of the Governor, James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, the infant queen’s 27 year old cousin, who was then official head of the Scottish government as regent and the next in line to the throne. As he was then pursuing a pro-English policy, and also had reason to view both the dowager queen and Cardinal Beaton as rivals, in early 1543 he had the Cardinal arrested and forbade Mary of Guise to leave Linlithgow for the greater protection of Stirling. However, following the Cardinal’s escape and the return of the Earl of Lennox from France in 1543, the opponents of the Governor (or at least his policy in favour of an alliance with England) gathered an army and marched on Linlithgow. After several days of stalemate and negotiation with the army sitting outside the palace walls, Arran had been forced to climb down.

The sudden flitting of the queen was an even greater source of displeasure to Henry VIII of England when he heard of it, as the English king had not only wished to marry her to his son the Prince of Wales, but had also wanted the queen to be kept in England until the marriage could take place. This would have served as a useful means of keeping the Scots in check, and anyway, he certainly did not trust her French mother, and even less the wily pro-French and militantly Catholic Cardinal Beaton, to follow through with the English marriage, for all their promises. Linlithgow would have suited Henry better as then there was at least a chance that one of the Scottish nobles he had attempted to suborn, or even an English invasion, would have been able to abduct the young queen from the beautiful, yet low-lying and relatively unprotected lochside palace. Stirling Castle was another matter entirely: perched on its high rock with a commanding view of the surrounding country, its Renaissance embellishments had not diminished its status as a formidable fortress, the veteran of many bitter Anglo-Scottish conflicts. Nevertheless, Henry VIII could live in hope- the Treaty of Greenwich might yet be ratified to his satisfaction, and the Scottish nobles who favoured alliance with the English king, whether for political or religious reasons, had managed to bring the Governor Arran round to his point of view, which lent their policy official authority.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_Queen_of_Scots

10 th September 2001

  Coughing incident on millionaire :
                                                  During his appearance on the British TV game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, contestant Charles Ingram reaches the £1 million top prize, but it was later revealed that he had cheated to the top prize by listening to coughs from his wife and another contestant .

In 2001, a coughing scandal erupted on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Now, people aren’t so sure.

On the set of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in September 2001, Charles Ingram made history.

After winning one million pounds on the British television show, Ingram became the third person in the show’s history to win the top prize.

For the computer repairman and British Army major, it was a huge feat.

Watch a clip from Charles Ingram’s appearance on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? below. Post continues after video.

“Even the cleverest people could go off [the show] with £16,000, £32,000, £64,000,” Phil Davies, a former floor manager for the show, told Sky News.

“It only takes one thing that you don’t know anything about, one little gap in your knowledge,” he added.

“The super smart ones generally you’d say, yeah, they’ll probably get to £64,000. Even £125,000 was quite rare. It really was that unusual.”

But in this situation, the case of Charles Ingram really was that. Unusual.

When Charles Ingram made his appearance on the show across two days in September 2001, he became the third person in his immediate family to participate on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

Previously, both Ingram’s wife, Diana, and her brother Adrian Pollock had been contestants on the show, both taking home £32,000 each.

In the lead up to his appearance on the show, Ingram practiced for around 20 minutes per day on a homemade ‘Fastest Finger First’ machine. The homemade machine mimicked a segment which was part of the popular game show at the time.

Strangely enough, however, Ingram’s first appearance on the show on September 9 didn’t exactly go smoothly.



Charles and Diana Ingram. Image:

By the time recording ended on the first day, Ingram had made it to just £4,000, and had used two of his three "lifelines".

When Ingram returned to the set on September 10, the production team doubted the army major would make it much further in the game.

But against all odds, Ingram won the top prize of £1 million.

The differences between Ingram's appearance on the first and second day of filming were stark. While Ingram struggled on September 9, he managed to answer every question right with no knowledge on September 10.

Almost immediately, the crew started to suspect that something wasn't quite right.

"We always said to the contestants, you've got to verbalise what you're thinking. Because, as [presenter Chris] Tarrant used to say, otherwise it's not much of a show. There's not much to see on Millionaire, it's just someone sat in a chair," Davies told Sky News.

"Tarrant was very good, he used to prompt them. 'What are you thinking?' 'Anything you can eliminate?' Or 'what are you leaning towards?' He used to prompt them all the time. And they would always tell you what their knowledge was, their working out."

With Ingram, however, there was no reasoning or process of elimination.




"It kept going on like this and we were just flabbergasted," Davies added.

"The first night, he was rubbish. But [the next day] he kept on getting them right."

Soon after Ingram won the top prize, the show's production company suspended the prize money amid suspicions that the army major had cheated.

It was alleged by producers on the show that lecturer Tecwen Whittock, who was among the other waiting contestants, would cough when Ingram read out a correct answer.

"I can assure you he was indicating answers," Davies claimed.

"I was crouched down and I was watching. And Tecwen, there he was, coughing. One single cough. At an appropriate point he'd turn around towards the hot seat and do one cough and turn away again."

When news of the scandal finally broke, Ingram, his wife Diana, and Whittock were arrested.

Following their arrest, the trio stood trial at Southwark Crown Court. Throughout the four-week trial, the Ingrams and Whittock both maintained their innocence. Despite this, the trio were found guilty of conspiring to cheat.

Ingram received an 18-month suspended sentence, was fined £15,000 and ordered to pay £10,000 costs. He was also forced to resign as an army major and was not able to keep his winnings from the show.

Diana Ingram was also fined £15,000 and ordered to pay £10,000 costs, while Whittock was fined £10,000 with £7,500 costs and given a custodial sentence of 12 months, which was suspended for two years.

In the years that followed the trial, the Ingram's faced constant public humiliation and mockery

Despite the constant mockery, Ingram actually went on to appear on various TV shows, including The Games, The Weakest Link, and even Wife Swap alongside his wife, all while they continued to maintain their innocence.

Now,  two decades on from the Ingram scandal, the infamous Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? incident is back in the spotlight once again.

This month, British ITV miniseries Quiz has retold the story of how Ingram was caught cheating on the game show.

The dramatisation of the scandal, which stars Matthew Macfadyen, Sian Clifford and Michael Sheen, has brought to light the ambiguities of the case.

Amid the release of the new series, the writer of the series, James Graham, said the fact the Ingrams' were "relatively privileged, white and middle class" made them "perfect tabloid fodder".


"Obviously all three were found guilty," Graham told Radio Times.

"But the story isn’t as clear cut as the majority of people think. Whether they did it or they didn’t do it, I think what happened in the studio that night isn’t black and white. There is new evidence and other older evidence that hasn’t really been presented to the public before and it points towards the Ingrams’ innocence."

Actress Helen McCory, who appeared in Quiz as the lawyer who defended Ingram, also shared that she felt uncertainty about the scandal.

"The fact that a lot of people at the time didn’t hear the cough... Chris Tarrant didn’t hear the cough, the person sitting opposite didn’t hear the cough, people either side didn’t hear the cough, yet for some reason he [Charles Ingram] heard the cough – really?" she told The Mirror.


"Now for some reason maybe he did. Maybe it was a complete set-up, or maybe he didn’t."

Since the show has aired, Ingram himself has been responding to viewers on Twitter, retweeting posts proclaiming that he was innocent.

The cast, the story, the scenes, simply brilliant. Terrifyingly accurate and oh yes, horribly cringeworthy. Floored by the pure talent on show tonight.


It's believed Charles and Diana Ingram will ask the court of appeal to overturn their convictions. The couple will argue that new audio analysis allegedly casts doubt on the case.

Human rights lawyer Rhona Friedman has reportedly agreed to take on the case.

"Speaking to them and meeting them, I just know that they did not do it," Friedman told The Guardian.

"I just feel very sorry for them."

On the other hand, Davies, who was there on the day of filming, still hasn't changed his mind.

September 11 th 2001

  The twin tower attacks :
                                    The September 11 attacks, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks killing 2,977 people using four aircraft hijacked by 19 members of al-Qaeda. Two aircraft crash into the World Trade Centre in New York City, a third crashes into The Pentagon in Washington and a fourth crash landed in a field in Pennsylvania


September 11 attacks

On Tuesday 11 September 2001 suicide attackers seized US passenger jets and crashed them into two New York skyscrapers, killing thousands of people.

The attack remains one of the most traumatic events of the century, not only for Americans but also for the world.

What were the targets?
Four planes flying over the eastern US were seized simultaneously by small teams of hijackers.

They were then used as giant, guided missiles to crash into landmark buildings in New York and Washington.

Two planes struck the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York.

The first hit the North Tower at 08:46 Eastern Time (13:46 GMT). The second crashed into the South Tower at 09:03.

The buildings were set on fire, trapping people on the upper floors, and wreathing the city in smoke. In less than two hours, both 110-storey towers collapsed in massive clouds of dust.

At 09:37 the third plane destroyed the western face of the Pentagon - the giant headquarters of the US military just outside the nation's capital, Washington DC.

The fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania at 10:03 after passengers fought back. It is thought the hijackers had meant to attack the Capitol Building in Washington DC.

How many people died?
In all, 2,977 people (not counting the 19 hijackers) lost their lives, most of them in New York.

All 246 passengers and crew aboard the four planes were killed
At the Twin Towers, 2,606 people died - then or later of injuries
At the Pentagon, 125 people were killed
The youngest victim was two-year-old Christine Lee Hanson, who died on one of the planes with her parents Peter and Sue.

The oldest was 82-year-old Robert Norton, who was on another plane with his wife Jacqueline, en route to a wedding.

When the first plane struck, an estimated 17,400 people were in the towers. Nobody survived above the impact zone in the North Tower, but 18 managed to escape from the floors above the impact zone in the South Tower.

   

     the remains of the towers two days after the attacks .

Citizens of 77 different countries were among the casualties. New York City lost 441 first responders.

Thousands of people were injured or later developed illnesses connected to the attacks, including firefighters who had worked in toxic debris.

Who were the attackers?
An Islamist extremist network called al-Qaeda planned the attacks from Afghanistan.

Led by Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaeda blamed the US and its allies for conflicts in
the Muslim world.

   
   
   A plane hits the towers .
       

Nineteen people carried out the hijackings, working in three teams of five and one of four (on the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania).

Each group included someone who had received pilot training. This was carried out at flying schools in the US itself.

Fifteen hijackers were Saudis like Bin Laden himself. Two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt and one was from Lebanon.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks

A grim reminder. Thank's Gassey.

t Thanks admin

12 th September 490 B.C

  The battle of Marathon :
                                     Battle of Marathon: The conventionally accepted date for the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians and their Plataean allies defeat the first Persian invasion force of Greece.

A Brief History
On September 12, 490 BC, an epic battle was fought between the Greeks (primarily Athenians) and the Persian Empire at the plains of Marathon, Greece, about 26 miles from Athens, with the result being a great victory for the outnumbered Greeks and giving rise to the legend of Pheidippides running the long distance to bring news of the victory to Athens, giving the happy word with his dying breaths.  The battle marked a turning point in the power struggle between the Greeks and Persians and resulted in a period of Greek sovereignty over their own land.

Digging Deeper
The Battle of Marathon came about as a Persian invasion of Greece was mounted in order to punish and subjugate Athens for that city-state having the gall to incite revolution in Ionia against Persian rule.  Persian King Darius I sent an invasion force of 600 triremes carrying 100,000 sailors (which would serve as a reserve land force) along with a main force of 25,000 infantry troops supplemented by 1000 mounted cavalrymen.  Additional Persian resources included 200 or more supply ships and 50 or more horse carrying ships.  The massive Persian force was to be defended against by only 10,000 Athenian hoplites and an additional 1000 Plataean soldiers.  (Plataea being another Greek city.)


The Achaemenid Empire at its greatest extent under Darius I

The outnumbered Greeks were sure to choose the battlefield wisely, and just as they had at Thermopylae forced the Persians to attack on a narrow front, with mountains and marshes channelizing the Persians and ruining any chance for the Persian cavalry to envelop the Greeks.  Greek tactics were to use their “missile troops” (those that threw spears, javelins, arrows and other objects of weaponry) in the middle of an attack on the Persians, thus fooling the Persians into pouring their best troops into the center of the battle.  The Greeks then turned both flanks of the Persians and descended upon the Persian center, causing panic and futile attempts at flight.  The historian Herodotus reported only about 200 Greeks were killed compared to the loss of about 6400 Persians killed and the destruction of at least 7 Persian ships.  Modern historians estimate Greek losses at between 1000 and 3000 dead and Persian losses at perhaps 5000 dead.  Either way, the Persians were routed and Athens was for the time saved.

Although superior Persian forces still existed and plans were made to again attack the Athenians, Persian attention was diverted by unrest in Persian held Egypt that required immediate attention, allowing the Greeks a much needed respite.  The Battle of Marathon proved Greeks had the ability to beat the mighty Persians and began a string of victories by the Greeks over the Persians.  The Battle of Marathon also proved that Athens could be quite successful militarily without the aid of Sparta, a significant development in Greek political relationships.



Please Note: Historic sources of the Battle of Marathon are of dubious accuracy as they rely mainly on the historian, Herodotus, who was born 6 years after the battle was fought and presumably did not write about it until some years later.  Many such famous historical events were written various amounts of time after the alleged events and details vary wildly from source to source.  Historians must collate all the sources and decide on the most likely facts and figures involved, which of course is just an educated guess.  Dates, numbers of troops, and the sequence of events may thus be somewhat different from the actual events.  Please keep this in mind while reading about ancient battles and events.

Legends About the Battle of Marathon
The best known reminder of the Battle of Marathon is the footrace referred to as a “marathon.”  A 26.2 mile footrace meant to commemorate the messenger Pheidippides that brought news of victory at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC back to Athens.  Of all the marathons run each year, the Olympic race, closing the Summer Olympics as the last event every 4 years, is the most prestigious.  Unlike those other marathons with hundreds or even thousands of contestants, only the best in the world compete for the Olympic Gold Medal and a place in history.  In fact, the word “marathon” has come to mean any particularly long and arduous undertaking, such as the reminder that a major league baseball season is a “marathon, not a sprint.”  Oddly enough, the legend of the “Marathon” run is probably conflated with the run made by Pheidippides to Sparta, a 140 mile run made according to legend in only about 36 hours.

 

Statue of Pheidippides alongside the Marathon Road.

Another lasting tribute to the Battle of Marathon is the word “panic,” which stems from the same Pheidippides, according to legend, having met the God Pan on his way to or from Sparta where he had been sent to seek aid for the coming battle from the Spartans.  The Spartans refused to assist Athens, but the interaction between Pan and Pheidippides included Pan asking why Athens did not honor and pray to him.  Pheidippides promised the God that henceforth Athens would well remember Pan in their prayers and praise, and Pan, believing the brave runner was truthful, assisted at the Battle of Marathon by instilling fear in the Persian soldiers, a fear we now call “panic” in honor of the God’s name.

The Athenians were not confining their prayers to only their patron Goddess, Athena, and the God Pan due to the experience of Pheidippides!  No, they were carefully hedging their bets by also beseeching Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, for her assistance in the coming battle.  After the great victory, a festival was held in which the Athenians had promised to sacrifice a goat for every Persian soldier slain in the battle.  The number of slain Persians exceeded the number of available goats, so the Athenians, practical as ever, slew 500 goats and promised the Goddess they would sacrifice 500 goats per year until the debt was paid.  The Athenians were still sacrificing 500 goats per year 90 years later.

     

   Greek warriors.

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

13 th September 1645

  Wars of the 3 kingdoms :
                                       Wars of the Three Kingdoms: Scottish Royalists are defeated by Covenanters at the Battle of Philiphaugh.

   Battle of Philiphaugh



The battle of Philiphaugh took place to the west of Selkirk on 13 September 1645. The Royalists (numbering around 2,000 men) were under the leadership of Montrose, the Covenanters (about 4,100) under Sir David Leslie. The Covenanter attacked from the higher ground, the Royalists being camped in the enclosures around Philiphaugh. Some of the Covenanters made an approach on Selkirk to attack any Royalists there, before returning to the main battlefield. The Covenanters were successful in battle, which lead to the restoration of the power of the Committee of Estates.

     

   Memorial cairn to the battle.      

Sir David Leslie marched many Royalist prisoners to Newark castle, where he executed many, at the behest of many of the Covenanter ministers

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

14 th September 1959

  Lunar firsts :
                     The Soviet probe Luna 2 crashes onto the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach it .
i  
This Day in History: Luna 2 became the first spacecraft to land on the moon, know about its 36 hours long journey
This Day in History:

Every day is filled with various historic events, that are remembered to ages, and there is one such event that took place on 14th September 1959 and was noted down as an important day in history.  

The Luna spacecraft was the first man-made craft that reached the surface of the moon on 14th September in the year, 1959. So, in this “On this Day in history” article further, we will know more about the Luna 2 spacecraft, the mission, and much more.

Also known as Lunik 2, Luna 2 was the second of the Soviet Union’s Luna program spacecraft launched to the moon.

What was the Luna 2 mission?
Luna 2 was the sixth Soviet attempt to send a probe crashing to the moon. While it was the first successful attempt by any nation, of making the Luna 2 probe the first human-made object to reach the surface of another celestial body.

Luna 2 crash-landed on the moon and took a direct path to the moon, similar to Luna 1, after fling for 36 hours straight before landing on the moon.
   
   

              Luna 2
                     
Luna 2 mission, in-depth:
The Luna 2 spacecraft launched by Russia, hit the moon at about 800 m from the centre of the visible disk, and its landing impacted the lunar surface east of Mare Serenitatis near the Aristides, Autolycus crates, and Archimedes.

Similar in design to the Luna 1 spacecraft, the Luna 2 spacecraft was spherical in shape with protruding antennae and instrument parts. The instrumentation of Luna 2 was also similar to Luna 1 and included scintillation and Geiger counters, micrometeorite detectors, and a magnetometer.

Luna 2 highlights:
The Luna 2 spacecraft also carries Soviet pennants and had no propulsion system. On 13th September, the Luna 2 spacecraft released a bright orange cloud of Sodium gas that helped in tracking the spacecraft and became an experiment on the behaviour of gas in space.

Launched on 12th September 1959, after 33.5 hours of flight, the radio signals from Luna 2 on 14th September stopped, thereby indicating that it had impacted on Moon.

After some 30 minutes Luna 2, the third stage of its rocket also impacted the moon at an unknown location.

The impact point in the Palus Putredinus region is approximately estimated to have occurred at 29.1 degrees N latitude, 0 degrees longitude.

Luna 2 flew to the moon with 5 different instruments to conduct various tests while on its way to the moon.

The Luna 2 mission confirmed that the moon had no appreciable magnetic field, and no evidence of radiation belts was found there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_2

15 th September 1830 :
                                    Liverpool _ Manchester railway :
                                                                                  The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens; British MP William Huskisson becomes the first widely reported railway passenger fatality when he is struck and killed by the locomotive Rocket.

15th September 1830. First Rail Fatality.
Today in 1830 William Huskisson MP, The Rocket and the Liverpool to Manchester Railway met for the first and last time when the first passenger line between the two cities opened.

     

   Opening of the Liverpool_Manchester railway.

The Duke of Wellington was also on this inaugural run, led by the ‘Northumbrian’, but an occasion which saw the first railway fatality, when Huskisson was killed whilst endeavouring to get a better view, misjudged the speed of The Rocket which didn’t have brakes or whistle, relying on a hunting-horn.

   

The business man behind the project was Joseph Sandars who founded the Liverpool to Manchester Railway Company, appointing George Stephenson as Chief Engineer.


However the original projector of the route and other railway lines was lawyer and geologist William James, one of the forgotten heroes of the first railways to run in Britain.

Not surprisingly all attention has been given to George Stephenson, who busy with the construction of the London Midland Railway, took all the credit for the Rocket, but a later Parliamentary Inquiry reprimanded him for claiming the Rocket as his own.

 

 Edge Hill station .

However in justice, Stephenson’s rise was the stuff of dreams being born in Wylam in 1781 untutored, growing up in a cottage with only one room to house a family of six, whilst earning money from cobbling and the repair of clocks and watches.

George’s innate talent as an engineer was eventually rewarded in the luxury of Tapton House in Chesterfield and a monument in Westminster Abbey, thus becoming a household name.

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

16 th September 1992

 Black Wednesday :
                           Black Wednesday: The British pound is forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism by currency speculators and is forced to devalue against the German mark.


1992: UK crashes out of ERM
The government has suspended Britain's membership of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.
The UK's prime minister and chancellor tried all day to prop up a failing pound and withdrawal from the monetary system the country joined two years ago was the last resort.

Chancellor Norman Lamont raised interest rates from 10% to 12%, then to 15%, and authorised the spending of billions of pounds to buy up the sterling being frantically sold on the currency markets.

But the measures failed to prevent the pound falling lower than its minimum level in the ERM.

The second rise in the interest rate was reversed by the beleaguered chancellor soon after the withdrawal from the ERM, setting it at 12%.

The move is a dramatic U-turn in government policy, as only last week Prime Minister John Major reaffirmed the government's commitment to remaining within the mechanism.

Mr Lamont admitted it had been an extremely difficult and turbulent day, but a Downing Street spokesman said he would not resign.

The shadow chancellor, Gordon Brown, said colossal errors of judgement by the prime minister and chancellor had betrayed the British people.

Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown said the government's policy had failed.

"They have lost control of the economic situation," he told the BBC.


We are in a state of political shambles

Conservative MP William Cash

But both politicians stopped short of calling for the chancellor's resignation.

Britain's decision to join the ERM in October 1990 represented a major shift in the direction of the government and has become a cornerstone of the country's European policy.

But Conservative MP for Stone William Cash, said the policies of the government and the chancellor should now be reconsidered.

"I think that the position of Norman Lamont at the moment is extremely precarious... We are in a state of political shambles," he said.

         

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

17 th September 1908

 The first airplane fatality :
                                       The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes, killing Selfridge, who becomes the first airplane fatality.



It had only been five years since Orville and Wilbur Wright made their famous flight at Kitty Hawk. By 1908, the Wright brothers were traveling across the United States and Europe in order to demonstrate their flying machine.

Everything went well until that fateful day, September 17, 1908, which began with a cheering crowd of 2,000 and ended with pilot Orville Wright severely injured and passenger Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge dead.

A Flight Exhibition
Orville Wright had done this before. He had taken his first official passenger, Lt. Frank P. Lahm, into the air on September 10, 1908, at Fort Myer, Virginia. Two days later, Orville took another passenger, Major George O. Squier, up in the Flyer for nine minutes.

These flights were part of an exhibition for the United States Army. The U.S. Army was considering purchasing the Wrights' aircraft for a new military airplane. To get this contract, Orville had to prove that the airplane could successfully carry passengers.

Though the first two trials had been successful, the third was to prove a catastrophe.

Lift Off!
Twenty-six-year-old Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge volunteered to be a passenger. A member of the Aerial Experiment Association (an organization headed by Alexander Graham Bell and in direct competition with the Wrights), Lt. Selfridge was also on the Army board that was assessing the Wrights' Flyer at Fort Myers, Virginia.

It was just after 5 p.m. on September 17, 1908, when Orville and Lt. Selfridge got into the airplane. Lt. Selfridge was the Wrights' heaviest passenger thus far, weighing 175 pounds. Once the propellers were turned, Lt. Selfridge waved to the crowd. For this demonstration, approximately 2,000 people were present.

The weights were dropped and the airplane was off.

Out of Control
The Flyer was up in the air. Orville was keeping it very simple and had successfully flown three laps over the parade ground at an altitude of approximately 150 feet.

Then Orville heard light tapping. He turned and quickly looked behind him, but he didn't see anything wrong. Just to be safe, Orville thought he should turn off the engine and glide to the ground.

But before Orville could shut off the engine, he heard "two big thumps, which gave the machine a terrible shaking."

"The machine would not respond to the steering and lateral balancing levers, which produced a most peculiar feeling of helplessness."
Something flew off the airplane. (It was later discovered to be a propeller.) Then the airplane suddenly veered right. Orville couldn't get the machine to respond. He shut off the engine. He kept trying to regain control of the airplane.

". . . I continued to push the levers, when the machine suddenly turned to the left. I reversed the levers to stop the turning and to bring the wings on a level. Quick as a flash, the machine turned down in front and started straight for the ground."
Throughout the flight, Lt. Selfridge had remained silent. A few times Lt. Selfridge had glanced at Orville to see Orville's reaction to the situation.

The airplane was about 75 feet in the air when it started a nose-dive to the ground. Lt. Selfridge let out a nearly inaudible "Oh! Oh!"

The Crash
Heading straight for the ground, Orville was not able to regain control. The Flyer hit the ground hard. The crowd was at first in silent shock. Then everyone ran over to the wreckage.

   

    The crash wreckage .      

The crash created a cloud of dust. Orville and Lt. Selfridge were both pinned in the wreckage. They were able to disentangle Orville first. He was bloody but conscious. It was harder to get Selfridge out. He too was bloody and had an injury to his head. Lt. Selfridge was unconscious.

The two men were taken by stretcher to the nearby post hospital. Doctors operated on Lt. Selfridge, but at 8:10 p.m., Lt. Selfridge died from a fractured skull, without ever regaining consciousness. Orville suffered a broken left leg, several broken ribs, cuts on his head, and many bruises.

Lt. Thomas Selfridge was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. He was the first man to die in an airplane.



Selfridge ( left ) talking to Alexander Graham Bell .

Orville Wright was released from the Army hospital on October 31. Though he would walk and fly again, Orville continued to suffer from fractures in his hip that had gone unnoticed at the time.

Orville later determined that the crash was caused by a stress crack in the propeller. The Wrights soon redesigned the Flyer to eliminate the flaws that led to this accident.

18 th September 1879

   Th'illuminations :
                            The Blackpool Illuminations are switched on for the first time.
                                            The Blackpool Illuminations have created magical memories for generations. Taking a trip under the Lights on foot, by car or tram and being dazzled by the amazing display brings joy to children and adults alike.
These bright lights that fill tourists with awe and amazement have been doing so for over 140 years; lighting up Blackpool since 1879. So how did the Illuminations begin?

1879
The first set of Illuminations were introduced when Blackpool Council devoted the sum of £5000 to experiment with the concept of electric street lighting, starting off with eight arc lamps on 60ft poles along the seafront.


     

   A tram festooned in lights for the 1925 event .

In a time when residents were lighting their homes with candles, this installation left the public in wonderment, calling them ‘artificial sunshine’. This installation brought visitors to the seaside resort to see this new electricity at work; the start of the annual influx of tourists that we see today. However, unlike today’s modern day technology with the Illuminations, the lamps used to go out as the tide came in due to water leaking into the cast iron wiring pipes!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackpool_Illuminations#:~:text=Blackpool%20Illuminations%20is%20an%20annual%20lights%20festival%2C%20founded,of%20Blackpool%20on%20the%20Fylde%20Coast%20in%20Lancashire.

19th September 1976

  The Tehran UFO incident , fact or human error:
                                                                     Two Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom II jets fly out to investigate an unidentified flying object,
 when both independently lose instrumentation and communications as they approach, only to have them restored upon withdrawal.
WHAT HAPPENED:
The 1976 Tehran UFO incident was seen and noted by both radar and visually in Iran’s capital Tehran first thing in the morning. The incident caused two jet interceptors to lose instrumentation and their communication as they got closer to the object; however once they withdrew normal function was resumed. While flying closer the aircraft prepared to open fire if necessary and the whole weapons system failed.

Many residents reported a bright light above them in the sky and pilots had also found that their equipment was disabled until they withdrew. The initial sightings by the residents was explained away by being a possible Jupiter astronomical body.

This was also backed by an aerospace researcher who said that the failure of the equipment used was due to the pilot’s incompetence and possible malfunction which bore no relation to the sighting or getting close to it. The first equipment failure came from equipment that was known for its failure and had a history of losing power. Repairs were made just a month prior to the incident and another theory was that the mode may have been set to ‘manual track’ which could have led the readings to be misinterpreted.



The bright lights of the 1976 Tehran UFO incident reported by the pilot were described to be falling and leaving behind them a trail. The day the incident took place was during two meteorite showers that occur each year known as the Gamma Piscids and Southern Piscids. There was also the Eta Draconoids shower coming to an end which would explain the sighting of odd lights and objects falling from the sky. The sight where the reported crash of the objects was explored and there a transponder still beeping was found which could explain the phenomenon.

 

   A de-classified report .

When the 1976 Tehran UFO incident is looked at in detail without automatically assuming that a UFO was the cause only one unusual thing about the incident remains. The only abnormality is that the planes chased after the objects and had failure of their equipment. there have been previous reports where planes have suffered equipment failure and also those where planes have reported UFO sightings when in fact they were not identified correctly. Occasionally both anomalies can correlate, which is what this incident was put down to.



Specialists in the UFO field were fast to criticize shows that glorify sightings of possible UFO’s and extra-terrestrial beings saying that the basis of the programs was based on presumption without facts to back them up. They added that the events that were quickly named the 1976 Tehran UFO incident could in fact be explained by other causes and did not automatically mean that visits from extra-terrestrials took place at all.



The reports from sightings said that it was felt that the lights were manned professionally and were hostile, however no injuries took place. This is why professionals discouraged speculation of unearthly encounters from aliens and looked no further into the incident. With UFO sightings the speculations are often disbanded quickly with only the word of onlookers to go by.

       

      An impression of the incident.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Tehran_UFO_incident