Today in history

6 th August 1926


First female channel swimmer :
Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim across the English Channel.


Gertrude Ederle becomes first woman to swim English Channel.

On August 6, 1926, on her second attempt, 19-year-old Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim the 21 miles across the English Channel, which separates Great Britain from the northwestern tip of France.

Ederle was born to German immigrants on October 23, 1905, in New York City. She did not learn to swim until she was nine years old, and it was not until she was 15 that she learned proper form in the water. Just two years later, at the 1924 Paris Olympics, Ederle won a gold medal in the 4 x 100 meter relay and a bronze in the 100- and 400-meter freestyle races. In June 1925, Ederle became the first woman to swim the length of New York Bay, breaking the previous men’s record by swimming from the New York Battery to Sandy Hook, New Jersey, in 7 hours 11 minutes. That same summer, Ederle made her first attempt at crossing the notoriously cold and choppy English Channel, but after eight hours and 46 minutes, her coach, Jabez Wolff, forced her to stop, out of concern that she was swallowing too much saltwater. Ederle disagreed and fired Wolff, replacing him with T.W. Burgess, a skilled Channel swimmer.

On August 6, 1926, Ederle entered the water at Cape Gris-Nez in France at 7:08 a.m. to make her second attempt at the Channel. The water was predictably cold as she started out that morning, but unusually calm. Twice that day, however–at noon and 6 p.m.–Ederle encountered squalls along her route and Burgess urged her to end the swim. Ederle’s father and sister, though, who were riding in the boat along with Burgess, agreed with Ederle that she should stay the course. Ederle’s father had promised her a new roadster at the conclusion of the swim, and for added motivation he called out to her in the water to remind her that the roadster was only hers if she finished. Ederle persevered through storms and heavy swells, and, finally, at 9:04 p.m. after 14 hours and 31 minutes in the water, she reached the English coast, becoming the sixth person and first woman to swim the Channel successfully. Furthermore, she had bettered the previous record by two hours.


Afterward, Ederle told Alec Rutherford of The New York Times, “I knew it could be done, it had to be done, and I did it.” Ederle’s feat was celebrated by a ticker-tape parade in New York City, and she received congratulations from fans ranging from the mayor of New York City to Henry Sullivan, the first American man ever to swim the Channel.

Ederle damaged her hearing during the Channel swim, and went on to spend much of her adult life teaching deaf children in New York City to swim. She died in 2003 at the age of 98.

7 th August 1987

Fist swim from U.S.A to Soviet Union :
Lynne Cox becomes the first person to swim from the United States to the Soviet Union, crossing the Bering Strait from Little Diomede Island in Alaska to Big Diomede in the Soviet Union.



On August 7, 1987, Lynne Cox braves the freezing waters of the Bering Strait to make the first recorded swim from the United States to the Soviet Union.

Lynne Cox’s swimming career began in her native New Hampshire when she was just nine years old. Not long after that, her parents moved the family to California so that Lynne and her siblings could live near the ocean and have access to better swim coaching. In 1971, under the direction of Coach Don Gambril, Cox joined her swim club in a swim of the 31-mile Catalina Channel off the coast of Southern California. Cox proved to be a natural at open-water swimming, and at the age of 15 she swam the notoriously difficult English Channel in just nine hours and 57 minutes, breaking the world record for both men and women. Two years later, Cox swam the Channel again, and again she broke the record, with a time of nine hours and 36 minutes.

By 1987, when Cox decided to try her luck at swimming the Bering Strait, the Cold War was just beginning to thaw, and under the leadership of reformer Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union opened their border to Cox. Her rigorous training regiment included regularly swimming in water at between 38 and 42 degrees Fahrenheit. Cox—who rarely swam in a wetsuit regardless of water temperature–donned just a swimsuit as she set out from the shores of Little Diomede, Alaska, about 350 miles north of Anchorage, in water just above freezing. With a team of physiologists monitoring her swim, Cox stayed in the water for 2 hours and 16 minutes, crossing the international dateline and continuing all the way to Big Diomede on the coast of the Soviet Union, 2.7 miles up the Bering Strait. Her swim is considered one of the most incredible cold water swims in history

8 th August 1963


The gret train robbery :
Great Train Robbery: In England, a gang of 15 train robbers steal £2.6 million in bank notes.


Late on Thursday 8 August 1963, a Travelling Post Office train left Glasgow for Euston. On board, staff sorted the mail and parcels prior to its arrival in London.

The second carriage from the front of the train was a High Value Package carriage, where registered mail was sorted. Much of this consisted of cash. Usually the value of these items would have been in the region of £300,000 but, because there had been a Bank Holiday weekend in Scotland the total on the day of the robbery was £2.3 million (about £30 million today).

The wrong signal
The train passed Leighton Buzzard at about 3am on 8 August 1963, and moments later the driver, Jack Mills saw a red signal ahead at a place called Sears Crossing.

The signal was false. A glove had been stuffed onto the proper signal and the red light was activated by attaching it to a six volt battery. When Mills stopped, his co-driver David Whitby climbed out of the diesel engine to ring the signalman to ascertain the problem.

He discovered that the cables from the line-side phone had been cut and as he turned to return to his train he was attacked and thrown down the steep railway embankment.

Meanwhile, a masked man climbed into the train cab and coshed the driver around the head rendering him unconscious. Meanwhile, other robbers uncoupled most of the carriages, leaving on the engine and the first two carriages containing the high-value property.

The steep embankments at Sears crossing were unpractical for removing the loot from the train but the gang had planned to drive the train a mile further to Bridego Bridge. Here, Land Rovers were waiting to transport the cash to a nearby hideout.

Soon the well-planned heist encountered a problem. One of the gang had spent months befriending railway staff on the pretence of being a railway enthusiast. He had been allowed rides in the cabs of trains and had even been permitted to drive a few trains.

His part in the robbery was to drive the train to the rendezvous point but as he climbed into the cab of the train he realised that this huge diesel train was far more complicated than the local trains he had previously travelled in. One of the gang, Ronnie Biggs, had to rouse the driver to continue the journey.

In the front two carriages, frightened Post Office staff were pushed to one end by some of the fifteen strong gang – but, in the remaining ten carriages left at Sears Crossing, staff did not even realise anything had happened.

A human chain of robbers
At Bridego Bridge a human chain of robbers removed 120 sacks containing two-and-a-half-tons of money. The robbery was well organised and swift. Before leaving, one of the gang ordered Post Office staff to stay still for 30 minutes before contacting the police. This gave the investigators an important clue, they suspected that the gang had a hideout within a 30 minute drive of the scene.

This was indeed the case. An old farmhouse in Oakley Buckinghamshire, Letherslade Farm, had been rented and during the next few days the jubilant gang shared out the cash. They even played Monopoly using real money.

A huge police investigation was launched, run by the Flying Squad at Scotland Yard and senior detectives from the Buckinghamshire Police. The officer in overall command was Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Slipper.

British Transport Police had a small role to play in the investigation, mainly conducting enquiries, obtaining lists of staff and suspects.

Back at the farm, the gang were becoming spooked by low flying RAF aircraft who were actually on training runs and nothing to do with the manhunt that had now been established. They split the money which was mainly in used £1 and £5 notes (Biggs was to receive £147,000) and left the scene immediately rather than ‘lying low’ for several weeks as they had planned.

A nearby resident became suspicious of the comings and goings at the farm and advised the police. PC John Wooley responded to the report and found large amounts of abandoned food and provisions. Sleeping bags and bedding had been left in upstairs rooms and in the cellar, bank note wrappers, post office sacks and registered mail packages.

Fingerprints on the Monopoly board
A thorough examination found several fingerprints including some on the Monopoly board and others on a ketchup bottle. These fingerprints and other enquiries led to the offenders and one by one they were arrested. BTP headquarters at Park Royal in north London was regularly updated of the progress of the investigation and the Chief Constable was sent supplementary crime reports giving the names and details of those involved.

They all eventually appeared in court. The mastermind of the operation, Bruce Reynolds took five years to track down but received ten years imprisonment. Ronnie Biggs received 30 years but escaped from Wandsworth prison in a furniture van only 15 months later. His flight to Brazil (via Spain and Australia) and subsequent return to the UK in May 2001 have been well documented.

The verdict
The gang received a total of 307 years imprisonment. Despite the huge amount of money stolen none of the thieves were able to live happily on their ill-gotten gains. Buster Edwards ended up running a flower stall at Waterloo station. He received a lot of publicity in 1988 when Phil Collins played him in the film Buster. He took his own life in the late 1990s. James Hussey and Thomas Wisbey were convicted in 1989 for trafficking drugs, while Charles Wilson was shot and killed in Spain.

It must be said that the Great Train Robbery was brilliantly planned and executed. Apart from the attack on the train driver it was non-violent and no firearms were used. The raiders managed to steal much more money than they had planned and perhaps it was the greed in sharing all the money out which led to them being careless and leaving so many fingerprints behind, sealing their own fate.

Wiggin park :
Mesnes park opened 8th August 1878

The area within which Mesnes Park lies was traditionally known as the Mesnes after the manorial demesnes land. The land, which was mostly meadow and pasture, formed part of the Wigan Rectory Glebe Estate, the Rector also being Lord of the Manor. By 1847 there were two collieries within the area of the present park, and the land was crossed by two tramways and a ropewalk.

The Mesnes was sold to Wigan Corporation under the Wigan Rectory Glebe Act of 1871, which included provisions for a Grammar School and public park. The 6.5ha (16 acres) of land were purchased for the Council at a cost of £2000 by the then Mayor, Nathaniel Eckersley of Standish Hall, a local mill owner. A further 5.5ha (14 acres) of land was leased and included the site of Turner's Colliery which continued in operation until 1880. In 1877 a competition was held for the design, the winner of which was John McClean of Castle Donington. His scheme was estimated to cost £2500 to execute, without the construction of the buildings. McClean was subsequently awarded the contract to oversee the implementation of the work. Eckersley, by then High Sheriff of Lancashire, performed the opening ceremony for the Park in August 1878.

https://www.parksandgardens.org/places/mesnes-park

9 th August 1945

World War 11 , Nagasaki:
World War II: Nagasaki is devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat Man, is dropped by the United States B-29 Bockscar. Thirty- five thousand people are killed.



August 9, 2020

The Target Committee appointed by President Harry Truman to decide which Japanese cities would receive the Little Boy and Fat Man atomic bombings did not place Nagasaki among their top two choices. Instead they identified Kokura as the second target after Hiroshima. In Kokura, a city of 130,000 people on the island of Kyushu, the Japanese operated one of their biggest ordnance factories, manufacturing among other things chemical weapons. The Americans knew all this, but strangely had not targeted the city yet in their conventional bombing campaign. That was one of the reasons the Target Committee thought it would be a good option after Hiroshima.

The third choice, Nagasaki was a port city located about 100 miles from Kokura. It was larger, with an approximate population of 263,000 people, and some major military facilities, including two Mitsubishi military factories. Nagasaki also was an important port city. Like Kokura and Hiroshima, it had not suffered much thus far from American conventional bombing.

After the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, workers on Tinian island labored intensely to put the finishing touches on the Fat Man bomb and prepare it for use. This was a plutonium implosion device of far greater complexity than the Little Boy bomb used at Hiroshima, which used uranium-235 in a fairly conventional explosive mechanism. The scientists and ordnance experts at Los Alamos had agonized for years over how to use plutonium in an atomic weapon, and Fat Man was the result.

The decision to use Fat Man just days after the explosion of Little Boy at Hiroshima was based on two calculations: the always-changeable Japanese weather—the appearance of a typhoon or other major weather event could force deployment to be postponed for weeks—and the belief that two bombings following in quick succession would convince the Japanese that the Americans had plenty of atomic devices and were ready to keep using them until Japan finally surrendered. Reports of approaching bad weather convinced the Americans to drop the next bomb on August 9.



A B-29 named Bock’s Car took off from Tinian at 3:47 that morning. In its belly was Fat Man, and the atomic bomb was already armed. Maj. Charles W. Sweeney flew the plane, accompanied by the usual pilot, Capt. Frederick C. Bock. The Enola Gay took part in the mission, flying weather reconnaissance.

Over Kokura, clouds and smoke from nearby bombing raids obscured visibility. The Americans could see parts of the city, but they could not site directly on the city arsenal that was their target. Sweeney flew overhead until Japanese antiaircraft fire and fighters made things “a little hairy,” and it was obvious that sighting would be impossible. He then headed for his secondary target: Nagasaki. In Kokura, meanwhile, civilians who had taken shelter after the air raid signal heard the all-clear, emerged, and breathed sighs of relief. None of them knew then, of course, how close they had come to dying.



Clouds also obscured visibility over Nagasaki, and Maj. Sweeney, running out of fuel, prepared to turn back toward Okinawa. At the last second a hole opened in the clouds, however, and Bombardier Capt. Kermit K. Beahan announced that he could see his target. And so Fat Man began its journey, detonating over Nagasaki at 11:02 a.m. local time.


Fat Man detonated at an altitude of 1,650 feet over Nagasaki with a yield of 21 kilotons, about 40 percent more powerful than Little Boy had been. It did so almost directly above the Mitsubishi factories that were the city’s primary targets, rather than over the residential and business districts further south. Tens of thousands of civilians, especially children, had already been evacuated from the city. The series of hills bracing Nagasaki also somewhat confined the initial blast and restricted the damage.



Still, the impact was devastating, particularly because people had heard the all-clear after an earlier aircraft raid warning, and had left their shelters. Everything within a mile of ground zero was annihilated. Fourteen thousand homes burst into flames. People close to the blast were vaporized; those unlucky enough to be just outside that radius received horrific burns and, there and further out, radiation poisoning that would eventually kill them. Although estimates vary, perhaps 40,000 people were killed by the initial detonation. By the beginning of 1946, 30,000 more people were dead. And within the next five years, well over 100,000 deaths were directly attributable to the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

10 th August 1675

Royal Greewich observatory :
The foundation stone of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London, England is laid.

On This Day - August 10, 2021 - The foundation stone of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London, England is laid in 1675
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The Royal Observatory, Greenwich is an observatory situated on a hill in Greenwich Park, overlooking the River Thames. It played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation, and is best known for the fact that the prime meridian passes through it, and thereby gave its name to Greenwich Mean Time. The ROG has the IAU observatory code of 000, the first in the list. ROG, the National Maritime Museum, the Queen's House and Cutty Sark are collectively designated Royal Museums Greenwich.


The observatory was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II, with the foundation stone being laid on 10 August. The site was chosen by Sir Christopher Wren. At that time the king also created the position of Astronomer Royal, to serve as the director of the observatory and to "apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying of the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find out the so much desired longitude of places for the perfecting of the art of navigation."

He appointed John Flamsteed as the first Astronomer Royal. The building was completed in the summer of 1676. The building was often called "Flamsteed House", in reference to its first occupant.


The scientific work of the observatory was relocated elsewhere in stages in the first half of the 20th century, and the Greenwich site is now maintained almost exclusively as a museum, although the AMAT telescope became operational for astronomical research in 2018.

11 th August 1569

First recorded lottery in England;

11 January 1569: England holds its first lottery draw
Outside Old St Paul's Cathedral in London, England's first lottery draw got underway on this day in 1569.


By 1566, England's harbours and coastal defences were looking a little shabby. To fix them, Queen Elizabeth I would either have to raise taxes (boo) or hold a glittering prize draw and raise the money that way. Unsurprisingly, she chose the latter.

Selling tickets for the chance to win a prize was nothing new. The idea had been around on the continent for at least a hundred years, where lotteries were sometimes held by merchants looking to shift expensive stock that wasn't selling. So on 11 January 1569, outside the west wing of the old St Paul's Cathedral in London, punters huddled together against the chill to see what they had won in England's first state lottery draw. The event was hardly a runaway success. Less than 10% of the 400,000 tickets had been bought at ten shillings each. (If you thought that was a bit steep, you could always buy a share of a ticket – a sort of Renaissance office syndicate.)
Every ticket was guaranteed a prize, and that made for a lot of waiting around – until 6 May, to be precise. Prizes ranged from silver plate and tapestries to a £5,000 jackpot, so it was worth bracing the winter weather.

Your lottery ticket was a blank piece of paper. On it, you wrote your name and a “unique device”, which often took the form of a prayer or a line or two of verse. One ticket that survived from the 1569 lottery read, “God send a good lot for my children and me, which have had 20 by one wife truly”. It's probably fair to say they needed the money.

The way lotteries were run in this period, explains historian Lorraine Daston, is that a child, who was sometimes blindfolded, would pick a ticket from an urn, and pair it with a prize written on a slip of paper drawn from another vessel. The device of the winner would be read out, but not the name, to protect the winner's identity. This was repeated over and over again, until all the prizes had been given away.

England's defences received a much-needed spruce up from the money raised, just in time for the Spanish Armada to call in 1588. But overall, the lacklustre take-up of England's first lottery meant that in 1571, the whole scheme was quietly shelved.

12 th August 1865

The first anti-septic :
Joseph Lister, British surgeon and scientist, performs 1st antiseptic surgery


An 11-year-old Glaswegian named James Greenlees unintentionally helped to make history that day in 1865. Run over by a cart in the street, he was taken to the male accident ward at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, where the house surgeon was Joseph Lister, a 38-year-old Englishman who was developing a new technique to deal with the appalling death rates that killed half the surgery patients. The boy had a compound fracture of the lower left leg. He was given chloroform and Lister washed the wound out and applied a dressing of carbolic acid (now called phenol). A splint and bandages were put in place and the carbolic acid dressing was renewed again several times as the days went by and the wound began to scab over and heal. After six weeks Greenlees was discharged, fully recovered.

It was Lister’s first success with this technique. From a Quaker family, his early interest in science had been fostered by his father, an amateur physicist who was a member of the Royal Society. The son began a brilliant career at University College, London, became a surgeon and after a period at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary was appointed Regius Professor of Surgery at Glasgow University and in 1861 surgeon to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

He was influenced by the French scientist Louis Pasteur, who had suggested that patients under surgery might be fatally infected by the development of tiny organisms (or bacteria) in their blood. Pasteur was a hugely influential theorist, but Lister was a practical technician determined to put an end to unnecessary deaths. Believing he was directed by God, he succeeded and between 1865 and 1869 his ward’s death rate after surgery fell to only 15 per cent.

It took time for Lister’s methods to gain acceptance, but the evidence was too strong to be ignored and in Britain and abroad other medical men were exploring similar techniques. In 1869 he was appointed Professor of Clinical Surgery at Edinburgh and in 1877 he returned to London, to King’s College Hospital. He retired from medical practice in 1893. Greatly honoured, he was Sir Joseph Lister from 1883, President of the Royal Society in 1895, Lord Lister from 1897 and one of the 12 original members of the Order of Merit in 1902.

Lister was almost worshipped by those who worked with him, but he was shy and reserved and it seems that few people ever knew him well. He was blind and deaf by the time he died in 1912 at the age of 84, which his doctor considered ‘a merciful end’. He was given a magnificent funeral in Westminster Abbey.

Interesting bit of information to add to this. The Sugeon Joseph Lister was related to Ann Lister. Whose story was made into the TV series Gentleman Jack.

13 th August 1964

Last executions in U.K. :
Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans are hanged for the murder of John Alan West becoming the last people executed in the United Kingdom.


In a gruesome historical landmark, Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans were simultaneously hanged on this day 49 years ago making them the last executions in Britain.

The final hangings were carried out on the 13th of August 1964 after the pair were found guilty of murdering John West, a 53-year-old laundry van driver.

Twenty-four-year-old Evans, whose real name was John Walby, was hanged at Manchester's Strangeways Prison.

At the same time, 21-year-old father-of-two Allen was hanged at Liverpool's Walton Prison.

On the 16th of December 1969, the House of Commons reaffirmed its decision that capital punishment for murder should be permanently abolished, meaning all prisoners who had been sentenced to death were automatically reprieved.

14 th August 1901
The first powered flight ( maybe ):

On 14 August 1901, it was claimed that the Bavarian-born Gustave Whitehead (aka Gustav Albin Weisskopf) made the first powered flight, thereby predating the historic flight made by the Wright Brothers by two years.

The question regarding the accuracy of Whitehead’s flights in 1901 and 1902 is an ongoing controversy among historians, which is unlikely ever to be resolved.


GUSTAVE WHITEHEAD AND THE FIRST-FLIGHT CONTROVERSY
Long-festering intrigues surface as a group challenges the first-flight claims of the Wright brothers, contending that Gustave Whitehead beat them to the punch.

‘What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step toward truth.’ -Dennis Diderot, philosopher (1713-1784)

Old myths die hard. For example: the Wright brothers were co-equals in aviation innovation, right? Wrong. Author John Evangelist Walsh ably proved in his biography of the Wrights, One Day at Kittyhawk (1975), that Wilbur was the leader, Orville the follower-Wilbur the genius, his younger brother the junior assistant.

How did the notion that they were ‘coequals’ emerge as fact? Wilbur died in 1912. Orville, by controlling the Wright archives, influenced history. In the official biography, authorized by Orville 30 years after Wilbur’s death, the brothers came out as coequals, with Orville more often than not playing the larger role.

Another question: Who made the world’s first powered airplane flight? The Wright brothers, of course, on December 17, 1903. Or perhaps not. Some historians believe that on August 14, 1901, at Fairfield, Conn., Gustave Whitehead achieved powered flight-two years and four months before the Wrights’ first flight.

Which leads to a further question: Who was Gustave Whitehead? Many voice the view that Whitehead’s work as an aviation pioneer has yet to receive a full and objective study.

A longtime leader of the efforts to learn the truth about Gustave Whitehead is Major William J. O’Dwyer, U.S. Air Force Reserve (ret.), of Fairfield, Conn. He was a World War II flight instructor and later a ferry pilot with the Air Transport Command. In postwar years, O’Dwyer became a building contractor in Fairfield, a job that, in 1963, led to his involvement in the Whitehead saga. In the attic of a house owned by the mother of Lt. Col. Thomas Armitage, a fellow member of the 9315th Air Force Reserve Squadron, of Stratford, Conn., O’Dwyer ran across photographs of Whitehead’s 1908-1910 aerial experiments. The photos were in family albums of Armitage’s late uncle, Arthur K.L. Watson, who had helped finance Whitehead’s work in those years. The pictures bore the title ‘Whitehead’s effort’ and nothing more.


‘As pilots,’ said O’Dwyer recently, ‘we sensed that the pictures had historical significance and should be in a museum. So we took them to Harvey Lippincott, founder, and at the time president, of the Connecticut Aeronautical Historical Association (CAHA) in Hartford. Soon we learned that Whitehead’s claimed flights of 1901 and 1902 had allegedly taken place in our hometowns of Fairfield, Bridgeport and Stratford. We’d stumbled on a mystery from which we couldn’t walk away.’

Today, 30 years later and having spent a’small fortune’ on his detective work, O’Dwyer is convinced that those historians who have labeled Whitehead an empty dreamer or an outright charlatan are way off base. ‘It’s strange,’ he said, ‘that those opinions evolved without extensive research, official inquiry or probe.’

15 th August 1969

                    Woodstock:

                              The Woodstock Music & Art Fair opens in Bethel, New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era.

Woodstock festival opens in Bethel, New York
On August 15, 1969, the Woodstock music festival opens on a patch of farmland in White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New York town of Bethel.

Promoters John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang originally envisioned the festival as a way to raise funds to build a recording studio and rock-and-roll retreat near the town of Woodstock, New York. The longtime artists’ colony was already a home base for Bob Dylan and other musicians. Despite their relative inexperience, the young promoters managed to sign a roster of top acts, including the Jefferson Airplane, the Who, the Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival and many more.

Plans for the festival were on the verge of foundering, however, after both Woodstock and the nearby town of Wallkill denied permission to hold the event. Dairy farmer Max Yasgur came to the rescue at the last minute, giving the promoters access to his 600 acres of land in Bethel, some 50 miles from Woodstock.


Early estimates of attendance increased from 50,000 to around 200,000, but by the time the gates opened on Friday, August 15, more than 400,000 people were clamoring to get in. Those without tickets simply walked through gaps in the fences, and the organizers were eventually forced to make the event free of charge. Folk singer and guitarist Richie Havens kicked off the event with a long set, and Joan Baez and Arlo Guthrie also performed on Friday night.


Though Woodstock had left its promoters nearly bankrupt, their ownership of the film and recording rights more than compensated for the losses after the release of a hit documentary film in 1970. Later music festivals inspired by Woodstock’s success failed to live up to its standard, and the festival still stands for many as an example of America’s 1960s youth counterculture at its best.

16 th August 1819

The Peterloo massacre :
Peterloo Massacre: Seventeen people die and over 600 are injured in cavalry charges at a public meeting at St. Peter's Field, Manchester, England.


Peterloo massacre
The Peterloo massacre: what was it and what did it mean?
When a militia attacked Manchester protesters in 1819 it was a turning point for Britain



On 16 August 1819, up to 60,000 working class people from the towns and villages of what is now Greater Manchester marched to St Peter’s Field in central Manchester to demand political representation at a time when only wealthy landowners could vote. Their peaceful protest turned bloody when Manchester magistrates ordered a private militia paid for by rich locals to storm the crowd with sabres. An estimated 18 people died and more than 650 were injured in the chaos.

Why don’t we know exactly how many people died?

Most historians agree that 14 people were definitely killed in the massacre – 15 if you include the unborn child of Elizabeth Gaunt, killed in the womb after Gaunt was beaten by constables in custody. A further three named people are believed to have either been stabbed or trampled to death, but their fate remains unconfirmed.


Where exactly did it happen?

St Peter’s Field is no longer a field, but a built-up area of central Manchester, around St Peter’s Square. A red plaque on Peter Street marks the spot, on the side of what is now the Radisson Blu hotel.

What did the protesters want?

They wanted political reform. At that point, only the richest landowners could vote and large swathes of the country were not adequately represented in Westminster. Manchester and Salford, which then had a population of 150,000, had no dedicated MP, yet Oxford and Cambridge Universities had their own representation in parliament dating back to 1603. So did Old Sarum, a field in Salisbury, which had no resident electorate. At the time of Peterloo, the extension of the vote to all men, let alone women, was actively opposed by many who thought it should be restricted to those of influence and means.

Why did they want to vote?

The years leading up to Peterloo had been tough for working-class people and they wanted a voice in parliament to put their needs and wants on the political agenda, inspired by the French Revolution. Machines had begun to take away jobs in the lucrative cotton industry and periodic trade slumps closed factories at short notice, putting workers out on the street. The Napoleonic wars, which ended in 1815 with the Battle of Waterloo, had taken a heavy toll on the nation’s finances, and 350,000 ex-servicemen returned home needing jobs and food. Yet those in power seemed more interested in lining their own pockets than helping the poor.

Why is it called Peterloo?

The name was first coined five days after the massacre by James Wroe, editor of the Manchester Observer, the city’s first radical newspaper (no relation to the Observer of today). “‘Peterloo’ was a bitter pun, comparing the cowardly attacks by the yeomanry and soldiers on unarmed civilians to the brutality suffered at Waterloo,” according to historian Robert Poole.

Why is Peterloo important?

The massacre paved the way for parliamentary democracy and particularly the Great Reform Act of 1832, which got rid of “rotten” boroughs such as Old Sarum and created new parliamentary seats, particularly in the industrial towns of the north of England. It also led to the establishment two years later of the Manchester Guardian by John Edward Taylor, a 28-year-old English journalist who was present at the massacre and saw how the “establishment” media sought to discredit the protesters.

Why haven’t I heard of it?

Because it was rarely taught in schools. Some might say that was because history has traditionally concentrated on the battles and victories of royalty and the elite, rather than the working classes. It was only last year that Mike Leigh’s Peterloo film brought the story to the masses.

17 th August 1898

Speedster ,boyRacer :
Bridget Driscoll became the first recorded case of a pedestrian killed in a collision with a motor car in the United Kingdom.

AUGUST 17th

On this day in history in 1898, died Bridget Driscoll.
On the morning of August 17th 1896, Bridget Driscoll, aged forty-four, accompanied by her two daughters, was crossing the grounds of the Crystal Palace, on the way to a dancing display, when a motor vehicle knocked her down and killed her instantly. She was the first person to be killed in a motor accident.

The car was the property of the Anglo-French Motor Company and was being used to give demonstration rides to the public. Witnesses to the accident stated that the car was being driven at a reckless pace, in the manner of a fire engine, at a speed estimated at four miles an hour.

At the inquest, the driver, Arthur Edsall, stated that he was proceeding in a sedate manner when the deceased walked in front of his vehicle. A witness gave evidence that Edsall had modified the engine in order to increase its speed, but this was vehemently denied. An independent engineer examined the engine and testified that no modification had taken place but nevertheless, the vehicle was capable of speed of up to four and a half miles per hour!

It took the coroner’s jury six hours to bring in a verdict of accidental death. The coroner, Mr William Morrison, stated that he hoped such a thing would never happen again!

18 th August 1612

                 The Pendle Witches :
                                                The trial of the Pendle witches, one of England's most famous witch trials, begins at Lancaster Assizes.

A Brief History.
On August 18, 1612, the trials of the “Pendle Witches” began in England.  22 years later to the day, across the Channel in France, Urbain Grandier was convicted of sorcery and burned alive.  Apparently the 18th of August is not a good day to be a witch in Europe, at least not back in the 17th century.

Digging Deeper
The 12 accused witches of Pendle Hill in Lancashire, England were suspected of having used witchcraft to murder 10 people.  One of the accused died in prison,  and of the 11 who went to trial (2 men and 9 women), 10 were found guilty and hanged.  Only 1 of the accused was acquitted.  From the early 1400’s through the early 1700’s, close to 500 people were convicted of witchcraft in England, and most of them were hanged (as were the witches in Salem, Massachusetts).



The trouble with witches in Lancashire stemmed largely from James I, King of England at the time.  James I was fascinated by witches and witchcraft and wrote a book called Daemonologie (1597).  In 1612 he feared that witches throughout his realm were conspiring against him, so he ordered the justices of the peace in Lancashire to compile a list of people who did not attend church or who did not support the Church of England, as that area was known to have lingering Catholic sentiments.  Those who did not go along with the national religion were suspected of witchcraft and eventually charged with murder, even if their supposed victims had long since died.

The trials of the “Pendle Witches” are unusually well documented because a clerk by the name of Thomas Potts had been directed to write a current account of the proceedings.  This account was published in 1613 as The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the County of Lancaster.

Meanwhile, in France on August 18, 1634, Urbain Grandier, a priest, found himself in Cardinal Richelieu’s disfavour for criticising his policies, specifically for expressing non-traditional theological beliefs and for questioning celibacy in the Catholic priesthood.  Father Grandier became the victim of a political witch hunt and was convicted of having sent the demon Asmodai  to do filthy things to a group of nuns in 1632.  Allegedly, the mother superior of the convent had her roving eye on Father Grandier, a man known for his sexual prowess.  Grandier supposedly rejected her advances, which caused her (a woman scorned!) to seek revenge by accusing him of having used black magic to seduce her.

Although acquitted of seducing the nuns, his criticism of Cardinal Richelieu could not go unpunished, so he was convicted at a second trial and burned at the stake.  Part of the “evidence” against Grandier was a pact with the Devil that had been written down in Latin, backwards.  Famous writers such as Aldous Huxley and Alexander Dumas incorporated aspects of this case in their works, and the incident was adapted for the stage, screen and opera.

If you have ever been the victim of a “witch hunt,” you should be able to relate to these poor victims of ignorance and hate.



If you do happen to be a witch, stay away from Sarah Palin’s minister.  He actually persecuted witches in Africa!

19th August 1987

The Huhgerford massacre :
Hungerford massacre: In the United Kingdom, Michael Ryan kills sixteen people with a semi-automatic rifle and then commits suicide.


Hungerford, Berkshire The 19th of August 1987 AD

It was Wednesday, market day in the quiet Berkshire town of Hungerford: August 19, a nice English summer’s afternoon, with the children on holiday and the sun shining for them. Michael Ryan, born and bred in the town, chose that day to go on a deadly rampage that would see him murder 16 people and injure 15 more.
Ryan was a gun-collector: he had gained a shotgun license when he was 18; then the year before his murder-spree he was given another firearm license entitling him to own two pistols; in April 1987 he was enabled to add another pistol to his growing arsenal; on July 30 his application to hold two semi-automatic rifles went through. When Ryan turned killer the local police were completely outgunned by him, as were the Tactical Firearms Unit sent to confront him in the school where he eventually barricaded himself in and committed suicide: he used a Kalashnikov copy; an M1 carbine; and a Beretta semi-automatic pistol during the rampage.
British gun laws were changed in light of the incident - though Ryan had concerned police officers involved in gun license checks, their powers to prevent him owning such weapons were limited. It remains unclear precisely what made Ryan snap that day, beginning his slaughter with the cold-blooded execution-style shooting of a woman picnicking with her children before collecting more weapons and roaming the town killing at random, but his profile sadly fitted the stereotype for such murderers: a loner; a failure; the only child of a cold father and indulgent mother; someone who got a feeling of power from owning guns. The law changes did not prevent Thomas Hamilton nine years later carrying out a massacre at Dunblane with legally held weapons.

20 th August 1940

"The few":
World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line "Never was so much owed by so many to so few".



A Brief History
On August 20, 1940, Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the war-torn United Kingdom, delivered one of his most stirring wartime speeches, one that hailed the efforts of the Royal Air Force (RAF), known from then on and forever after as “The Few.”

Digging Deeper
All of Great Britain, but especially England, was being slammed by the might of Hitler’s Lufwaffe, and with almost all of the rest of Europe already under Axis control, the British were on their own. Hitler and his Nazi troops , however, could neither eliminate the UK from the war nor invade the island of Great Britain unless they defeated the RAF.

Hitler’s dream was not to be, for the British pilots and ground crews won the war of attrition that lasted from July until October of 1940 and became known as “The Battle of Britain.”

Although Churchill was also referring to the pilots and men of Bomber Command, most people took his words to refer only to those of Fighter Command, the air force personnel who maintained and flew the Hawker Hurricanes and Supermarine Spitfires. Of course, it would be remiss if the immensely important work done by the women who tracked the enemy’s formations was not mentioned.

The sentence uttered by Churchill, “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.” will certainly continue to ring throughout history and keep the RAF, and especially its fighter forces, in the hearts of the British people.


Seldom have such stirring words been spoken by a politician in the acknowledgment and praise of the efforts of a military force. In continuation of this gratitude and recognition: RAF, we salute you!

21 st August 1879

Apparition of the Virgin Mary :
The locals of Knock, County Mayo, Ireland report their having seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary. The apparition is later named “Our Lady of Knock” and the spot transformed into a pilgrimage site.



The apparition of Virgin Mary reported in Knock, Co Mayo in 1879
On August 21, 1879, townspeople in Knock, Co Mayo in Ireland claimed to have seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary. The site has since become a shrine to devout Catholics.

Thousands of people from all over Ireland make a pilgrimage to Knock, County Mayo, every year for the August 21 anniversary of the famed 1879 apparition of the Virgin Mary.

The reported apparition began on the evening of August 21, 1879. Mary McLoughlin, the housekeeper to the parish priest of Knock, Co Mayo, was astonished to see the outside south wall of the church bathed in a mysterious light; there were three figures standing in front of the wall, which she mistook for replacements of the stone figures destroyed in a storm.


She rushed through the rain to her friend Margaret Byrne's house. After a half-hour, Mary decided to leave, and Margaret's sister agreed to walk home with her.

As they passed the church they saw an amazing vision very clearly: standing out from the gable and to the west of it appeared the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and St. John. The figure of Mary was life-sized, while the others seemed to be neither as large nor as tall.

They stood a little away from the gable wall, about two feet from the ground. The Virgin was erect with her eyes toward Heaven, and she was wearing a large white cloak hanging in full folds. On her head was a large crown.

Mary Byrne ran to tell her family while Mary McLoughlin gazed at the apparition. Soon a crowd of fifteen gathered, young and old, and all saw the apparition. The parish priest, Archdeacon Cavanaugh, did not come out, however, and his absence was a disappointment to the devout villagers.



Among the witnesses were Patrick Hill and John Curry. As Patrick later described the scene: “The figures were fully rounded, as if they had a body and life. They did not speak but, as we drew near, they retreated a little towards the wall.” Patrick reported that he got close enough to make out the words in the book held by the figure of St. John.

An old woman named Bridget Trench drew closer to embrace the feet of the Virgin, but the figure seemed always beyond reach. Others out in the fields and some distance away saw a strange light around the church. The vision lasted for about three hours and then faded.


The next day, a group of villagers went to see the priest, who accepted the report as genuine. He wrote to the diocesan Bishop of Tuam, then the Church set up a commission to interview a number of the people claiming to witness the apparition.

The diocesan hierarchy was not convinced, and some members of the commission ridiculed the visionaries, alleging they were victims of a hoax perpetrated by the local Protestant constable.

But the ordinary people were not so skeptical, and the first pilgrimages to Knock began in 1880.


Two years later Archbishop John Joseph Lynch of Toronto made a visit to the parish and claimed he had been healed by the Virgin of Knock.

22 nd August 1485

Bosworth field :
The Battle of Bosworth Field, the death of Richard III and the end of the House of Plantagenet.


The Battle of Bosworth Field 22nd August 1485

The Battle of Bosworth Field, fought 22nd August 1485, ended the Wars of the Roses. Richard III was killed in the battle and Henry Tudor was proclaimed King. The victory signalled the end of the rule of the Plantagenets and the beginning of the Tudor dynasty.


Background to the battle


In 1483, King Edward IV died. His son, Edward V was still a child so his uncle, Richard Duke of Gloucester was made protector. Richard was keen to fulfil the role, but he quickly found that Edward’s Woodville relatives wanted control of the young king for themselves.

Richard arrested Edward’s uncle and grandfather then took Edward to the Tower of London where he was to await his coronation. Edward’s younger brother, Richard, soon joined him in the Tower.


Richard learned that his brother, Edward IV, had been contracted to marry Eleanor Butler at the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. This meant that the marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville was invalid and their children illegitimate. Richard was proclaimed King Richard III because he was next in line to the throne.

Henry Tudor

Henry Tudor, was the grandson of Henry V’s widow, Catherine of Valois, a Lancastrian. Henry’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, spent her life pushing for Henry to be acknowledged in the succession and working towards him becoming King.

Henry believed that he had a better claim to the throne than Richard Duke of Gloucester. He vowed to take the throne for himself and promised to marry Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth of York once he was king. This would unite the houses of Lancaster and York and end the Wars of the Roses.

23 rd August 1944

Freckleton air disaster :
Freckleton Air Disaster: A United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into a school in Freckleton, England, killing 61 people.

The Freckleton Air Disaster occurred on 23 August 1944, when a Consolidated B-24 Liberator of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) came down in bad weather into the centre of the village of Freckleton, Lancashire, England. The aircraft crashed into the Holy Trinity Church of England School, demolishing three houses and the Sad Sack Snack Bar. The death toll was 61, including 38 children.

Two newly refurbished B-24 heavy bombers, being made ready for delivery to the 2nd Combat Division, departed USAAF Base Air Depot 2 at Warton Aerodrome on a test flight at 10.30 am. Due to an approaching violent storm, both were recalled. By the time they had returned to the vicinity of the aerodrome, however, the wind and rain had significantly reduced visibility.

On approach from the west, towards runway 08, and in formation with the second aircraft, the pilot of Consolidated B-24H Liberator named “Classy Chassis II” reported to the control tower that he was aborting landing at the last moment and would perform a go-around. Shortly afterwards, and out of sight of the second aircraft, the aircraft hit the village of Freckleton, just east of the airfield.

In the school, 38 school children and six adults were killed. The clock in one classroom stopped at 10.47 am. In the Sad Sack Snack Bar, which catered specifically for American servicemen from the airbase, 14 were killed: seven Americans, four Royal Air Force airmen and three civilians. The three crew on the B-24 were also killed.

Practically every family and organisation in the village were affected by the tragedy in one way or another, with members of the band being no exception. The links to the fateful day are still with us today with retired players having lost siblings in the school.

Harry Latham, an evacuee to Freckleton as a four year old boy was a survivor of the accident and over subsequent years played a tremendous part as a supporter, fundraiser and as Vice Chairman of Freckleton Band. It will be the tenth anniversary of his death on the 30th August this year, and is sadly missed by us all.

Our current Chairman and longest-serving current member of the band, Mark Rossall’s sister-in-law Nelly was a survivor, however, her five year old sister Dorothy died on her first day at school.

The village held a memorial service at 10:30 on 23rd August 2014 exactly 70 years after the disaster in the Church of England churchyard. Freckleton Band will be playing before and throughout the service.

24 th August 1482

Capture of Berwick :
The town and castle of Berwick-upon-Tweed is captured from Scotland by an English army.

In July 1482 an English army invaded Scotland during the Anglo-Scottish Wars. The town of Berwick-upon-Tweed and its castle were captured and the English army briefly occupied Edinburgh. These events followed the signing of the Treaty of Fotheringhay, 11 June 1482, in which Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany, the brother of James III of Scotland declared himself King of Scotland and swore loyalty to Edward IV of England. The follow-up invasion of Scotland under the command of Edward's brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester failed to install Albany on the throne, but Berwick has remained English ever since the castle surrendered on 24 August. The English army left Edinburgh with a promise for the repayment of the dowry paid for the marriage of Princess Cecily of England to the Scottish Prince.

26 th August 1847

1st Swimming of the channel :
Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim across the English Channel, traveling from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in 21 hours and 45 minutes.

MATTHEW WEBB.
Captain Matthew Webb was the first person to achieve what was thought to be impossible when he swam across the English Channel from England to France in 1875.

Webb's first attempt to swim the Channel on 12 August 1875 was unsuccessful due to strong winds and rough seas.

Twelve days later, on the 24 August 1875, Webb started out from the Admiralty Pier in Dover and 21 hours and 45 minutes later, on the 25th August, landing near Calais, he successfully completed the first solo swim between England and France.

The swimmer Capt Webb is the original pioneer and hero who inspires successful and aspiring Channel Swimmers to this day.


Steamship captain Matthew Webb was the first man to swim the English Channel without artificial aids. His love of watery derring-do saw him embark on still more perilous escapades, ending with his untimely death just eight years after this report, as he attempted to swim the Niagara Falls' notorious Whirlpool Rapids. Dawley-born Webb was memorialised in Betjeman's 1940 poem, A Shropshire Lad.

26 th August 1768

           Captain Cooks voyage of discovery :

                                                 Captain James Cook sets sail from England on board HMS Endeavour.

                             


This day in history
26 August 1768: Captain Cook sets sail on his first voyage of discovery

On this day in 1768, Lieutenant (as he then was) James Cook set sail from Plymouth in command of the converted coal carrier HM Bark Endeavour, carrying a complement of scientists, on the first of his three voyages of discovery.

The stated purpose of the voyage, which was jointly sponsored by the Admiralty and the Royal Society, was to head for Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus across the sun, which would be visible only from the southern hemisphere, in June 1769. The second aim of the voyage, which Cook would only learn about on opening his sealed orders once at sea, was to find evidence of the unknown southern land, Terra Australis Incognita.



After concluding his business in Tahiti, Cook headed south as ordered, then west for New Zealand. He took with him two Tahitians: a priest, Tupaia, and his servant, Taiata, to help him navigate, and to communicate with any natives he might meet.


Part of Cook's orders was to record any flora and fauna he came across, bring back mineral samples and seeds, and observe the "genius, temper, disposition and number of the natives" and, "with the consent of the natives to take possession for His Majesty... as first discoverers and possessors".

Unfortunately, his first encounter with the Maoris involved some cultural misunderstandings, which left a couple of them dead. Nevertheless, he completed a comprehensive exploration and charting of the coast of New Zealand, before setting out west again to seek the fabled southern land.

In April 1770, Cook and his crew sighted land at Point Hicks in what is now Victoria. They scuttled north up the coast, and made landfall a week or so later at a place initially named Stingray Harbour, but which would soon become known as Botany Bay. In doing so, they become the first Europeans to visit Australia.

Cook continued northwards, charting the coast as he went, sighting and shooting the first kangaroo, and surviving a grounding on the Great Barrier Reef on the way.

He returned home via the Cape of Good Hope, arriving back in England in July 1771. Less than 20 years later the First Fleet would land to found the penal colony that would become the first European settlement in Australia.

27 th August 1955

   First guinness book of records :
                                                 The first edition of the Guinness Book of Records is published in Great Britain.

             
August 27, 1955: The first “Guinness Book of Records” was passed around British pubs.

Have you ever tried to beat one of the records in the Guinness Book of World Records? While many people have found amusement in trying to out-do their way into the historic book, many don’t know where the collection of legendary feats got its start. Believe it or not, the first Guinness Book of Recordswasn’t originally dreamt up and prepared by scientists, analysts, or anthropologists. Instead, the now top-selling title in history began with a brewery owner’s simple hunting trip.

It all started with a plover
Hugh Beaver, the owner of Guinness Brewery in Dublin, went to shooting party with a few pals in 1951. After a near-hit on a bird, the group found themselves at a conversational crossroads. They had failed to shoot down a speedy golden plover and began to debate over which game bird was the fastest in all of Europe. Despite perusing through a few reference books, they were unable to turn up a definite answer. After this experience, Beaver began to think up a fun and brilliant way to advertise and amuse customers drinking his beer: a book of basic and bizarre records.

Constructing the first Guinness Book
Enlisting the help of twin sports journalists Norris and Ross McWhirter, Beaver began to compile together what would become the first Guinness Book of Records. The McWhirter brothers were already used to compiling data and statistics for newspapers and other publications, so they were perfect for the job, which took a stunning 13 and a half 90-hour weeks to complete. The duo’s first draft was given away for free in pubs to promote Guinness beer to customers. However, as the book’s popularity rose, Beaver and the brothers soon realized that they had produced a valuable piece of entertainment.

A spike in awe-struck audiences
Instead of continuing to use the collection as free advertising, the trio began to sell the book for a pretty penny. It was a good thing that they did. The Guinness Book of Records rose to best-seller status almost instantly. In 1956, they had enough popularity to secure a number of world-wide book deals, reproducing an American version of the collection and adapting it to dozens of other languages. All the while, the McWhirter brothers continued to travel the world in search of fresh statistics, facts and records to include in the newest editions. Nowadays, the amended book continues to amaze anyone who pries the hefty collection open and includes a number of fascinating feats of people and animals across the globe

28 th August 1859

The Carrington event :
The Carrington event is the strongest geomagnetic storm on record to strike the Earth. Electrical telegraph service is widely disrupted.


The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, beginig on 28th August ,and peaking from 1 to 2 September 1859 during solar cycle 10. It created strong auroral displays that were reported globally and caused sparking and even fires in multiple telegraph stations. The geomagnetic storm was most likely the result of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun colliding with Earth's magnetosphere.

The geomagnetic storm was associated with a very bright solar flare on 1 September 1859. It was observed and recorded independently by British astronomers Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson – the first records of a solar flare.

A geomagnetic storm of this magnitude occurring today would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and damage due to extended outages of the electrical power grid