Today in history

20 th January 1265

First "parliament" :

The first English parliament to include not only Lords but also representatives of the major towns holds its first meeting in the Palace of
Westminster, now commonly known as the "Houses of Parliament".

Simon de Montfort’s 1265 Parliament

Thursday 20 January marks the 757th anniversary of the beginning of a crucial parliament in the history of government – one that marks an important change in the extent to which people outside the aristocratic classes were involved in politics.

The parliament was instigated by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, the leader of the baronial rebellion against King Henry III. Simon had defeated Henry III and his forces in battle at Lewes in May 1264, and as a result was in charge of the government – though he was still ruling in the name of the king, who was his captive. But even in these circumstances Simon’s grip on power was far from complete: many powerful nobles were hostile to him, royal officials still controlled many key castles and Henry’s loyal and dynamic queen, Eleanor of Provence, was a few miles across the sea in France.

Summoning the people
In an attempt to quell the unrest, Simon called a parliament so that he could give the appearance of legitimacy and of governing with the guidance and consensus of representatives from across the realm. This document records the various writs sent out to summon people to that parliament. Because the writs were sent as ‘letters close’ (letters folded up with the Great Seal across their closure), the document on which they were enrolled is called a Close Roll. It is essentially central government’s file copy of the letters that it despatched. This roll, which covers the 49th year of the reign of Henry III (Oct 1264-Oct 1265) is now part of the huge collection of medieval central government documents held at The National Archives, Kew, under the Catalogue reference C 54/82.



A Close Roll (The National Archives: Catalogue reference C 54/82) records the various writs sent out to summon people to the 1265 Parliament


The roll shows that writs were addressed to the sheriffs (who were the key royal officials in each county) that they should send ‘two of the more law-worthy, honest and prudent knights from each of the counties’ and to the ‘citizens of York, Lincoln and other boroughs of England that they should send… two of their most prudent, law-worthy and honest fellow citizens or burgesses’. Other summonses were sent to nobles loyal to Simon, to churchmen, and to the Cinque Ports (five Channel ports that had special privileges and responsibilities).

We thus have firm evidence that the 1265 parliament had representatives from both the counties and the towns, who gave counsel to the leaders of the kingdom alongside the nobility and the clergy.

Significance of the parliament
We cannot quite say that this was a ‘first’ – knights had certainly been represented at some parliaments earlier in the 13th century, and it is likely (though the evidence is somewhat limited) that townspeople had too on occasion. But these earlier appearances generally seem to have been because specific issues were being discussed – usually, taxation. The 1265 parliament was different. Taxation was not an issue; rather the knights and the townspeople were there to discuss and advise on some of the major questions facing the realm at the time. So while it may not have been the first time that lay people outside the aristocratic class were present at parliament, it was an important step in extending the role of ordinary people in government. Simon de Montfort’s 1265 parliament deserves to be remembered as a crucial step on the road to modern democracy.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_de_Montfort%27s_Parliament

21 st January 1976

Concorde :
Commercial service of Concorde begins with the London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio route

Heathrow, London The 21st of January 1976 AD

The dream which had begun in the 1950s, commercial supersonic flight, finally came about on January 21 1976. The British and French governments had agreed to cooperate in 1962; the first prototype emerged into public view in 1967; on March 2 1969 Britain saw its first Concorde takeoff from Filton in Bristol . Finally the whole point of the project was to be realised.
Concorde G-BOAA had been delivered just a week earlier (another plane had been returned for improvements having been used to test the route in advance of passenger services starting). But she was ready.



Inaugural commercial flights of the supersonic airliner Concorde on 21st January 1976, seven years after its maiden test flight. One British Airways flight left from Heathrow Airport, London to Bahrain in the Middle East as the other, an Air France flight, took off simultaneously at 11.40 am from Orly Airport, Paris for Rio De Janeiro via Dakar, Senegal. Picture shows: The Duchess of Argyle holding her ticket, 21st January 1976.



As so often with Concorde the first flight was laden with political overtones. Firstly, the intended transatlantic route was barred for the time being, supposedly for environmental reasons, but with a definite stench of American pique at the Old World having stolen a huge march on supposed US technological superiority. And of course it had to be the case that flights would take off simultaneously in Britain and France.
Even the destinations had a ring of politics about them: the French flight travelled to Rio via Dakar, in the old French colony of Senegal; the British flew to Bahrain, one of Britain's trading partners in the Middle East, though it was also viewed as a stopping point for future flights to Singapore and Australia.
Flight BA300 thus left Heathrow for Bahrain on January 21 1976, beginning a new age of supersonic commercial flight, albeit for the few who could afford it. The plane could travel at 1,350mph; she flew on the edge of space, 11 miles up; eventually the best time for a London - New York flight was 2 hours 53 minutes. And she was beautiful to boot. It is tragic that such an advance has now been consigned to history and that a few years hence when lucky grandparents say to their children's children "Of course in my day we flew much quicker," it will indeed be true.



The first British Airways flight leaving Heathrow.


https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/concorde-takes-off

22 nd January 1927

Live commentary begins :
Teddy Wakelam gives the first live radio commentary of a football match, between Arsenal F.C. and Sheffield United at Highbury.

THE FIRST LIVE SOCCER BROADCAST

SATURDAY, 22nd JANUARY 1927

The first football match that was broadcast live on t' wireless was a First Division League match that was played in January 1927 between Arsenal and Sheffield United. The venue was Highbury and it took place a week after the first ever Rugby broadcast (England v Wales - Twickenham). The BBC schedule proudly announced that on Saturday afternoon

"2.5 Community singing and Arsenal v Sheffield United Association Football Match (relayed from Arsenal ground, Highbury)"

The match was to be described by Mr. H.B.T. Wakelam with local colour provided by Mr. C.A. Lewis. Some papers including the Radio Times published a plan of the pitch divided into eight sectors. The idea was that Lewis would call out the number of the section the ball was in, whilst his co-commentator Wakelam described the action. From the accounts of the time the broadcast was a great improvement on the earlier Rugby commentary. The following Monday's edition of the Manchester Guardian gave a summary of the broadcast.





THE HIGHBURY RELAY

The broadcast of running commentaries of the Arsenal v Sheffield United match at Highbury on Saturday afternoon was more successful than that from Twickenham the previous week. In the Rugby match listeners only heard one commentator whereas on Saturday there were two, and with the aid of the plan of the ground issued by the B.B.C. and their information it was possible to follow fairly closely the movements of the ball.

One commentator gives listeners a graphic description of the game while the other called out the section in which the ball was actually being played -

"Oh! pretty work, very pretty (section 5)..now up field (7).. a pretty (5,8) pass.. come on Mercer.. Now then Mercer; hello! Noble's got it (1,2)"

With the chart before one, it was fairly easy to visualise what was actually happening and the cheers and the groans of the spectators help considerably the imagination of the listeners.....

The Times agreed with the Guardian's review and praised the commentary for it's vivid and impressive descriptions of play throughout the game. In fact the the initiative remained a part of broadcasting for many years and has, unfortunately, enjoyed something of a resurgence recently with the advent of the "summariser"

Oh and the score - it was a 1 - 1 draw with Billy Gillespie scoring for the Blades.

As a footnote the 1927 F. A. Cup Final between Arsenal and Cardiff City was broadcast live from Wembley to homes all around the country. The commentators for the Final were George Allison who was later to become Arsenal's manager and Derek McCulloch who was later to achieve fame as "Uncle Mac" in B.B.C. Radio's Children's Hour .

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jan/22/enduring-power-magic-football-on-the-radio

23 rd January 1986


Hall of fame :
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.


Flashback: The First Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony


It was 36 years ago Sunday tonight (January 23rd, 1986) that the first inductees entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a ceremony held at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria. The inaugural class of the Hall of Fame featured rock's forefathers: Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, Ray Charles, James Brown, Sam Cooke and Jerry Lee Lewis. Included in the Non-Performer category were Sun Records founder Sam Phillips and seminal disc jockey Alan Freed, whom many credit for actually coining the phrase "Rock And Roll."


Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and Ray Charles at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony on January 23, 1986 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. Ebet Roberts/Redferns


Also inducted that night in the Early Influence category were blues icon Robert Johnson, country's Jimmie Rogers, and boogie-woogie pianist Jimmy Yancey. Columbia Records' legendary A&R man John Hammond, who was responsible for discovering Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and many others, received the Hall's first Lifetime Achievement Award.

The emotional inductions included Keith Richards' speech inducting Chuck Berry and John Lennon's sons Julian and Sean Lennon saluting their father's hero, Elvis Presley.

The ceremony featured the first all-star jam, which closed the night's festivities. Among the stars joining the inductees onstage were Steve Winwood, John Fogerty, Billy Joel, and ZZ Top. The musicians, backed by Late Night With David Letterman's house band — the World's Most Dangerous Band, lead by Paul Shaffer — rocked into the early hours on classics such as Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven," "Little Queenie," and "Johnny B. Goode"; Lewis' "Great Balls Of Fire" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On"; Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary"; Chubby Checker's "The Twist"; and the Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'," among others.

Paul McCartney told us that the birth of rock n' roll in the mid-1950's not only changed his life but the world at large: ["It was America reawakening the world 'cause, y'know, we were into sort of other stuff then, and suddenly Elvis, Little Richard came screaming out of across the Atlantic, y'know, and it was just so exciting for us all. That is a very exciting time, so to remember it was very exciting, but also being a teenager at that time was a very exciting, interesting time."] SOUNDCUE (:24 OC: . . . exciting interesting time)

Mick Jagger spoke about Buddy Holly's influence on the future British Invasion rockers: ["Every English person you talk to, from my generation, at least, will tell you that Buddy Holly was — he was a big influence as a songwriter. And he wrote all these songs in a very short period of time, and they're all very simple. And he was very big in England, I think he toured only once; I saw him on stage. But he was a very big influence."] SOUNDCUE (:18 OC: . . . very big influence)

Graham Nash recalled first meeting the Everly Brothers in 1960 while still a teen back in England, and never forgot their attention and kindness: ["The Everly Brothers came to Manchester, and me and Allan Clarke, who later formed the Hollies with me, decided that we were going to meet the Everly Brothers. And that was a dream, I mean, who does that, right? But we waited; the last bus left, we knew we would have to walk nine miles back home in the pissing rain — it was a drag — except, we were gonna meet our idols! So, around 1:30 in the morning they come, they're a little drunk, they come 'round the corner (laughter) and we go, "Oh, they're here, God, they're walking towards us, oh my goodness,' right? Don and Phil Everly talked to me and Allan Clarke for what seemed like half-an-hour — just encouraging us."] SOUNDCUE (:35 OC: . . . just encouraging us)

Even after all these years, George Thorogood feels that his two biggest heroes deserve all the credit for being the architects of rock n' roll as we know and love it: ["To me, Chuck Berry invented rock n' roll. Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry are the two most important musicians of all time, because rock n' roll changed the world. It's not a musical phenomenon — it's a social phenomenon, and it still is. And it was Chuck Berry who took black music and revved it up and brought it into the living rooms of white America. He wrote 'Johnny B. Goode.' — the all-time 'Mr. Rock n' Roll' song."] SOUNDCUE (:22 OC: . . . rock n' roll' song)

Billy Joel, who gave his daughter Alexa the middle name of Ray, in tribute to his idol, went on to duet with him on his 1986 classic "Baby Grand" from The Bridge. He said that “Brother Ray” was always a key vocal inspiration for him: ["Sometimes I’m trying to sound like Ray Charles . . . the funny thing is, I found out Robert Plant sings the way he did because he was trying to sing like Ray Charles and that’s as close as he could get.”] SOUNDCUE (:08 OC: . . . he could get)

James Burton, Elvis Presley's longtime lead guitarist and bandleader, said that Elvis was never not in full control of his voice, even on his final tours when his health was sometimes in question: ["Oh yeah, he knew his range. Oh yeah, absolutely. He had perfect pitch. I mean the guy could be clear across the stage and go into a song he probably hadn't sung in years — it was there. It was such a natural talent, y'know? It was a blessing from God."] SOUNDCUE (:15 OC: . . . blessing from God)

ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons credits rock n' roll's forefathers for everything that came after them: ["We get the beat from Bo, we got the poetry from Chuck, and we got the insane madness vocal from Little Richard. Those three combined, if you could possibly invent something beyond that, we'd be on another planet — but I think we're already there anyway (laughs)."] SOUNDCUE (:15 OC: . . . already there anyway (laughs))

The 36th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony took place last October 30th in Cleveland honoring 2021's Inductees: Tina Turner, Carole King, the Go-Go’s, Jay-Z, Foo Fighters, and Todd Rundgren in the Performer category, along with Kraftwerk, Charley Patton and Gil Scott-Heron for Early Influence, LL Cool J, Billy Preston and Randy Rhoads for Musical Excellence, and Clarence Avant for the Ahmet Ertegun Award.

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

24 th January 1908

Dib,Dib,Dib :
The first scouting for Boys is issued in England by Robert Baden-Powell. Signalling the start of the scouts movement.
‎
January 24th, 1908 - Boy Scouts Movement Begins

On January 24, 1908, the Boy Scouts movement begins in England with the publication of the first installment of Robert Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys. The name Baden-Powell was already well known to many English boys, and thousands of them eagerly bought up the handbook. By the end of April, the serialization of Scouting for Boys was completed, and scores of impromptu Boy Scout troops had sprung up across Britain.



first edition of scouting for boys .

In 1900, Baden-Powell became a national hero in Britain for his 217-day defense of Mafeking in the South African War. Soon after, Aids to Scouting, a military field manual he had written for British soldiers in 1899, caught on with a younger audience. Boys loved the lessons on tracking and observation and organized elaborate games using the book. Hearing this, Baden-Powell decided to write a nonmilitary field manual for adolescents that would also emphasize the importance of morality and good deeds.

First, however, he decided to try out some of his ideas on an actual group of boys. On July 25, 1907, he took a diverse group of 21 adolescents to Brownsea Island in Dorsetshire where they set up camp for a fortnight. With the aid of other instructors, he taught the boys about camping, observation, deduction, woodcraft, boating, lifesaving, patriotism, and chivalry. Many of these lessons were learned through inventive games that were very popular with the boys. The first Boy Scouts meeting was a great success.

With the success of Scouting for Boys, Baden-Powell set up a central Boy Scouts office, which registered new Scouts and designed a uniform. By the end of 1908, there were 60,000 Boy Scouts, and troops began springing up in British Commonwealth countries across the globe. In September 1909, the first national Boy Scout meeting was held at the Crystal Palace in London. Ten thousand Scouts showed up, including a group of uniformed girls who called themselves the Girl Scouts. In 1910, Baden-Powell organized the Girl Guides as a separate organization.

The American version of the Boy Scouts has it origins in an event that occurred in London in 1909. Chicago publisher William Boyce was lost in the fog when a Boy Scout came to his aid. After guiding Boyce to his destination, the boy refused a tip, explaining that as a Boy Scout he would not accept payment for doing a good deed. This anonymous gesture inspired Boyce to organize several regional U.S. youth organizations, specifically the Woodcraft Indians and the Sons of Daniel Boone, into the Boy Scouts of America. Incorporated on February 8, 1910, the movement soon spread throughout the country. In 1912, Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts of America in Savannah, Georgia.

In 1916, Baden-Powell organized the Wolf Cubs, which caught on as the Cub Scouts in the United States, for boys under the age of 11. Four years later, the first international Boy Scout Jamboree was held in London, and Baden-Powell was acclaimed Chief Scout of the world. He died in 1941.

https://heritage.scouts.org.uk/exhibitions/early-days-of-scouting-1907-1920/which-was-the-first-scout-troop/

25 th January 1533

The very secret wedding:

Henry VIII of England secretly marries his second wife Anne Boleyn :

On this day in history, 25th January 1533, Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn. Alison Weir writes of their marriage in her book “The Six Wives of Henry VIII”:

25 January 1533 – Marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn

According to Thomas Cranmer, Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn on St Paul’s Day, the 25th January 1533. In a letter to Archdeacon Hawkyns, written in June 1533 and recording Anne Boleyn’s coronation, Cranmer wrote:-


“But now, sir, you may not imagine that this coronation was before her marriage; for she was married much about St Paul’s Day last, as the condition thereof doth well appear, by reason she is now somewhat big with child.”1


Cranmer went on to challenge the rumours that he had performed the ceremony:-

“Notwithstanding it hath been reported throughout a great part of the realm that I married her; which was plainly false, for I myself knew not thereof a fortnight after it was done.”2

So secret was the marriage ceremony that even Cranmer had been kept in the dark until a couple of weeks afterwards and Eustace Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, was still writing to the Emperor at the end of March about rumours of a wedding being planned before Easter, little did he know that Anne and Henry were already married! Of course, the reason why it was kept secret was because Henry VIII was still married to Catherine of Aragon.

The Catholic apologist, Nicholas Harpsfield gave more details of the wedding in his “A Treatise on the Pretended Divorce between Henry VIII and Catharine of Aragon” written in Mary I’s reign:-



“The first whereof was that the King was married to [the] Lady Anne Bulleyne long ere there was any divorce made by the said Archbishop [of Canterbury]. The which marriage a was secretly made at Whitehall very early before day, none being present but Mr Norris and Mr Henage of the Privy Chamber and the Lady Barkeley, with Mr. Rowland the King’s chaplain, that was afterward made Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. To whom the King told that now he had gotten of the Pope a lycence to marry another wife, and yet to avoid business and tumult the thing must be done (quoth the King) very secretly ; and thereupon a time and place was appointed to the said Master Rowland to solemnize the said marriage.”3

Harpsfield goes on to describe how when a troubled Lee asked to see the licence so that it could be read to all present “or else we run all and I more deep than any other into excommunication in marrying your grace without any baynes asking, and in a place unhallowed, and no divorce as yet promulged of the first matrimony”, the King replied, “I have truly a lycence, but it is reposed in another sure[r] place whereto no man resorteth but myself, which, if it were seen, should discharge us all. But if I should, now that it waxeth towards day, fetch it, and be seen so early abroad, there would rise a rumour and talk thereof other than were convenient. Goe forth in God’s name, and do that which appertaineth to you. I will take upon me all other danger.”4 Lee had two choices: ask for the licence, showing that he did not trust his King, or get on with the ceremony, and I don’t think he can be blamed for going ahead with the marriage!

some sources actually give St Erkenwald’s Day 1532, the 14th November, as Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII’s wedding date. The chronicler Edward Hall wrote:-


“The kyng, after his returne [from Calais] maried priuily[privily] the lady Anne Bulleyn on sainet Erkenwaldes daie, whiche mariage was kept so secrete, that very fewe knewe it, til she was greate with child, at Easter after.”5

This was straight after their return from Calais, from a trip where Anne Boleyn had played the part of Henry VIII’s consort and where she had been accepted by Francis I. We know that they started co-habiting after this trip and that Anne was pregnant by the time of the ceremony in January 1533, so a marriage or a betrothal in November 1532 does make sense.



Why Get Married Before the Annulment?
As I have mentioned above, both the November and January wedding dates were before Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon was annulled. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer did not make the declaration of annulment until the 23rd May 1533 so Henry was still legally married to Catherine of Aragon BUT an annulment isn’t like a divorce, it doesn’t just bring a marriage to an end, it declares that a marriage was never valid. Cranmer’s ruling in May 1533 meant that Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon had never been valid, there had never been a marriage, so his marriage to Anne, regardless of when it had taken place, was thereby legal – complicated!



Henry V111 and Anne Boleyn.

So, in my opinion (and it’s a very humble one!), Henry and Anne knew exactly what they were doing in the autumn and winter of 1532/1533. Anne had been accepted as Henry’s consort by Francis I in October and Cranmer was on the case, Henry and Anne were sure that Henry’s marriage to Catherine would be annulled shortly so they made the decision to start living together as man and wife. I believe that they became betrothed, consummated that betrothal and then ‘rubber stamped’ that commitment with a marriage ceremony in the January. They had to make sure that if Anne got pregnant, as she did, that the baby would be seen as legitimate and Anne was obviously pregnant months before the ruling on the annulment. A marriage before the annulment was therefore imperative as their legal union would be ‘back dated’ to that and Anne’s baby would be legitimate. That’s how I see it anyway! Protestants in Elizabeth I’s reign emphasised the St Erkenwald’s Day marriage date so.

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

26 th January 1926

   Put 'telly on :
                       The first demonstration of the television by John Logie Baird.

                                                                 
John Logie Baird demonstrates TV.

On January 26, 1926, John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor, gives the first public demonstration of a true television system in London, launching a revolution in communication and entertainment. Baird’s invention, a pictorial-transmission machine he called a “televisor,” used mechanical rotating disks to scan moving images into electronic impulses. This information was then transmitted by cable to a screen where it showed up as a low-resolution pattern of light and dark. Baird’s first television program showed the heads of two ventriloquist dummies, which he operated in front of the camera apparatus out of view of the audience.

           



 The building with its blue plaque from where the demonstration was done .

Baird based his television on the work of Paul Nipkow, a German scientist who patented his ideas for a complete television system in 1884. Nipkow likewise used a rotating disk with holes in it to scan images, but he never achieved more than the crudest of shadowy pictures. Various inventors worked to develop this idea, and Baird was the first to achieve easily discernible images. In 1928, Baird made the first overseas broadcast from London to New York over phone lines and in the same year demonstrated the first color television.

The first home television receiver was demonstrated in Schenectady, New York, in January 1928, and by May a station began occasional broadcasts to the handful of homes in the area that were given the General Electric-built machines. In 1932, the Radio Corporation of America demonstrated an all-electronic television using a cathode-ray tube in the receiver and the “iconoscope” camera tube developed by Russian-born physicist Vladimir Zworykin. These two inventions greatly improved picture quality.

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

27 th January 1605

    Trial of Guy Fawkes :
                                 
                      Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators begins, ending with their execution on January 31.

                   
27 January 1606 – The trial of the Gunpowder Conspirators

On 27th January 1606, the eight surviving conspirators of the November 1605 Gunpowder Plot were tried at Westminster for high treason. Those tried were Guy Fawkes, Robert and Thomas Wintour (Winter), John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates and Sir Everard Digby. Jesuits Henry Garnet, Oswald Tesmond (Tesimond) and John Gerard were said to have "traitorously move[d] and persuade[d]" the conspirators. The other conspirators had died shortly after the plot had been discovered; John Wright, Christopher Wright, Thomas Percy and Robert Catesby were shot dead at Holbeche House in a siege on 8th November, and Francis Tresham died in the Tower of London on 23rd December 1605.

The conspirators were tried by a commission which included the Earls of Salisbury, Nottingham, Suffolk, Worcester, Devonshire and Northampton, and Sir John Popham acted as Lord Chief Justice. The men all pleaded "Not Guilty" to the charges laid against them which included a plot to:

"First, To deprive the King of his Crown.
Secondly, To murder the King, the Queen, and the Prince.
Thirdly, To stir Rebellion and Sedition in the Kingdom.
Fourthly, To bring a miserable Destruction amongst the Subjects.
Fifthly, To change, alter, and subvert the Religion here established.
Sixthly, To ruinate the State of the Commonwealth, and to bring in Strangers to invade it."

which would be put into effect in the following manner:

"First, The King, the Queen, the Prince, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, the Knights and Burgesses of the Parliament, should be blown up with Powder.
Secondly, That the whole Royal Issue Male should be destroy'd.
Thirdly, That they would take into their Custody Elizabeth and Mary the King's Daughters, and proclaim the Lady Elizabeth Queen.
Fourthly, That they should feign a Proclamation in the name of Elizabeth, in which no mention should be made of Alteration of Religion, nor that they were Parties to the Treason, until they had raised Power to perform the same; and then to proclaim, All Grievances in the Kingdom should be reformed."

They were all found guilty of treason and sentenced to the "Reward due to Traitors, whose Hearts be hardened", i.e. to be hanged, drawn and quartered:

"For first, after a Traitor hath had his just Trial, and is convicted and attainted, he shall have his Judgement to be drawn to the place of Execution from his Prison, as being not worthy any more to tread upon the Face of the Earth whereof he was made: Also for that he hath been retrograde to Nature, therefore is he drawn backward at a Horse-Tail. And whereas God hath made the Head of Man the highest and most supreme Part, as being his chief Grace and Ornament, Pronaque cum spectent Animalia cætera terram, Os homini sublime dedit; he must be drawn with his Head declining downward, and lying so near the Ground as may be, being thought unfit to take benefit of the common Air. For which Cause also he shall be strangled, being hanged up by the Neck between Heaven and Earth, as deemed unworthy of both, or either; as likewise, that the Eyes of Men may behold, and their Hearts contemn him. Then he is to be cut down alive, and to have his Privy Parts cut off and burnt before his Face, as being unworthily begotten, and unfit to leave any Generation after him. His Bowels and inlay'd Parts taken out and burnt, who inwardly had conceived and harboured in his heart such horrible Treason. After, to have his Head cut off, which had imagined the Mischief. And lastly, his Body to be quartered, and the Quarters set up in some high and eminent Place, to the View and Detestation of Men, and to become a Prey for the Fowls of the Air."

             

The conspirators, plotting.

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

28 th January 1896

Worlds first boy racer :
Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent, becomes the first person to be convicted of speeding. He was fined one shilling, plus costs, for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h), thereby exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h).


January 28th, 1896 must have started out as an ordinary day for the police constable responsible for Paddock Wood, Kent. As he pushed his bicycle through the quiet streets, he probably had nothing more on his mind than wondering whether today was the day he’d be able to say “You’re nicked, son” to that rogue of a poacher.

While proceeding in an orderly fashion through the village, the peace of the constable’s regular beat was suddenly and rudely shattered. He wasn’t to know that what was happening was also an event of national, and, ultimately, international significance.



Belting past the bobby at a scary 8mph, a motorist by the name of Walter Arnold was about to enter the record books in a burst of exhaust fumes and a flurry of legal activity. Not only was he clearly breaking the speed limit for one of these infernal machines, which was 2mph, but also, and even more damningly, he had no man with a red flag preceding him as the law required.

The bobby on the beat set off in hot pursuit on his regulation issue bicycle, finally catching up with this deranged road racer after five miles. Having captured his man, what was a bobby to do in pre-speeding ticket days? It’s not hard to imagine a subsequent scene between motorist and constable.

“Gasp – didn’t you hear me shouting at you to pull over sir? – cough – must ask you to accompany me – hang on a minute – wheeze…“

“Have you thought of asking your superiors for an upgrade, constable? I could provide them with a very good deal on a Benz motor, finest German engineering…”

“Now I’ve got my breath back, I’m writing you a citation, sir.”

Walter Arnold was no ordinary motorist. He was also one of the earliest car dealers in the country and the local supplier for Benz vehicles. He was well ahead of the times and set up his own car company producing “Arnold” motor carriages at the same time. It has to be said that the subsequent publicity surrounding his speeding offence probably wasn’t entirely unwelcome, and it was certainly a game changer for the automobile.

The London Daily News detailed the four counts, also known as “informations”, on which Walter Arnold faced charges at Tunbridge Wells court. Arnold’s vehicle was described several times in the newspaper court report as a “horseless carriage”, and the case clearly raised some interesting philosophical as well as legal points for the bench.



The first count, which reads oddly now, was for using a “locomotive without a horse,” the next for having fewer than three persons “in charge of the same”, indicating the enduring influence of horse-drawn and steam locomotion when it came to legislating the new vehicles. Next came the actual speeding charge, for driving at more than two miles per hour, and finally, a charge for not having his name and address on the vehicle.

In defence, Arnold’s barrister stated that the existing locomotive acts had not foreseen this type of vehicle, throwing in the names of a couple of elite users, Sir David Salmons and the Hon. Evelyn Ellis, who had never had any problems while out and about in theirs. Whether this was intended to impress the court or to make some point about one law for the rich and another for the man in the street is not entirely clear.



Since this was a case that would set a precedent, referencing names of people who were in the public eye would avoid the problem that has become a by-word for judges who are out of touch – the “who he?” reaction. The origin of this phrase, frequently referenced by satirical magazine Private Eye, lies in the response of one judge in the 1960s who was heard to ask in court “Who are the Beatles?”

Mr Cripps, defending, said that if the Bench considered the vehicle was a locomotive, therefore presumably legislating it within existing acts, they should charge a nominal fine. Eventually, Mr Arnold was fined 5 shillings for the first count of “using a carriage without a locomotive horse” (aka “horseless carriage”) plus £2.0s.11d costs. On each of the other counts, he was to pay 1 shilling fine and 9 shillings costs. Effectively then, his speeding offence cost him a shilling. All in all, the publicity it created may have made it worth it.

The case may have had an influence on the changes to legislation shortly afterwards. The man with the red flag was no longer

required, presumably leading to labour exchange staff scratching their heads over what to do with a skill that clearly wasn’t that transferable. The fearsome machines no longer needed a minimum of three people to control them (“Whoa car, ah said whoa, whoa!” to paraphrase cartoon character Yosemite Sam).





There’s more than a touch of one famous literary character about Mr Arnold, whose love of speeding seems to match that of Kenneth Grahame’s Mr Toad in ‘The Wind in the Willows’: “‘Glorious, stirring sight!’ murmured Toad. ‘The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here today – in next week tomorrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities jumped – always somebody else’s horizon. O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!’”

Unlike Toad, however, who ended up in “the remotest dungeon of the best-guarded keep of the stoutest castle in all the length and breadth of Merry England”, his sentence extended for “gross impertinence to the rural police”, Arnold sped off into a glorious new dawn. The speed limit now rose to a breathtaking 14mph, and drivers throughout the land, including Walter Arnold in his Arnold Benz, celebrated with the Emancipation Run from London to Brighton.

29 th January 1980

Mr Rubik shapes up :
The Rubik's Cube makes its international debut at the Ideal Toy Corp. in Earl's Court, London.



Erno Rubik with his famous invention

When Erno Rubik made his famous puzzle, he didn’t realise just what he’d created.

It was only when the Hungarian inventor scrambled his Cube and then tried to restore it that it occurred to him – this could be quite popular as a game.

In the mid-1970s, he was working at Budapest’s Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts, in their Department of Interior Design.

In the years since it first appeared, a myth has grown about Rubik, that he was trying to make a teaching tool to help his students understand 3D objects.

The truth is that he was actually hoping to solve the structural problem of moving all its parts independently of each other, without it simply falling to pieces.

As soon as that lightbulb moment hit him, he applied for a patent for what he called his Magic Cube, and it was granted in 1975.

By 1977, the earliest batches of the Magic Cube were sold in toy shops around the Hungarian capital.

This version was held together with interlocking plastic pieces, and businessman Tibor Laczi took the Cube to a toy fair in Germany in early 1979 to try and drum up popularity and bigger sales.

Tom Kremer, working for the London-based games people Seven Towns, spotted the intriguing, deceptively simple game, and wasn’t slow to sign a deal with Ideal Toys to release the Magic Cube across the world.

First, however, they wanted to give it a new name, and Erno Rubik’s surname was the obvious choice.

It debuted at toy fairs at the end of January 1980, in London, Paris, Nuremberg and New York.

Considering it has since sold over 350 million, it is quite surprising to know that it didn’t sell especially well at first. There have been alterations over the years, of course.

For one thing, the originals had stickers with the different colours, but these tended to come off eventually.

So today’s Rubik’s Cube features coloured plastic panels instead.

When a toy gets used as often as this absolute all-time classic, it has to be robust.

Readers of a certain vintage will recall how tough it could be to solve it at first, and many of us found that we could solve one or two sides and get them all the same colour, but it was trickier to get the whole cube like that.

Which, inevitably, led to a side industry of books, teaching us how to do it.

Notes On Rubik’s Magic Cube, by David Singmaster in 1980, and You Can Do The Cube the following year from Patrick Bossert both sold brilliantly.

Erno Rubik’s creation had indeed proved popular.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubik%27s_Cube

30 th January 1969

    The last farewell:
                              The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert is broken up by the police.

               
THE ‘BEATLES ROOFTOP CONCERT’ – THEIR LAST LIVE PERFORMANCE

The Beatles ‘Rooftop Concert’ took place on 30th January 1969. It was the culmination of a month-long project that saw the Beatles rehearsing at Twickenham Film Studios for a concert at a yet undecided venue, at which they were going to perform their new album live. However, after George Harrison walked out of the band, the Beatles relocated to the new Apple Studios in the basement of 3 Savile Row and continued to record their new album, with the film crew still present. As the recording sessions drew to a close, it was thought that some sort of climax for the film was needed, and Paul McCartney especially was keen to play live somewhere – but where?

The decision to play on the roof was only made on Sunday 26th January. There are many different versions on how that idea was reached, and whose it was.

If an earlier idea had been realised, there would have been no place to play on the roof – Paul McCartney had wanted to build a roof garden, complete with a lawn and trees.

On the Monday, an engineer visited the roof to make sure it could withstand all the Beatles’ equipment and personnel. Scaffolding and wooden planks were hired and put down to reinforce the space chosen, which was to the front of the roof, overlooking Savile Row. For the next few days, the equipment was being carried in through the reception, disturbing the work of receptionist Debbie Wellum and Chris O’Dell, whose office was on the top floor, just below where the makeshift stage was being erected.

Initially, the rooftop session was planned for Wednesday 29th January, but the weather forecast had said it would be a very gloomy day, and not good for filming so the project was put back until the 30th.  One reason for this was it was hoped to get helicopter shots of the Beatles on the roof and needed good light. However, tut this was later abandoned.

On the morning of the 30th, EMI technicians Dave Harries, and Keith Slaughter were driving towards 3 Savile Row with a car full ropes, blocks, amplifiers, speakers and other vital equipment needed for the rooftop session to take place. In Kings Langley, they were pulled over by the police, who thought their equipment was going to be used in a burglary. They had to convince the police of the real reason they had all the equipment in the car.

One person that missed this historic day was the Beatles trusted roadie, Neil Aspinall, who was in hospital having his tonsils removed. It was left to Mal Evans and Kevin Harrington to set up the Beatles instruments on the roof. Kevin Harrington said that they didn’t know which songs the Beatles were going to play, so just took all the instruments that were in the basement studio up to the roof.

An hour before the session technicians were testing the mics and having real problems, as the strong wind was making a horrendous noise. Therefore, Alan Parsons was sent around to a local branch of Marks and Spencer to buy some stockings to put over the mikes to stop the wind getting in. As Alan remembers, “It was very strange walking into the lingerie department and the assistant asking, ‘what size?’ – and me answering ‘doesn’t matter’, ‘what colour?’ ‘doesn’t matter’ – they thought I was really odd.”

Apart from the Beatles and the film and recording technicians, very few people were allowed on the roof. Among the lucky ones were Yoko Ono, Maureen Starkey, and Apple employees Ken Mansfield, and Chris O’Dell. They all set by a chimney, trying to shelter from the strong wind. Leslie Cavendish, who was the Beatles official hairdresser, was in the building, but after making his way up to the third floor and near to the roof, he was stopped by Mal Evans, who said there was no more room for anyone else. Alistair Taylor, the Beatles long-time associate and now office manager at Apple, decided to watch from down on the street outside.

Although it certainly wasn’t announced in advance that the Beatles were going to play on the roof, one group of fans realised early on that something big was about to happen. ‘The Apple Scruffs’ were a very loyal group of Beatles fans, who used to hang around on the steps of 3 Savile Row, waiting to see their heroes come and go. Their curiosity was certainly raised when they saw all the equipment needed for the session being brought into the building.

Tony Richmond, who was director of photography invited his girlfriend along, and she tipped off Vicki Wickham, who had produced the great TV show, Ready Steady Go, who brought along the presenter of the show Cathy McGowan. Rather than go to the roof, they went to the Royal Bank of Scotland, opposite 3 Savile Row, and somehow were allowed onto the roof. They probably had the best view of all.

Despite it not being announced in advance, the Beatles still wanted an audience, so deliberately scheduled the show for lunchtime, when nearby workers would be on their lunchbreaks and could come and watch. It also harked back to the Beatles Cavern Club lunchtime shows.

Just before they went on the roof, the Beatles gathered in a top floor Apple office which was used as a makeshift dressing room. Ringo borrowed his wife’s bright orange coat, while John and George are wearing their own heavy winter coats. Only Paul didn’t dress for the weather, wearing a suit and an open necked shirt. The Beatles long-time friend Billy Preston had been playing keyboards with them for the last week and had a big role to play on the roof, naturally joined them.

George Harrison was still questioning the point of going on the roof, and Ringo complained of how cold it was. Some were even thinking that the Beatles might abandon the project at the last minute. Finally, John Lennon, who had been silent up to now, said to the others, ‘Let’s do it’ and they went onto the roof.

In all, the Beatles were on the roof for 42 minutes – which was longer than their performance at Shea Stadium. At first, the Beatles played a rehearsal of ‘Get Back’ followed by what could be regarded as ‘take one’ of the same song. They then played ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’ and ‘One After 909’ For the next song ‘Dig a Pony’ it’s obvious that John has forgotten the lyrics of his own song (not for the first time!) and asks Kevin Harrington to hold them up for him while he is singing.

After this, there was a slight gap, as Alan Parsons had to change the tapes. During this break, the Beatles play a short version of the National Anthem! After the tapes are changed, the Beatles do second versions of I’ve Got a Feeling and Don’t Let Me Down. They finish the session with a third version of Get Back.

Even though they couldn’t be seen from the street, the Beatles could be heard for miles around and lots of people started gathering in the street below. Of course, the Beatles knew this was going to happen, so they had cameras placed all around and many passers-by were interviewed about their reactions. Beatles fans loved it – the group hadn’t played live in the UK for nearly 3 years.

As well as at street level, people started gathering on nearby roofs, and even on the top of tall chimney stacks, to get a better look. Many others got great views from their office windows. A good back view of the proceedings could be had from the top floors of buildings in Heddon Street, where three years later David Bowie would pose for the Ziggy Stardust album cover photo.

                 

                         View of the concert from above .

However, the local tailors were not amused by their business being disrupted by the concert. They called the police to get the Beatles to stop. The Beatles guessed that the police were going to come, and had a secret camera set up in reception to film their arrival. The nearest police station, West End Central, is only 150 yards from 3 Savile Row, at the other end of the street. However, as soon as they began playing, the front door of the building was locked, to prevent any intruders coming in, and to delay the police.

A journalist who had been tipped off about the event went into nearby West End Police station to ask their opinion on what was going on. The desk policeman said they were happy for the Beatles to play and weren’t doing any harm. Things started to deteriorate as more and more people started gathering in the street, bringing traffic in Savile Row to a standstill and complaints were made by local tailors, and ironically, the Royal Bank of Scotland, where many people were watching from their roof! Eventually a ‘Black Maria’ police van drove towards 3 Savile Row and the Apple staff started to become worried. Dave Harries remembers ‘George Martin went as white as a sheet’ as he thought he was going to be arrested.

However, the among the first policemen that arrived came from a police box in Piccadilly Circus, about three times the distance to 3 Savile Row than the police station! Ken Wharfe, then a young police officer, got a call on his radio saying that the Beatles were making too much noise and to tell them to turn it down. Ken and his colleague were huge Beatles fans and couldn’t believe their luck when they arrived on the roof and saw the Beatles playing live. They had no intention of stopping them.

This was a disappointment to the Beatles as they wanted to be arrested as it would have been a great climax for the film. Although other policeman had arrived, and asked the Beatles to stop playing, there was no intention to arrest them. After negotiations, they were allowed to perform one last song, which was ironically Get Back. The ‘rooftop session’ ended when John came to the microphone and said, “I’d like to thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we passed the audition.” It was to be the Beatles’ last ever live performance.

I always feel let down about the police. Someone in the neighbourhood called the police, and when they came up I was playing away and I thought, ‘Oh great! I hope they drag me off.’ I wanted the cops to drag me off – ‘Get off those drums!’ – because we were being filmed and it would have looked really great, kicking the cymbals and everything. Well, they didn’t, of course; they just came bumbling in: ‘You’ve got to turn that sound down.’ It could have been fabulous. – Ringo Starr, Beatles Anthology

In the end it started to filter up from Mal that the police were complaining. We said, ‘We’re not stopping.’ He said, The police are going to arrest you.’ ‘Good end to the film. Let them do it. Great! That’s an end: “Beatles Busted on Rooftop Gig”.’

We kept going to the bitter end and, as I say, it was quite enjoyable. I had my little Hofner bass – very light, very enjoyable to play. In the end the policeman, Number 503 of the Greater Westminster Council, made his way round the back: ‘You have to stop!’ We said, ‘Make him pull us off. This is a demo, man!’

I think they pulled the plug, and that was the end of the film. – Paul McCartney, Beatles Anthology  

                        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles%27_rooftop_concert

31 st January 1918
     
                   The battle of May Island :
                                                       A series of accidental collisions on a misty Scottish night leads to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines with over a hundred lives, and damage to another five British warships.


       
A Brief History.

On January 31, 1918, Britain’s Royal Navy “fought” a battle with itself in the Scottish Firth of Forth near the Isle of May, a series of naval accidents in the dark and the mist that led to the loss of 104 British sailors killed.  A total of 8 Royal Navy submarines and ships were involved in 5 collisions, resulting in the loss of 2 submarines and damage to another 4 submarines and a light cruiser.  Our retelling of tale after tale of Naval “Oops” Moments (we have many articles in addition to the one in this link, just search our site using key words such as “Naval Oops Moment,” Naval, Maritime or the like) that consist of an incredible number of unfortunate, sometimes sad and sometimes almost funny, maritime blunders continues.

Digging Deeper
As we have pointed out repeatedly over the years, the British Royal Navy is a highly professional organization steeped in glory and success, but they have suffered their share of Naval Oops Moments.  This time around, 40 British ships were sailing from Rosyth to the North Sea and Scapa Flow to conduct naval exercises.  Among the 40 vessels involved were 9 “K” type submarines, a large (339 feet long) class of sea going subs designed to work in conjunction with the fleet.  The K-class subs had a submerged displacement of 2566 tons and carried a crew of 6 officers and 53 men.  Other ships participating in the movement included battleships, battlecruisers, and destroyers, as well as a light cruiser.



The fleet of ships left Rosyth in a single file line led by the cruiser HMS Courageous, the flag ship, a line stretching about 30 miles long.  Courageous established a speed of 16 knots for the fleet until passing the Isle of May when the speed was increased to 22 knots (just over 25 mph).  To guard against possible attack from German submarines, especially as it was believed a U-boat was in the general area, the ships sailed at a high speed, in line, and not showing lights other than a dim blue light at the stern of each ship that was further obscured by blackout shields to each side of the light.  Radio silence was ordered as another security measure.  The moonless night was quite dark, and as the ships passed the Isle of May a bank of mist settled over the fleet, degrading the already minimal visibility considerably.

As the ships sped through the darkness, some oncoming lights from other vessels, possibly a pair of minesweeping ships, caused one of the 2 flotillas of submarines to alter their course.  While the subs turned hard to port, the rudder of submarine K14 jammed and took several minutes to clear.  K14 and the sub behind her turned on their navigation lights.  Aboard K22, behind the 2 subs that were now lit up, some confusion about what was going on resulted in a collision between K22 and K14, resulting in the death of 2 sailors.  The damaged subs stopped to extract themselves from each other and pull out of the line of ships.  The other ships continued on their course, unaware of what had just happened.  In spite of radio silence, K22 radioed Courageous that K22 was damaged and returning to port, and that K14 was damaged and sinking

As the line of ships behind the stricken submarines sailed past, the captain of K22 ordered a flare to be fired to warn the oncoming ships of the danger of hitting the damaged submarines.  A battlecruiser apparently did not understand the flare, and hit K22, wrecking the sub which settled with only its conning tower above water.  A destroyer turned back to assist the stricken submarines and radioed a coded message about the accident.  The Admiral in charge did not get the message in a timely manner due to the ponderous procedures in place for receiving and decoding radio messages.  The message may have prevented further damage and loss of life, but alas, it came too late.

The flotilla of submarines being led by the destroyer that turned back to assist the damaged subs dutifully continued to follow their leader, turning back to head back to the subs in peril.  The ships now sailing back into the oncoming other vessels created a dangerous situation in which ships were now maneuvering violently to avoid collisions.  The cruiser, HMS Fearless, leading the other flotilla of submarines realized the danger too late, and despite making a course change to emergency hard astern, struck K17 and sunk the unlucky sub, although most of the crew managed to jump off the doomed submarine.  Trailing Fearless, K4 made an emergency stop to avoid striking the damaged cruiser, but was struck by K6, damaging K4 so severely the sub was doomed.  Although sinking, K4 was struck once again, this time by K7.  Meanwhile, with many men in the water, the oncoming battleships and battlecruisers were oblivious to the course of events and continued to sail straight ahead, running over many of the survivors in the water!

                         
                             
The bow of the drydocked cruiser HMS Fearless after colliding with the submarine K17

The tally for the horrific series of events off the Isle of May included the sinking of submarines K4 and K17, and the damaging of submarines K6, K7, K14 and K22 as well as the cruiser Fearless.  Sadly, 104 sailors died due to the collisions that night.  Investigators blamed the accidents on the skippers of 4 of the submarines and the skipper of the Destroyer HMS Ithuriel, the destroyer that had turned back to assist the first 2 subs damaged.  Captain Leir of the Ithuriel was exonerated at court martial.

In the usual manner of governments lying to the people of their own country, the British government kept the incident secret until revealing the event in 1994, after every one of the sailors involved in the Naval Oops Moment had died.  Not until 2002 was a memorial to the sailors that lost their lives that night in 1918 erected across from the Isle of May at Anstruther harbor.

     

The memorial to the battle .


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

Them K Class submarines were steam powered and had chimneys

1 st February 2003

   Space shuttle disaster :
                                      Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during the reentry of mission STS-107 into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

                                        Although similar incidents had occurred on three prior shuttle launches without causing critical damage, some engineers at the space agency believed that damage to a wing could cause a catastrophic failure.

Their concerns were not addressed in the two weeks that Columbia spent in orbit because NASA management believed that even if major damage had been caused, there was little that could be done to remedy the situation.

               

  Columbia breaks apart over texas .    

                 

Columbia re-entered the earth’s atmosphere on the morning of February 1, 2003.

It wasn’t until 10 minutes later, at 8:53 a.m.—as the shuttle was 231,000 feet above the California coastline traveling at 23 times the speed of sound—that the first indications of trouble began. Because the heat-resistant tiles covering the left wing’s leading edge had been damaged or were missing, wind and heat entered the wing and blew it apart.

The first debris began falling to the ground in West Texas near Lubbock at 8:58 a.m. One minute later, the last communication from the crew of five men and two women was heard, and at 9 a.m. the shuttle disintegrated over northeast Texas, near Dallas.

Residents in the area heard a loud boom and saw streaks of smoke in the sky. Debris and the remains of the crew were found in more than 2,000 locations across East Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. Making the tragedy even worse, two pilots aboard a search helicopter were killed in a crash while looking for debris.


Strangely, worms the crew had used in a study and which were stored in a canister aboard the Columbia did survive.

Columbia Disaster Investigation .

In August 2003, an investigation board issued a report revealing that it would have been possible either for the Columbia crew to repair the damage to the wing or for the crew to be rescued from the shuttle.

The Columbia could have stayed in orbit until February 15 and the already planned launch of the shuttle Atlantis could have been moved up as early as February 10, leaving a short window for repairing the wing or getting the crew off of the Columbia.

In the aftermath of the Columbia disaster, the space shuttle program was grounded until July 26, 2005, when the space shuttle Discovery was launched on the program’s 114th mission. In July 2011, the space shuttle program, which began with the Columbia’s first mission in 1981, completed its final (and 135th) mission, flown by Atlantis.

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

2 nd February 1959

The Dyatlov pass incident :



The Dyatlov Pass Incident – Just What Did Happen On Dead Mountain?


On the evening of 2nd February 1959, in the already freezing conditions of the Ural Mountains in what is now north-western Russia, one of the most bone-chilling events in recent history unfolded, events that for the most part we still do not know exactly what happened, other than nine people were dead.

On 27th January a team of ten experienced “ski hikers” set out on an expedition from Vizhai, the last inhabited settlement so far north in the country, close to Ivdel, with the goal of reaching Otorten, a mountain approximately six miles away.

A full list of those who made the journey can be found at the bottom of this article.

One of the team, Yuri Yudin, turned back less than twenty-four hours into their journey due to illness. The other nine continued. The illness may have been the best thing that ever happened to Yudin, certainly the most fortunate.

From the diaries and cameras that were found with their belongings when their bodies were discovered, their movements can be put together right up until the 1st February.

By 31st January they had reached a highland area that would require them to climb higher to go through the pass to reach the other side. It seems they cached some of their food and other provisions that they would need for the return journey in some woodland near the highland area. Then on 1st February they proceeded to go through the pass.

It seems that their plans were to reach the other side and then set up camp there for the night. However the weather turned quite severe with heavy snow, and with such reduced visibility they lost their bearings and ended up west of where they wanted to be. They were heading towards the top of Kholat Syakhl – a mountain whose name in the local Mansi language means “Dead Mountain.”

Whether the team were aware of this or not, they did soon become aware of their navigation mistake. By this time and with the weather worsening they decided to make camp right where they were and make the journey back to where they should have been the next morning.

That is where what we know, stops.

Conditions on the hike quickly worsened although the team was very experienced.


The group leader, Igor Dyatlov, had agreed before he and his team left, that when they returned to Vizhai, he would arrange for a telegram to be sent announcing their safe return. The expected date for this to arrive had been estimated to be 12th Febraury.

When the date came and no telegram arrived there was concern but no immediate reaction as Dyatlov was said to have told Yudin (the hiker who had to returned due to illness) that he now expected the journey to be longer.

By 20th February there had still been no word received and at the insistence of concerned family members, the head of the institute that the missing team belonged to, arranged a search party of sorts. This initial search party was made up of volunteers – students and teachers and such.

The army was soon involved in the search however, using helicopters and airplanes to scout the vast, white terrain.

On 26th February they made the first of many grim and chilling finds, when they discovered what was confirmed to be the hikers abandoned and badly damaged tent.

What was bizarre about the find was that the hikers belongings, including their clothes and shoes were still inside the tent, as if they had literally just fled at a seconds notice.

But perhaps the most frightening aspect of the discovery was that the tent appeared to have been damaged and cut open, from the inside. It seemed it was not that something was trying to get in. They had been desperate to get out. So desperate it seemed that they didn’t have time to dress or even take they their clothes or shoes in what would have been extreme cold conditions.

There were even clear footprints that showed some of the hikers left with one shoe on and one bare foot – all of the footprints headed towards wooded area on the other side of the pass, around a mile to the east of the campsite. However the tracks themselves stopped abruptly after approximately five hundred meters.

However there were no bodies – just snow!



Footprints found near the destroyed tent.

The first two bodies were found near the edge of the forest under a large cedar tree, along with what looked to be the remains of a fire. They were those of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko. Neither of them had shoes on and both were dressed only in their underwear.

It was noted that the branches of the trees nearby were broken up to 5 meters high. It was suggested that the hikers had climbed the trees looking for help which had ultimately resulted in the branches breaking.

Others however, years later, theorised that there was another reason.

At three separate distances ranging from 300 to 650 meters from the “camp” the bodies of Dyatlov, Kolmogorova and Slobodin were found. The “poses” they were found in suggested that they were in the process of heading back to their makeshift camp when they seemed to have frozen in the positions they died in.

It took over two months for the remains of the four remaining hikers to be discovered. They were found on 4th May in a ravine under four meters of snow, around 75 meters away from the cedar camp where their fellow hikers were discovered.

Unlike the other hikers, these last four seemed to be better dressed, in fact most were fully clothed. There was also evidence that those who had been found first, two months earlier, may have in fact perished first and the surviving hikers then took their clothes for their own use. For example Zolotaryov was wearing Dubinina's (fake) fur coat and hat, while Dubinina's foot was said to be wrapped in a piece of Krivonishenko's woolen pants.

Inquests were opened into all nine of the hikers, with the findings of the first five bodies stating that they likely died of hypothermia.

However when investigations were opened into the final four hikers that were discovered in May, the four who were better clothed, the results were drastically different and more frightening.

All had internal injuries with some being more akin to someone who had been hit by a high speed truck. Between them they had major skull damage and major chest fractures.

None of them had any external wounds resulting from the wounds they had inside their bodies, almost as if they had been “subjected to a high level of pressure.”

Dubinina had some major and quite bizarre external injuries however. She was missing her tongue, her eyes, part of her lips, as well as what looked to have been specifically carved out facial tissue and a fragment of skullbone. She was also said to have had extensive skin maceration on the hands.

It was said that she was found lying face down in the ravine and the “injuries” were likely the putrefaction process.

However combined with the strange but serious internal injuries they had, not everyone was subscribing to that theory.

Some began to speculate that the local Mansi tribes may have attacked and killed the hikers for “stepping on to their land.” However the injuries that they had did not indicate there was any attack and besides the footprints that initially led out of the tent there was no evidence that anyone or anything had been anywhere near the hikers.

A more mainstream theory was that an avalanche may have been responsible for the hiker’s deaths. It was claimed that the avalanche could have buried the tent forcing the hikers to cut their way out and then flee to safer ground. If they had become buried under huge amounts of snow or indeed fell to their deaths while roaming around in what would have been surroundings of white upon white, this could have explained their internal injuries.

However detractors from this theory state that the magnitude of the internal injuries were too great to have been caused by any amount of snow or from a fall. Nor was that particular part of the mountains prone to avalanches. Further still there was no evidence to suggest that an avalanche had even occurred.


Another theory, was that the military used to experiment with weapons in this area, one of which was claimed to be parachute mines that detonate up to two meters before they hit the ground. The resulting injuries are very similar to the internal injuries that some of the hikers had seemingly sustained.

Further in support of this theory was that the tent, when examined more closely, looked to have been set up incorrectly. Bearing in mind the hikers were very experienced it is unlikely to be them who had erected the tent wrong, so prompting some to claim that the hikers had been killed accidentally elsewhere and then their bodies and “camp” moved to this area in order to “cover up” the mistake.

There was also said to have been sightings of “glowing orbs” in the sky around that area during this time, and this could indeed indicate that these particular weapons were being tested.

Those that subscribe to this train of thought claim that the external injuries, particularly on Dubinina, were the result of wild animals attacking the corpses.

However the injuries were too precise for some, and the glowing orbs were not the result of any weapons testing. The glowing orbs, they said, were UFOs and it was they who were responsible for the hikers deaths.

These people claim there are many UFO sightings in the area and that on this night a UFO terrified the hikers causing them to flee. The internal injuries were either caused by some unknown “pressure” or “sound” technology, or they were even simply "run into" by whatever they saw.

Dubinina’s external injuries to her face and skin were said to have been the purposeful removal of tissues to be studied.

Oh yes, and remember that tree with the branches broken off? This was claimed by some to have been evidence that something must have hovered above the hikers and so destroying the branches. That something was a UFO.

Said to back this up were unconfirmed reports that the bodies contained high levels of radiation, something else that often accompanies UFO sightings and experiences.

Further still years later, Yury Kuntsevich claimed he had attended five of the hiker’s funerals (he was 12 years old at the time) and claimed that their skin all had a “strange dark tan” to it.

The official ruling is that all nine of the hikers died at the hands of a “natural force” in what was a terrible accident.

For some though, as there often is with cases such as these, there is claimed to be an “air of secrecy” at how this was and still is handled, and these people also claim that there was obviously more going on that just Mother Nature.

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

3 rd February 1959

The day the music died :
Rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson are killed in a plane crash along with the pilot near Clear Lake, Iowa, an event later known as The Day the Music Died.


A Brief History.

On February 3, 1959, a Beechcraft Bonanza airplane crashed in Clear Lake, Iowa, a crash that would become one of the most famous plane crashes in aviation and music history. When the light plane hit the ground in wintry weather, the lives of 3 early Rock and Roll stars were lost, an incident often referred to as “The Day the Music Died.” On that fateful day, music fans lost Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper (aka J.P. Richardson), and the young Ritchie Valens.

Digging Deeper
The airplane involved in the tragedy was a 1947 model of the Beechcraft Bonanza, a single engine light plane that had been chartered for the flight. Tickets were $36 apiece. The plane carried only the pilot and the 3 musicians, all of whom were killed in the crash. The Bonanza has been a distinctive and common civil aircraft, with its iconic “V” shaped tail surfaces instead of the usual vertical stabilizer and horizontal stabilizer arrangement. Introduced in 1947, Beechcraft has produced over 17,000 of these propeller driven airplanes, a number that continues to grow even today.


Buddy Holly had been one of the first superstars of Rock and Roll, along with his band, The Crickets, although he had left the band in 1958. His new band included Waylon Jennings, a future Country Music mega-star. Jennings was supposed to be on the doomed flight but had given his seat to Richardson who was ailing with the flu. Another member of Holly’s new band, Tommy Allsup, was also originally supposed to be on the same flight but gave up his seat to Ritchie Valens.

Holly was famous for hits such as “That’ll be the Day” and “Peggy Sue,” while The Big Bopper had clobbered the charts with “Chantilly Lace.” Valens, only 17 when he died, had a bright career ahead of him, having already scored with the hits “La Bamba,” “Come On, Let’s Go” and “Donna.”



Wreckage from the plane crash .


The Dwyer Flying Service flight out of Mason City Municipal Airport (Mason City, Iowa) left the airport at 12:55 AM, with light snow. A weather report warning of more severe weather along the route was not given to the pilot. Take off seemed to go normally, but the plane crashed only 6 miles from the airport. All 3 singers were ejected from the plane and suffered severe head injuries, as did the pilot who was found in the wreckage. Investigation later found the crash had been caused by the pilot not being certified to fly on instruments, but only qualified to fly using Visual Flight Rules (VFR). The instruments in the wrecked plane were of a type unfamiliar to the pilot, probably causing him to become disoriented.

Some of the folklore about the deadly flight included the myth that the name of the plane was “American Pie,” probably because of the song by that name by Don McClean (1971). Other trivia that probably is true is that Valens and one of Holly’s band members (Allsup) actually flipped a coin to see which one would get to take the plane ride and the loser of the coin toss would take the bus. Another singer that could have been on board the fateful flight was Dion DiMucci, of Dion and the Belmonts, an act on tour with the other acts. The exact accounts of why the 3 singers were the ones aboard the plane and why the other singers was not is not completely clear, as survivors accounts vary. One thing that is true, is that the widow of Buddy Holly refused to attend his funeral and has never visited his gravesite. She reportedly blamed herself for letting him go on tour. Apparently, the tour arrangements were not well planned, as the route to the various cities across the Midwest created an awkward travel pattern instead of following a straight line from venue to venue.


The tragic ending of 3 bright rock and roll careers is not forgotten by fans of rock music, and the day, February 3, 1959, will forever be known as “The Day the Music Died.” Proponents of theories about the cause of the crash such as an accidental firing of a pistol inside the plane or a mechanical failure have failed to find any physical evidence to support those theories. Buddy Holly is remembered in the major motion picture The Buddy Holly Story (1978) and Ritchie Valens is similarly remembered in another major motion picture, La Bamba (1987). We are unaware of any movies made about J.P. Richardson.

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

4 th February 1974

M62 coach bombing :
M62 coach bombing: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb on a bus carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel in Yorkshire, England. Nine soldiers and three civilians are killed.


The M62 coach bombing happened on 4 February 1974 on the M62 motorway in northern England, when a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb exploded in a coach carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel and their family members. Twelve people (nine soldiers, three civilians) were killed by the bomb, which consisted of 25 pounds (11 kg) of high explosive hidden in a luggage locker on the coach. Judith Ward was convicted of the crime later in 1974, but 18 years later the conviction was judged as wrongful and she was released from prison.

The bombing
The coach had been specially commissioned to carry British Army and Royal Air Force personnel on leave with their families from and to the bases at Catterick and Darlington during a period of railway strike action. The vehicle had departed from Manchester and was making good progress along the motorway. Shortly after midnight, when the bus was between junction 26 and 27, near Oakwell Hall, there was a large explosion on board. Most of those aboard were sleeping at the time. The blast, which could be heard several miles away, reduced the coach to a “tangle of twisted metal” and threw body parts up to 250 yards (230 m).



The explosion killed eleven people outright and wounded over fifty others, one of whom died four days later. Amongst the dead were nine soldiers – two from the Royal Artillery, three from the Royal Corps of Signals and four from the 2nd battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. One of the latter was Corporal Clifford Haughton, whose entire family, consisting of his wife Linda and his sons Lee (5) and Robert (2), also died. Numerous others suffered severe injuries, including a six-year-old boy, who was badly burned.

The driver of the coach, Roland Handley, was injured by flying glass, but was hailed as a hero for bringing the coach safely to a halt. Handley died, aged 76, after a short illness, in January 2011.

Suspicions immediately fell upon the IRA, which was in the midst of an armed campaign in Britain involving numerous operations, later including the Guildford pub bombing and the Birmingham pub bombings.

– Reaction
Reactions in Britain were furious, with senior politicians from all parties calling for immediate action against the perpetrators and the IRA in general. The British media were equally condemnatory; according to The Guardian, it was “the worst IRA outrage on the British mainland” at that time, whilst the BBC has described it as “one of the IRA’s worst mainland terror attacks”. The Irish Sunday Business Post later described it as the “worst” of the “awful atrocities perpetrated by the IRA” during this period.

IRA Army Council member Dáithí Ó Conaill was challenged over the bombing and the death of civilians during an interview, and replied that the coach was bombed because IRA intelligence indicated that it was carrying military personnel only.

The attack’s most lasting consequence was the adoption of much stricter ‘anti-terrorism’ laws in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, allowing police to hold those ‘suspected of terrorism’ for up to seven days without charge, and to deport those ‘suspected of terrorism’ in Britain or the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland to face trial, where special courts judged with separate rules on ‘terrorism’ suspects.

The entrance hall of the westbound section of the Hartshead Moor service area was used as a first aid station for those wounded in the blast. A memorial to those who were killed was later created there. following a campaign by relatives of the dead, a larger memorial was later erected, set some yards away from the entrance hall. The site, situated behind four flag poles, includes an English oak tree, a memorial stone, a memorial plaque and a raised marble tablet inscribed with the names of those who died.

A memorial plaque engraved with the names of the casualties was also unveiled in Oldham in 2010.

Prosecution
Following the explosion, the British public and politicians from all three major parties called for “swift justice”. The ensuing police investigation led by Detective Chief Superintendent George Oldfield was rushed, careless and ultimately forged, resulting in the arrest of the mentally ill Judith Ward who claimed to have conducted a string of bombings in Britain in 1973 and 1974 and to have married and had a baby with two separate IRA members. Despite her retraction of these claims, the lack of any corroborating evidence against her, and serious gaps in her testimony – which was frequently rambling, incoherent and “improbable” – she was wrongfully convicted in November 1974. Following her conviction, the Irish Republican Publicity Bureau issued a statement:


Miss Ward was not a member of Óglaigh na hÉireann and was not used in any capacity by the organisation. She had nothing to do what-so-ever with the military coach bomb (on 4 February 1974), the bombing of Euston Station and the attack on Latimer Military College. Those acts were authorised operations carried out by units of the Irish Republican Army.

The case against her was almost completely based on inaccurate scientific evidence using the Griess test and deliberate manipulation of her confession by some members of the investigating team. The case was similar to those of the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six and the Maguire Seven, which occurred at the same time and involved similar forged confessions and inaccurate scientific analysis. Ward was finally released in 1992, when three Appeal Court judges held unanimously that her conviction was “a grave miscarriage of justice”, and that it had been “secured by ambush”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M62_coach_bombing

5 th February 1924

The "pips"
The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal.


BBC first broadcasts Greenwich Time Signal pips.

Britain’s power came from its navy. British merchantmen and marines sailed the world over, establishing colonies on almost every continent in both hemispheres. To keep themselves coordinated and oriented, they began to use common navigational standards, such as referencing the Greenwich Meridian to calculate their longitude. The Greenwich Meridian eventually led to Greenwich Mean Time, for a while the world standard for timekeeping.

On this day, February 5, in 1924 the Greenwich observatory first broadcast its time signal, the five “pips” in the last five seconds preceding every hour. They continue to this day on BBC radio broadcasts, although now more as a matter of tradition, as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), based on atomic clocks, has succeeded it in accuracy.



The pips were originally the brainchild of astronomer Frank Watson Dyson, and the head of the BBC at the time, John Reith. Dyson came up with the idea of broadcasting the pips for coordination (even going so far as adding a sixth pip for the occasional leap second), while Reith first connected them to BBC radio broadcasts.

6 th Feruary 1958

Munich :
Eight Manchester United F.C. players and 15 other passengers are killed in the Munich air disaster.



The Munich air crash of February 6th, 1958 claimed 23 lives, including those of eight Manchester United football players. It was the end of the brilliant Busby Babes.

Affixed to the outside wall of the Old Trafford home of Manchester United Football Club is a double-faced clock bearing the legend “February 6th 1958, Munich”. It commemorates the Munich air disaster which, in killing eight United players, destroyed the Busby Babes, one of the finest soccer teams England has ever produced.

They had been on their way home from a European Cup match in Belgrade when their plane crashed on take-off from a refuelling stop. The Munich air crash is hallowed in Manchester United history.

The Busby Babes

In 1956, Manchester United became English champions with players whose average age was 22 – the youngest side ever to achieve the feat. And they did it again the following year.

Managed by Scotsman Matt Busby, they became known as the Busby Babes. What was remarkable about them was not only that they were so young, but that they were home-grown, the products of the Old Trafford coaching system. Then as now, it was the norm for big clubs to buy the players they needed, but that was not Busby’s way.

Sir Matt Busby

Born into a Lanarkshire mining community in 1909, Matt Busby’s playing career with Manchester City and then with Liverpool was effectively ended by the Second World War. When the conflict was over, he became manager at Old Trafford, where he insisted on being given greater control over his team than had previously been permitted to any manager in England.

Success soon came, but by the time a 1948 FA Cup triumph was followed by the 1952 league title, some players were beginning to show their years. Busby’s solution was to replace the ageing stars with young players who had come through United’s own coaching system. He hardly ever found it necessary to enter the transfer market.

Duncan Edwards

One of the young players whom Busby brought to Old Trafford was Duncan Edwards, who was born in Dudley in the West Midlands in 1936. Edwards made his first-team début well before his seventeenth birthday, and was still a teenager when he became an England player.

Among Busby’s galaxy of young stars, none shone brighter than Duncan Edwards, who is still remembered as the supreme exemplar of the Busby Babes. In today’s terminology, he would be called a defensive midfielder, but such was his talent that he could play in almost any position. Many still consider Duncan Edwards to have been the finest footballer ever to don an England shirt.

The Munich Air Disaster

With Edwards in midfield and Busby as manager, Manchester United were the first English side to compete in the European Cup, reaching the semi-final in 1957.

The following season, they got to the quarter finals again, and were drawn to play Red Star Belgrade. The first leg at Old Trafford ended in a 2–1 victory for United, and a 3–3 draw in Belgrade two weeks later ensured a second successive semi-final appearance.

But on the return journey, their plane crashed on take-off after a refuelling stop at Munich. Twenty-three of forty-four people on board would die, among them eight players. The Munich air crash destroyed the Busby Babes.



The wreckage of the plane.

Both Matt Busby and Duncan Edwards were severely injured. So serious was the condition of the manager that he was not expected to survive, but he confounded medical expectations, and was able to leave hospital after two months. Edwards was not so lucky: United’s brightest star died two weeks after the crash.

A decade on, with a team which included George Best and Denis Law, Manchester United became the first English club to win the European Cup. Also in the side that defeated Benfica at Wembley Stadium that night were Bobby Charlton and Bill Foulkes, two of the survivors of the Munich air disaster. Perhaps only they and Matt Busby, who had returned as manager after his recovery ten years before, knew what it really meant.

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

7 th February 1991

I.R.A attack on Downing St:



At 1008 am, on 7th February 1991, as Prime Minister John Major’s War Cabinet sat down to meet in the Cabinet Room, an IRA mortar hit 10 Downing Street. Several police officers were injured but nobody was killed.

An account of this as told to me by Prime Minister John Major, is part of the kindle book “Forgotten Voices Gulf War One”.

It had been fired from a white transit van outside the Ministry of Defence, 250 metres away parked – near where King Charles the First had been executed.

The Cabinet Room’s bomb-proof windows buckled inwards but didn’t shatter. The building shook and the Prime Minister’s War Cabinet took cover underneath the substantial table.

After the shock and then a considerable aftershock, the politicians and civil servants moved downstairs to the safety of Downing Streets underground protective levels. They continued with their meeting in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A – “COBRA”.

The success of this IRA mission was downplayed at the time. But the damage to Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street – the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer’s official residences, was considerable. Despite shattered windows, the heavy bomb-proof net curtains then in every government building, prevented glass injuries.

A total of three mortars were fired. One landed in the garden of 10 Downing Street, just ten yards from the Cabinet Meeting Room windows, making a large crater several feet deep. The other two went further to land on Mountbatten Green.

As a result, the entrance to Downing Street (a cul de sac) from Whitehall was blocked with a large wrought iron security gate – to prevent car bomb attacks.

This attack was of considerable sophistication and daring, carried out with impressive precision. Security forces had not detected the reconnaissance and measurements that made it possible – although it’s likely these took place months before the actual attack.



The hole in the roof from which the three mortars were fired.

The missiles were entirely homemade; gas cylinders packed with explosives, fired using fast-burning propellant of the weed killer and sugar type, from metal tubes welded in a line inside the van. They were fired in two volleys: first as a pair to balance the recoil, then a single in the middle, from the cut-out roof of the van just behind the driver – using the van both as delivery vehicle and as the mortar base plate. It’s unlikely the mortars had impact fuses. Instead, burning time fuses would have been lit just before setting off the mortar firing charges.

The timing of this would have been critical. It’s remarkable that nobody at the time appeared to have observed the van being positioned, or the bombers escaping before it exploded.

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

8 th February 1587

             The Babington plot :
                                             Mary, Queen of Scots, is executed on suspicion of having been involved in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

                            On this day in history, Wednesday 8th February, Mary, Queen of Scots was executed at Fotheringhay Castle, following the arrival of her death warrant at the castle the day before.

Mary had been tried in October 1586 for her involvement in the Babington Plot, a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I, and had been found guilty. Elizabeth I put off signing her death warrant, struggling with the idea of killing an anointed monarch, but finally signed the warrant on 1st February 1587, although Elizabeth claimed later that she ordered her secretary, William Davison, not to do anything with it for the time being. As I mentioned in my article on the death warrant, Elizabeth's Privy Council met and agreed to send the warrant to Fotheringhay without the Queen's knowledge. It is impossible to know exactly what happened. Did Davison misunderstand the Queen's instructions and intentions? Probably not. Some historians believe that William Cecil, Lord Burghley, chose Davison to be a scapegoat because he realised that Elizabeth needed someone to take the responsibility for Mary's death away from her, but others believe that it was Elizabeth who chose Davison as the scapegoat.

                 

                              An impression of the execution .      

Although London rejoiced at the news of Mary's execution, Elizabeth did not. According to William Camden, when she was given the news at 9am the next day, "she heard it with great indignation, her countenance and her words failed her, and with excessive sorrow she was in a manner astonished, insomuch as she gave herself over to grief, putting herself into mourning weedes, and shedding abundance of tears". She then "sharply rebuked" her council and "commanded them out of her sight." So great was Elizabeth's fury that Sir Francis Walsingham fled to his home, pretending to be ill, and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and Lord Burghley were banished. Poor Davison, the scapegoat, was arrested, tried and sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower and heavily fined. Burghley managed to rescue the poor man from being hanged.

Elizabeth then had to deal with the aftermath of Mary's execution, which included the Pope calling for Philip of Spain to invade England as soon as possible and Henry III of France calling Elizabeth "this bastard and shameless harlot". By April, though, things had calmed down and there seemed that there were to be no reprisals from Catholic Europe.

Mary, Queen of Scots was laid to rest at Peterborough Cathedral with the royal honours deserving of a queen. In 1612, Mary's son, King James I, ordered that his mother should be moved from Peterborough to Westminster Abbey. It is at the Abbey that she can be found today, in a chapel opposite that of the woman who signed her death warrant, Elizabeth I.


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

9 th February 1996


Docklands bombing :
The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares the end to its 18-month ceasefire and explodes a large bomb in London's Canary Wharf, killing two people.


Remembering the Docklands bomb.

On 9 February 1996 the IRA detonated a 3,000 pound bomb in London’s Docklands, causing £150 million worth of damage, 40 injuries and 2 fatalities. The explosion marked the end of a seventeen month ceasefire, forcing the British government to re-table talks for peace in Northern Ireland. In the mainstream media this event has been read as the IRA successfully 'bombing its way to the conference table'.

But the bomb had other, often forgotten, consequences. The explosion not only altered London’s built environment, it also transformed human relationships with the city. The bomb revealed weaknesses in the capital’s security apparatuses, prompting a renewed approach to surveillance in the city. Alongside this, London’s Irish communities were placed under the strain of suspicion against the otherwise optimistic backdrop of the peace process. Victims of the attack, meanwhile, continue to fight for compensation and recognition of the damage caused to their families and their everyday lives.



Aftermath of the bomb.

This project is a collaboration between teaching fellow in Liberal Arts and London, Dr. George Legg, and Lucy Harrison, an artist based in London whose work looks at sites and communities in the midst of change. Lucy’s current projects include Social Cement at Tate Modern’s Switch House and WE: the ex-Warner Estate in Waltham Forest at Vestry House Museum.

Together George and Lucy are interviewing local residents, members of the Docklands Victims Association and London’s Irish diaspora about the bombing and its unfolding legacy. Their approach is to experiment in bringing together academic and artistic research methods in response to the unwritten memories and official narratives of this explosion.

Where George’s work tends to be archival and text based, Lucy often operates through video, photography and collaborative exchanges with the public. By combining these approaches Lucy and George hope to produce an audio visual-piece, exhibition or display that looks beyond the bomb’s abstract role in peace negotiations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Docklands_bombing

10 th February 1840

A royal wedding :
Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.


On February 10th in the year 1840, a 20 year old Queen Victoria, proposed to and married a 20 year old Albert, prince of the German duchy, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The matrimony was not only a momentous affair in it being the unity of two states, but the children of Victoria and Albert would change the course of European history.

Victoria was born in the year 1819; her father, Edward, Duke of Kent, was the fourth son of King George III. Her father sadly passed soon after she was born. Despite her father being the fourth in line to the throne, Victoria became the sole heir after her three uncles had no legitimate children who survived infancy. George IV ruled from 1820-1830, his brother William IV ruled from 1830-1837. Both uncles to Victoria (her third uncle, Frederick, Duke of York, passed away in 1827), as previously stated, had no legitimate children, leading the way for Victoria’s ascension to the throne in 1837. Victoria first met Albert at her 17th birthday party in 1836. The two were introduced by King Leopold I of Belgium, uncle to Prince Albert. It is reported in both Victoria’s and Albert’s memoirs that they both almost instantaneously fell in love with one another. In 1839, due to a standing tradition that the monarch could not be proposed to, Victoria proposed to Prince Albert, and in 1840 the two were married as Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort.

Victoria and Albert were married for 22 years, their marriage only ending after the premature death of Albert at the age of 42 as a result of typhoid fever. Queen Victoria devoted the rest of her 40 years to the commemoration and remembrance of her beloved husband. In their 22 years of marriage, Queen Victoria gave birth to nine children, four boys and five girls. The role these children would play in European history is immense. As well as devoting herself to the remembrance of her husband, Queen Victoria made it her duty to interconnect her line with the monarchs and rulers of Europe. It is believed that after all her children were married, Queen Victoria’s descendants can be found in the royal families of Germany, Russia, Greece, Romania, Norway, Sweden, Spain and of course Britain. Her nickname ‘The Grandmother of Europe’ was not one given lightly.

Her first daughter, Princess Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise, was married to Friedrich Wilhelm II, of Prussia. Their eldest child would be Wilhelm II. The same Wilhelm II who led Germany into the First World War. Her second child was Albert Edward Wettin; he too played a role in the First World War as monarch of Britain. His own son was Edward V, who in a fit of anti-German sentiment changed the name of the royal house from the German ‘Wettin’ into the more anglicized ‘Windsor’. The name Windsor has been the name of the British royal family ever since. Her third child, Alice Maude Mary, had seven children of her own whilst married to the Grand Duke Louis XIV. One of them, Frittie, sadly passed away after he fell from an unlocked window, resulting in Alice falling into a deep depression. Her daughter, Alix, married the last Czar of Russia, Nicholas II. Victoria’s fourth child, Alfred Ernest Albert, was married to the daughter of Czar Alexander II. Her fifth child, Helena Augusta Victoria, would marry Prince Frederick Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. Her sixth child, Louise Caroline Alberta, was married to John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, a future Duke of Argyll. Her seventh child, Arthur William Patrick, rose to become Master of the Freemasons from 1901 to his death in 1942. Her eighth child, Leopold George Duncan, was known to be incredibly intelligent and was believed to be an advisor to his mother, the queen, before his premature death in 1884. Victoria’s ninth and final child, Beatrice Mary Victoria, did not fare as well as some of her siblings. She lost both of her children in infancy and her husband to malaria.

The marriage of Victoria and Albert can be considered one of the most influential unions in modern history. The role of their children and their children’s children would give way to some of the most significant events in European and world history, from playing a part in the Russian Revolution to being the causing factors of the First World War, which eventually led to the rise of the Second World War. Their line still lives on to this day, making up many of the royal houses of Europe. This matrimony and the resulting nine children can be recognized for many European developments in the past 150 years. A single day, focused on two individuals, has found a way to impact millions of lives.




The wedding ceremony .

Nelson Mandela, leader of the movement to end South African apartheid, is released from prison after 27 years on February 11, 1990.

In 1944, Mandela, a lawyer, joined the African National Congress (ANC), the oldest Black political organization in South Africa, where he became a leader of Johannesburg’s youth wing of the ANC. In 1952, he became deputy national president of the ANC, advocating nonviolent resistance to apartheid—South Africa’s institutionalized system of white supremacy and racial segregation. However, after the massacre of peaceful Black demonstrators at Sharpeville in 1960, Nelson helped organize a paramilitary branch of the ANC to engage in guerrilla warfare against the white minority government.

In 1961, he was arrested for treason, and although acquitted he was arrested again in 1962 for illegally leaving the country. Convicted and sentenced to five years at Robben Island Prison, he was put on trial again in 1964 on charges of sabotage. In June 1964, he was convicted along with several other ANC leaders and sentenced to life in prison.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nelson-mandela-released-from-prison

Feb 12th 1949

Martians Land in Quito

In 1949 two programming executives at Radio Quito, in search of cutting-edge entertainment, decided to air an Ecuadorian version of "War of the Worlds."

On that fateful night most of Quito's homes were tuned in to our favorite station. A famous duo performed an Ecuadorian folk song, but halfway through the performance an announcer broke in with urgent news. He said that Martian flying saucers had landed in Latacunga, a town about 25 miles south of Quito.

Breathlessly, he proclaimed that Martians with their "death rays" had destroyed Latacunga and that the alien hordes were now headed for Quito.

It took a while but finally the programming executives at Radio Quito realized that their re-creation of Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" stunt had gone too far.

They announced that this was a dramatization, that it was all fiction, that there were no Martians and Quito was safe.

At this point the comedy ended and the tragedy began. Instead of calming troubled waters, the announcement fuelled tremendous outrage among the populace.

A mob marched to the building that housed both Radio Quito and the main Quito newspaper El Comercio. They threw rocks and some brought gasoline and set the building on fire.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/martians-land-in-quito_b_166776