Today in history

4 th December 1956

   The million dollar quartet :
                                         The Million Dollar Quartet (Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash) get together at Sun Studio for the first and last time.

                     

A Brief History
On December 4, 1956, Sun Records Studio in Memphis, Tennessee was the location of an impromptu jam session by 4 of the rising stars of the Rock and Roll Era.  Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis got together and made music in an unplanned moment of musical serendipity, bringing together for the one and only time these future legends.  Lucky for us, the recordings still exist!

Digging Deeper
At the time of the jam session, Elvis had already hit the big time and had moved from Sun Records to RCA, and had just dropped by to say hi to Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records, while Carl Perkins had just made it with his monster hit, “Blue Suede Shoes” and was at the studio to make some recordings.

Jerry Lee Lewis was not yet a star, and had been hired to play piano for Perkins’ recording session.  Johnny Cash had some success with country/rockabilly music at Sun, including his hit “I Walk the Line” from a few months prior.
Cash later said he came to the studio to listen in on Perkins’ recording session.
The 4 future legends began their friendly jam session, while the studio engineer was on the ball enough to realize the value of recording the songs.  Going over mostly Gospel songs that all 4 singers were familiar with, as they played and sang Phillips astutely called a couple of newspaper reporters over to the studio to write about the jam session.  The next day the Memphis Press-Scimitar featured an article titled “The Million Dollar Quartet” complete with a photo of the 4 musical greats gathered around the piano, singing away.



Recordings of the music made that fateful day were not made public until 1981 when a partial record of the session was released titled The Million Dollar Quartet.  Most of the 17 tracks on the album were gospel and spiritual type songs.  In 1987 more material from the jam session was found and included on a new album, The Complete Million Dollar Sessions, this time with a CD version available.  A 1990 version of the album was created, and in 2006 an even more definitive version was released as a 50th Anniversary edition, featuring an additional 12 minutes of music taken from Elvis Presley’s personal copies of the recording session.  The latest compilation features 46 tracks, nearly every thing believed to have been recorded that day, with only a couple songs that may have missed being recorded (or at least not found so far).

In 1982, Lewis, Perkins, and Cash produced an album called The Survivors Live (Elvis had died in 1977) and a 1986 album called The Class of ’55 featured the 3 “survivors” plus Roy Orbison.  Interviews made during the production of The Class of ’55 were made into a spoken word album, and won the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album of 1987.

A musical play version of the events of December 4, 1956 called Million Dollar Quartet was produced in 2007, enjoying great success and finding its way to Broadway in 2010 where it ran for 489 performances until moving to off-Broadway.  The musical was nominated for a Tony Award in 2010.

Carl Perkins died in 1998, and Johnny Cash joined Elvis and Carl in music heaven in 2003.   Jerry Lee Lewis died in 2022.  Like the Righteous Brothers said in a 1972 song, “If there’s a rock and roll heaven, well you know they’ve got a hell of a band!”

5 th December 1952

The great smog of London :
Beginning of the Great Smog in London. A cold fog combines with air pollution and brings the city to a standstill for four days. Later, a Ministry of Health report estimates 4,000 fatalities as a result of it.


When a thick fog engulfed London from December 5-9, 1952, it mixed with black smoke emitted from homes and factories to create a deadly smog. This smog killed about 12,000 people and shocked the world into starting the environmental movement.

Smoke + Fog = Smog

When a severe cold spell hit London in early December 1952, Londoners did what they usually did in such a situation -- they burned more coal to heat up their homes. Then, on December 5, 1952, a layer of dense fog engulfed the city and stayed for five days.

An inversion prevented the smoke from the coal burning in London's homes, plus London's usual factory emissions, from escaping into the atmosphere. The fog and smoke combined into a rolling, thick layer of smog.

London Shuts Down

Londoners, used to living in a city known for its pea-soup fogs, were not shocked to find themselves surrounded by such thick smog. Yet, although the dense smog did not instill panic, it nearly shut down the city from December 5-9, 1952.

Visibility across London became extremely poor. In some places, visibility had gone down to 1 foot, meaning that you wouldn't be able to see your own feet when looking down nor your own hands if they were held out in front of you.

Transportation across the city came to a standstill, and many people didn't venture outside for fear of getting lost in their own neighborhoods. At least one theater was closed down because the smog had seeped inside and the audience could no longer see the stage.

The Smog Was Deadly
It wasn't until after the fog lifted on December 9 that the deadliness of the smog was discovered. During the five days in which the smog had covered London, over 4,000 more people had died than usual for that time of year. There were also reports that a number of cattle had died from the toxic smog.

In the following weeks, about 8,000 more died from exposure to what has become known as the Great Smog of 1952. It is also sometimes called "the Big Smoke." Most of those killed by the Great Smog were people who had pre-existing respiratory problems and the elderly.

The death toll of the Great Smog of 1952 was shocking. Pollution, which many had thought was just a part of city life, had killed 12,000 people. It was time for a change.

Taking Action

The black smoke had caused the most damage. Thus, in 1956 and 1968 the British Parliament passed two clean air acts, beginning the process of eliminating the burning of coal in people's homes and in factories. The 1956 Clean Air Act established smokeless zones, where smokeless fuel had to be burned. This law dramatically improved air quality in British cities. The 1968 Clean Air Act focused on the use of tall chimneys by industry, which dispersed the polluted air more effectively.

6 th December 1897


Taxi: !:
London becomes the world's first city to host licensed taxicabs....And they were electric.



On December 6, 1897, London became the first city to host licensed taxicabs. But vehicles for hire were around long before that.


The term ‘taxicab’ was first used in the late 1800s when the single horse-drawn Hansom cab invented in 1834 by architect Joseph Hansom was refined and redesigned by John Chapman to include a mechanized taximeter to measure journey fares. Although first used in London and other UK cities, it’s patent was quickly adopted by other European capitals and later the United States.
By 1897 Walter C. Bersey’s London Electrical Cab Company had manufactured electric-powered taxis, which were, again, first used on the streets of London and the first motorized vehicles for hire. Although initially nicknamed Berseys after the designer, the strange sound coming from their electric motors gained them the new nickname ‘Hummingbirds’. He started off with a fleet of 25 but by 1898 he had introduced another 50. And fast-forward to this millennium when in 2002 50 gold-colored taxicabs were introduced to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.


Bersey electric cab, 1897.


The popularity of the motorcar hastened the demise of hackney coaches and cabs with the last licensed ones withdrawn just after the Second World War. This is a considerably long innings when you consider the first horse-drawn black cabs for hire emerged in the 1600s. The Berseys also faded out of popularity with the London Electrical Company shutting its doors forever in 1899.

7 th December 1703

The great storm of 1703 :
The Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, makes landfall. Winds gust up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people die.


On the evening of December 7th, 1703, author Daniel Defoe was sitting in his home pondering the state of the poor weather which had been plaguing England for the past couple of weeks. Wind and rain had been pounding England for days on end and it seemed as though there would be no end in sight to the dreary state of affairs.

It was on that night, that Defoe glanced over at his barometer and was puzzled to see that the mercury within had dropped to a point lower than he had ever seen it before. In fact, the reading was so low that his only conclusion was that his children must have tampered with his instruments when he was not looking.

Unbeknownst to Defoe at the time, the barometer was accurate and was warning of a powerful storm which was moving onshore. The resulting winds were so powerful that they blew fish straight out of many ponds that dotted the countryside. Defoe would stay up that night absolutely transfixed by the power of the storm and would be compelled afterwards to write a detailed account of the event.

The storm
For a violent period of about twelve hours England was pounded by torrential rain and powerful winds. According to the document, A Letter for the Reverend Mr William Derham, F. R. S. Containing His Observations concerning the Late Storm recorded by the Royal Society, William Derham recorded a low pressure of 973mb in Essex during the storm — a reading nearly unheard of outside of the tropics.

This was the result of a powerful low pressure system which congealed into an extratropical cyclone which came ashore from the west and swept across southern England, and the English Channel before sweeping across France and Germany. The south of England bore the worst of the storm’s fury.

Wind speeds have been estimated to have been blowing at a constant rate of about 80mph with gusts approaching 120mph in some areas. In early 18th century England, this level of wind was too much for nearly all of the structures in the country. The damage was miserable and widespread.

Damage and casualties

A plate depicting the destruction of a light house during the storm. (Public domain)
The tally of damages was kept by a variety of sources, including Defoe who set out to collect as many eyewitness accounts of the storm as possible. Nothing was spared. Ships and boats were grounded, trees were uprooted, roofs were blown away and buildings collapsed.

Some of the damage tolls included:

4,000 old oak trees uprooted

2,000 chimney columns toppled

400 windmills destroyed

700 ships damaged or destroyed

The Eddystone Lighthouse collapses into the sea

Worse than the material damages was the loss of life that accompanied it. The destructive winds buried people in their homes as they slept. Thousands of sailors died. One account has over 6,000 men dying at sea. Some ships were destroyed so quickly and so thoroughly by the winds and the surf that entire crews vanished without a single survivor.

The total death count has been pegged at 8,000 but some accounts have it as high as 20,000.

The queen spoke of the tragedy saying:

[the storm is]a Calamity so Dread/ful and Astonishing, that the like hath not been Seen or Felt, in the Memory of any Person Living in this Our Kingdom

Defoe wrote in The Storm that many small towns dotting the English coast appeared as though destroyed by enemy armies. He wrote:

[the many towns] looked as if the enemy had sackt [sic] them and were most miserably torn to pieces

Dennis Wheeler studied the storm in 2003 and said that it was so severe that there did not exist a contemporary vocabulary in England to describe the force and breadth of the storm.

Wheeler wrote of it:

It was so severe, none of these poor captains had ever experienced it before, so they didn’t have any yardsticks to base the description on. One gave up and just wrote ‘a most violent storm’ and left it at that, for sheer want of anything more he could say.

At the time many saw it as divine retribution for the actions and behavior of England during the War of Spanish Succession and many called for repentance and fasting following the passing of the storm.

In terms of damages and casualties, this is the worst storm ever to strike England and was the most powerful until the Great Storm of 1987 which saw a similar weather event strike the country.

It was one of the first natural disasters to be recorded in a modern way with nearly instant news pamphlets and accounts appearing on the streets following the event.

8 th December 1980


Murder of John Lennon:
John Lennon is murdered by Mark David Chapman in front of The Dakota in New York City.

EXCLUSIVE: MONDAY 8TH DECEMBER 1980 LENNON'S LAST DAY


WHEN five gunshots rang out in New York 25 years ago, they ended the life of one of the world's most influential musicians and sent millions of fans into mourning.

John Lennon had been living quietly in the city and had just made his comeback after five years away from the studio.


"John and I were gloriously happy in the first week of December," his widow later recalled. "In our minds, we were a team - old soldiers."

So exactly what happened on December 8, 1980? Here, we chart the final hours of the ex-Beatle and how he was targeted by Mark Chapman...

7.30am As the sun rises over Central Park, 40-year-old John Lennon gets out of bed and slips into his black kimono.

Leaving his wife, Yoko Ono, sleeping beneath the sheets, he creeps into the living room and stares out at the Manhattan skyline.

Yoko finds him lost in thought as sunlight floods into the stark, whitewashed room.

Both are on a high. After five years out of the limelight, their new joint album, Double Fantasy, is riding high in the charts and they are busy recording a follow-up.

"What are we going to do when it's No.1, John?" Yoko asks.

"I'll take you out to dinner," he replies.

"That's a date?"

"That's a date."

Although the album went on to top charts around the world, John was never able to keep his promise...

Today is one of the warmest December days New Yorkers can remember. But John and Yoko don't have time to enjoy it - they have a full day's work ahead, including a photo session and a radio interview.

Meanwhile, 20 blocks across town, at the Sheraton Center Hotel on 7th Avenue, Mark David Chapman is also contemplating his day.

The security guard flew into the city two days ago intending to kill John Lennon. Over the weekend, he'd spent hours outside the Dakota building, where John and Yoko live.

9.00am John and Yoko leave the Dakota and have breakfast at the Cafe La Fortuna, on West 71st Street. John tucks into eggs benedict and follows it with a cappuccino and Gitane cigarette.

John then decides to have a haircut, after which the couple return to their sprawling 34-room apartment and welcome photographer Annie Leibovitz inside. 11.00am She asks John if he'd consider stripping off for the photo, while Yoko remains clothed. The resulting picture makes the frontPhoto shoot for Rolling Stone magazine cover cover of Rolling Stone magazine six weeks later. 1.00pm San Francisco radio producer Dave Sholin arrives to conduct what becomes John's last interview.

During the three-hour session, the musician poignantly says: "We're either going to live or we're going to die. I consider that my work won't be finished until I'm dead and buried - and I hope that's a long time."

5.00pm Sholin offers John and Yoko a lift to the recording studio. Outside the Dakota, the pavement teems with office workers heading for the subway.

Among them is Mark Chapman, 25, determined to kill Lennon, who he sees as a "phoney" - a left-wing activist with a millionaire lifestyle.

Despite the mild weather, Chapman wears thermal underwear, green trousers, a shirt and sweater, and a long green overcoat, complete with a fake fur hat, gloves and a green scarf.

A Charter Arms .38 snub-nosed revolver is concealed in the inside pocket of his coat.

He hands John a copy of Double Fantasy to sign. Wearing a black leather jacket over a blue sweater and red T-shirt, John writes: John Lennon 1980. Handing it back, he looks his killer in the eye and asks: "Here, is that what you want?" before hopping into the car.

John and Yoko, 47, spend four-and-a-half hours working at the Record Factory. John arranges to return at 9am the next day, turning to engineer Jack Douglas and smiling: "See you tomorrow morning, bright and early!"

10.35pm Their limousine takes them up Eighth Avenue to Columbus Circle, continues north along Central Park West and then left into 72nd Street. On the way, John chats excitedly about saying goodnight to his five-year-old son, Sean.

Chapman is still loitering in front of the Dakota, where he's struck up a conversation with doorman Jose Perdomo.

10.48pm The limo stops outside the building's gateway and Yoko climbs out, followed by John carrying a tape recorder and cassettes. John stares at Chapman as he passes by and, as he moves off, the killer springs into action...

Dropping into a combat stance, he pulls out the gun. The first two shots hit John in the back, spinning him around, while another two hit him in the shoulder. A fifth misses. Each bullet passes through the body and slams into a wood and glass windbreak behind him.

As Chapman looks on in silence, Lennon staggers up the five steps into the building's office, mumbling "I'm shot" before falling face-down. Night man Jay Hastings had been reading a magazine but, when John stumbles in, he hits the alarm button under the desk, summoning police.

Yoko rushes to cradle her dying husband and screams for a doctor. Outside, Chapman removes his coat - so police will see he isn't armed - and begins flicking through his worn copy of JD Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye.

Within two minutes, the street is full of sirens. As Chapman is cuffed, two officers hoist the musician on to their shoulders and place him in the back of a squad car. Jay remembers hearing John's bones creak as they pick him up.

As his partner runs red lights heading to St Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center, Officer James Moran turns and asks John: "Do you know who you are?" As he slips away, he nods and moans: "Yes." It is the last thing he ever says.


When John is wheeled into the emergency room, he has lost 80 per cent of his blood and has virtually no pulse. 11.15pmAlthough seven medics have desperately tried to revive him, John is finally pronounced dead. The official cause is shock, produced by massive haemorrhaging.

Two days later, as the world mourns the senseless killing, his body is cremated at the Ferncliff Mortuary, in the suburb of Hartsfield.


Eight months later, Chapman, having pleaded guilty to murder, is sentenced to between 20 years and life in jail. Refused parole for the third time in October 2004, he is held at Attica State Prison, New York.

Tellingly, prisoner 81A2860 is kept in solitary confinement for his own protection. Even the most hardened criminals in America would relish the chance to kill the man who killed one of music's greatest icons.

9 th December 1960

first Corrie:
The first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running television soap opera, is broadcast in the United Kingdom.

9 December 1960: Coronation Street is first broadcast
The first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running soap opera, was broadcast live on this day in 1960. But its was far from assured.

The mournful wail of a lone cornet in the evening must be one of the most recognisable sounds in British television. For over 50 years, the theme music to Coronation Street has beckoned millions to the sofa every week.

It is in many ways the most unlikely of siren songs. Drab and depressing, it depicted life in the fictional town of Weatherfield, on a bleak, working-class terraced street originally called Florizel Street by its creator Tony Warren.

Later renamed Coronation Street after Edward VII's enthronement and the architectural era of the houses, the soap set out to examine "the driving forces behind life in a working-class street in theNorth of England", wrote Warren, "and, in doing so, entertain."

It was an idea spun out of the “kitchen sink” genre of the 1950s, with its angry young men, and it didn't go down well with the executives of Granada Television, who found it dreary. Nonetheless, they were persuaded to make 13 pilot episodes, the first of which was aired on 9 December 1960 and it was performed live.

The programme's representation of working-class families struck a chord with viewers, who tuned in to watch student Ken Barlow (still played by William Roache) coming to terms with his humble origins. Right from the get-go,Coronation Street acquired a loyal following.

With its north-west accents and use of regional dialect, Coronation Street contrasted with the London middle-class focus preferred by the BBC. Commercial television had only been around for five years, and the programme helped give Britain's second channel an identity, as well as ensure the success of its maker, Granada.

In 2010, Coronation Street became the longest-running soap opera in the world, and it has consistently attracted some of the highest ratings in television. And if you find yourself in Australia, New Zealand or Canada, you can still tune into life on Britain's favourite street.

https://dai.ly/x5dwurv

10 th December 1936

Edward V111 Signs abdication papers :
Abdication Crisis: Edward VIII signs the Instrument of Abdication.



On December 10, 1936, Edward VIII signed an instrument of abdication allowing him to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. This event caused a constitutional crisis in the British empire.


Wallis Simpson's Background
Wallis was born Bessie Wallis Warfield on June 19, 1896. Her father died shortly after she was born, so Wallis and her mother were supported by their somewhat wealthy relatives.

Simpson married her first husband, Earl Winfield, in April 1916. Win was in the US Navy, and the two spent a good amount of time apart. Win was a notorious drinker. He often drank before flying and even crashed his plane into the sea once, although he survived.

During their marriage, rumors spread that Wallis was unfaithful. On one particularly colorful trip to China, she reportedly had an affair with Count Galeazzo Ciano, who would later become Mussolini's son-in-law and Foreign Minister. The affair was said to result in a pregnancy, botched abortion, and Wallis's infertility. However, all claims were denied, so no one really knows. Either way, the two divorced in 1927.

Shortly after her divorce, Wallis met and dated an American shipping executive named Ernest Aldrich Simpson, who was already married. Simpson left his wife, and he and Wallis were married on July 21, 1928. It was during this marriage that Wallis met Edward VIII, then Prince of Wales.


Wallis Simpson & Edward VIII
The two were entangled in an affair almost immediately, despite Edward VIII's other mistresses. Edward's relationship with his parents deteriorated throughout the courtship period because they disapproved of it.

When King George died on January 20, 1936, Edward VIII was set to take over the throne. However, his relationship with (still-married) Wallis caused an uproar in the country. Under moral and social grounds, British rule could not accept the marriage because Simpson had been married and divorced twice, making her unfit to be queen.


The Abdication
In November 1936, King Edward VIII and Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin met to discuss the relationship. When Edward expressed his desire to marry Simpson, Baldwin responded that it would not be acceptable to the Church of England and the people. He gave Edward three options—leave Simpson, marry against his Prime Minister's official wishes, or abdicate.

Edward knew that going against Baldwin's wishes would cause havoc in the government, so he chose to abdicate.

His title was returned to a prince on December 11, 1936.

Edward VIII Married Wallis Simpson
One month after Wallis's second divorce was finalized, Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson got married on June 3, 1937. The pair stayed together for 35 years until Edward VIII's death.

11 th December 2005

The Buncefield fire :
The Buncefield Oil Depot catches fire in Hemel Hempstead, England.



The Buncefield fuel depot fire in December 2005 was the UK's biggest peacetime blaze.

The Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal, or HOSL as it is also known, handled around 2.37 million metric tonnes of oil products a year - mainly petrol, diesel and aviation fuel - delivered by tankers and pipeline.

The depot, opened in 1968, is outside the town of Hemel Hempstead, 40km (25 miles) northwest of London and just off the busy M1 motorway, which was closed twice because of the fire.

Some residents had to be evacuated from nearby housing, while offices and warehouses around the site suffered major damage.

Disaster struck early in the morning of Sunday 11 December as unleaded motor fuel was being pumped into storage tank 912, in the north west corner of the site. Safeguards on the tank failed and none of the staff on duty realised its capacity had been reached.

By 0520 GMT, investigators believe, the tank was overflowing.

How tank 912 overflowed

The overflow from the tank led to the rapid formation of a rich fuel and air vapour. It thickened to about 2m (6.6ft) and started spreading in all directions.


Further explosions followed and a large fire took hold, eventually engulfing 20 large storage tanks. Emergency services declared a major emergency at 0608 and a huge firefighting effort began, peaking with 25 fire engines, 20 support vehicles and 180 firefighters on site before the blaze was finally extinguished on 15 December.

The plant - co-owned by Total and Texaco, with sections operated by other firms including BP and the British Pipeline Agency - suffered extensive damage, although the water curtain helped save large areas.

At one point black smoke covered much of south-eastern England.

12 th December 1988

Clapham junction rail crash :
The Clapham Junction rail crash kills thirty-five and injures hundreds after two collisions of three commuter trains—one of the worst train crashes in the United Kingdom.

The Clapham Junction railway crash occurred on the morning of 12 December 1988, when a crowded British Rail passenger train crashed into the rear of another train that had stopped at a signal just south of Clapham Junction railway station in London, England, and subsequently sideswiped an empty train travelling in the opposite direction. A total of 35 people died in the collision, while 484 were injured.

The collision was the result of a signal failure caused by a wiring fault. New wiring had been installed, but the old wiring had been left in place and not adequately secured. An independent inquiry chaired by Anthony Hidden, QC found that the signalling technician responsible had not been told that his working practices were wrong, and his work had not been inspected by an independent person. He had also performed the work during his 13th consecutive seven-day workweek. Hidden was critical of the health and safety culture within British Rail at the time, and his recommendations included ensuring that work was independently inspected and that a senior project manager be made responsible for all aspects of any major, safety-critical project such as re-signalling work.

British Rail was fined £250,000 for violations of health and safety law in connection with the accident.




Collisions
On 12 December 1988 the 07:18 from Basingstoke to London Waterloo, a crowded 12-car train made up of four-car 4VEP electric multiple units 3033, 3119 and 3005, was approaching Clapham Junction when the driver saw the signal ahead of him change from green ("proceed") to red ("danger"). Unable to stop at the signal, he stopped his train at the next signal and then reported to the signal box by means of a line-side telephone. He was told there was nothing wrong with the signal. Shortly after 08:10, the following train, the 06:30 from Bournemouth, made up of 4REP unit 2003 and 4TC units 8027 and 8015, collided with the Basingstoke train. A third train, carrying no passengers and comprising 4VEP units 3004 and 3425, was passing on the adjacent line in the other direction and collided with the wreckage immediately after the initial impact. The driver of a fourth train, coasting with no traction current, saw the other trains and managed to come to a stop behind the other two and the signal that should have protected them, which was showing a yellow "proceed with caution" aspect instead of a red "danger" aspect.

As a result of the collisions, 35 people died, and 69 were seriously injured. Another 415 sustained minor injuries

13 th December 1989

Derryard checkpoint attack :
The Troubles: Attack on Derryard checkpoint: The Provisional Irish Republican Army launches an attack on a British Army temporary vehicle checkpoint near Rosslea, Northern Ireland. Two British soldiers are killed and two others are wounded.

On 13 December 1989 the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) attacked a British Army permanent vehicle checkpoint complex manned by the King's Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB) near the Northern Ireland–Republic of Ireland border at Derryard, near Rosslea, County Fermanagh. The IRA unit, firing from the back of an armoured dump truck, attacked the small base with heavy machine-guns, grenades, rockets and a flamethrower. A nearby British Army patrol arrived at the scene and a fierce firefight erupted. The IRA withdrew after leaving a van bomb inside the complex, but it did not fully detonate. , the attack left two British soldiers dead and two wounded.

The target was a permanent vehicle checkpoint at Derryard. Described as a "mini base", it included an accommodation block and defensive sangars. It was manned by eight soldiers of the 1st Battalion, King's Own Scottish Borderers and a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer. The 11 IRA members would be driven to the checkpoint in the back of a makeshift Bedford armoured dumper truck. They were armed with 7.62mm AK-47s and 5.56mm Armalite AR-18s, two 12.7mm DShK heavy machine-guns, RPG-7s, different kinds of grenades, and a LPO-50 flamethrower*. The heavy machine guns and the flamethrower were mounted on a tripod on the truck bed. To assure widespread destruction, the column would detonate a van bomb after the initial assault.

The attack took place shortly after 4PM. IRA members sealed off roads leading to the checkpoint in an attempt to prevent civilians from getting caught up in the attack. The truck was driven from the border and halted at the checkpoint. As Private James Houston began to check the back of the truck, the IRA opened fire with assault rifles and threw grenades into the compound. Two RPG-7s were fired at the observation sangar while the flamethrower stream was directed at the command sangar. Heavy shooting continued as the truck reversed and smashed through the gates of the compound. The IRA sprayed it with gunfire from inside and threw grenades, nail bombs and petrol bombs. The defenders were forced to seek shelter in sangars, from where they fired into their own base. As the truck drove out of the now wrecked compound, a red transit van loaded with a 400 lb (182 kg) bomb was driven inside and set to detonate once the IRA unit had made its escape. However, only the booster charge exploded.

The attack was finally repulsed by a four-man Borderers section from the checkpoint that was patrolling nearby, with the support of a Wessex helicopter. The patrol fired more than 100 rounds at the IRA unit. A farmer some distance away saw an orange ball of flames and heard gunfire 'raking the fields'. The IRA column, at risk of being surrounded, fled toward the border in the truck. It was found abandoned at the border with a 460 pounds (210 kg) bomb on board.

Two British soldiers were killed in the attack: Private James Houston (22) from England and Lance-Corporal Michael Paterson (21) from Scotland. Corporal Law was badly wounded by shrapnel and later airlifted for treatment. Another soldier suffered minor injuries

14 th December 1918

  Votes for women :
                             The 1918 United Kingdom general election occurs, the first where women were permitted to vote.


Women vote in a UK general election for the first time - December 1918
Just over a century ago, two-thirds of the total population of women in the UK were able to exercise their franchise in a general election

On 14 December 1918, women, providing they were over 30 and they or their husbands were an occupier of property, were able to vote in a general election for the first time. This had been called by prime minister David Lloyd George immediately after the armistice which ended the first world war. Eight and a half million women were eligible to vote following the extension of the franchise in the Representation of the People Act 1918.


The women electors of England on Saturday proved themselves to be a political force whom every future candidate must seriously consider. In some London electorates this had been expected. In St. Pancras, for instance, the women had been seen to be keenly interested. The wet weather undoubtedly made a difference to the women’s vote, especially in the poorer districts, where women go thinly shod. Yet even in such a quarter one would find workers at the polling booths declaring that the proportion of women to men voters was six or eight to one.

The interest of the women voters seemed to be without distinction of class or age. One saw some old grandmother tottering along beside her daughter and granddaughter, as determined and quite as calm as they in facing this new and still almost incredible experience. What most impressed the visitor to many polling-booths was the businesslike way in which most of the women went about their task. It was quite evident that they had made up their minds whom they were going to vote for. They often looked triumphant and pleased when they came out, like the little old dame who, as she came down the steps of Chelsea Town Hall, said to the party questioners with a smile, “I voted for the lady.”

In Chelsea both candidates were supported by a number of women workers. Sir Samuel Hoare had his old friends, and Miss Phipps had a host of women teachers to help her either at the booths, in fetching voters from their homes, or in looking after children while their mothers went in to vote. At one of the polling-booths in a wealthy quarter a lady prominent as an anti-suffragist in earlier days was extremely active in offering them the Hoare ticket and expressing disapproval of a woman’s candidature.


The children, who in all the crowded districts took the keenest interest in the proceedings, singing songs for and against the different candidates, were very lively in Chelsea, and at the gates at one school polling-booth thirty youngsters sang the praises of Sir Samuel Hoare. When challenged they argued shrewdly. They did not want the teacher to get in. She said boys should stay at school till they were eighteen, while Sir Samuel said fourteen was old enough.


In Battersea everyone was surprised at the lightness of the polling, so different from John Burns’s days; but here up to six o’clock in the evening the report was that the women greatly outnumbered the men, though both sides complained of the difficulty of getting them to the polls. Mrs Despard was hampered by lack of workers, but was cheerful and pleased with the way her old neighbours supported her.

The impressions obtained at the polling stations in Glasgow indicate that there has been a large vote in all the constituencies. The women electors are believed to have polled a larger percentage of their voting strength in several divisions than the men electors have done. The scenes at the polling stations were somewhat different in many respects from those at previous elections. There was less wild excitement about the streets and polling stations, less flaunting of colours, less literature and canvassing, while of course the attendance of women introduced an entirely new note. Family parties invaded booths. Women with shopping baskets on their arms took in the exercise of the franchise with their weekend errands. Many mothers were accompanied by toddling children. Working-class women with the familiar shawl over their shoulders alternated with the better-dressed women.

Vote counting commenced two weeks after the election and it was eventually declared a landslide victory for the coalition government with Lloyd George remaining in his position as prime minister. The result also revealed that many forecasts made prior to the election clearly underestimated women, and misjudged the sheer scale and impact that their votes would have on society, as noted by the paper on 30 December 1918:

                   

                      British women voting for the first time in 1918



The women’s vote is, at least in the present stage, an absolutely incalculable quantity. Women so far have not demonstrated their partnership openly, as men have been wont to do, and their quiet way and the remarkable apathy about the election which seemed apparent from the poorly-attended meetings led everybody astray.

The expectation that because the women voters showed little enthusiasm about the election they would not vote appears to have falsified everywhere. From all parts of the country there have come in reports that the women voted in larger proportions than the men, although they made no fuss about it.

More history was made as it was announced that Constance Markievicz would be the first woman to be elected to the Commons. However, as a member of Sinn Féin she did not take her seat. Lady Astor became the first female MP in December 1919 but it wasn’t until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 became law that women achieved the same voting rights as men.

15 th December 1970

Venera V11 lands on Venus :

1970 – Soviet spacecraft Venera 7 successfully lands on Venus. It is the first successful soft landing on another planet.


The father of the Soviet space programme, Sergei Korolev, once wrote “the moon's surface is hard” on a napkin. This allowed work, which had stopped, on the landing gear of the Soviet lunar spacecraft to continue. In the end it was too late, and the United States beat the USSR to the moon. The next race on the calendar was to Venus. And on this day in 1970, the Soviet Union won. The Venera (Russian for Venus) 7 spacecraft landed on the surface of Venus and transmitted a brief weak signal before its batteries ran out.

The Venera programme began in 1961. Officially, there were 16 numbered launches. In reality, there were more, but the Soviet Union only counted those that were relatively successful. The very first launch in February 1961, for example, failed to leave the earth's orbit, so it was renamed and not publicly announced until much later. However, Venera 7 was successful and was the first designed for a soft' landing on Venus. The journey took 120 days, and the probe arrived with all its equipment working. Soon after going into orbit, the craft released the lander and it began hurtling down to the surface.

At approximately 60km above ground, the parachute opened and allowed for atmospheric testing to begin. The first results were beamed back to earth and showed that 97% of the air on Venus was carbon dioxide. Then disaster struck. Somewhere along the descent, the parachute failed and the lander hit the ground at 16.5 metres per second, much faster than anticipated.

Scientists guess that the spacecraft probably bounced off the surface and fell on its side. As a result, the main antenna was not aimed correctly to beam strong signals back to earth. It appeared lost. However, back on earth, the tapes that recorded transmissions from the lander kept rolling.

It wasn't until a few weeks later that scientists began reviewing the tapes and discovered that about 23 minutes of very weak signals had been sent from Venera 7. The craft had managed to survive long enough to send one reading from the surface back to Earth the surface temperature of Venus, which on 15 December 1970, was 475C.

The Venera programme continued until 1984, providing invaluable information, including photographing and mapping the planet's surface.

16 th December 1653

Oliver takes over :
English Interregnum: The Protectorate: Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.



Oliver Cromwell becomes 'lord protector'


The 16th of December 1653 AD

With the Civil Wars won, the battlefield turned into a political one, factions within the winning Parliamentary cause having to face up to the problem of replacing the king and with him the constitutional framework.
In April 1653 the Rump of the Long Parliament was dissolved, having wiped away the monarchy and the Lords, and created The Commonwealth . The army, now most definitely a power in its own right rather than a tool of Parliament, created what became known as The Barebones Parliament, 144 carefully selected members to represent the country.
Though chosen by the army, and with moderates in the majority, the Barebones Parliament, originally more of a council, included some very voluble and energetic radicals of whom Praise-God Barebone was one, giving the institution its sobriquet. When on December 12 the moderates walked out in frustration at their radical colleagues the army took the ultimate step.
On December 16 Oliver Cromwell was declared, within what amounted to a republican constitution (the Instrument of Government) Lord Protector 'for his life', to be addressed as Your Highness. Beneath him was a council of eight civilians and seven soldiers, and nominally there were constitutional constraints on his power, but when his first Parliament did not meet his expectations he dispensed with it. The country gradually felt its way towards what was in effect a military dictatorship, though civilian justices of the peace retained considerable power, divided into regions ruled by Major-Generals with cavalry to back up their authority.
As Lord Protector Cromwell was paid the vast salary of £100,000 a year; and it was his eventual right to nominate his successor, at which point he succumbed to the temptation of dynasty, choosing his son Richard, though the elder Cromwell did turn down the offer of the crown made by some within the army. The revolution had turned full circle: the absolutist king had to all intents and purposes been replaced by an absolute dictator, whatever the constitutional ribbons and bows.

17 th December 1983

Harrods bombing :
Provisional IRA members detonate a car bomb at Harrods Department Store in London. Three police officers and three civilians are killed.


The IRA detonated a car bomb outside Harrods on December 17th, 1983. It killed six people and wounded 91.

It’s December 17th, 1983. Knightsbridge. Harrods to be exact. It’s a Saturday. There’ll be another Saturday before Christmas but that’ll be Christmas Eve. So today is really the big Saturday Christmas shopping day. Brompton Road and Hans Crescent are packed with people. You can hardly move for shoppers. Christmas is coming. It feels like the whole world is at Harrods. It’s a happy, innocent time. And then the car bomb went off outside Harrods. Six people are killed. 91 are injured.

An eyewitness said, “there was a rumbling noise and the ground moved under my feet. It seemed there was an earth tremor a few miles away but when I looked around to the car where the police officers had been it was erupting into a ball of flames, sending pieces of metal, people and surrounding objects flying. After the first moment the explosion seemed dulled but I was aware that my left ear had gone deaf. The scene became a slow-motion movie of destruction. I knew I should run to safety but I was riveted to the spot. Slow motion moved back into normal play and the vast plate glass windows of Harrods shatteered and began to fall out in great jagged sheets and daggers, clanging like bells.

The eye-witness, Kirstie Hutchison, added that she went on her skiing holiday despite her injuries. She said, “one night we were walking under huge snowflakes. They appeared to me like falling glass and I panicked.”

The three Metropolitan police officers who were killed were Inspector Stephen Dodd, Sergeant Noel Lane and Constable Jane Arbuthnot. Stephen Dodd was 34. Noel Lane was 28. Jane Arbuthnot was 22.

The three other people who were killed were 28-year-old U.S. citizen Kenneth Salvesen, 25-year-old Jasmine Cockran Patrick and 24-year-old Philip Geddes. So, five very young lives – all in their 20s – snuffed out. And a sixth hardly much older.

One of the injured was PC Jon Gordon. He lost both his legs and part of a hand. His police dog Queenie was blown to bits. In 1985 a memorial to the slain police officers was put up outside Harrods. PC Gordon laid the first wreath at the memorial.

No one was ever arrested for the December 17th, 1983 attack.

A day after the blast the IRA Army Council said its members had planted the bomb but it had not authorised the attack. The IRA statement read:

“The Harrods operation was not authorised by the Irish Republican Army. We have taken immediate steps to ensure that there will be no repetition of this type of operation again. The volunteers involved gave a 40 minutes specific warning, which should have been adequate. But due to the inefficiency or failure of the Metropolitan Police, who boasted of foreknowledge of IRA activity, this warning did not result in an evacuation. We regret the civilian casualties, even though our expression of sympathy will be dismissed. Finally, we remind the British Government that as long as they maintain control of any part of Ireland then the Irish Republican Army will continue to operate in Britain.”

The bombing badly damaged the IRA’s support due to the civilian deaths and injuries.

Researching this I noticed that December 17th seemed to be something of a red-letter day for the IRA. Nine years earlier they’d set off three bombs in London on December 17th. Coincidence? I don’t think so. December 17th, 1922 was the day British Troops left Dublin after Ireland was declared a free state following the Irish War of Independence.

18 th December 2015

Demise of mining :
Kellingley Colliery, the last deep coal mine in Great Britain, closes .





Kellingley: two days in the death of three centuries of coal mining
By Brian Parkin -21 December 2015.

On Friday 18 December the last shift at the last colliery in the UK cut its last tonnes of coal. Brian Parkin, former research officer for the National Union of Mineworkers, was at the pit top at Kellingley colliery to welcome to the surface the last of the country’s miners as they ended their final stint. In both sorrow and anger, here is his tribute to the last of the Enemy Within.

Since October, the 18 December was a date that I was dreading. The closure of Kellingley colliery in Yorkshire would mark the end of coalmining in Britain and with it, the end of the most heroic tradition of struggle. The dread came with the prospect of making the journey through the blighted coalfield areas between Leeds and Knottingley where 31 years, eight months and one week earlier began the epic battle to save pits, jobs and communities.

Kellingley colliery, which started production 50 years ago as a “super-pit” with a modestly estimated 90 years of reserves was, until the opening of the Selby mine complex in 1985, the newest, biggest and most advanced pit in the Yorkshire coalfield. Its workforce from the beginning was unique in that the vast majority of men came from the coalfield of Fifeshire where, as a result of Coal Board and government policy, many pits had prematurely closed. So much so did the Scottish character of Kellingley make its mark on the coalfield that its first colliery band was a Scottish pipe and drum band and the nearby town of Kellingley where most of the miners families settled came to be known as “little Scotland”.

A militant tradition
From Fifeshire not only came a pipe band but also a fierce tradition of political militancy founded in the 1920s around the then infant and revolutionary Communist Party. And the bearers of the Communist tradition were most notably Jimmy Miller and his extended family of brothers, cousins and uncles. Originally intended for a minimum production of 1.5 million tonnes per year based on a workforce of 2000, the eventual deal sought and won by the union was a possible 2 million tonnes in exchange for expanding the workforce further with miners displaced from other winding-down pits. Consequently by 1978 the workforce had grown to 2970.

And the reputation of Kellingley for solidarity extended well beyond the coalfield. In 1976 miners at the pit went on strike in support of nurses and other health workers caught in the low-pay trap of the social contract, the Labour government’s attempt to hold down pay. In the same year they were among the mass pickets at the London Grunwick strike, where hundreds of mainly Asian women workers had been sacked for joining a union.

The 1984-85 strike
By 1984 the original Scottish cohort of workers at Kellingley had been diluted by retirements and the influx of displaced miners from other less militant pits. And by then the old Jimmy Miller had retired with his son Davey becoming the NUM branch secretary. But despite these changes, Kellingley had resisted the big money temptations of incentive and bonus schemes and maintained ranks with the rest of the Yorkshire NUM in refusing to cut coal during overtime. But for me, personally, two tragedies regarding Kellingley during the year-long strike stand out.

The first was in May 1984, just two months into the strike when a young miner and his wife lost their four year old son after a period of long and painful illness. Upon approaching a funeral director they were told to seek statutory funeral benefit only to be advised two days later that as the “principal claimant” was involved in a “trades dispute” the funeral benefit would only be made available if he broke the strike and returned to work.

Heart-broken, the couple had to leave the body of their son in the hospital mortuary rather than submit him to a pauper’s funeral. That is until the Kellingley NUM branch heard of their anguish and paid for a decent funeral out of union funds.

The second is the case of Joe Green, a retired miner who was killed on a picket outside Ferrybridge power station on 15 June. Joe came from a long communist tradition and had been one of the original Fifeshire miners who had migrated to Kellingley in 1965. Badly injured in an accident in 1981, he had been retired with compensation from the industry.

Yet every day Joe would hobble the two miles to the Ferrybridge gates with sandwiches and cans of beer for the pickets. That is until that June afternoon when he approached a speeding exiting lorry from the power station gates and was run down and killed. His funeral in Knottingley eight days later was led by a lone piper playing a plaintive lament and was accompanied to the “kirk” by hundreds of miners with their branch banners.

But returning to 18 December…
On the train my thoughts are a confusion. Exhausted from lack of sleep and simply not knowing what to do when I arrive at the pit, I suddenly become aware of how ridiculous I might look wearing a dark suit with shirt and tie. And then I realise that in auto-pilot mode I have dressed as if going to yet another funeral.

At Knottingley station I realise that a fellow passenger has been Paul Routledge – a veteran industrial reporter and son of a miner now working for the Daily Mirror. I cadge a lift in a taxi with him to the pit on his expenses in exchange for some basic information about Kellingley and upon arrival I am once again reminded of the vastness of the headgear and surrounding colliery plant. I am told the final production shift will be finishing at 12.15pm and will be leaving the pit at around one o’clock. The first person I meet is Chris Kitchen, former face worker at Wheldale colliery, Castleford and now the final and out-going president of the NUM.

I comment ironically on the press scrum, to which he replies something like “Aye, the enemy within for over 200 years but fucking heroes now they’ve murdered the industry”. We stroll around the pit “yard” where the huge ventilation fan-houses, massive bunkers, coal crushing and washery plant are located. Then we go into the canteen where we are greeted by the “lasses” draped with Christmas tinsel but their eyes red with tears. We sit at a table and are joined by a face worker who, although not his shift, has come to wish his mates still “down there” all the best when they come up.

Someone mentions that local Labour MP Yvette Cooper is about to pay a visit to which there is general derision for “Labour’s 13 years in office in which they did fuck all for the coal industry, let alone renationalising the power companies or decarbonising the power stations… And now what? Massively subsidised nuclear and fracking everywhere for gas!” That’s one thing about miners – they always know their stuff.

Press freedom
In the meantime word has got round that an NUM researcher might be alright for some expert information. Subsequently I am approached by the BBC who I will assist but also by reporters from the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph, who I won’t. “Come on”, persists the Mail man, “is this one of the pits where there was intimidation during the strike?” But before I can answer the off-duty face worker says it for me, “If tha’ doesn’t fuck off reet na, there’ll really be some intimidation!”

The lamp room
Some of us are allowed into the lamp room to see the miners as they rise to the surface. They look bright and cheerful and one man is trying to encourage a “Here we go” sing-song. But it falters and as the questions to them fly thick and fast, some coal dust covered faces start to streak with tears. “This isn’t just the end of an era”, says one, “it’s the end of a whole working class tradition”. Then his voice trails off into a choked silence.

A bit later at the pit exit, having showered and dressed, the shift starts to come to the checking-out point. Cameras are flashing and clicking and men are drawn aside for their comments. Many are confused and unable to speak. Some by now are crying. One miner I know says “I can’t cope with this. These press people think it’s just another story. They don’t know the history behind all this. All the sacrifice, all that hardship and solidarity. Somehow I don’t feel fit to be in this position. This is history and I don’t know how the hell we got here. One thing I do know though is that we are paying the price.”

I am offered a lift back to the station by an old journalist friend, Peter Lazenby, formerly of the Yorkshire Evening Post but now of the Morning Star. Peter is a well-built walrus like and straight-talking bloke. I ask him if he thought that he would ever see the end of the coal industry? He answers “No, not ever”, and then asks “have you cried yet?” “No”, I reply. “Well that, I suppose, will come at the final demo tomorrow”, he says.

The Last Pit march and party
The following day after yet another sleepless night I set off one more – and final time – for Knottingley. My partner and comrade Elizabeth, having seen my depressed state the evening before, declines to come. She is fearful of her possible emotional response for what will be a mass wake.

By the time I get on the train, the abandoned coal faces at Kellingley will have started to flood and millions worth of high technology equipment will be progressively crushed in the coming days. The deep roadways into which the miners, like Prometheus, had audaciously taken light, will be forever reclaimed by darkness. And the trapped sunlight from the photosynthesis that formed the primeval forests of 300 million years ago which in turn became coal is already lost forever.

The walk from the station at Knottingley to the town hall takes a few minutes and already with an hour to go the crowd is building up. And suddenly I am among familiar faces, handshakes and hugs. Betty Cook of the Women Against Pit Closures and whose son was killed at Kellingley seven years ago is there with Anne Scargill. Despite the attrition of the passing 30 years there are nearly as many women as there are former miners. Then I see an old friend and comrade Alan who along with Terry Harrison at Wheldale colliery had formed the “Hole in the Wall Gang” of flying pickets who (nearly) always got through.

We talk about Terry who eventually became president of Kellingley NUM but later committed suicide in his garage when he was jilted by his gay lover. I remember saying to Alan at the time of the funeral that I had no idea that Terry – who was married with two children – was gay. Alan said likewise but added, “If he had told me it would have made no difference. He was my best mate. I loved him and I would have stood by him no matter what… I just hope he wasn’t being hounded by any homophobic bastards. You never know… sometimes I wish that brave LGBT Pride lot who went to South Wales could have come to West Yorkshire.”

Then as the crowd grows with more friends and comrades I start to feel overwhelmed by the imminent loss of all of this. As one ex-miner says, mixing his native-American metaphors, “We are the last of the Mohicans and this is our Wounded Knee.” While I’m talking to the one NUM exec member from the old days who is present, the colliery silver band assembles at the end of the side road. But there is a wrangle going on at the front between a miner and a senior copper about who organised the march and who will be paying the policing costs. The issue is resolved with the words, “It was our colliery, this is our town and we will police it ourselves. So with the greatest respect, please fuck off.”

And then the bandmaster says quietly, “This is history ladies and gentlemen. This is the last pit in Britain. Please play your hearts out.” Then Gresford, the “miners’ hymn”, silences the crowd and I, like many around me, start to weep. Around me people are either hugging each other whilst sobbing or standing heads bowed. By now I feel almost on the verge of panic. My sense of bereavement has become full-blown grief.

Around 3,000 people attended the Last Pit demo in Knottingley on 20 December 2015. The march wound through the town to the huge miners welfare club. Outside a contingent of former Kent and Notts miners set fire to banners damning Tories and UDM scabs alike whilst inside the Last Pit Party, organised by two miners’ wives, was starting. But I was by now exhausted and emotionally depleted. So for the first time in my life, I have decided to turn my back on the miners and whilst walking back to the station I realise that I am leaving the Yorkshire coalfield for ever. But among the many things the miners have taught me is the art of neither forgetting nor forgiving. They organised but lost, so now is the time to mourn. But only for a while, because whatever our sorrows now, our day will come.

19 th December 1981

The Penlee lifeboat disaster :
Sixteen lives are lost when the Penlee lifeboat goes to the aid of the stricken coaster Union Star in heavy seas.


Often considered the most beautiful fishing village in the county, with its windy narrow streets and ancient granite cottages clustered around its harbour, Mousehole is a close-knit community steeped in seafaring tales. However, not all such tales have a happy ending, and the one which took place on the 19th of December 1981 is a case in point, for it was on this day that the Penlee Lifeboat, Solomon Browne, set out, with eight of Mousehole’s men, to aid a stricken vessel, never to return. Although forty one years has now passed, the tragedy still haunts the village, especially around the anniversary of that ill-fated day.

A cargo-carrying coaster, the Union Star, was on her maiden voyage between Holland and Ireland that stormy December day. The eight people on board were Henry Moreton, her captain, a further 4 crew members, and Moreton’s wife along with her two teenage daughters. A few miles off Land’s End, near the Wolf Rock lighthouse, the ship’s engine cut out and Moreton put out the news on the radio. A tug boat, the Noord Holland, offered help and, indeed, started out towards the stricken boat, but the captain refused the assistance owing to the financial implications of being salvaged.

As the storm worsened, and still unable to start the engines, Moreton put out a distress call to the Falmouth coastguard as his ship was washed increasingly closer to the jagged rocks off the southern Cornish coast. In gusts of nearly 100 miles an hour and average wind of around 80, a Sea King helicopter was dispatched from RNAS Culdrose but, such was the ferocious state of the sea, it was unable to lift a single soul to safety. By this point the tug was also in the vicinity, but Moreton held out and, in any case, the Union Star was now in such a position near the coast, in waves upwards of 50 feet, that the tug’s skipper felt it impossible to get close enough to establish a link and was unwilling to risk the lives of his 11 crew in the attempt.


At this point, the Solomon Browne, the wooden 47’ lifeboat stationed at Penlee Point near Mousehole, raced down its slipway into the raging seas of Mount’s Bay. Aboard were eight men, all volunteers from the village of Mousehole, under the command of coxswain Trevelyan Richards. He had chosen his crew carefully, taking the most able seamen and, crucially, only one member of each family; as was the norm on perilous call outs such as this.

Unlike the tug, the Solomon Browne steamed in towards the stricken vessel and struggled for some time to get alongside it. The boiling sea tossed the lifeboat around, sometimes even landing her on the deck of the Union Star. In the darkness and chaos of the enormous swell four people eventually managed to clamber aboard, however it was the lifeboat men’s selfless return to rescue the remaining four that proved fatal. It was at exactly this moment that radio contact with the Penlee Lifeboat was lost, and one can only surmise what happened next. All hands were lost, and only four bodies eventually found. The same was true of the Union Star.

This loss of life hit Mousehole very hard as, in one fell swoop, a large chunk of its men was wiped out. Local fundraising accrued a staggering £3 million for the families of those lost at sea, but this could not fill the gap left by the disaster. Every year, on the anniversary of this tragic day, the famous Mousehole Christmas Lights are switched off for an hour as the village remembers their men. Although empty, as the modern replacement lifeboat is now stationed at Newlyn, its coxswain the son of one of those lost in 1981, the lifeboat house at Penlee Point stands as a memorial to its brave crew. Furthermore, 2006 saw the making of a poignant television documentary recounting the fateful day and entitled The Cruel Sea: The Penlee Disaster.

Gassey your contribution to this site is entertaining , informative and important , thank you .

Thanks Nordic,

20 th December 1984

The Summit tunnel fire :
The Summit Tunnel fire, one of the largest transportation tunnel fires in history, burns after a freight train carrying over one million liters of gasoline derails near the town of Todmorden, England, in the Pennines.

At 1005 on December 20 1984, a major incident was declared by emergency services called out to tackle a fierce blaze deep within Summit Tunnel on the Calder Valley route between Manchester and Leeds. The derailment of a freight train barely four hours earlier had resulted in the ignition of almost all its cargo of one million litres of petrol.

The fire would take four days to burn itself out as temperatures inside the bore rose well above 1,500 degrees Celsius - hot enough to melt brickwork, steel and weld tanker wagons to the rails. Above ground, assembled news crews, firefighters and local residents were confronted with the apocalyptic scene of 40m high pillars of flames escaping through ventilation shafts dotted about the rural Pennine hillside.

That the tunnel was repairable and could be re-opened just eight months later owed much to the containment efforts of the Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire fire services, but primarily it was to the lasting credit of the structure’s Victorian designers and builders, who toiled underground over 140 years earlier.

Opened on March 1 1841, the completion of Summit Tunnel overcame the final construction hurdle on the UK’s first trans-Pennine route: the Manchester & Leeds Railway. At 60 miles long, it was never going to be the shortest or quickest route between the two cities which are a mere 35 miles apart in a direct line, but the alignment was chosen to avoid steep inclines and use the existing tracks of the North Midland Railway from Normanton for the final ten miles into Leeds. Today’s northernmost trans-Pennine route to Leeds via Halifax and Bradford opened 13 years later in 1854.

Summit Tunnel is 15 miles north east of Manchester at the county boundary between Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire on a section of the line running roughly north to south between Littleborough and Walsden before the route turns to the east towards Hebden Bridge, Brighouse, Wakefield and Normanton Junction.

As its name suggests, the double-track tunnel is at the summit of the line with a rising gradient of 1-in-330 from Littleborough towards the tunnel’s northern portal, followed by a 1-in-182 falling gradient to Walsden. Cut through shale, gritstone, coal measures and broken ground, its brick lining varies in depth between five to ten rows throughout, with 14 ventilation shafts dug at intervals into the hillside above.

At 2,885 yards long, it was the longest railway tunnel in the world on completion but it would only hold this record until 1845 and the opening of the three mile-long Woodhead Tunnel linking Manchester and Sheffield.

The project’s famous chief engineer George Stephenson and his tunnel engineer Barnard Dickinson would face myriad geological challenges and difficulty penetrating the hard rock, driving the eventual cost to £251,000 – comfortably exceeding the tender price of £107,800 – and claiming the lives of 28 workers through accidents. Having laid the first brick in August 1838, the slow pace of construction would lead to change of contractors in March 1839 while labour disputes would result in 16 workers being brought before Magistrates in February 1841 for intimidating workmen in receipt of higher wages.

Delays to the tunnel forced the line to open in sections: Manchester to Littleborough in July 1839, Normanton to Walsden in December 1840 and the entire through route three months later.

When the last brick was laid in December 1840, Dickinson proudly boasted that the tunnel would defy “the rage of tempest, fire or war or wasting age”.

It was during that same month 144 years later that his words would be put to their sternest test in one of the most ferocious underground fires in transport history.

The train involved was the 0138 Haverton Hill (Teesside) to Glazebrook (Merseyside) freight train, consisting of 13 tank wagons containing 835 tonnes of petroleum hauled by Class 47 47125. Heading southwards, it entered Summit Tunnel at 0550 on December 20 1984 along the up line at 40mph. Three quarters of a mile inside the tunnel, the fourth and fifth wagons derailed, severing the air brake pipe and triggering an emergency application of the trains’ brakes.

The subsequent accident report compiled by HM Railway Inspectorate found the cause of the derailment to be a catastrophic failure of the fourth wagon’s leading left axlebox roller bearing. The damage caused to the track by the fractured wheelset caused all the following vehicles to derail and fire to break out quickly as leaking petrol was ignited by a hot axlebox.

Blocked by the spreading fire behind them, the train’s three-man crew ran the remaining mile to the tunnel’s south portal where they were able to advise a signaller at Preston Power Signal Box from a signal post telephone that the train was blocking both tracks, carrying petroleum products and that emergency services were required.

21 st December 1988

Lockerbie bombing :
A bomb explodes on board Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, killing 270. This is to date the deadliest air disaster to occur on British soil.

Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Scotland.

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members aboard, as well as 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground. A bomb hidden inside an audio cassette player detonated in the cargo area when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. The disaster, which became the subject of Britain’s largest criminal investigation, was believed to be an attack against the United States. One hundred eighty nine of the victims were American.

Islamic terrorists were accused of planting the bomb on the plane while it was at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. Authorities suspected the attack was in retaliation for either the 1986 U.S. air strikes against Libya, in which leader Muammar al-Qaddafi’s young daughter was killed along with dozens of other people, or a 1988 incident, in which the U.S. mistakenly shot down an Iran Air commercial flight over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people.

Sixteen days before the explosion over Lockerbie, the U.S. embassy in Helsinki, Finland, received a call warning that a bomb would be placed on a Pan Am flight out of Frankfurt. There is controversy over how seriously the U.S. took the threat and whether travelers should have been alerted, but officials later said that the connection between the call and the bomb was coincidental.


In 1991, following a joint investigation by the British authorities and the F.B.I., Libyan intelligence agents Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah were indicted for murder; however, Libya refused to hand over the suspects to the U.S. Finally, in 1999, in an effort to ease United Nations sanctions against his country, Qaddafi agreed to turn over the two men to Scotland for trial in the Netherlands using Scottish law and prosecutors. In early 2001, al-Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison and Fhimah was acquitted. Over the U.S. government’s objections, Al-Megrahi was freed and returned to Libya in August 2009 after doctors determined that he had only months to live. In December 2020, reports surfaced that the U.S. Justice Department would unseal criminal charges against another suspect in the bombing, Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud.

In 2003, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing, but didn’t express remorse. The U.N. and U.S. lifted sanctions against Libya and Libya agreed to pay each victim’s family approximately $8 million in restitution. In 2004, Libya’s prime minister said that the deal was the “price for peace,” implying that his country only took responsibility to get the sanctions lifted, a statement that infuriated the victims’ families. Pan Am Airlines, which went bankrupt three years after the bombing, sued Libya and later received a $30 million settlement.

22 nd December 1965

Speed limits :
In the United Kingdom, a 70 miles per hour (110 km/h) speed limit is applied to all rural roads including motorways for the first time.

The 22nd of December 1965 AD

The day that must be etched on Jeremy Clarkson ’s heart.

Just before Christmas 1965 Transport Minister Tom Fraser (not Barbara Castle, as many seem to think) introduced a 70mph limit for drivers on motorways, following several pile-ups in the foggy autumn and winter of that year, though another cause is sometimes cited - the era’s super-cars being seen on motorways in legal-speak: “Travelling at speeds in excess of 150mph”.

Like Income Tax in 1799 this was to be a temporary measure. In the sixties many car drivers were the first in their family to own a vehicle, so with fewer points of reference as regards driving than is the case today. The engineering on some cars (especially in those days brakes) was not great, with many struggling to reach 70mph. At the time then few voices were raised against the measure.

Barbara Castle confirmed the limit as a permanent fixture when she was transport minister in 1967. The genie was out of the bottle to stay.

As driving experience has become ingrained, cars have radically improved, and road building likewise, voices are now starting to be heard about raising the limit, comparing things with France where the top speed is 130kph (80mph), for example. But the chances of this happening are roughly equivalent to those of proportional representation and free beer for all. Indeed it should be recalled that in a period of energy crisis in 1973 the limit was dropped to 50mph for a time, so the smart money would be on a decrease before any increase.

By way of interest, if you feel the need, the need for speed, try the Isle of Man , where rural roads are still de-restricted. Or Germany where much of the autobahn network has no limit. Or if you fancy going a bit further afield, Nepal is another option, though you might want to watch out for a few of those mountain bends.

23 rd December 1972

Andes flight disaster :
The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, surviving by cannibalism.



Uruguayan Air Force flight 571, popularly known as Miracle of the Andes, was an aircraft chartered by an Uruguayan amateur rugby team that crashed in the Andes Mountains of Argentina on October 13, 1972, and the wreckage was not found for over two months.

Of the 45 people aboard the plane, only 16 survived the ordeal. The incident garnered international attention, especially after it was revealed that the survivors had resorted to ‘cannibalism’.

The Crash

The plane carrying the Old Christians rugby team and their friends and family went down in the foothills of Argentina, near the Chilean border, on October 13th, 1972.

The team was scheduled to fly from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Santiago, Chile, on the plane. The pilot radioed that he had reached Curicó, Chile, about 110 miles (178 kilometres) south of Santiago, and had headed north, about an hour after takeoff from Mendoza, where they had a halt due to adverse weather conditions.

The pilot, on the other hand, had underestimated the plane’s location, which was still in the Andes.

Controllers, unaware of the error, permitted him to begin lowering in preparation for landing. The Chilean control tower was unable to contact the jet shortly after.

Misery of the passengers

Twelve individuals died instantly, five more passed away within hours, and one more died a week later.

On the 17th day of their experience, tragedy struck again when an avalanche murdered eight more travellers. In the severe conditions, the survivors had little food and no source of heat.

The starved survivors resorted to eating corpses after a protracted discussion. They had to ‘survive’.

At the time of the accident, Canessa who was a 19-year-old medical student and rugby player and one of the survivors of the crash said, “I’ll never forget that first incision nine days after the accident.”

It was the fall into cannibalism that was the most difficult to bear.

Narrating the event Canessa said, “All we had to do was devour these dead bodies, and that was the end of it. Like any meat, the flesh provided protein and fat, which we required. It was also easy for me to make the initial cut because I was used to medical procedures. However, accepting it logically is only the first step. The next stage is to put it into action. And that was a difficult task. Because you’re so miserable and depressed about what you have to do, your mouth won’t open.”

The hike to save life

Days were difficult for each minute seemed like a struggle. They did what they had to do to survive the harsh mountain region and consuming their friends was one of the toughest ordeals.

They were rescued 72 days later after survivors Dr Roberto Canessa, Nando Parrado, and Antonio Vizint travelled for ten days to seek aid, while those who stayed at the crash site were forced to consume the bodies of their dead comrades to survive.

During their journey through those high mountains without proper gear and warm clothes, the men were exhausted but didn’t lose hope. they had to find help.

Their will was strong and they proceeded up until on December 20, the guys came upon three herdsmen in the community of Los Maitenes, Chile, after a difficult hike. The Chileans, on the other hand, were on the other side of a river, which made it difficult to hear.

The herders came back the next day. The Chileans resurfaced early the next morning, and the two parties communicated by writing notes on paper, which they wrapped around a rock and tossed over the river.

They had made it! They had survived! It was a critical stage in the ordeal.

The authorities were contacted, and two helicopters were dispatched to the wreckage on December 22. Six survivors were taken to safety, but poor weather forced the other eight to wait until the next day to be rescued.

Canessa, who is now a paediatric cardiologist, attributes his survival to his family and his willingness to see them. “In these kinds of situations, it’s not how you survive but why you live,” he told People Magazine.

The ordeal inspired several books and films, including Piers Paul Read’s best-selling Alive (1974), which was recreated for the big screen in 1993. Several survivors also wrote novels about their ordeal.

December 24 th 1914

World War 1 :
World War I: The "Christmas truce" begins.



The 1914 Christmas Truce occurred December 24 to 25 (in some places December 24 to January 1), 1914, during the first year of World War I (1914 to 1918). After five months of bloody fighting on the Western Front, peace descended over the trenches during the Christmas season of 1914. Though not endorsed by the high command, a series of informal truces occurred that saw troops on both sides celebrate together and enjoy singing and sporting events.

Background
With the beginning of World War I in August 1914, Germany commenced the Schlieffen Plan. Updated in 1906, this plan called for German forces to move through Belgium with the intention of encircling French troops along the Franco-German border and winning a fast and decisive victory. With France knocked out of the war, men could be shifted east for a campaign against Russia.

Put into motion, the first stages of the plan achieved success during the Battle of the Frontiers and the German cause was further enhanced by a stunning triumph over the Russians at Tannenberg in late-August. In Belgium, the Germans drove back the small Belgian Army and beat the French at the Battle of Charleroi as well as the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) at Mons.

A Bloody Autumn
Falling back to the south, the BEF and French finally were able to halt the German advance at the First Battle of the Marne in early September. Stymied, the Germans retreated behind the Aisne River. Counterattacking at the First Battle of the Aisne, the Allies failed to dislodge the Germans and took heavy losses. Stalemated on this front, both sides began the "Race to the Sea" as they sought to outflank each other.

Marching north and west, they stretched the front to the English Channel. As both sides fought for the upper hand, they clashed in Picardy, Albert, and Artois. Ultimately reaching the coast, the Western Front became a continuous line reaching to the Swiss frontier. For the British, the year concluded with the bloody First Battle of Ypres in Flanders where they sustained over 50,000 casualties.

Peace on the Front
After the heavy fighting of the late summer and fall of 1914, one of the mythic events of World War I occurred. The 1914 Christmas Truce began on Christmas Eve along the British and German lines around Ypres, Belgium. While it took hold in some areas manned by the French and Belgians, it was not as widespread as these nations viewed the Germans as invaders. Along the 27 miles of front manned by the British Expeditionary Force, Christmas Eve 1914 began as a normal day with firing on both sides. While in some areas firing began to slacken through the afternoon, in others it continued at its regular pace.

This impulse to celebrate the holiday season amid the landscape of war has been traced to several theories. Among these was the fact that the war was only four months old and the level of animosity between the ranks was not as high as it would be later in the war. This was complemented by a sense of shared discomfort as the early trenches lacked amenities and were prone to flooding. Also, the landscape, aside from the newly dug trenches, still appeared relatively normal, with fields and intact villages all of which contributed to introducing a degree of civilization to the proceedings.

Private Mullard of the London Rifle Brigade wrote home, "we heard a band in the German trenches, but our artillery spoilt the effect by dropping a couple of shells right in the centre of them." Despite this, Mullard was surprised at sunset to see, "trees stuck on top of the [German] trenches, lit up with candles, and all of the men sitting on top of the trenches. So, of course, we got out of ours and passed a few remarks, inviting each other to come over and have a drink and a smoke, but we did not like to trust each other at first."

The Sides Meet
The initial force behind the Christmas Truce came from the Germans. In most cases, this began with the singing of carols and the appearance of Christmas trees along the trenches. Curious, Allied troops, who had been inundated with propaganda depicting the Germans as barbarians, began to join in the singing which led to both sides reaching out to communicate. From these first hesitant contacts informal ceasefires were arranged between units. As the lines in many places were only 30 to 70 yards apart, some fraternization between individuals had taken place prior to Christmas, but never on a large scale.

For the most part, both sides returned to their trenches later on Christmas Eve. The following morning, Christmas was celebrated in full, with men visiting across the lines and gifts of food and tobacco being exchanged. In several places, games of soccer were organized, though these tended to be mass "kick abouts" rather than formal matches. Private Ernie Williams of the 6th Cheshires reported, "I should think there were about a couple of hundred taking part...There was no sort of ill-will between us." Amid the music and sports, both sides frequently joined together for large Christmas dinners.

Unhappy Generals
While the lower ranks were celebrating in the trenches, the high commands were both livid and concerned. General Sir John French, commanding the BEF, issued stern orders against fraternizing with the enemy. For the Germans, whose army possessed a long history of intense discipline, the outbreak of popular will among their soldiery was cause for worry and most stories of the truce were suppressed back in Germany. Though a hard line was taken officially, many generals took a relaxed approach seeing the truce as an opportunity to improve and re-supply their trenches, as well as scout out the enemy's position.

Back to Fighting
For the most part, the Christmas Truce only lasted for Christmas Eve and Day, though in some areas it was extended through Boxing Day and New Year's. As it ended, both sides decided on signals for the recommencement of hostilities. Reluctantly returning to war, the bonds forged at Christmas slowly eroded as units rotated out and the fighting became more ferocious. The truce had largely worked due to a mutual feeling that the war would be decided at another place and time, most likely by someone else. As the war went on, the events of Christmas 1914 became increasing surreal to those who had not been there.




German and British troops celebrating Christmas together during a temporary cessation of WWI hostilities known as the Christmas Truce.

25 th December 1066


William is crowned :
William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy is crowned king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London.



William the Conqueror officially became king of England two months after defeating Harold Godwinson, and it was a ceremony to remember.

At the bitter Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, overcame the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, Harold Godwinson. He emerged as victor to claim the throne he had been promised by Edward the Confessor. After quashing those who supported his last viable rival – Edgar Ætheling, Edward’s great nephew – William made for London, to solidify his control of England.

He was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066, although this wasn’t the joyous affair that coronations often are. The atmosphere was tense, with William’s Norman soldiers surrounded by Englishmen who were yet to warm to their new monarch. To symbolise William’s Norman heritage and promote unity, both Saxon and Norman rites were used during the ceremony, with the bishops speaking English as well as French.

The crowd was inevitably asked if they accepted William as their new king. Cheers of affirmation rang out through the abbey, but William’s guards outside mistook the noise for an assassination attempt. They began setting fire to buildings around them and riots broke out. The terrified spectators rushed out of the church, leaving William and the clergy to complete the coronation alone.


To ensure he could defend himself against his enemies, William ordered a castle be built in London almost immediately. This structure, quickly erected and built of timber, was the beginnings of the Tower of London. In 1078, work began on a stone replacement, the modern-day White Tower. Castle building would be one of the legacies of William’s reign, with around 500 raised across England and Wales by his death in 1087.

Thank you Gassey ,