Today in history

15 th October 1888

    "From hell " letter :
                               The "From Hell" letter allegedly sent by Jack the Ripper is received by investigators.


From Hell Letter
The From Hell letter is arguably the most disturbing and noteworthy of the three most prominent Jack the Ripper messages. This is mainly due to how the letter arrived… inside a small box, accompanied by half of a human kidney. Coincidentally, Catherine Eddowes' killer had removed one of her kidneys.

This letter is also distinct in that not only is the handwriting unique, but the writer also left it unsigned. The From Hell Letter also appears to be penned by someone with even less literary prowess than those responsible for the Dear Boss Letter and Saucy Jack Postcard.

     
 
The infamous “From Hell” Letter

The letter, postmarked October 15, was received by George Lusk, head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee.

It Reads:

From hell
Mr Lusk,
Sor
I send you half the Kidne I took from one women prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer
signed
Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk

The kidney had been preserved in alcohol and was in fact confirmed to be that of a human female's. Lusk, along with members of the medical field, believed the kidney and accompanying message to be a practical joke played by medical students who'd obtained the organ from a cadaver.


Dr. Thomas Openshaw, the physician who examined the kidney, concluded that it had come from a woman about 45 years of age, who also suffered from Bright's Disease. This disease is a failing of the kidneys as a result of heavy drinking.

Catherine Eddowes was 46 at the time of her murder and was known to drink quite heavily.

Like much of the other evidence in the Jack the Ripper case files, the From Hell Letter and accompanying kidney have either been lost or stolen. All that remains on file is a photograph of the letter taken before its disappearance.

How many letters were received during the time of the Ripper Murders?
It's not exactly known just how many letters were received by authorities, media and other notable figures in Whitechapel during the time of the murders, but it's possible the number may have totaled a few thousand. In the October 20, 1888 edition of The Illustrated Police News, it was reported that over 700 letters had been investigated by police.

Since most of these letters were either discarded, lost, or later destroyed during the bombings in WWII, we can only guess as to what the actual number may have been, but we do know that as many as 300 of the letters are still preserved at the Corporation of London Records Office.

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

16 th October 1939

     World War 11 first german raid :
                           World War II: No. 603 Squadron RAF intercepts the first Luftwaffe raid on Britain.


Battle of the River Forth: The day World War Two started for real in skies over Edinburgh
The Spitfire, and the men who flew them, have gone down in history as the valiant few who saved Britain from the clutches of imminent Nazi invasion in the dark days of 1940.
But nine months earlier, 82 years ago today, the iconic fighters took part in the first air battle of the Second World War over British skies in a furious but little-remembered skirmish over Edinburgh and the Forth which killed sixteen Royal Navy sailors and injured 44 more.
The Battle of the River Forth, on October 16, 1939, the first Luftwaffe air raid on Britain, was later referred to as a “dress rehearsal” for the Second World War by an RAF officer.

Twelve German bombers – Junkers Ju 88s – flew over East Lothian to the Firth of Forth.

Their target was the pride of the British fleet, battlecruiser HMS Hood, which they believed was anchored in the estuary.

Official German intelligence was that there were no Spitfires in Scotland, so when the Luftwaffe spotted a large British battleship in the Forth during a reconnaissance mission that morning, they hastened to the attack.

The attack took the British air force by surprise, and RAF fighters at first thought the Red Alert was just another training drill.

No air raid was sounded, which caused serious concern over the early-warning system in the following days, and an investigation was later launched by the Ministry of Home Security.

The mystery was deepened by the fact that there were sirens in some places and not others – in Perth, which was not threatened at all, residents were kept in shelters for several hours.
Pieces of anti-aircraft shells fell across the city, but just four civilian casualties were reported.

One mother in the east of the city heard the planes and rushed into the garden to bring her child, who had been in a pram outside, out of danger.

When she later went to retrieve the pram she found a machine-gun bullet through the bottom of it.
The German attack was led by commanding officer Helmuth Pohle and second-in-command Hans Storp.

Storp’s aircraft was shot down off Port Seton, the first German aircraft brought down over Britain since World War One.

The final engagement was between a Ju 88 and two Spitfires over Portobello Beach.

Eyewitness Richard Demarco, now 89, was on the beach with his younger brother.

“The noise of the engines was deafening, and so was the rat tat tat of the bullets from the Spitfire,” he said.
the bomber was in its death throes, and the left-hand side engine was on fire, it looked like a dragon coming towards me.”

Bullets from the Spitfire came blasting into the wet sand at the future art impresario’s feet, missing him by inches.

“It was a miracle I was not shot dead,” he added.

The plane, piloted by Captain Pohle, plunged into the water
about five miles off Crail. Pohle survived, while crew Kurt Seydel and August Schleider were killed, and Werner Weise was reported Missing in Action.



There were no RAF casualties.


The 603 Squadron, which remains a unit to this day, gathered on October 14 this year to mark the 94th anniversary of the unit’s formation and celebrate its achievements, including at the Battle of the River Forth.

Flight Lieutenant Ross McElhinney said: “This is a very important moment in the history of 603 Squadron, and one that we are immensely proud of to this day.

"The pilot who shot down the German aircraft – Flt Lt Pat Gifford – was a volunteer member of the Auxiliary Air Force before the war, he was originally a solicitor in Castle Douglas. This didn’t stop him volunteering his skills to support the call of duty.

"His section, with support from 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron, performed to the highest levels on that important day; drawing on their skills, training and grit."

17 th October 2000

   Hatfield rail crash :
                              The Hatfield rail crash leads to the collapse of Railtrack.

                                           Hatfield Rail Crash
The Hatfield Rail Crash 2000

The Incident
On 17th October 2000 a Great North Eastern Railway InterCity 225 train going from
London to Leeds derailed at Hatfield station killing 4 people in the restaurant coach
and injuring 70, three seriously. Reports concluded that communication was
inadequate because some of the staff were unaware of maintenance procedures.
Widespread speed limits and tightening of health and safety procedures were put
into place as a consequence of this accident.

The train left London at 12.10 and travelled along the east coast main line at about
115 miles per hour. It derailed at Hatfield Station at 12.23. The train was driven by
an experienced driver accompanied by a trainee. The primary cause of the accident
was identified as the left-hand rail fracturing as the train passed over it.

   

     The wreckage of the train .      

The train continued to travel after the derailment for about 1000 yards. The first two
coaches and the leading locomotive remained upright on the rails, but all following
coaches including the driving van trailer were derailed, and the train separated into
three parts. The eighth section, which was the restaurant coach, overturned on to its
side and struck an overhead line gantry causing severe damage to the vehicle.

The Causes
An investigation discovered that rolling contact fatigue, defined as multiple surface
breaking cracks, had caused a rail to fragment as trains passed. These cracks occur
because of repeated high loads that cause the wheels to make contact with the rail,
and eventually the cracks grow until the rail fails. The problem was identified in a
letter from Railtrack in December 1999 which identified that the existing Railtrack
Line Specification was not sufficient to guard against this type of fatigue. Although
replacement rails were made available, they were never delivered to the location.

Railtrack had been privatised and was using contractors who it later emerged did not
have the appropriate engineering knowledge required.

In his book ‘The Crash That Stopped Britain’ Ian Jack states that months of social
chaos, public anger, managerial panic and political confusion followed in the
aftermath of the accident which killed four people, with people blaming each other in
a way that had not previously happened in other accidents of a similar nature.

The book discusses the importance of the shape of the rail at the top matching the
shape of the wheel on the train, and the loading characteristics between rail and
wheel, especially when the track is curved and the train is going at high speed, as it
was in the Hatfield disaster.

Jack talks more about the contact made between rail and wheel particularly on the
curves, suggesting it is a partnership requiring both profiles to meet each other for
safe travel. However, reports of the Hatfield crash refer to surface cracks on the
rails, loose fixings, bolts missing that should have connected the rail to sleeper which
should have been found on track inspection.

LTC Holt states that valuable lessons have been learned from railway accidents to
improve the safety of railways in use today. He states that although they represent
engineering failures, there is much that can be learned to improve rail travel in the
future.

Conclusion
This incident highlights both the importance of applying standardisation throughout
the supply chain and maintaining critical infrastructure.

In construction, information sharing processes such as Building Information Modelling
(BIM) are helping reduce clashes during the lifecycle of built assets, while in recent
years the UK Rail Industry has focused on collaborative business relationships (ISO
44001) to improve communication.

Assent Risk Management can help you with both these processes. Contact us today
to discuss your requirement.

   Railtrack’s Collapse
The demise of Railtrack came in October 2001 after the Hatfield crash, which highlighted major flaws in the initial privatisation. Railtrack had focused on shareholder wealth maximisation over its public duty to maintain and renew its infrastructure (Jupe, 2002). It appears this focus had led to substantial outsourcing of maintenance and renewals. Bartle, (2004) suggests over the whole of its existence, it never produced an asset register detailing the condition of it is assets, which would have highlighted its poor stewardship of the company’s assets. The need for an additional subsidy during the upgrading of the West Coast Main Line set of a turn of events that lead to its bankruptcy.

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

18th October 1922

     Birth of the BBC :
                             The British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation) is founded by a consortium, to establish a nationwide network of radio transmitters to provide a national broadcasting service.

               
The British Broadcasting Company Ltd (BBC) was a British commercial company formed on October 18, 1922 by British and American electrical companies doing business in the United Kingdom (and anxious to build sales of their products by ensuring that there were radio broadcasts to which their radio-buying customers could listen) and licensed by the British General Post Office. Its original office was located on the second floor of Magnet House, the GEC buildings in London and consisted of a room and a small antechamber. On December 14, 1922, John Reith was hired to become the Managing Director of the company at that address. The company later moved its offices to the premises of the Marconi Company. The BBC as a commercial broadcasting company did not sell air time but it did carry a number of sponsored programmes paid for by British newspapers. On December 31, 1926, the company was dissolved and its assets were transferred to the non-commercial and Crown Chartered

     

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

19 th October 1216

Kings get younger :

805 th Year Anniversary of the Death of King John of England.

King John of England dies at Newark-on-Trent and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Henry.

On this day, 805 years ago, October 19, 1216 King John of England dies at Newark-on-Trent and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Henry III. King John has gone down in English history as one of England’s ineffective kings. Jim Bradbury, British historian specializing in the military history of the Middle Ages, states that the current consensus among historians was that John was a “hard-working administrator, an able man, an able general”, albeit, with “distasteful, even dangerous personality traits”, including pettiness, spitefulness and cruelty.”

His cause of death at the age of 49 after a reign plagued with numerous battles was dysentery. A condition highly curable today but often fatal in the Middle Ages. Shortly after his death rumors began circulating that he had been killed by poisoned ale, poisoned plums or a “surfeit of peaches”.His body was buried in Worcester Cathedral in front of the altar of St Wulfstan. A new sarcophagus with an effigy was made for him in 1232 in which his remains now rest.



King John.

An interesting factoid is that during the reign of King John the title of the monarch officially changed from “King of the English” to “King of England.” The standard title for all monarchs from Æthelstan (924-927) until the time of King John was Rex Anglorum (King of the English). Canute II the Great, King of Denmark, was the first king to call himself “King of England”. In the Norman period Rex Anglorum (King of the English) remained standard, with occasional use of Rex Anglie (King of England). From the time of King John onward all other titles were eschewed in favor of Rex or Regina Anglie .(King of England).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John,_King_of_England

20 th October 1982

                The Luzhniki disaster :

                               During the UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem, 66 people are crushed to death in the Luzhniki disaster.

     
The Luzhniki disaster was a deadly human crush that took place at the Grand Sports Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium (Russian: Большая спортивная арена Центрального стадиона им. В. И. Ленина) (now known as Luzhniki Stadium) in Moscow, Soviet Union (USSR; now Russia) during the 1982–83 UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem on 20 October 1982. Sixty-six FC Spartak Moscow fans, mostly adolescents, died in the stampede, which made it Russia's worst sporting disaster. The number of fatalities in this crush was not officially revealed until seven years later, in 1989. Until then, this figure varied in press reports from 3 to 340 fatalities. The circumstances of this disaster are similar to those of the second Ibrox disaster.

On 20 October 1982, the weather in Moscow was snowy and extraordinarily cold for the middle of October, −10 °C (14 °F). There were 82,000 match tickets available, but because of the freezing weather conditions only 16,500 tickets were sold. According to some reports the total number of tickets sold was 16,643.

The Grand Arena of Central Lenin Stadium (also called Olympic Stadium) did not have a roof over the seating at the time (it was installed in the 1997 improvements). In preparation for the match, the stadium management decided to open only two of the four stands for fans: the East Stand ("C") and the West Stand ("A"), to have enough time to clean snow from the stands before the game. Each stand had seating for 23,000 spectators. Most of the fans (about 12,000) went to the East Stand, which was closer to the Metro station. There were approximately 100 Dutch supporters; the vast majority of fans in attendance were fans of Spartak Moscow.

                 

               

The match started at 7:00 pm. In the 16th minute Spartak took the lead through an Edgar Gess strike. The rest of the game was largely uneventful. Minutes before the end of the game, several hundred fans began to leave the stadium in an attempt to get to the Metro station ahead of the crowds.

There were (and are) two covered stairways in Luzhniki under each stand, leading down to the exits. All of the exits at both stands were open. However, most of the fans from the East Stand rushed to Stairway 1, closer to the Metro station.

Crush

According to the witnesses who were interviewed during the investigation, one of the fans fell at the lower steps of Stairway 1. According to some reports, it was a young woman, who had lost her shoe on the stairs and stopped, trying to retrieve it and put it back on. A couple of people also stopped, trying to help the fan in need, but the moving dense crowd on the stairs, limited by metal banisters, promptly crushed them down. People began to stumble over the bodies of those who were crushed in a domino effect.

More and more mostly teenage fans were joining the crowd on the stairs, trying to push their way down and unaware of the tragedy unfolding below, which caused a massive chain-reaction pile-up of people. The stampede coincided with the second goal for Spartak, which was scored by Sergei Shvetsov only twenty seconds before the final whistle.

The injured were taken by ambulances to the NV Sklifosovsky Scientific Research Institute of First Aid in Moscow. The next day Yuri Andropov (who replaced Leonid Brezhnev as leader of the country, less than a month after this stampede) visited the institute and met with several doctors and relatives of the injured. The bodies of the dead were taken to the Moscow morgues for autopsy and identification. Later the bodies were returned to the victims' relatives for burial.

A total of 66 people died in this stampede. According to the post-mortem examinations, all of the deceased victims died of compressive asphyxia. An additional 61 people were injured, including 21 seriously; 45 of the 66 dead were adolescents, as young as 14, including five young women. The Luzhniki Stadium tragedy was the Soviet Union's worst sporting disaster.

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

21 st October  1978

   Frederick Valentich mystery :
                                           Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.

          Frederick Valentich (9 June 1958 - c. 21 October 1978) had about 150 total hours' flying time and held a class-four instrument rating, which authorised him to fly at night, but only "in visual meteorological conditions." He had twice applied to enlist in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) but was rejected because of inadequate educational qualifications. He was a member of the RAAF Air Training Corps, determined to have a career in aviation. Valentich was studying part-time to become a commercial pilot but had a poor achievement record, having twice failed all five commercial licence examination subjects, and as recently as the month before his disappearance had failed three more commercial licence subjects. He had been involved in flying incidents, for example, straying into a controlled zone in Sydney, for which he received a warning, and twice deliberately flying into a cloud, for which prosecution was being considered. According to his father, Guido, Valentich was an ardent believer in UFOs and had been worried about being attacked by them.


    Details
       
     
A Cessna 182 similar to the aircraft involved.


Valentich radioed Melbourne air traffic control at 7:06 pm to report that an unidentified aircraft was following him at 4,500 feet (1,400 m). He was told there was no known traffic at that level. Valentich said he could see a large unknown aircraft which appeared to be illuminated by four bright landing lights. He was unable to confirm its type, but said it had passed about 1,000 feet (300 m) overhead and was moving at high speed. Valentich then reported that the aircraft was approaching him from the east and said the other pilot might be purposely toying with him. Valentich said the aircraft was "orbiting" above him and that it had a shiny metal surface and a green light on it. Valentich further reported that he was experiencing engine problems. Asked to identify the aircraft, Valentich radioed, "It's not an aircraft." His transmission was then interrupted by unidentified noise described as being "metallic, scraping sounds" before all contact was lost.

     

    Frederick Valentich >
 

The destination of Valentich's final flight was King Island, but his motivation for the flight is unknown. He told flight officials that he was going to King Island to pick up some friends, while he told others that he was going to pick up crayfish. Later investigations found both stated reasons to be untrue. [1] Valentich had also failed to inform King Island Airport of his intention to land there, going against "standard procedure"

https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Frederick_Valentich

21 st October 1877

   Blantyre mining disaster :
                                        The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners.

On this day October 22, 1877 Scotland's worst ever coal mining disaster occurred.

It happened at Pits No. 2 and No. 3 of William Dixon Ltd’s Blantyre Colliery.

At 4:40am on that fateful day, four firemen inspected Number 2 pit and found it free of gas and safe to work.


Miners began descending into the mine at 05:50 reassured by the firemens' report.

Rev Stewart Wright, writing in "The Annals of Blantyre" reports, "What a gloomy morning that October Monday was. How indelibly it is engraven on our memory."

Rev. Wright explained that he could view the pits from his window and at 9am: "A sudden flash darted up from the most distant shaft, accompanied by debris and a report not very loud; then arose from the shaft nearest to us a dense volume of smoke, 'the blackness of darkness,' which spread itself, a terrible funeral pall, over the surrounding plain."

Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Mines said: "The explosion was felt at a considerable distance, and the smoke which hung around the pits...was seen by miners and managers in the neighbourhood who at once hastened to the place."

What they found on there arrival at the pithead was the scene of a subterranean nightmare. Hundreds of men and boys were already buried in what was to become their final resting place.

Of those that were rescued many had suffered horrific burns from the firedamp (flammable gas found in coal mines) and succumbed to their injuries.

The explosion killed 207 colliers, the youngest being a boy of 11 years of age.

It left 92 women widowed and 250 children fatherless.

A further two disasters happened at Blantyre in the following years of 1878 and 1879.

An 18 foot tall granite monument marks the two explosion disasters.

The engraved dedication reads: "William Dixon Ltd—in memory of 240 of their workmen who were killed by explosions in Blantyre Colliery on 22nd October, 1877 and 2nd July 1879 and many of whom are buried here".

A memorial to the Catholic miners killed in the disaster of 1877 is located in Dalbeath Cemetery, London Road, Glasgow.

         
                       


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

23 rd October 1707

Parliament :
The First Parliament of Great Britain convenes.


First Parliament of Great Britain


Westminster, London The 23rd of October 1707 AD

The Acts of Union of 1706 and 1707 had in effect created the legal framework defining Great Britain as a state; yet they were the products of separate Parliaments in London and Edinburgh . Since James VI , King of Scotland, came to the English throne in 1603 the two countries had retained their own institutions. On October 23 1707 the two countries were united in parliamentary terms, as a single Parliament representing both ancient rivals sat for the first time.



John Smith , the first " speaker"

MPs in this first Parliament of Great Britain were not elected specifically to it: on the English side MPs sitting in the existing English and Welsh Parliament transferred into the new body; on the Scots side 45 men were selected to represent their country. The disparity of power is obvious: there were 486 English, 27 Welsh, and 45 Scottish MPs in the new Westminster British House of Commons.
As there was no truly formalised party system in place at this time it can be argued that, in spite of its membership coming overwhelmingly from the privileged top levels of society, it managed to represent a broader range of opinions than our current system – indeed there was a Whig-Tory coalition headed by Sidney Godolphin operating in England when the new body first sat, a coalition that continued in the Parliament of Great Britain. MPs were not paid, thus not career-slaves to party machines. And the groupings that existed were fluid, willing to change as circumstances dictated rather than swearing chalk is cheese if the whips say they must.

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

24 th October 1946

Space exploration :
A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.



The First Photo of Earth From Space Was Taken 75 Years Ago Today
The camera that snapped the photo was launched on a German V-2 rocket seized from the Nazis after the end of World War II.
More than a decade before the launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, scientists at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico launched a camera on top of a Nazi V-2 ballistic missile and managed to snap the first photo of Earth from space. On October 24, 1946, the rocket flew to an altitude of about 65 miles—just above the Karman line, the generally recognized border of outer space—as a 35-millimeter motion picture camera snapped a frame every second and a half. Minutes later, the whole thing came crashing back down and slammed into the ground at more than 340 mph.



The first photograph of earth from space.

When the scientists found the film intact among the wreckage of the camera, thanks to a specialized steel cassette, "they were ecstatic, they were jumping up and down like kids," as Fred Rulli, an enlisted 19-year-old serviceman at the time who drove out to retrieve the film, told Air & Space in a 2006 article. When they projected the grainy, black-and-white pictures of the Earth onto a screen back at the launch site, "the scientists just went nuts."

It's not hard to see why. Before the White Sands photos, the highest photo ever taken was from the Explorer II balloon i
n 1935, 13.7 miles up, just high enough to make out the curvature of the Earth. The V-2 photo, on the other hand, clearly shows the planet against the darkness of space. This perspective prompted the engineer who built the camera, Clyde Holliday, to write in a 1950 National Geographic article that the photos are "how our Earth would look to visitors from another planet coming in on a space ship."

The V-2 research team continued to study the upper atmosphere with temperature and pressure gauges and other scientific instruments strapped to the top of some 300 railroad cars' worth of V-2 rockets at their disposal. The rockets came with multiple German scientists and engineers who were secretly brought to the United States during Operation Paperclip, including the infamous aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun, credited with inventing the V-2 as well as designing the Saturn V rocket for the Apollo program.

Between 1946 and 1950, hundreds of photos were taken from the tops of V-2 rockets launched from White Sands, some as high as 100 miles in altitude. A complete picture of the Earth from the perspective of outer space started to take shape for the first time, launching a new wave of geologic and meteorologic study.

Ever since, we have been fascinated and inspired by photos of our home planet taken from space. Earthrise, taken in 1968 by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission, the first manned mission to the moon, is credited with launching the environmental movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. The Pale Blue Dot image taken by Voyager 2 in 1990 at the request of famed astronomer Carl Sagan remains one of the most profound visualizations of our home planet's size relative to the vast Cosmos.

25 th October 1415

  Agincourt :
                Hundred Years' War: Henry V of England, with his lightly armoured infantry and archers, defeats the heavily armoured French cavalry in the Battle of Agincourt.

It was an early start for the soldiers of both armies on the morning of 25 October, with the men assembling for battle soon after daybreak (around 6:40 AM on that day).  Time was set aside for observing religious practice prior to the battle, with Henry said to have heard three masses whilst still in armour according to the Burgundian chroniclers Waurin and Le Févre.

The English were drawn up into three divisions known as battles, with the vanguard commanded by Edward, duke of York, placed on the right, the mainguard by the king himself in the centre, and the rearguard by Thomas, Lord Camoys on the left.  Whereas the French host consisted of a large battle placed in the vanguard, with one or more battles placed behind them, together with their archers and crossbowmen placed in the rear.

Both armies stood on the defensive for some time. Awareness that delays would favour the French who were still waiting for further reinforcements prompted Henry to order an advance by his soldiers into a new position in order to stir the French into attack. The signal to move was initiated by the raising of banners, trumpets and the war cry to ‘advance banners’.

The French commanders were well aware of the damage that could be inflicted by massed longbow fire. For this reason they intended to knock the English archers on the flanks out of the way through a cavalry charge. The English, however, had devised a method to counter this measure through the making of wooden stakes that could be driven into the ground to form a barrier impassable to horses. As a result, the French cavalry were driven off with heavy losses.

The bulk of the French army consisted of heavily armed and armoured men-at-arms on foot who now advanced across the battlefield. They had a significant numerical advantage over the English men-at-arms, which meant that they would have been confident of victory in hand-to-hand combat. However the failure of the cavalry charge meant that the English archers were still in position and could rain down volleys of arrows into their packed ranks. The sheer volume of arrows meant that they would have suffered disruption, injuries and even death during the advance, with the survivors hemmed in by those around them. They were driven so close to each other that they could not even raise their weapon arms. The heavy rain the night before also meant that the ground was muddy and difficult to walk in, which would have sapped their energy and made them vulnerable to falling over and being trampled by their comrades. Heaps of men are noted in many accounts.

This helped to negate their numerical advantage when they finally reached the waiting English men-at-arms, who were able to inflict heavy casualties on them in the hand-to-hand fighting. The fighting further turned against the French when the English archers, having exhausted their supplies of arrows, took up a variety of melee weapons and jumped into the heaps. This resulted in the defeat of the French vanguard, with many of the soldiers killed or taken prisoner and the rest forced to withdraw. A separate attack on the English baggage train resulted in some of Henry’s jewels being stolen.

The remaining French fled the field, and Henry ordered his men to search the heaps for prisoners. These prisoners were gathered together. At some later point – we can’t be sure how long this was before the first battle – the French threatened a new attack. This was possibly the arrival of the duke of Brabant. This prompted Henry to order the execution of all but the most high profile prisoners (for an account of how the prisoners were executed click here).

The battle had been a devastating result for the French who had suffered heavy casualties during the battle and killing of the prisoners, with the deaths of many high ranking noblemen, such as the dukes of Brabant and Bar, the constable of France, and the constable Charles d’Albret. The total number of dead is difficult to know but may have been as high as 2,000. Many prisoners were also taken by the English: at least 320 are now known from the ransom records. (For an article on the prisoners taken at Agincourt click here)

English casualties by contrast were much lower, with the most high profile fatality being Edward, duke of York, who was killed along with ninety men of his retinue, almost a quarter of the total  

   


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

26 th October 1881

  The O.K corral :
                         Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday participate in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Ariz0na.

On October 26th 1881, the Earp brothers faced off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in a legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.

After silver was discovered nearby in 1877, Tombstone quickly grew into one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest.

Wyatt Earp, a former Kansas police officer working as a bank security guard, and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, the town marshal, represented “law and order” in Tombstone, though they also had reputations as being power-hungry and ruthless.

The Clantons and McLaurys were cowboys who lived on a ranch outside of town and sidelined as cattle rustlers, thieves and murderers.

In October 1881, the struggle between these two groups for control of Tombstone and Cochise County ended in a blaze of gunfire at the OK Corral.

On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies.

Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend Doc Holliday.

Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike’s brother Billy rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne.

The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps.Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge.

Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street.The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired.

Though it’s still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury’s chest.

Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton.

When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills.

Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder.

A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were “fully justified in committing these homicides.”

The famous shootout has been immortalised in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939) Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994).

27 th October 1936

Wallis Simpson :
Mrs Wallis Simpson obtains her divorce, which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, thus forcing his abdication from the throne.

When you think of the heroes of World War II, you probably think of the political leaders (FDR, Churchill), the military leaders (de Gaulle, Eisenhower) or the humanitarians (Wallenberg, Chiune Sugihara). However, I would argue that the person who made the biggest positive contribution to the events of the war was a horrible person, a racist and a friend of Herr Hitler himself. I’m talking of course about Wallis Simpson, who on this day in 1936 filed from divorce from her second husband Ernest, setting in motion events that would force England’s King Edward VIII to abdicate the throne.



Wallis Simpson and Edward V11.

In 1931, the still married Wallis Simpson was introduced to Edward, at the time the Prince of Wales, by a mutual friend and the two quickly fell for each other. In January 1936, Edward’s father King George V died, making Edward the king. Simpson and Edward’s affair was an open secret by this point, and rumors began to spread that Simpson would soon seek a divorce so she could marry Edward and become queen.

This did not sit well with many Brits for several reasons: For one thing, at the time the Church of England (which the king serves as Supreme Governor of) did not permit the remarriage of divorced people whose former spouses were still alive. Second, many viewed Simpson as a power hungry American who was only interested in Edward for his power and wealth. The Prime Ministers of England, Australia, Canada and South Africa all voiced their opposition to a marriage. By voicing their dissent, they knew that if Edward went through with the marriage, they and their cabinets would have to resign, which would lead to a major constitutional crisis. English PM Stanley Baldwin presented Edward with three options: Give up the idea of marrying Simpson, go through with the marriage against his ministers wishes or step down from the throne. Alas, Edward would not give Simpson up, and so in December 1936 he stepped down from the throne, allowing his younger brother Prince Albert, Duke of York to become the king. The day after the abdication, Albert, now called King George VI, announced that he would give the former king the special title of “His Royal Highness The Duke of Windsor.” Edward and Simpson would marry in 1937.

In the years before World War II, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were known to socialize with many prominent Nazis and fascists. In fact, in 1937 the Duke and Duchess even found the time to have tea with Adolph Hitler, who remarked that Simpson “would have made a good Queen.” During the early days of World War II, the Duke and Duchess bounced around Europe, usually staying in the homes of prominent fascists. The Nazis tried to persuade Edward to support their cause, but he refused to do so publicly, although there were reports that Edward had leaked British battle plans to the Axis. Eventually, Winston Churchill got so tired of the Duke and Duchess’ shenanigans that he made Edward the Governor of the Bahamas. Churchill claimed he was doing this so that the two of them would be safe during the war, but really he wanted the two idiots as far away from Europe as possible in order to keep them from causing any more trouble.

So, it’s a very good thing that Edward VIII was forced to abdicate so that he could marry Simpson, because had he not resigned England would have had a Nazi sympathizer on the throne in the lead up to World War II. Since the monarchy was actually relevant, Edward’s pro-appeasement feelings would have greatly hindered any British movement to stop the Nazis. Don’t believe me, why don’t you ask Hitler what he thought about Edward’s abdication: “I am certain through him permanent friendly relations could have been achieved. If he had stayed, everything would have been different. His abdication was a severe loss for us.”

So, today we celebrate the horrible horrible Wallis Simpson’s accidental positive contribution to world history with a Wallis Blue. Simpson was known for wearing a signature shade of dark blue, which came to be known as Wallis Blue, so you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that this is a blue cocktail. This mix of gin, blue curacao and lime juice isn’t the most exciting drink, but it is a solid little cocktail.

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

28 th October 2013

Tiananmen Square incident :
Five people are killed and 38 are injured after a car crashes into barriers at the Tiananmen Square in China

Five people were killed and dozens injured when a jeep ploughed through a crowd, crashed and caught fire in Tiananmen Square, central Beijing, the site of a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989.

Police evacuated and sealed off the square, which lies across a broad thoroughfare from the main gate of the Forbidden City, soon after the vehicle crashed at around midday on Monday. A police officer at its north-east corner told a crowd of flustered tourists that there was an "activity" in the square and that it would be closed indefinitely.

Three people in the jeep, the driver and two passengers, died in the crash, according to Xinhua. A female tourist from the Philippines and a man from southern Guandgdong province were also killed.

Of the 38 people injured in the incident, several were tourists from the Philippines and Japan. The cause of the crash, and the reasons behind it, are still unknown.

Pictures of the crash were posted online but quickly deleted by censors. One showed the charred shell of a four-wheel drive vehicle engulfed in flames on the pavement between the square and the Forbidden City, below a large portrait of Mao Zedong. Another, taken at a distance, showed a plume of grey smoke rising above the high red walls of the historic imperial palace.

The state-run Global Times newspaper reported on Tuesday that Beijing police had sought information on two people from Xinjiang whom they identified as likely suspects in a "major case [that] had taken place on Monday".

It said the notice, sent late on Monday night to hotels in Beijing, asked management to pass on information on suspicious guests or vehicles who had visited since 1 October. It named two residents of Pishan and Shanshan counties as likely suspects and described a light-coloured SUV and four Xinjiang-issued licence plates.
Zhu Yan, a contact person with the hotel supervision squad in the Beijing Police, confirmed that his team issued the notice but told Global Times he could not comment further. The north-western region has seen repeated outbreaks of violence, including vicious ethnic riots in 2009 that killed almost 200 in its capital, Urumqi, and at least two major fatal incidents this year.

There are long-running tensions between the state and the large Uighur Muslim population, with many in the community chafing at cultural and religious restrictions and some aspiring to independence.

Authorities have blamed separatist groups for stirring up trouble, but exiles and human right groups argue that the government has been too quick to identify violent incidents as the work of terrorists.

In 2009 three people from Xinjiang set themselves on fire in a car at Wangfujing, not far from Tiananmen. Authorities said they were protesting over a land seizure dispute.

A young European woman living in Beijing said she had witnessed the aftermath of the crash as she left a nearby underground station shortly after midday. "What I immediately saw was a man on the ground, in his mid-60s. He didn't look like he was from the city, quite rural, maybe," she said. "He was unconscious, potentially not alive any more, very pale and discoloured. His head and his upper body were in a pool of blood.

"A couple of metres further, there was a woman sitting on the ground who was conscious. She was bent over and clutching her left thigh, and I could see that she was bleeding a lot."

The woman, who did not witness the crash itself, said a fire engine, an ambulance and a police car had sped past her as she walked away from the square. "I walked on a bit, and then saw a civilian and a security guard rushing towards the unconscious man on the ground," she said. "It looked like the civilian man was crying. He was really distressed."

Tiananmen Square has been one of China's most politically sensitive locations since 4 June 1989, when People's Liberation army soldiers fired on unarmed pro-democracy protesters, killing hundreds of people.

The square, now a popular tourist site, is dotted with security cameras and closely watched by scattered crowds of uniformed and plainclothes security agents.

Two reporters from AFP were detained on the scene "with images deleted from their digital equipment", the newswire reported. A BBC team was also briefly detained, according to a tweet by one of the corporation's reporters.

Within minutes of the crash, authorities erected high blue and green barriers around the site and temporarily blocked roads to the square. Transport authorities said that the underground station on Tiananmen's east side had also been closed.

By late afternoon the wreckage had been cleared and parts of the square reopened.



The incident was quickly closed down to reporters and public .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Tiananmen_Square_attack

29 th October 1998

Gothenburg disco fire - A nightclub fire in Gothenburg, Sweden kills 63 people:

The story of the biggest fire disaster in Swedish history.

At a Halloween party in Gothenburg in 1998, a fire started by four youths led to one of the deadliest disasters of modern Swedish history. Sixty-three young people lost their lives and many more were injured. Twenty years on from the tragedy, The Local looks back at what happened.

Between 340 and 400 people, many of them teenagers, had gathered in a building in the harbour district of Gothenburg to celebrate Halloween. A Macedonian cultural organization had rented out its premises for the night, with the external organizers telling authorities the occasion was a birthday party for 50 people.



The burnt out shell of the second floor building .

The fire broke out around 20 minutes before midnight. It originated in an emergency exit stairwell and at first went unnoticed by the partygoers, who put the smoke and smell down to the smoke machine. Even after one of the DJs noticed the fire and warned the attendees to start calmly leaving the venue, many didn’t realize the scale of the disaster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothenburg_discoth%C3%A8que_fire

30 th October 1938

        Alien invasion hoax :
                                    Orson Welles broadcasts a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing a massive panic in some of the audience in the United States.

     ] 1938 October 30 Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” radio play is broadcast “The War of the Worlds”—Orson Welles's realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth—is broadcast on the radio on October 30, 1938.   Welles was only 23 years old when his Mercury Theater company decided to update H.G. Wells’s 19th-century science fiction novel The War of the Worlds for national radio. Despite his age, Welles had been in radio for several years, most notably as the voice of “The Shadow” in the hit mystery program of the same name. “War of the Worlds” was not planned as a radio hoax, and Welles had little idea of how legendary it would eventually become.  The show began on Sunday, October 30, at 8 p.m. A voice announced: “The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in ‘War of the Worlds’ by H.G. Wells.”  Sunday evening in 1938 was prime-time in the golden age of radio, and millions of Americans had their radios turned on. But most of these Americans were listening to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy “Charlie McCarthy” on NBC and only turned to CBS at 8:12 p.m. after the comedy sketch ended and a little-known singer went on. By then, the story of the Martian invasion was well underway.  Welles introduced his radio play with a spoken introduction, followed by an announcer reading a weather report. Then, seemingly abandoning the storyline, the announcer took listeners to “the Meridian Room in the Hotel Park Plaza in downtown New York, where you will be entertained by the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra.” Putrid dance music played for some time, and then the scare began. An announcer broke in to report that “Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory” had detected explosions on the planet Mars. Then the dance music came back on, followed by another interruption in which listeners were informed that a large meteor had crashed into a farmer’s field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey.   READ MORE: How 'The War of the Worlds' Radio Broadcast Created a National Panic  Soon, an announcer was at the crash site describing a Martian emerging from a large metallic cylinder. “Good heavens,” he declared, “something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now here’s another and another one and another one. They look like tentacles to me … I can see the thing’s body now. It’s large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather. But that face, it… it … ladies and gentlemen, it’s indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it, it’s so awful. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate.”  The Martians mounted walking war machines and fired “heat-ray” weapons at the puny humans gathered around the crash site. They annihilated a force of 7,000 National Guardsman, and after being attacked by artillery and bombers the Martians released a poisonous gas into the air. Soon “Martian cylinders” landed in Chicago and St. Louis. The radio play was extremely realistic, with Welles employing sophisticated sound effects and his actors doing an excellent job portraying terrified announcers and other characters. An announcer reported that widespread panic had broken out in the vicinity of the landing sites, with thousands desperately trying to flee.  The Federal Communications Commission investigated the unorthodox program but found no law was broken. Networks did agree to be more cautious in their programming in the future. The broadcast helped Orson Welles land a contract with a Hollywood studio, and in 1941 he directed, wrote, produced, and starred in Citizen Kane—a movie that many have called the greatest American film ever made.    


         

                 Orson Welles (arms raised) rehearses his radio depiction of H.G. Wells' classic, The War of the Worlds. The broadcast, which aired on October 30, 1938, and claimed that aliens from Mars had invaded New Jersey, terrified thousands of Americans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1938_radio_drama)

31st October

1997: British au pair guilty of murder
A Boston jury has found Louise Woodward, 19, guilty of second degree murder for killing the baby in her care.
Woodward, who was an au pair with the family of eight-month-old Matthew Eappen, now faces being jailed for life with no parole for at least 15 years.

The jury reached its decision after more than 26 hours of deliberation and several requests to the judge for clarification of evidence.


Woodward, who broke down in tears as the verdict was delivered, has always denied killing the boy.

The prosecution argued that on 4 February, she battered and shook baby Matthew to death in a rage of frustration because she was unhappy with her job and the baby had been crying.

After the verdict the court was immediately adjourned until tomorrow when sentencing will be passed.

Prosecution lawyer Martha Coakley said: "We had common sense and we had truth on our side."

She also added that the Eappen family were "relieved it was over and had just wanted to know what happened to their child".


In Context
Louise Woodward later had her conviction reduced to manslaughter and was freed from jail as she had already served the time that the judge recommended - 279 days.
It emerged that the jury was initially split, but those favouring an acquittal were persuaded to accept a conviction. None of the jury "thought she tried to murder him," one member said.

On her return to the UK she enrolled at South Bank University to study law.

Her parents were charged with stealing from a trust fund in her name but later cleared when a judge said there was no case to answer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/31/newsid_2463000/2463863.stm#:~:text=A%20Boston%20jury%20has%20found,for%20at%20least%2015%20years.

1 st November 1512

The Sistine chapel ceiling :

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is exhibited to the public for the first time.

CEILING OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL IS EXHIBITED FOR THE FIRST TIME.

01 November 1512
The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, one of Italian artist Michelangelo's finest works, is exhibited to the public for the first time. Michelangelo Buonarroti, the greatest of the Italian Renaissance artists, was born in the small village of Caprese in 1475. The son of a government administrator, he grew up in Florence, a centre of the early Renaissance movement, and became an artist's apprentice at age 13. Demonstrating obvious talent, he was taken under the wing of Lorenzo de' Medici, the ruler of the Florentine republic and a great patron of the arts.

After demonstrating his mastery of sculpture in such works as the ‘Pieta’ (1498) and ‘David’ (1504), he was called to Rome in 1508 to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the chief consecrated space in the Vatican. Michelangelo's epic ceiling frescoes, which took several years to complete, are among his most memorable works. Central in a complex system of decoration featuring numerous figures are nine panels devoted to biblical world history.

The most famous of these is ‘The Creation of Adam’, a painting in which the arms of God and Adam are stretching toward each other. In 1512, Michelangelo completed the work. After 15 years as an architect in Florence, Michelangelo returned to Rome in 1534, where he would work and live for the rest of his life. That year saw his painting of the ‘The Last Judgment’ on the wall above the altar in the Sistine Chapel for Pope Paul III.

The massive painting depicts Christ's damnation of sinners and blessing of the virtuous and is regarded as a masterpiece of early Mannerism. Michelangelo worked until his death in 1564 at the age of 88. In addition to his major artistic works, he produced numerous other sculptures, frescoes, architectural designs, and drawings, many of which are unfinished and some of which are lost. In his lifetime, he was celebrated as Europe's greatest living artist, and today he is held up as one of the greatest artists of all time, as exalted in the visual arts as William Shakespeare is in literature or Ludwig van Beethoven is in music.



The chapel ceiling .




Many thanks to Lolly for yesterdays history

2 nd November 1959

      Britains first motorway :
                                         The first section of the  motorway, the first inter-urban motorway in the United Kingdom, is opened between the present junctions 5 and 18, along with the M10 motorway and M45 motorway.

 
Happy Birthday M1: The day car travel changed forever
The road is the backbone of Britain, and its opening 61 years ago changed the country drastically                

                  

      File photo dated 02/11/59 of Britain's first full length motorway, the M1, taken near to the Luton spur. The first section of the 193-mile road was officially opened by the then Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, on November 2 1959. That first 62-mile stretch ran from what is now junction 5 near Watford in Hertfordshire to what is now junction 18 near Rugby in the West Midlands.

 
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, M1 MOTORWAY.
Congratulations to the M1 Motorway, which passed 60 years of age on 2nd November, 2019. Many people know that the UK’s first section of motorway was the Preston Bypass in Lancashire, which opened in 1958 and was later incorporated into the M6 motorway. However, the first properly complete motorway was opened a year later as the M1, initially running from Watford to Crick in Northamptonshire, from today’s junction 5 to junction 18. This section of the M1 also included the short M10 motorway at St Albans (Junction 7), and the M45 heading west from Junction 17 to the A45 and Coventry.

A ceremony to mark the beginning of construction was held at Slip End south of Luton, at what is now Junction 10 of the motorway, on 24th March, 1958. A concrete slab commemorating the inauguration of the `London-Yorkshire Motorway’ still lies beside Junction 10 today. The motorway was actually constructed in two parts, with the northern section (Junction 10 to 18) built by John Laing Ltd and the southern section to Watford, and including the St Albans Bypass, built by Tarmac Construction. The initial 55 miles of the M1 was budgeted to cost £16 million, and would include 132 new bridges as well as the UK’s first motorway services at Watford Gap. Remarkably, the motorway was completed in only 19 months, and was ready for its official opening on 2nd November, 1959, by the Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples.

It was common for people to go for a day out along the newly-built M1. Families could be seen picnicking beside the motorway even as car drivers made use of the long straight road to try to reach the holy grail of the “ton up”, or 100 miles per hour. Jaguar were said to have speed tested their new 150 mph sports car, the E-Type, up and down the motorway. For several years the M1 had no speed limits, no central reservation or crash barriers, and no lighting.

The prophetic words of Ernest Marples at the opening ceremony probably received little attention at the time, but would soon begin to ring true. In his closing remarks he said: “Take it easy, motorists.”

Sixty years later, and now with 39 million cars on the UK’s roads, perhaps we should remind ourselves of his words next time we get behind the wheel.

3 rd November 1957

Laika the dog :
Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2. On board is the first animal to enter orbit, a dog named Laika.

On This Day in 1957: First Animal in Orbit.

On November 3rd 1957, Laika the dog, or Kudryavka ("Little Curly") as she was formally known, was launched into space by the Soviet Union aboard the Sputnik 2 spacecraft. In doing so, she became the first animal to successfully enter the Earth’s orbit. Although many animals had been sent into space before, including monkeys, mice and other dogs, no mission with an animal on board had been successful in securing a position of orbit up until this point. As such, the mission is regarded as one of the most famous steps in space exploration history.

Like the majority of the dogs sent into space by Soviet scientists, Laika was a stray mongrel who was found wandering the streets of Moscow. Approximately three years old and weighing eleven pounds, she was hastily trained for spaceflight by space-life scientists Vladimir Yazdovsky and Oleg Gazenko, and placed into the capsule of the satellite three days prior to launch on October 31st. Sputnik 2 was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the early morning of the 3rd November. Prior to launch Laika’s fur was coated in a weak alcohol solution and carefully groomed, and the sensor sites on her body prepared with iodine so that her bodily functions could be carefully monitored for the duration of her flight. The Soviets did not prepare a strategy for re-entry due to a lack of time, and though controversial, it was therefore widely accepted that she would perish aboard the flight.

Following lift-off and at peak acceleration, Laika’s respiration rate was three to four times greater than it had been prior to launch. Her heartbeat was recorded as 103 beats/min before launch, but increased to 240 beats/min during early acceleration. This was one of the first indications of the extreme stress that her body was under, with the fault in the thermal control system being largely to blame. For decades Soviet officials claimed that Laika lived for up to a week aboard the spacecraft and died painlessly, however in 2002 Sputnik 2 scientist Dimitri Malashenkov publicly announced that Laika lived for only a few hours after reaching orbit, dying during her fourth circuit around the Earth. The cause of death he attributed to the increased humidity and increased temperature of the cabin to 43 degrees Celsius, with telemetry data from the spacecraft now available to reinforce this diagnosis.

Her journey both proved that a living organism could tolerate a substantial length of time in weightlessness, and that it was possible for them to adapt to the harsh conditions of space habitation.

Despite surviving for just a few hours, the information gathered by scientists regarding Laika’s journey into orbit paved the way for human exploration of space. Her journey both proved that a living organism could tolerate a substantial length of time in weightlessness, and that it was possible for them to adapt to the harsh conditions of space habitation. As a result, a number of memorials were established in her honour. In the years immediately following the mission, several countries issued stamps in tribute to her sacrifice and service to science. A statue and plaque dedicated to her legacy can be found in the Russian Cosmonaut training facility in Star City, as well as a monument at the military research facility where staff trained Laika for her flight which features her poised atop a space rocket.



Laika (little curly aboard sputnik 11 )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_2

4 th November 1922

  Awakening of a king :
                                  In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

   


On the 4th of November 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter (1874 –1939) and his team found the entrance to the 14th-century BC Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. This little known pharaoh ruled in the 18th dynasty (ca. 1332 BC – 1323 BC) during the Egyptian New Kingdom period. He ascended to the throne at the age of nine and reigned for 10 years, in which he married his half-sister who bore his twin daughters, both stillborn and buried alongside him in the tomb. The king is thought to have had powerful councillors, particularly his vizier Ay, whose role was to advise, as well as calm his young temper. As a product of an incestuous relationship himself (his mother was one of his father’s five sisters), Tutankhamun  suffered genetic defects which caused physical disabilities during his life, i.e. he walked with a cane. Thorough DNA research concluded that the cause of his death was a combination of malaria, epilepsy and an infected broken leg. His mummy still rests in the Valley of the Kings and the treasures found in his tomb are held in Cairo Museum, which frequently lends them to international exhibitions.

     

   Howard Carter at the entrance.



It appears that the location of Tutankhamun’s tomb had been entirely lost and forgotten in his day, buried underneath stone chips from subsequent burial sites, discarded or washed over by floods and covered with buildings such as workers’ huts. When Carter first arrived in Egypt in 1891, most of the ancient Egyptian tombs had been found, though the whereabouts of the obscure Tutankhamun were still a mystery. After WWI, Carter re-commenced intensive digging and after three years of fruitless searching, he eventually came across some steps leading to a burial room within the debris close to the entrance of Ramses VI’s tomb – in the final season ever funded by his employer Carnarvon . Three weeks on, Carter was in the position to get closer to the hidden treasure – the interior chambers of the tomb, which, to his surprise, were perfectly preserved, unlike those of previous pharaohs’ in the area.



Finding the tomb.

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

5 th November 1605

         Gunpowder plot :
                                   Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes is arrested.

             
On the night of 4th/5th November 1605, Guy Fawkes was caught with thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in the cellars beneath Westminster. The idea was to blow up the House of Lords at the opening of Parliament on the 5th November, and to assassinate King James I.
Although the plot happened in the Stuart period, in the reign of King James I, it actually had its origins in Elizabeth’s reign. Elizabeth had continued the work of Henry VIII, and Edward VI and made England a Protestant country. By the end of her reign, England was a dangerous place for Catholics, with the threat of persecution and even death hanging over them. As Elizabeth’s health deteriorated, the Catholics pinned their hopes on James VI of Scotland, who was married to a Catholic, and who was the son of the late Catholic queen, Mary, Queen of Scots. Although he himself was a Protestant, the Catholics felt sure that he would be sympathetic to their cause.

James VI of Scotland became James I of England in 1603, on Elizabeth’s death, and although his reign started well for the Catholics, with James limiting the restrictions on Catholics, things took a turn for the worse when, after opposition from Protestants, James reversed his policy less than a year after implementing it. The Catholics’ hopes were dashed and they felt betrayed. One party of young Catholics, headed by Robert Catesby, a popular and rebellious young man at court, decided to seek revenge through rebellion. They met in London in May 1604 and hatched a plan to blow up the Palace of Westminster on the opening session of Parliament, thus killing the King, the Royal family, members of Parliament (MPs), the Lords and the leading bishops. This would be the first step in their rebellion which sought to replace James I with his daughter, nine year-old Princess Elizabeth, as a Catholic queen.

One of the plotters, Thomas Percy, a member of the King’s Bodyguard, was able to lease lodgings that were situated adjacent to the House of Lords, and the idea was that the plotters would dig down underneath the foundations of the House of Lords and place gunpowder there. Guy Fawkes (also known as Guido Fawkes), a man who had been fighting for the Spanish in the Low Countries, was the man chosen to put the plan into operation by preparing the gunpowder and lighting the fuse, and he posed as Percy’s servant, calling himself John Johnson so that he could stay in the property.

The Black Plague of summer 1604 meant that the plan had to be changed due to the opening of Parliament being delayed. However, this delay worked in the mens’ favour because during this time, they learned of a vacant ground-floor undercroft directly under the House of Lords Chamber. Thomas Percy was able to secure the lease of this undercroft. Guy Fawkes and other members of the group set about filling this space with 36 barrels of gunpowder, which had the potential to completely level the Palace of Westminster.

Everything seemed fine, and the plot looked as if it would be successful, until Lord Monteagle received an anonymous tip-off just over a week before the state opening of Parliament was due to take place. The letter, thought to be from Lord Monteagle’s brother-in-law, Sir Francis Tresham, who had recently become a member of the plot, gave enough details for Lord Monteagle to go to Robert Cecil. Cecil took the news to the King, who ordered the cellars beneath Westminster to be searched. It was on the night of the 4th/5th November that Guy Fawkes was found red-handed with the evidence – 36 barrels of gunpowder!

Guy Fawkes was arrested and tortured for information, but despite this failure, Catesby still attempted to incite armed rebellion in the Midland. It, too, was a failure and Catesby, along with a few of his co-conspirators, was killed in a shoot-out on 8th November. Those who weren’t killed were arrested, tried and then hanged, drawn and quartered in January 1606.

On 5th November 1605, Londoners were encouraged to celebrate the King’s narrow escape by lighting bonfires around the city, and it is that celebration that is remembered in the UK every year on 5th November, along with the fireworks which have their origins in Guy Fawkes’ gunpowder. In fact, this celebration to give thanks for the deliverance of the King was made compulsory in the United Kingdom until 1859.

The traditional rhyme which is said on Guy Fawkes Night is:

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli’ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England’s overthrow;

By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

The UK has a Queen on the throne at present, so the last part of the last line is changed to “God save the Queen”.




       

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

6 th November 2004

        Upton Nervet rail disaster :
                                               An express train collides with a stationary car near the village of Ufton Nervet, England, killing seven and injuring 150.

                         Ufton Nervet rail crash.

On 6 November 2004 at 18:12 GMT, the First Great Western 17:35 service from London Paddington to Plymouth, a High Speed Train (HST) led by a Class 43 power car (43019), collided with a stationary vehicle at an automatic level crossing close to the rural Berkshire village of Ufton Nervet. The inquest concluded that the accident was caused by Brian Drysdale, a chef at the nearby Wokefield Park Hotel, attempting to commit suicide by parking his car on the crossing.

     

   The level crossing.

       

The rear of the 220m-long HST set came to rest approximately 100m beyond the crossing with all eight coaches derailed. Six people were killed in the crash: the car's driver, the driver of the train, and four of its passengers. Another passenger subsequently died in a hospital. Approximately 200 people were on board at the time of the incident (official estimates are around 180-200), with around half of these injured, 12 of them seriously. Eleven people had to be cut free from the wreckage. The high structural integrity of the Mark 3 coaches prevented a much higher death toll[citation needed], plus the fact that the more lightly loaded first class coaches were at the leading end of the train.

       

     The wreckage                                

The accident, investigation and necessary repairs blocked the main railway route between London and the West Country until the morning of 16 November, subsequently operating under temporary speed restrictions to allow the bedding in of ballast. In the meantime inter-city trains operated via Swindon and Westbury and local services were replaced by rail and bus shuttles.  


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

7 th November 1492

Oldest meteorite :
The Ensisheim meteorite, the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, strikes the Earth around noon in a wheat field outside the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France.


A Brief History
On November 7, 1492, the same year that Christopher Columbus made his epic voyage to the New World, a large meteor fell on the town of Ensisheim, Alsace, Austria, in now what it France. Seen as a falling fireball 100 miles away, the meteorite (when it hits the ground, a meteor becomes a “meteorite”) landed safely in a wheat field.

Digging Deeper
The 280 pound rock left a crater 3 feet deep (not bad for a rock that size) and was quickly set upon by curious villagers. Contrary to popular belief, people back then were not a bunch of flat earth believing cretins and apparently knew what a meteor was, although you have to think having a rock that size falling from the sky would get you to wondering! Indeed, many did see it as an omen, but not so much as a supernatural event. Villagers began breaking off pieces as souvenirs (they never saw Creepshow), but authorities stopped that activity to preserve the meteorite as a gift to King Maximilian I (King of Germany and King of the Romans, and in 1493 he became Holy Roman Emperor).

A piece was lopped off as a present to Cardinal Piccolomini as well (he later became Pope Pius III).

Writer, poet and satirist Sebastian Brant memorialized the event in his poem, “Loose Leaves Concerning the Fall of the Meteorite.” Brant prepared broadsheets with his poem in which he described the rock as an omen. The Nuremberg Chronicle (Folio 257) also mentions the event (this was a religious oriented history of the world printed in 1493). German artist Albrecht Durer sketched the fall of the meteorite as well, based on his own observation of the falling orb.


The Ensisheim meteorite.

A regular run of the mill chondrite meteorite (low in iron, high in iron oxide and silicates), triangular in shape, the rock now resides in Ensisheim in the Musee de la Regence, the local museum. Since the 12th Century, many meteorites have been discovered, easily distinguished from local rocks by their iron content. The Ensisheim Meteorite is the oldest documented fall of a recovered meteorite. In prior centuries, meteorites were indeed the subject of supernatural speculation and were sometimes revered. Iron beads made from a meteorite were discovered in Egypt dating back to 3200 BC. Meteorites were used by many people through the centuries as a ready source of iron (not having to be smelted from iron ore), ready to use. Native Americans, including Inuit people used the metal this simple way as cutting tools.

Although stories exist of people or animals killed by falling meteorites, no reliably documented cases exist, although the Ensisheim Meteorite would certainly have killed a person if it had landed on them! Non-fatal meteor strikes of people have happened, but rarely. One boy from Uganda was hit in the head and suffered no serious injury because the meteorite was slowed by passing through banana leaves! Chances are that at least some of the tales of people or animals killed by meteorites are true.

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

8 th November 1987

Enniskillen bombing :
Remembrance Day bombing: A Provisional IRA bomb explodes in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland during a ceremony honouring those who had died in wars involving British forces. Twelve people are killed and sixty-three wounded.

Enniskillen Bombing – 10.43am, 8th November 1987 – Shame on the IRA & those that Supported them!
November 6, 2015Deaths in the TroublesAgnes Mullan, Bertha Armstrong, Edward Armstrong, Enniskillen Bombing, Georgina Quinton, Jessie Johnston, John Megaw, Kit Johnston, Marie Wilson, Poppy Day massacre, Rememberance Day Massacre, Remembrance Day Bombing, Ronnie Hill, Samuel Gault, Wesley Armstrong, William Mullan




Those who died that day are now remembered at the Cenotaph alongside the names of the war dead they went there to honour

The Remembrance Day bombing (also known as the Enniskillen bombing or Poppy Day massacre[1][2]) took place on 8 November 1987 in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. A Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb exploded near the town’s war memorial (cenotaph) during a Remembrance Sunday ceremony, which was being held to commemorate British military war dead. Eleven people (ten civilians and a police officer) were killed and 63 were injured. The IRA said it had made a mistake and that its target had been the British soldiers parading to the memorial. The unit who carried out the bombing was disbanded.

Enniskillen Remembrance Day bomb
The bombing was strongly condemned by all sides and weakened the IRA’s and Sinn Féin‘s support. It also facilitated the passing of the Extradition Act, which made it easier to extradite IRA suspects from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom. Loyalist paramilitaries responded to the bombing with ‘revenge’ attacks on Catholic civilians.

The bombing has been described as a turning point in the Troubles and an incident that shook the IRA “to its core”.



Aftermath of the bomb.

Planning
The bombing was thought by the British and Irish security forces to have involved at least two IRA units, from both sides of the border. Although IRA units were given “a degree of operational autonomy” at the time, they believed that such a bombing must have been sanctioned by IRA Northern Command.

However, a high-ranking IRA member said that it was suggested by IRA men at the local level and sanctioned by a “middle level” officer.

Denzil McDaniel, author of Enniskillen: The Remembrance Sunday Bombing, later interviewed security and IRA contacts, putting together an account of the bombers’ movements. He wrote that the 40-pound (18 kg) bomb was made in Ballinamore, County Leitrim and brought to Enniskillen by up to thirty IRA volunteers, moving in relay teams to avoid security patrols. It is thought to have taken over 24 hours to transport the bomb.

On the night of 7 November, the bomb—hidden in a sports bag—was left at the gable wall inside the town’s Reading Rooms, and set to explode at 10:43 AM the next day, minutes before the ceremony was to start.

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