Today in history

6 th March 1987

Herald of free entrprise disaster :
The British ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in about 90 seconds, killing 193.

Public domain

A British ferry left the Belgian port of Zeebrugge heading for Dover, England. It was after dark on March 6, 1987 and The Herald of Free Enterprise headed into a choppy sea with her bow doors open.

Roll-on/Roll-off Ferries
In the early days, of cross-Channel ferries, cars were loaded onto ships by crane—a time-consuming procedure. Loading times were improved when ramps allowed vehicles to be driven into the hold.


They were called Roll-on/Roll-off Ferries—ro/ros for short. They were a boon to the ferry industry. Faster turnaround times in port meant more profits.

The Herald of Free Enterprise was one such ship operated by the Townsend Thorensen company, which was owned by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O). Herald was one of three sister ships and she entered service in May 1980 and usually ran between Dover, England and Calais, France.


Ro/ros have come in for a fair amount of criticism with the International Maritime Organization noting that “Despite its commercial success, there have been disturbing accidents involving different types of ro/ro ship . . .”


The design of many of these ro/ro vessels is such that the captain cannot see the bow and stern doors from the bridge.


In 1985, one of Townsend Thorensen's captains brought this problem to the attention of management: “Most important of all is watertight doors, meaning the bow and stern doors” he wrote. “There are no indicators for when these doors are open or closed.” He suggested installing a communication device that would confirm to the bridge that the doors were closed prior to leaving port.

Townsend Thorensen's management rejected the request to put in a simple bell connection costing about five pounds.


The Herald of Free Enterprise had eight decks and vehicles were loaded through watertight bow and stern doors. These doors were to be closed prior to departure. Also, unlike with most other ships, there were no watertight compartments the entire length of the car deck so that loading and unloading vehicles was faster—time is money.

On board that evening were 459 passengers and 80 crew members, along with three buses, 47 trucks, and 81 cars.


Mark Stanley was the assistant boatswain on the Herald with responsibility for opening and closing the bow and stern doors. On arrival at Zeebrugge, he opened the doors and went to his cabin to rest as he was tired after working a long shift; he fell asleep.


Stanley did not wake up when the “Harbour Stations” call was broadcast throughout the ship.

Boatswain Terence Ayling did not notice that Stanley had failed to report for duty and he left the car deck thinking the doors would be closed. Further up the chain of command, First Officer Leslie Sabel had also neglected his duty to check that the doors were closed.

The company provided conflicting instructions that the First Officer must be on the bridge 15 minutes prior to departure, but he also had to supervise the closing of the doors.


Townsend Thorensen's management also put a lot of pressure on crews to keep to scheduled sailings—time is money. That evening, the Herald was five minutes late, so Sabel went to his assigned station on the bridge assuming the doors were closed.

On the bridge, Captain David Lewry made the same assumption and ordered the mooring lines to be cast off.

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The Sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise
With bow doors open, the Herald of Free Enterprise headed out to sea, with another factor waiting to cause havoc.

The loading ramp at Zeebrugge was not compatible with the Herald, so that the vessel had to take on ballast at its bow end to lower its ramp by three feet. It would take 90 minutes to pump out the ballast, but time is money, so the captain chose not to delay departure to get that done. The Herald left the harbour with her bow lowered and the doors open.


As the ship quickly accelerated to about 18 knots she created a bow wave that came in through the open doors. The thousands of gallons of water started sloshing across the car deck causing the vessel to list first to one side then the other. With one final crunch she capsized onto her port side.

The only stroke of luck on that terrible evening was that the Herald grounded on a shoal so that her starboard side was above water. Without the sand bar she would have turned over completely and sunk, with very little chance of anybody surviving.


This had all happened within four minutes of clearing the harbour, just over one kilometre out to sea. There was no time to send out an SOS and no time to launch life boats.

The cold (3C-37F) Channel water rushed into the passenger compartments, walls became floors and ceilings, and cross-ship gangways were turned into vertical shafts. And, everything was pitch black as the ship's electrical system shut down.
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Rescuing Survivors
The plight of the Herald had been seen by a nearby dredger whose captain raised the alarm. Crew members, including Boatswain Terrence Ayling, rushed to save those trapped inside the vessel who were above the water line.


Ayling recalled “What I will never forget is having to walk on the windows. It was like a scene out of a horror film, set in an asylum. We were walking on people’s faces and fists hammering at the windows.”

The crew were able to break the windows with axes and started to lift people out so they could stand on the ship's hull.

Within minutes helicopters arrived on scene and other boats in the area came to take survivors off the stricken boat. Seven hours after the capsizing, the last three survivors were winched to safety; now, came the grim task of recovering bodies—all 193 of them.



Assigning Blame for the Herald Disaster
The inquiry into the tragedy laid blame on the crew members whose job it was to close the watertight doors and to ensure that this was done. But, the culpability for the loss of life did not stop there.


The inquiry's report noted that “All concerned in management, from the members of the Board of Directors down to the junior superintendents, were guilty of fault in that all must be regarded as sharing responsibility for the failure of management. From top to bottom the body corporate was infected with the disease of sloppiness.”

A coroner's inquest into the catastrophe handed down a verdict of “unlawful killing.” From this, three P&O directors and four crew members were charged with “corporate manslaughter.” However, the prosecution case collapsed and the presiding judge ordered the jury to acquit those charged.



Bonus Factoids
The Chairman of the Board of P&O at the time of the Herald disaster was Sir Jeffrey Sterling. In 1991, he was given a life peerage by Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He sits in the House of Lords as Baron Sterling of Plaistow.
On September 28, 1994, the MS Estonia, a ro/ro ferry, left Tallinn, Estonia bound for Stockholm, Sweden. She ran into heavy weather and it appears her bow doors were breached. She sank in the Baltic Sea and only 138 of the 989 people aboard were rescued. There were numerous similarities between the sinking of the Estonia and that of the Herald of Free Enterprise seven years earlier.
Many of the passengers aboard the Herald were day-trippers who had taken advantage of a promotional offer from the Sun newspaper for a £1 round trip.
The man who failed to close the bow doors, Mark Stanley, acted heroically in saving trapped passengers but he never overcame the remorse he felt over his responsibility for the accident. His health broken, he died in his 50s.

7 th march 1876 :
                               Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for an invention he calls the "telephone".

               
March 07
Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone
On March 7, 1876, 29-year-old Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for his revolutionary new invention: the telephone.

The Scottish-born Bell worked in London with his father, Melville Bell, who developed Visible Speech, a written system used to teach speaking to the deaf. In the 1870s, the Bells moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where the younger Bell found work as a teacher at the Pemberton Avenue School for the Deaf. He later married one of his students, Mabel Hubbard.

While in Boston, Bell became very interested in the possibility of transmitting speech over wires. Samuel F.B. Morse’s invention of the telegraph in 1843 had made nearly instantaneous communication possible between two distant points. The drawback of the telegraph, however, was that it still required hand-delivery of messages between telegraph stations and recipients, and only one message could be transmitted at a time. Bell wanted to improve on this by creating a “harmonic telegraph,” a device that combined aspects of the telegraph and record player to allow individuals to speak to each other from a distance.


With the help of Thomas A. Watson, a Boston machine shop employee, Bell developed a prototype. In this first telephone, sound waves caused an electric current to vary in intensity and frequency, causing a thin, soft iron plate–called the diaphragm–to vibrate. These vibrations were transferred magnetically to another wire connected to a diaphragm in another, distant instrument. When that diaphragm vibrated, the original sound would be replicated in the ear of the receiving instrument. Three days after filing the patent, the telephone carried its first intelligible message—the famous “Mr. Watson, come here, I need you”—from Bell to his assistant.

8 th March 2014

Malaysia airlines flight 370 :
In one of aviation's greatest mysteries, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying a total of 239 people, disappears en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The fate of the flight remains unknown.

Malaysia Airlines flight vanishes with more than 200 people aboard.

On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, loses contact with air traffic control less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur then veers off course and disappears. Most of the plane, and everyone on board, are never seen again.

The plane departed from Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12:41 a.m. and was scheduled to arrive in Beijing Capital International Airport at 6:30 a.m. local time. However, at 1:07 a.m., the aircraft’s last automated position report was sent, and at 1:19 a.m. what turned out to be the final voice transmission from the cockpit of the doomed jetliner was relayed to air traffic controllers: “Good night Malaysian three seven zero,” a message that suggested nothing out of the ordinary. About an hour after Flight 370 was scheduled to land in Beijing, Malaysia Airlines announced it was missing. Prior to the aircraft’s mysterious disappearance, it had been flying seemingly without incident. There were no distress signals from the plane or reports of bad weather or technical problems.

The ensuing search for Flight 370 initially was centered on the Gulf of Thailand, where the plane was traveling when radar contact was lost. Investigators looked into the possibility of terrorist involvement in the plane’s disappearance after it was discovered that two passengers had been using stolen passports; however, this theory, at least in relation to the two men, soon was determined to be unlikely. (The people onboard Flight 370 represented 15 nations, with more than half the passengers from China and three from the United States) Then, on March 15, investigators said that satellite transmissions indicated Flight 370 had turned sharply off its assigned course and flown west over the Indian Ocean, operating on its own for five hours or more. On March 24, Malaysia’s prime minister announced the flight was presumed lost somewhere in the Indian Ocean, with no survivors. As the search for the aircraft continued, with more than two dozen nations, including the United States, participating in the effort, the mystery of how a commercial jetliner could vanish without a trace received global media attention.


In June 2014, Australian officials involved in the investigation said radar records suggested Flight 370 likely was flying on autopilot for hours before it ran out of fuel and crashed into the southern Indian Ocean. The officials did not publicly speculate about who put the plane on autopilot after it veered off course or why, although they did indicate it was possible the crew and passengers had become unresponsive due to hypoxia, or oxygen loss, sometime before the plane crashed. No explanation for what might have caused the oxygen deprivation was provided by the officials.

Meanwhile, other authorities suggested one of the pilots of Flight 370 could have deliberately flown the aircraft into the Indian Ocean on a suicide mission, although there was no conclusive evidence to support this theory.

Throughout 2015 and 2016, debris from the aircraft washed ashore on the western Indian Ocean, but the fate of Flight 370 remains a mystery.

On July 17, 2014, four months after Flight 370 vanished, tragedy struck again for Malaysia Airlines, when one of its planes was shot down over eastern Ukraine near the Russian border. All 298 people aboard the aircraft, also a Boeing 777, perished. European and American officials believe Flight 17, which took off from Amsterdam and was en route to Kuala Lumpur, was downed by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile fired from territory controlled by Russian-backed separatists battling the Ukrainian government. The rebel leaders and President Vladimir Putin of Russia denied any responsibility for the incident.

9 th march 194


Burnden park disaster :
                                             Bolton Wanderers stadium disaster at Burnden Park, Bolton, England, kills 33 and injures hundreds more.
                     
On the 9th March 1946, 33 lives were lost and over 400 fans were injured in the Burnden Park disaster.  The game being played was the 2nd leg of the FA Cup Quarter-Final which was being contested between Bolton Wanderers and Stoke City.  The FA Cup games that season were being played over 2 legs to make up for the lack of league football which had yet to start after the Second World War.

There was much more interest in the competition than just the locals, because this was the first post-war FA Cup competition which had been competed for.  People also wanted the chance to see top players who were returning from the forces back to their clubs, Stokes’ Stanley Matthews being one of them.

Bolton fan’s would have been quite confident of progressing to the next round after winning the first leg 2-0 thanks to Ray Westwood scoring both goals.

An estimated crowd of over 85,000 people packed into the stadium.  This being 20,000 over the official capacity and dwarfing the previous highest attendance of 43,000 that Burnden Park had seen that season.  

The disaster happened at the Railway end of the ground, which was in a very poor state, like many other post-war grounds.  There was just a bank of dirt and a few slabs of flag stones acting as steps.

The overcrowding was enhanced further due to part of the Burnden Road Stand having yet to re-open after the Ministry of Supply requisitioned it for use as storage during the War.  In addition a set of turnstiles at the east end had been closed since 1940 meaning the crowd were all forced to enter the from one side of the embankment.

The turnstiles were closed 20 minutes prior to kick off, but by this point the stand was already overly full.  15,000 people were still outside many still managing to get in by climbing walls and entering a gate which had been left open by a father and son escaping the crush inside.

The game kicked off on schedule at 3PM, but minutes later it was halted as fans split onto the pitch.  The pitch was cleared but two barriers gave way which caused the fans to surge forward again, crushing those underneath.  Bill Cheeseman was at the game with his sister, who had wanted to see Stoke's Stanley Matthews. described how “All of a sudden those that were in front of us seemed to go – all falling down like a pack of cards.  We managed to get out and I was glad about that."

Nat Lofthouse was by the referee when the official, George Dutton, was informed of the horrendous news of what was happening behind one of the goals.  A police officer said “I Believe those people over there are dead” pointing to the bodies placed on the ground.  After the referee called the two captains, Bolton’s Harry Hubbick and Stoke’s Neil Franklin, both teams were taken off the pitch and the field began to look like a military hospital where the dead and injured were laid on it.

After half an hour the unpopular decision to continue with the game was made by the then Chief Constable of Bolton, W J Howard.  As the players were coming out with the bodies of the dead lying alongside the pitch covered with their coats, one of the spectators grabbed hold of a Stoke player and hurled abuse at him for continuing with the game.

A new sawdust lined touchline separated the players from the bodies.  There was no half time interval, the sides simply changed ends presumably to get the game finished.  The game finished 0-0.
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"It was a sad day," Lofthouse remembers. "But I think the referee did the right thing restarting the game. You couldn't think about kicking a football, your mind was on those poor people. They had died in the stand where I had used to climb in and if I'd not been a player it might have been me."

Stanley Matthews described the events, “As we trotted on to the pitch I noticed the crowd was tightly packed, but this was nothing unusual at a big cup-tie. Our boys began well, and after ten minutes we had reason to feel confident as we were having the best of the game. It then happened! There was a terrific roar from the crowd, and I glanced over my shoulder to see thousands of fans coming from the terracing behind the far goal on to the pitch.”  

A Home Office inquiry, chaired by Moelwyn Hughes, was launched to examine the events surrounding the disaster, but before the inquiry began the police, club officials and journalists were quick to pay the blame solely with the fans, stating holes had been torn in the fencing at the top of the embankment.  Rowley stated, “Holes have been torn in the fencing at the top of the embankment in almost every conceivable place.”  The Chief Constable alleged “There was no disorder … among those who gained entry in a legitimate manner.  The trouble began when hundreds of people broke down the fences on the railway embankment.” He also said the police were “overwhelmed by the thousands of people rushing to the fence”.

The disaster brought about the Moelwyn Hughes report which recommended more rigorous control of crowd sizes.  It also advised local authorities should inspect grounds with a capacity of 10,000 and safety limits should be in place for grounds holding 25,000 or more.  Turnstiles should mechanically record spectator numbers and grounds should have their own internal telephone systems.

Immediately after the tragedy a Disaster Fund was set up by the Mayor of Bolton to help the families of the dead and injured.  This raised £52,000 (about £2 million in today’s money), and was boosted by the proceeds from an international friendly between England and Scotland, playing out a 2-2 draw, at Maine Road on 24th August 1946, which sold out.

Bolton left Burnden Park in 1997 and Nat Lofthouse unveiled a memorial plaque in 2000 on the site of the old ground, which was now a supermarket.

10 th March 1876

                 First telephone call:
                                             The first successful test of a telephone is made by Alexander Graham Bell.

                               
March 10, 1876: 'Mr. Watson, Come Here ...'
1876: Alexander Graham Bell makes the first telephone call in his Boston laboratory, summoning his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, from the next room. The Scottish-born Bell had a lifelong interest in the nature of sound. He was born into a family of speech instructors, and his mother and his wife both had hearing impairments.




The Scottish-born Bell had a lifelong interest in the nature of sound. He was born into a family of speech instructors, and his mother and his wife both had hearing impairments. While ostensibly working in 1875 on a device to send multiple telegraph signals over the same wire by using harmonics, he heard a twang.


That led him to investigate whether his electrical apparatus could be used to transmit the sound of a human voice. Bell's journal, now at the Library of Congress, contains the following entry for March 10, 1876:

I then shouted into M [the mouthpiece] the following sentence: "Mr. Watson, come here -- I want to see you." To my delight he came and declared that he had heard and understood what I said.

I asked him to repeat the words. He answered, "You said 'Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to see you.'" We then changed places and I listened at S [the speaker] while Mr. Watson read a few passages from a book into the mouthpiece M. It was certainly the case that articulate sounds proceeded from S. The effect was loud but indistinct and muffled.

Watson's journal, however, says the famous quote was: "Mr. Watson come here I want you."


That disagreement, though, is trifling compared to the long controversy over whether Bell truly invented the telephone. Another inventor, Elisha Gray, was working on a similar device, and recent books claim that Bell not only stole Gray's ideas, but may even have bribed a patent examiner to let him sneak a look at Gray's filing.

After years of litigation, Bell's patents eventually withstood challenges from Gray and others -- perhaps by right, perhaps by virtue of bigger backers and better barristers. In that respect, the controversy recalls the patent battle over the telegraph and foreshadows later squabbles over the automobile, the airplane, the spreadsheet, online shopping carts, web-auction software, and the look and feel of operating systems.

One thing we know for sure: Mr. Watson was at work that day in Bell's lab. The telephone call did not interrupt his dinner with a special offer for home repairs or timeshare vacations in Florida.

                                                                                                           

Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates speaking into the telephone using a model prototype in 1876. (Early Office Museum)

11 th March 1702

First daily :
The Daily Courant, England's first national daily newspaper, is published for the first time.


March 11, 1702: First issue of the Daily Courant, England’s first national daily newspaper


The first edition of the Daily Courant, England’s first national daily newspaper, occurred on March 11, 321 years ago.

It was published by E. Mallet from the paper’s premises on Fleet Street, the London Boulevard which had been a centre of the printing industry since William Caxton’s contemporary Wynkyn de Worde set up business there in 1500.



The paper consisted of a single page with two columns and adverts on the back. The focus was on reporting foreign news.




Reading the Daily Courant


The Daily Courant pledged to “give news daily and impartially” and allow its readers to make up their own opinions: “Nor will [the Author] take it upon himself to give any Comments or Conjectures of his own, but will relate only Matter of Fact; supposing other People to have Sense enough to make Reflections for themselves.”

The paper published regularly until 1735, when it merged with the Daily Gazetteer. More information at Columbia Journalism Review and at Money Week.

There has been some controversy regarding who published the Daily Courant, with some sources pointing to Edward Mallet, others attributing it to Elizabeth Mallet, and some staying out of the dispute by giving credit to just E. Mallet. See A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life and TYCI for information on the subject.

12 th march 1950

LLandlow air disaster :
The Llandow air disaster kills 80 people when the aircraft they are travelling in crashes near Sigingstone, Wales. At the time this was the world's deadliest air disaster.


In the years after World War Two there was a surge in demand for air travel. Numerous private companies, many operating aircraft that had been sold off as surplus to requirements after the war, were established when people began to realise that travel by aeroplane really was something that was available to everyone, not just the rich.

In 1950 the Welsh rugby team was on the brink of its first Triple Crown for nearly 20 years. Victories over England and Scotland set up a deciding match with Ireland and thousands of Welsh supporters decided to make the trip across the Irish Sea to watch the game. Most travelled in the usual way, by boat from Holyhead or Fishguard.

However, a Cardiff entrepreneur called Harry Dunscombe planned to charter an aeroplane and, at £10 a ticket, fly from Llandow airfield in the Vale of Glamorgan to Dublin, especially for the game.

The aircraft Dunscombe hired was an Avro Tudor V, owned and operated by Fairflight Ltd in Buckinghamshire, a small company operating just a couple of planes. And Llandow field was certainly not a commercial airport. In fact it was an old RAF war time base, one that was still operating in a military capacity, and did not have facilities for passenger comfort or for essential requirements like weighing baggage.

The flight to Dublin on Saturday 11 March 1950 was piloted by Captain Parsons. The trip was uneventful and the passengers were soon making their way to Lansdowne Road to watch the match. Wales duly won an exciting and pulsating game of rugby and the 78 passengers, after a night in the bars of Dublin, arrived at Collinstown Aerodrome the next day just after lunch for the flight back to Llandow.

The return flight took just under an hour and, with dozens of friends and families waiting to welcome people home, the plane was soon spotted in the west, about two miles from Llandow airfield.

With its undercarriage down the aircraft seemed to be flying very low and then, when it was just half a mile away, the engines seemed to be suddenly boosted. There was a roar like thunder and the aircraft rose steeply about two or three hundred feet.

Then, before the horrified gaze of the spectators, the engines cut out. The plane dropped like a stone and fell into an adjacent field. After the crash there was a deathly silence before panic and utter pandemonium set in.

RAF rescue crews were hurriedly despatched from the nearby St Athan air base, as well as ambulances and fire tenders - although there was no fire - which came from Cardiff.

Three survivors, cut and bleeding, had already staggered from the wreck and 10 more were quickly pulled, alive, from the fuselage of the Avro Tudor. Unfortunately they later died in hospital and when the casualty figures were finally put together it was only the three men first out of the plane who had survived. They had been sitting together in adjacent seats at the rear of the aircraft and must be regarded as three of the luckiest men on the planet.

One of the three survivors was Handel Rogers. Traumatised by the crash, he vowed that in the future he make every second of his life count for something special - and he did. He became president of the Welsh Rugby Union.

Many of the dead came from the Monmouthshire area of Wales, and several villages lost three or four of their inhabitants. It was a tragedy on a national scale and the Western Mail organised a disaster fund that soon raised over £40,000 for the families and the bereaved communities.

In total 75 passengers and five crew members died in the Llandow Air Disaster. It was, at the time, the worst accident in British aviation history.

A court of enquiry was held in Cardiff a few months later, lasting for eight days. All sorts of rumours had been rife, including one that passengers had been singing and dancing in the aisles as the aircraft came in to land. This report was duly squashed at the enquiry but no firm or clear causes of the accident were ever established.

One possible cause, it was decided, might have been uneven loading of luggage - certainly extra baggage had been taken on at Dublin and with no weighing facilities at Llandow it was never clear how much extra weight the plane was carrying.

In the years after the Llandow air disaster many more commercial airports were established in Britain, Rhoose Airport - later renamed Cardiff International Airport - being just one of them. And whether or not extra baggage contributed to the crash, the weighing of luggage has been a crucial factor in air travel ever since.

13 th March 1996

Dunblane :
The Dunblane massacre leads to the death of sixteen primary school children and one teacher in Dunblane, Scotland.

On the morning of March 13, 1996, teachers and children of Dunblane Primary School in Scotland prepared for a normal day. Instead, a 43-year-old gunman named Thomas Hamilton entered the grounds and committed what is now known as the Dunblane massacre, the most devastating school shooting in the history of the U.K.


By the time the gunfire stopped, 15 students and one teacher were dead. One more student would later die on the way to the hospital. Another 12 students had been critically wounded. Hamilton was also dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The first modern mass shooting in the U.K. happened in 1987 and led to a raft of gun legislation, including banning semi-automatic weapons and establishing mandatory registration for shotgun owners. But Dunblane was different. These were children.

Mourning families and traumatized residents wasted no time in calling for stricter gun control. And by the end of 1997, British parliament would effectively ban all handguns from private use. Learn more about this tragic school shooting utterly changed gun ownership law in the U.K.


The Dunblane Massacre
When Thomas Hamilton entered Dunblane Primary School, in Dunblane, Scotland, he did so with four handguns and 743 rounds of ammunition. He initially fired two shots into the assembly hall and the girls’ bathroom, before turning his attention toward the gym — where 28 children were readying for class.


The later government inquiry found that Hamilton “fired indiscriminately and in rapid succession.” He first hit three teachers, including 43-year-old mother Gwen Mayor who died protecting her students. After wounding several children and killing one, he “walked in a semicircle, systematically firing 16 shots.”

Hamilton was simply walking toward each child of his choosing and shot one round into each at point-blank range. Leaving the gym, he sprayed a hail of bullets at anyone running through the hall, before entering a classroom.


“I looked over and saw the gunman,” said Steven Hopper, who was 11 years old at the time of the Dunblane massacre. “He was coming toward me, so I just dived under my desk when he turned and fired at us. The firing was very fast, like someone hitting a hammer quickly. Then there was a few seconds of pause and he started again.”

Hamilton then returned to the gym, fired indiscriminately into classrooms and closets as walked. When he got back to the gym, he shot himself in the head.

The Dunblane Massacre Shooter
Thomas Hamilton’s rampage lasted no longer than four minutes, but by the time it was over the casualties totaled 32 — 16 students and one teacher were dead, and another 12 students and three staff members were wounded. And Hamilton was dead. He had fired over 100 bullets before police and parents arrived at the scene.


Almost immediately, parents began asking why Hamilton had been able to obtain his firearms. He had been known since the mid-1970s as a paranoid and resentful man, who bore a grudge against several prominent members of the community for insinuating inappropriate behavior towards young boys.

Police never uncovered any evidence for illegal behavior through their own investigations, nor did those of the city council and school district. But Hamilton claimed he had lost business in his kitchen-fitting company as a result of being labeled a “pervert.”

The inquiry into the shooting released in October 1996 also showed that because of his known grievances, police had raised questions about his fitness to own firearms as early as 1991, yet still renewed his licence every year. That revelation may have been the last straw for parents.


The End Of Shootings In The U.K.
In 1987, the nation suffered its first modern mass shooting. A gunman in Hungerford, England killed 16 people, including a police officer, in several locations around the city. This led to the U.K.’s first modern gun restrictions in 1988, which banned pump action and self-loading rifles.


But after Dunblane, it only took a couple of months for outraged and determined residents of Dunblane to rally around far stricter gun reform. They launched the Snowdrop Campaign, named after a spring flower that was in bloom in March 1996, and gathered over 1 million signatures for their cause by the end of the year.


Parliament acted fast, and passed legislation banning private ownership of all handguns larger than .22 caliber in February 1997. An addendum in December extended that law to virtually all handguns of any kind, with exceptions for guns of historic or aesthetic value, sporting starter and flare guns, and airsoft pistols.

It also added further security strictures, making it harder for anyone to pass ownership requirements.

Following these regulations, gun deaths in the United Kingdom plummeted. The Dunblane massacre was the last school shooting in Great Britain.

And in 2018, following the Parkland, Florida school shooting of 2018, survivors of the Dunblane massacres wrote their Floridian brethren a letter in solidarity.

14 th March 1964


Jack Ruby :
Jack Ruby is convicted of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the assumed assassin of John F. Kennedy.


What Motivated Jack Ruby?

On November 24, 1963, Jack Ruby (1911-1967), a 52-year-old Dallas nightclub operator, stunned America when he shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald (1939-1963), the accused assassin of President John Kennedy (1917-1963). Two days earlier, on November 22, Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. Oswald, a 24-year-old warehouse worker, was soon arrested for the president’s murder. On November 24, as the suspect was being transferred from the city jail to the county jail, Ruby stepped out of a crowd of onlookers and gunned down the younger man. The event was witnessed by millions of Americans on live television. Ruby, a Chicago native with a shadowy past, was convicted of murder in 1964. He claimed he had acted out of grief and denied any involvement in a conspiracy. In 1966 Ruby’s conviction was overturned; however, while waiting for a new trial, he died of cancer.

Who Was Jack Ruby?
Jacob Rubenstein, later known as Jack Ruby, was born in Chicago in 1911, the son of Polish immigrants. Official records list conflicting dates for Ruby’s birth; however, he used March 25, 1911, on his driver’s license.


Did you know? In 2009, the gray fedora worn by Jack Ruby when he shot Lee Harvey Oswald sold for $53,775 at a Dallas auction. The shackles Ruby wore when dying at Dallas’ Parkland Memorial Hospital sold for over $11,000, while an X-ray of Ruby's head went for more than $700.

Ruby, one of eight siblings, had a troubled childhood in Chicago and spent time in foster care. He never graduated from high school and spent years working odd jobs, including as a door-to-door salesman and ticket scalper. During World War II, Ruby served in the Army Air Forces, working as an aircraft mechanic at U.S. bases. By the late 1940s, he had moved to Dallas, where he became a small-time operator in the world of nightclubs and gambling. He also racked up a series of arrests for minor offenses.

Ruby had fringe connections to organized crime and a reputation as a name-dropper and publicity seeker. He never married and possessed no known political affiliations.

The Kennedy Assassination
On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline (1929-1994) were riding with Texas Governor John Connally (1917-1993) and his wife in an open limousine in a presidential motorcade through downtown Dallas. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald, who had started working at the building the previous month, allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding the 46-year-old president and seriously injuring Governor Connally. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Memorial Hospital. Less than an hour after Kennedy was shot, Oswald killed a policeman, J.D. Tippit (1924-1963), who questioned him on the street near his Dallas rooming house. A short time later, police arrested Oswald, a Louisiana native and ex-Marine who lived for a time in the Soviet Union, at a movie theater. He denied killing Tippit and Kennedy, but was soon arraigned on charges of murdering both men.


Jack Ruby Kills Lee Harvey Oswald
On November 24, a crowd of reporters, policemen and camera crews gathered to watch as Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas city jail en route to a waiting car scheduled to transfer him to the county jail. As a handcuffed Oswald, flanked by detectives, came into view, Jack Ruby, stocky, balding and wearing a dark suit and gray fedora, lunged forward from the crowd. At approximately 11:20 a.m., Ruby fatally wounded Oswald with a single shot to the abdomen from a concealed .38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver. Television cameras captured the attack, which was witnessed live by Americans across the country. The shooter, wrestled to the ground by police, shouted, “You all know me. I’m Jack Ruby.”Oswald was rushed to Parkland Hospital, where he soon died in surgery. Ruby, charged with murder, claimed he killed Oswald so Jacqueline Kennedy wouldn’t have to return to Dallas for a trial.

Jack Ruby’s Conviction and Death
At his high-profile trial, Jack Ruby was defended pro bono by prominent California attorney Melvin Belli (1907-1996), who argued that psychomotor epilepsy had caused Ruby to mentally black out and subconsciously shoot Oswald, and that due to this condition he should be treated with leniency. However, on March 14, 1964, after deliberating for just over two hours, a jury found Ruby guilty of murder with malice and sentenced him to death by the electric chair. Belli expressed outrage at the verdict and claimed that Ruby, a Jew, was a victim of discrimination.In October 1966, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction on the grounds of improper admission of testimony and the fact that Ruby could not have received a fair trial in Dallas at the time due to excessive publicity. A new trial was scheduled to take place in Wichita Falls, Texas, in February 1967. However, on December 9, 1966, Ruby was admitted to Parkland Hospital (the same place where Kennedy and Oswald had died) with pneumonia. Soon after, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. On January 3, 1967, he died at age 55 from a blood clot in his lung.

What Motivated Jack Ruby?
Some people lauded Jack Ruby as a hero for killing the president’s alleged assassin, while others believed he murdered Oswald to keep him from revealing a larger conspiracy. Ruby contended he had acted impulsively out of grief and denied being part of any conspiracy. (Life magazine reported that Ruby often carried a handgun and that, on the day of the Oswald murder, the nightclub owner had left his dog in the car outside the police building as if he planned to return shortly.) Other explanations for Ruby’s actions have been suggested, including the idea that he wanted to be a hero, that he was under the influence of prescription drugs, and that he had money troubles and therefore nothing to lose.The official 1964 report of the Warren Commission, established by President Lyndon Johnson (1908-1973) in late November 1963, concluded that neither Oswald nor Ruby was part of a greater conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. However, despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1979 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a report that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple gunmen. The committee’s findings, like those of the Warren Commission, continue to be disputed.

15 th March 44 B.C

The Ides of March :
The assassination of Julius Caesar takes place on the Ides of March.


Beware the Ides of March. (But Why?)

Everybody remembers that the Ides of March was the day Julius Caesar was assassinayed ,but what does it mean, and why that day?

On this day in 44 BCE, Dictator for Life Gaius Julius Caesar was assassinated by members of the Roman Senate, stabbed 23 times in what the conspirators believed was an act that would save the Republic and stop Caesar’s advancement toward becoming the King of Rome. This day, on the Roman calendar of the time, was the Ides of March. What does “Ides” mean? Why that day? And what was the Julian Calendar all about, anyway?

Up until the year before Caesar’s death, the Roman calendar was a bit of a disaster, at least if you were trying to use it for things like “what season is it,” “when do I plant my wheat,” or “when should the pigs be suckled”? These examples may seem simplistic, but it’s important to remember that the Roman Republic was at its heart an agrarian society: when soldiers retired, they were given farmland to work. Cincinnatus, a legendary elder statesman and hero of the Republic, would serve as needed in times of military warfare and plebeian uprisings, but would always return to his farm, inspiring George Washington and other Revolutionary War figures to idealize an agrarian United States.



A reproduction of the Fasti Antiates Maiores, a painted wall-calendar from the late Roman Republic

The origins and underlying logic of the early Roman calendar are a bit murky: legend is that Romulus, the founder of Rome, created a lunar calendar based on observation of the moon’s phases. A later innovation imposed a 9 day week (where the last day of the week was also the first day of the next week, because Romans loved counting things inclusively), and 10 months of 30 or 31 days each. It appears that the winter was just…ignored, which may seem baffling to us, but for a culture whose primary functions were farming, and later military campaigns, it may well have made sense. (This later calendar was also retroactively attributed to Romulus.)

By the time Julius Caesar began his political career, the calendar had undergone enough changes that it begins to resemble our own: 12 months of either 31 or 29 days on a four year cycle, with a month added in years 2 and 4, and February being either 28, 23, or 24 days. It was this calendar that controlled the economic, religious, and civic life of the Republic, and each day had a status attached to it: whether it was permissible or prohibited to bring cases to court, or conduct government business.

If anyone was truly familiar with the messiness of the Roman calendar, it was Julius Caesar.
One consistency in the calendars was how days were counted: 3 “landmark” days were present in each month: the kalends (the first), the nones (the 9th day of the month, inclusive, which was really the 5th or 7th day depending on whether you had 29 or 31 days in that month), and the ides (the 15th or 13th day, inclusive.) These were believed to have been based on the original lunar calendar.

If anyone was truly familiar with the messiness of the Roman calendar, it was Julius Caesar. As the high priest (pontifex maximus) of Rome since 63 BCE, he was well acquainted with the hodgepodge of a calendar based on the sun and the moon, and requiring the intercalation of days and months to get it back in line every few years. He also knew well that the religious life of the Republic required that any major reforms not disrupt the schedules of festivals and sacrifices. Because religion and state were in design and practice the same entity, interfering with rituals and/or displeasing the gods would bring nothing but disfavor to the people of Rome.

Having won the recent Civil War against Pompey and seemingly unchallenged, Caesar made the needed changes. To avoid the wrath of the gods, and get the new calendar to sync up with the seasons, he extended the year 46 BCE to 445 days, which became known as the “last year of confusion.” On January 1, 45 BCE the Julian calendar became the standard for the Republic, the Empire and much of the West until Pope Gregory’s tweaking of leap years in 1562.

While it’s commonly believed that the date of Caesar’s assassination was one chosen based on expediency and proximity—he would be leaving three days later for a potentially long military campaign against Parthia, and the Senate would meet on the Ides, thus putting Caesar within reach of the conspirators—one scholar argues that the date was also one that held symbolic meaning for Brutus, Cassius and the other assassins, and that the calendar reform may have been a “last straw” for them, symbolizing the rejection of the sacred traditions of Rome, the mos maiorum, not unlike if a US president were to sit during the National Anthem.

The first day of civil year in the old Roman calendar was, yes, the Ides of March. C.J. Simpson writes that the Julian reform of the calendar didn’t just make Roman officials lives difficult in 46 BCE (see: the 445 day year), but also curtailed the power of the rex sacrorum, a lifetime official who was responsible for keeping track of festivals, making sacrifices and announcing when the next month would begin. It was more ceremonial than anything, but held prestige among the patricians who were eligible to hold it. However, with the dates of months and festivals now fixed, the role of this office would be much reduced.

16 th march 1978


Amaco Cadiz disaster:
Supertanker Amoco Cadiz splits in two after running aground on the Portsall Rocks, three miles off the coast of Brittany, resulting in the largest oil spill in history at that time.


AMOCO CADIZ, France, 1978
Incident
The tanker AMOCO CADIZ ran aground off the coast of Brittany on 16th March 1978 following a steering gear failure. Over a period of two weeks the entire cargo of 223,000 tonnes of light Iranian and Arabian crude oil and 4,000 tonnes of bunker fuel was released into heavy seas. Much of the oil quickly formed a viscous water-in-oil emulsion, increasing the volume of pollutant by up to five times. By the end of April oil and emulsion had contaminated 320km of the Brittany coastline, and had extended as far east as the Channel Islands.

Strong winds and heavy seas prevented an effective offshore recovery operation. All told, less than 3,000 tonnes of dispersants were used. Some chalk was also used as a sinking agent, but with the consequence of transferring part of the problem to the sea bed. The at-sea response did little to reduce shoreline oiling. A wide variety of shore types were affected, including sandy beaches, cobble and shingle shores, rocks, seawalls and jetties, mudflats and saltmarshes. Removal of bulk free oil trapped against the shore using skimmers proved difficult, largely due to problems with seaweed and debris mixed with the oil. Greater success was achieved with vacuum trucks and agricultural vacuum units, although much of the free oil was simply removed by hand by more than 7,000 personnel (mainly military). A considerable portion of the oil that did come ashore eventually became buried in sediments and entrapped in the low energy salt marshes and estuaries.

At the time, the AMOCO CADIZ incident resulted in the largest loss of marine life ever recorded after an oil spill. Two weeks after the accident, millions of dead molluscs, sea urchins and other benthic species washed ashore. Although echinoderm and small crustacean populations almost completely disappeared from some areas, populations of many species had recovered within a year. Diving birds constituted the majority of the nearly 20,000 dead birds that were recovered. Oyster cultivation in the estuaries ("Abers") was seriously affected and an estimated 9,000 tonnes were destroyed because of contamination and to safeguard market confidence. Other shell and fin fisheries as well as seaweed gathering were seriously affected in the short-term, as was tourism.

Cleanup activities on rocky shores, such as pressure-washing, as well as trampling and sediment removal on salt marshes caused biological impacts. Whilst rocky shores recovered relatively quickly, the salt marshes took many years. Failure to remove oil from temporary oil collection pits on some soft sediment shorelines before inundation by the incoming tide also resulted in longer-term contamination. Numerous cleanup and impact lessons were learned from the AMOCO CADIZ incident, and it still remains one of the most comprehensively studied oil spills in history.

17 th March 1979

The Penmanshiel tunnel :
The Penmanshiel Tunnel collapses during engineering works, killing two workers.

Penmanshiel Tunnel is a now-disused railway tunnel near Grantshouse, Berwickshire, in the Scottish Borders region of Scotland. It was formerly part of the East Coast Main Line between Berwick-upon-Tweed and Dunbar.

Upgrading work
Work was being carried out to increase the internal dimension of the tunnel to allow intermodal containers 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) in height to travel through it on flat wagons. This was done by lowering the track, in a process involving removing the existing track and ballast, digging out the floor of the tunnel and then laying new track set on a concrete base.

As the tunnel was on a very busy main line, and in order to minimise the disruption to passenger and freight services, it was decided that each of the two tracks through the tunnel would be renewed separately, with trains continuing to run on the adjacent open track.

Work was completed on the "Up" (southbound) track by 10 March 1979, and trains were then transferred to this track by the following day, to allow the "Down" (northbound) track to be modified.

Tunnel collapse
Shortly before 3:45 a.m. on 17 March 1979, the duty Railway Works Inspector noticed some small pieces of rock flaking away from the tunnel wall, approximately 90 metres (300 ft) from the southern portal. He decided that it would be wise to shore up the affected piece of the tunnel and was making his way towards the site office to arrange this when he heard the sound of the tunnel collapsing behind him.

It is estimated that approximately 20 metres (66 ft) of the tunnel arch collapsed, with the resultant rock fall filling 30 metres (98 ft) of the tunnel from floor to roof and totally enveloping a dumper truck and a JCB, along with the two men operating them. The thirteen other people working inside the tunnel at the time of the collapse were able to escape successfully, but despite the efforts of rescuers (including a specialised mine rescue team) it was not possible to reach the two operators or to recover their bodies

18 th March 1834

  The Tolpuddle martyrs :
                                   Six farm labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset, England are sentenced to be transported to Australia for forming a trade union.

                         
The extraordinary story of Dorset's Tolpuddle Martyrs

In March 1834 the Tolpuddle Martyrs were sentenced to transportation. We follow their story and reveal why criminal records are a valuable resource  


If your ancestors were ordinary working people, chances are they will be largely absent from many historical records and sources. However, if they broke the law then their criminal records can reveal a great deal of information about them as well as their everyday lives and local communities. One infamous group of Dorset ‘law breakers’ are remembered in a festival held every July in the village of Tolpuddle. And it’s their story we are going to follow.  

‘We raise the watchword, liberty. We will, we will, we will be free!’

George Loveless, 1834, written from prison

In early 1834, a group of agricultural labourers in Tolpuddle decided to make a stand. They were earning a meagre wage, not enough to survive on, and the threat of pay cuts were always imminent. One of these rural renegades, George Loveless, had the idea to form a union and increase their bargaining power.  

The Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum website (tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk) describes how Loveless, and his fellow agricultural labourers, planned to gather support from other farm workers across the area before confronting their employers. ‘To build the union they needed to win members and collect the pennies in subscriptions, so they had more strength in numbers. To bind workers together in this common approach they used an oath of solidarity. New members were asked to pledge their support to the society and their fellow workers with their hand on a bible and looking at a picture of a skeleton.’  

Landowners, as well as the government, were alarmed as this potential uprising (the Swing Riots only happened four years earlier), and the forming of a union. And so, they decided to stop this rural revolution in its tracks by arresting the six Tolpuddle men they saw as the ringleaders: George Loveless and his brother James, James Hammett, James Brine, Thomas Standfield (the Loveless’ brother in-law) and his son John. On February 24th 1834 they were arrested, and tried at Dorchester Assizes the following month; this was held at Shire Hall now home of the Shire Hall Museum. The six, who became known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, were prosecuted using a little known law of 1797, which prohibited people from swearing oaths as members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. The judge, Sir John Williams, sentenced them to seven years’ transportation to Australia.    

                     

Illustration of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, a group of six Dorset agricultural labourers who in March 1834 were convicted of swearing a secret oath as members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers (Image: World History Archive/ Alamy Stock Photo)

19 th March 1982

The Falklands:
Falklands War: Argentinian forces land on South Georgia Island, precipitating war with the United Kingdom.


On This Day – Argentines Land on South Georgia in Trigger for Falklands War

On this day in 1982, a group of Argentines landed at Leith Harbour in South Georgia on the British colony of the Falkland Islands, and planted their nation’s flag to reassert their sovereignty claim to the island. A man called Davidoff and 41 workers landed in South Georgia, which is situated approximately 1,400 miles east of the Falklands archipelago off the Argentine coast.

The men were understood to have had a commercial contract to remove scrap metal, but as soon as British intelligence heard of their landing, they were asked to leave immediately and seek formal British permission to work on the island. The men left, but it turned out that this was a test of British behaviour to determine how they would respond to the threat of Argentine forces arriving uninvited.

At the end of March, a small invasion force of nearly 1,000 men returned to capture the island. This became the trigger for the beginning of the Falklands War that ran from 2 April to 14 June 1982. The Argentines believed that the Falkland Islands belonged to them as they had been discovered first by an unnamed Spanish ship in the 1540’s. The war saw almost 1,000 men killed from the British and Argentine forces. It ended in British victory after Argentina surrendered, returning the Falkland Islands to British control.

20 th March 1993


The Warrington bombing :
The Troubles: A Provisional IRA bomb kills two children in Warrington, England. It leads to mass protests in both Britain and Ireland.

What happened on the day of the Warrington bombings.

March 20 marks the 30th anniversary of the IRA attack on Warrington town centre.


It killed Johnathan Ball and Tim Parry and left more than 50 injured.

It followed an attack on the Winwick Road gas works a month earlier.

Here’s what happened when two bombs exploded in the town centre and the events leading up to the attack.


Police constable Mark Toker stop-checked three men in a white Mazda van in Sankey Street shortly after midnight: PC Mark Toker, who was shot three times after stopping the terrorists

The 25-year-old was shot three times in the leg and back.

The married father-of-one from Wigan was taken to Warrington Hospital for emergency treatment and a police dragnet was launched.

The gang commandeered a white Ford Escort and imprisoned driver Lee Wright in the boot around 12.50am.

They set off for Manchester, the gunman firing at pursuing police cars.

Mr Wright attempted to immobilise his own car, pulling a petrol gauge indicator wire.

The gang pulled up on the M62 around 1.50am, perhaps believing they were out of petrol. The men fled up an embankment.

A police dog cornered the gunman and another man was arrested but the third man escaped.

Three devices exploded at the Winwick Road gasworks at 4.10am, destroying a gasometer, which caused a 1,000ft high fireball.

The bombs failed to destroy five million cubic feet of gas in surrounding tanks and a major disaster was averted.

Nearby residents were evacuated and took shelter at St Ann’s Primary School.

Pairic MacFhloinn, aged 40, and Denis Kinsella, aged 25, were later jailed for 35 years and 25 years respectively for their part in the bombing mission and John Kinsella, aged 49, was sentenced to 20 years for possessing Semtex explosives that he hid for the IRA cell.

The third man in the car, Michael Timmins, was never caught.


Saturday, March 20, 1993
The Samaritans received a coded warning at 11.58am about a bomb outside a Boots chemist shop in Liverpool, 16 miles from Warrington.

Merseyside Police responded to the warning and informed Cheshire Police but there was no time to evacuate Warrington town centre.

IT was a day Warrington residents will never forget.

Two bombs, hidden in separate cast-iron litter bins, exploded on Bridge Street just after 12.25pm, the first outside a British Gas showroom and the second near Argos and Boots.

The first explosion drove panicking shoppers into the path of the next blast just seconds later, with police describing the bins and shrapnel as ‘huge hand grenades’.

Buses were organised to ferry people away from the scene and 20 paramedics, some on motorcycles, were sent to administer on the spot treatment.


Crews from 17 ambulances dealt with casualties and a team of four plastic surgeons travelled to Warrington Hospital from the regional burns unit at Whiston Hospital, Knowsley.

Johnathan Ball, who was in town with his babysitter buying a Mother’s Day Card, was killed at the scene.

Tim Parry was caught in the full force of the blast and died five days later in hospital.

56 other people were injured, including Bronwen Vickers, aged 33.

Senior police said they believed the later attack was a reprisal for the police’s success after the gasworks blast.

Nobody has been brought to justice for the second Warrington bombing.


November 1996
The River of Life memorial artwork is opened on Bridge Street.

The memorial to the victims was opened by the Duchess of Kent in April 1996.

Warrington Guardian: Man charged with attempts to steal River of Life plaque
Backed by former Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam, a fundraising campaign is launched to build the town’s Peace Centre.

The campaign was launched at a special service to mark the fifth anniversary of the attacks on the town.

March 20, 2000
Following years of campaigning, the town’s Peace Centre opens in Great Sankey. A festival was held to mark the occasion.

July 2000
The National Lottery invests £250,000 in the centre, the biggest at the time, to help launch a new project at the Peace Centre. The funding for over three years was to help identify Britain-based victims and survivor and pinpoint their individual needs.

December 2001
IRA chief Martin McGuinness apologised to the families of the children killed in the bomb attack.

Warrington Guardian: Former IRA commander says Bridge Street bombing was shameful
A landmark meeting finally took place between Mr McGuinness and the families of Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball.

July 2004
Wilf Ball, the father of Johnathan Ball, dies aged 71.

Found at his home in Grappenhall he had visited Johnathan’s grave almost everyday before his death.

Warrington Guardian: Wilf Ball ay Johnathan's grave
March 2009
Johnathan’s mum Marie Comerford died suddenly aged 53.

The coroner ruled she had died of a broken heart.

She moved from Warrington to Wales after the bombing but had returned to the town in later life.


March 20, 2018
A commemoration service was held on Bridge Street to remember the two young boys killed and the many more injured.

Princess Anne attended the memorial event.

Many people from across the town took part in the Colours for Peace Day to pay their respects.

March 20, 2023
A memorial service is due to be held on Bridge Street to mark the 30th anniversary.

Former PM John Major is set to be the guest of honour.

21 st March 1952


First Rock n Roll concert :
Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio.



The Moondog Coronation Ball is history’s first rock concert.

Breathless promotion on the local radio station. Tickets selling out in a single day. Thousands of teenagers, hours before show time, lining up outside the biggest venue in town. The scene outside the Cleveland Arena on a chilly Friday night in March 70 years ago would look quite familiar to anyone who has ever attended a major rock concert. But no one on this particular night had ever even heard of a “rock concert.” This, after all, was the night of an event now recognized as history’s first major rock-and-roll show: the Moondog Coronation Ball, held in Cleveland on March 21, 1952.

The “Moondog” in question was the legendary disk jockey Alan Freed, the self-styled “father of rock and roll” who was then the host of the enormously popular “Moondog Show” on Cleveland AM radio station WJW. Freed had joined WJW in 1951 as the host of a classical-music program, but he took up a different kind of music at the suggestion of Cleveland record-store owner Leo Mintz, who had noted with great interest the growing popularity, among young customers of all races, of rhythm-and-blues records by black musicians. Mintz decided to sponsor three hours of late-night programming on WJW to showcase rhythm-and-blues music, and Alan Freed was installed as host. Freed quickly took to the task, adopting a new, hip persona and vocabulary that included liberal use of the phrase “rock and roll” to describe the music he was now promoting. As the program grew in popularity, Mintz and Freed decided to do something that had never been done: hold a live dance event featuring some of the artists whose records were appearing on Freed’s show. Dubbed “The Moondog Coronation Ball,” the event was to feature headliners Paul Williams and his Hucklebuckers and Tiny Grimes and the Rocking Highlanders (a black instrumental group that performed in Scottish kilts). In the end, however, the incredible popular demand for tickets proved to be the event’s undoing.


Helped along by massive ticket counterfeiting and possibly by overbooking on the part of the event’s sponsors, an estimated 20,000-25,000 fans turned out for an event being held in an arena with a capacity of only 10,000. Less than an hour into the show, the massive overflow crowd broke through the gates that were keeping them outside, and police quickly moved in to stop the show almost as soon as it began. On the radio the very next evening, Alan Freed offered an apology to listeners who had tried to attend the canceled event. By way of explanation, Freed said: “If anyone…had told us that some 20 or 25,000 people would try to get into a dance—I suppose you would have been just like me. You would have laughed and said they were crazy.”

22 nd March 2017


Westminster bridge terror attack :
A terrorist attack in London near the Houses of Parliament leaves four people dead and at least 20 injured.



Four people have died, including a police officer, and at least 20 people have been injured in a major terror attack outside the Houses of Parliament, the Metropolitan police have confirmed.

Mark Rowley, the head of counter-terrorism at the Met, said a police officer had died after being stabbed by a lone attacker attempting to enter the House of Commons. The suspect was shot and killed.

Four people including a police officer and his attacker have been killed in two related incidents outside the Houses of Parliament and on Westminster Bridge in what Scotland Yard are treating as a terrorist incident.
Moments earlier, at about 2.40pm, the attacker drove a vehicle at speed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, near parliament, killing two people.

Rowley said at least 20 people, including three officers, were hurt in the attack on the bridge. A diplomatic source told Reuters three French students were among the injured.

“This is a day we’ve planned for but hoped would never happen. Sadly it’s now a reality,” Rowley said. “The attack started when a car was driven over Westminster Bridge hitting and injuring a number of members of the public, also including three police officers on their way back from a commendation ceremony.

“The car then crashed near to parliament and at least one man armed with a knife continued the attack and tried to enter parliament.

“Sadly, I can confirm that four people have died. That includes the police officer protecting parliament and one man we believe to be the attacker, who was shot by a police firearms officer. The officer’s family have been made aware. At least 20 people have been injured.” One woman is believed to have been thrown over the bridge into the river Thames – and later pulled alive from the water – while another fell on to a hard surface below the bridge.

The vehicle came to a halt on the pavement, up against railings to the north of New Palace Yard, the green space adjacent to Big Ben, opposite an entrance to Westminster tube station.

A man with a knife was then seen running through the gates of the Palace of Westminster, across New Palace Yard and stabbing a police officer. The attacker continued his rampage, targeting a second officer, according to witnesses, but was shot by police as he approached the second officer clutching his knife.

In the aftermath of the attack, the Foreign Officer minister Tobias Ellwood reportedly helped treat the injured officer. The Bournemouth MP, a former soldier, was pictured helping the police officer in Parliament Square. His brother Jonathan was killed in the 2002 Bali terror attack.

Colleen Anderson, a junior doctor, said a female pedestrian had died. She also said she treated a police officer in his 30s with a head injury who had been taken to King’s College hospital. “I confirmed one fatality. A woman. She was under the wheel of a bus. She died, confirmed her death at the scene,” she said.


The prime minister was expected to chair a meeting of the government’s emergency Cobra committee on Wednesday evening. A Downing Street spokesman said: “The thoughts of the PM and the government are with those killed and injured in this appalling incident, and with their families. The PM is being kept updated and will shortly chair COBR.”

Theresa May was in the Commons lobby when the incident occurred, according to the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt. He was with other ministers in a cabinet sub-committee when they were told of the incident.

Commander BJ Harrington, head of the Met’s public order command, said a full counter-terrorism investigation was under way. Harrington said the Met received a number of different reports, which included a report of a person in the river, a car in collision with pedestrians and a man armed with a knife.

The acting Met commissioner, Craig Mackey, was being treated as a key witness because he was on the scene when the attack began.

Police asked people to avoid the following areas: Parliament Square, Whitehall, Westminster Bridge, Lambeth Bridge, Victoria Street up to the junction with Broadway, and the Victoria Embankment up to Embankment tube.

The Commons leader, David Lidington, told MPs in the moments after the attack that a police officer had been stabbed” and the “alleged assailant was shot by armed police” following a serious incident within the parliamentary estate.



Pictures emerged after the incident showing people lying injured on Westminster Bridge, some of them bleeding.

Two people could be seen lying within New Palace Yard, immediately outside Westminster Hall. The sitting in the House of Commons was suspended while police officers sealed off the area. Staff inside parliament were told to stay inside their offices.

Minutes after the incident, an emergency services helicopter landed in Parliament Square, as sirens were heard outside. Air ambulance medics came from the helicopter to assist the casualties.

Immediately before the incident, at about 2.45pm, people were seen running from the direction of Westminster Bridge and around the corner into Parliament Square.

Rob Lyon, 34, from Rugby, was walking along Westminster Bridge with a colleague when he saw a 4x4 vehicle travelling at high-speed, hitting pedestrians. He said: “I heard a wheel definitely hit a kerb, quite a loud crunch noise. I looked up and saw a car clearly hitting people as it came towards me.

“A colleague I was with, James, I heard him sort of shout. I instinctively jumped off the pavement. I could see people being hit. And then the car just carried on up the bridge and I just looked around and was really in shock.”

Radoslaw Sikorski captured the aftermath of the attack on Westminster Bridge on video. Sikorski, a senior fellow at the Harvard Centre for European Studies, said: “I heard what I thought was just a collision and then I looked through the window of the taxi and [saw] someone down, obviously in great distress.”

Rick Longley said he saw the car crash into the railings and a man leap out. “We were just walking up to the station and there was a loud bang and a guy, someone, crashed a car and took some pedestrians out,” he said. “They were just laying there and then the whole crowd just surged around the corner by the gates just opposite Big Ben.

“A guy came past my right shoulder with a big knife and just started plunging it into the policeman.”

Pat McCormack, 21, from Washington in Tyne and Wear saw an attacker stabbing the police officer. “I saw him stabbing the officer in the back of the head and the back of the neck. He was running away but then he collapsed.”

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said: “There’s been an extremely serious incident in parliament today. Lives have been lost and people have been seriously injured. I want to thank the police and all the security services who did so much to keep the public, those who work in parliament and MPs safe. Our thoughts are with those who have suffered loss and those who have seen terrible injuries this afternoon.”

Steve White, the chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, which represents tens of thousands of rank-and-file officers, said: “No words can capture how members of the policing family will feel after today’s horrific events. We have lived in the knowledge that an attack on UK soil has been highly likely for nearly three years. Everyone is firmly aware of this fact, but it makes it no less shocking when it becomes a reality.

“This incident highlights the very real risks that police face each and every day. Officers will tonight take the opportunity to hug loved ones and seek comfort in the company of friends and family. But one will not. The pain of that officer’s family, friends and colleagues will be shared by us all.

“Our hearts go out to their family and our thoughts are with them and their colleagues at this terrible time along with others who have been injured today.”

The incident took place a year to the day after the terror attack on Brussels, which killed 32 people and left 320 injured.

23 rd March 2020

First lockdown :
Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the United Kingdom into its first national lockdown in response to COVI-19.

WHAT WAS CLAIMED
The lockdown began on 16 March 2020, when Matt Hancock told the House of Commons that all unnecessary social contact should cease.

OUR VERDICT
Mr Hancock did say this, but it was not until 23 March 2020 that Boris Johnson told the country that people ‘must’ stay at home and certain businesses must close. Government ministers have previously described this second date as the start of lockdown. There is no official government definition of ‘lockdown’.

“The 16th of March is the day that I came to this House and said that all unnecessary social contact should cease. That is precisely when the lockdown was started.”

MATT HANCOCK, 16 JULY 2020.
Matt Hancock, the health and social care secretary, has claimed that the Covid-19 lockdown in the UK began on 16 March 2020, when he told the House of Commons that “unnecessary social contact” should be avoided.

Also on 16 March, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a televised statement saying "now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact", referring to it both as "advice" and a "very draconian measure".

It was not until 23 March 2020 that Mr Johnson told people they “must” stay at home and said that "we will immediately" close some businesses.

This has been referred to as the start of lockdown by government ministers, including Mr Hancock and Mr Johnson previously.

Legally, the main restrictions in England actually began at 1pm on 26 March, when the The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 came into force.

There is no official definition of what a ‘lockdown’ is.

On 16 July, a few hours before Mr Hancock’s appearance in the House of Commons where he made the claim about the date lockdown began, the government chief scientific advisor Sir Patrick Vallance gave evidence to the science and technology committee.

In describing the “series of steps in the run up to lockdown,” he said the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) had advised the government on either 16 or 18 March that “the remainder of the measures should be introduced as soon as possible” once it became clear how quickly Covid-19 was spreading.

Asked about this by shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth in the House of Commons later that day, Mr Hancock said the lockdown began on 16 March, when he warned that unnecessary social contact should end. Pressed on the matter by Labour MP Zarah Sultana, Mr Hancock said 16 March “is when the lockdown truly started”.

On 21 July, at an appearance in front of the science and technology committee, Mr Hancock said: “The idea that lockdown is a date is wrong, because actually what matters epidemiologically is the behaviour of people and you saw throughout this period, people were going about their ordinary business less and less.”

24 th March 1944

The great escape :
1944 – World War II: In an event later dramatized in the movie The Great Escape, 76 Allied prisoners of war begin breaking out of the German camp Stalag Luft III.

The mass escape of 76 Allied airmen from a Nazi POW camp in March 1944 remains one of history’s most famous prison breaks. Although the German Luftwaffe designed the Stalag Luft III camp to be escape-proof, the audacious, real-life prison break immortalized in the 1963 movie The Great Escape proved otherwise.

When the Nazis built the maximum-security camp 100 miles southeast of Berlin to house Allied aviators captured in World War II—many of whom had made previous escapes—they took elaborate measures to prevent tunneling, such as raising prisoners’ huts off the ground and burying microphones nine feet underground along the camp’s perimeter fencing. In addition, the camp was built atop yellow sand that would be tough to tunnel through and difficult to conceal by anyone who tried.

The Nazis, however, didn’t account for the daring and ingenuity of the British, American Canadian and other Allied flyboys who toiled for nearly a year to construct a tunnel that would allow them to flee from captivity. For the aviators, the penalty for being caught trying to escape—generally 10 days in solitary confinement under the rules of the Geneva Convention—was worth the risk.


They Built Three Escape Tunnels: ‘Tom,’ ‘Dick’ and ‘Harry’
The secret operation was led and organized by Roger Bushell, a Royal Air Force pilot who had been shot down over France while assisting with the evacuation of Dunkirk. In the spring of 1943, Bushell and over 600 prisoners of war began building three tunnels with the code names of Tom, Dick and Harry. The plan called for each tunnel to stretch for more than 300 feet to the protective cover of the forest outside the camp’s perimeter fence.


Inside Hut 104, the prisoners building the Harry tunnel toiled for days chipping away at the building’s support columns to avoid being seen working underneath the barracks. From a trap door concealed below a heating stove always kept lit to discourage the Nazi guards from getting too close, they burrowed down more than 30 feet to be out of the range of the microphones. Working in claustrophobic conditions, diggers stripped to their long johns or took off all their clothes so that the bright golden sand wouldn’t stain them and raise the suspicions of the German guards. The captives excavated
at least 100 tons of sand, which they stuffed into concealed socks and discreetly sprinkled and raked into the soil of the small gardens tended by the prisoners.

Scavenging and stealing materials for the operation, the prisoners stripped some 4,000 wooden bed boards to build ladders and shore up the sandy walls of the two-foot-wide tunnels to prevent their collapse. They stuffed 1,700 blankets against the walls to muffle sounds. They converted more than 1,400 powdered milk tin cans provided by the Red Cross into digging tools and lamps in which wicks fashioned from pajama cords were burned in mutton fat skimmed off the greasy soup they were served.


As the tunnel lengthened and oxygen levels fell, the prisoners used a stolen wire to hook up to the camp’s electrical supply and power a string of light bulbs. They even fashioned a crude bellows-type air pump system built in part with hockey sticks, knapsacks and ping pong paddles. And they constructed an underground trolley system pulled by ropes to transport the sand with switchover junctions named after two London landmarks—Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square.

To prevent the Nazis from learning of the operation, the airmen employed an elaborate lookout system and used subtle signs such as turning the page of a book or fiddling with a shoelace to raise notice of an approaching guard. By bribing guards with Red Cross goods unavailable in Germany—such as chocolate, coffee, soap and sugar—prisoners obtained cameras and travel documents that a team of artists used to forge identity cards, passports and travel passes. They replicated travel stamps by carving patterns in boot heels and using shoe polish as ink. The plan was to break out some 200 POWs, chosen by who had the best language and escape skills to succeed, who worked most in the preparation and, then, by lottery.


Only 76 of the Planned 200 Prisoners Escaped
The Nazis eventually discovered the tunnel Tom and summoned photographers to chronicle their find before its demolition. While the Nazis celebrated their discovery, however, they were unaware that work on the two other underground passages continued. The prisoners eventually turned Dick into a storage space and focused all construction on Harry, which was completed at the end of winter in 1944.


Around 10:30 pm. on the frigid, moonless night of March 24, 1944, British bomber pilot Johnny Bull slowly traversed the tunnel more than 30 feet below the oblivious Nazi guards and peeked his head out of the snowy ground beyond the camp’s fence. As he breathed in the glacial air and filled his lungs with freedom, the sweat-soaked prisoner discovered that the tunnel had stopped feet short of the protective cover of the forest. The blunder slowed the escape process—those emerging from the tunnel had to wait for a “coast clear” rope-tug signal from an escapee already in the forest—and dashed plans to break out the full 200 men.

The process was tedious as the prisoners, dressed in civilian clothes and carrying forged documents, lay down on the rope-operated wooden trolley and were pulled one-by-one through the tunnel to their escapes. Fewer than a dozen men made it through every hour, and a partial tunnel collapse and a one-hour blackout during a midnight air raid further slowed the operation.


Around 5 a.m., a German soldier on patrol nearly fell into the exit shaft and discovered the tunnel. The prisoners inside scrambled back to the hut and burned their forged documents. The Nazis discovered that 76 prisoners had broken out of their supposed escape-proof camp.

Nazis Caught 73 Escapees—and Executed 50
The audacity and resourcefulness demonstrated by the Allied pilots was the stuff movies are made of, and the breakout was immortalized in the 1963 blockbuster The Great Escape, which starred Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson and James Coburn. There was no Hollywood ending, however, for most of the 76 men who broke out of Stalag Luft III.

The Nazis mobilized a massive manhunt. They erected roadblocks, increased border patrols and searched hotels and farms. Within two weeks, the Germans had recaptured 73 of the escapees. Only three men successfully fled to safety—two Norwegians who stowed away on a freighter to Sweden and a Dutchman who made it to Gibraltar by rail and foot.

A furious Adolf Hitler personally ordered the execution of 50 of the escapees as a warning to other prisoners. In violation of the Geneva Convention, Gestapo agents drove the airmen—including Bushell and Bull—to remote locations and murdered them. Following the war, British investigators brought the Gestapo killers to justice. In 1947, a military tribunal found 18 Nazis guilty of war crimes for shooting the recaptured prisoners of war, and 13 of them were executed.

25 th March 1807

The Mumbles railway :
The Swansea and Mumbles Railway, then known as the Oystermouth Railway, becomes the first passenger-carrying railway in the world.

There are many significant dates in Welsh history, moments that we should remember and celebrate, but one that seems to have slipped under the radar - at least for lots of people - is 25 March. For on that momentous day in 1807 the Mumbles Railway opened, the first fee paying passenger railway service in the world.

Wales had already seen the advent of the first steam locomotive service. That was in 1804 when Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick built and ran a steam engine that was used to draw iron from Merthyr Tydfil to Abercynnon. This was, however, clearly a goods line and passengers never came into the picture, not as far as Trevithick was concerned nor the owners of the iron works. Trevithick's engine was not a major success and he soon left Wales to return to his native Cornwall.

The Mumbles Railway was built under an Act of Parliament in 1804, authorising the removal and carriage of limestone from the quarries at Mumbles to the docks area of nearby Swansea. From there the limestone would be sent to all corners of the world. Construction was completed in 1806 and services began. There was no formal opening ceremony and, to begin with at least, it was industrial product rather than people that was the important factor.

However, as Patrick Thornhill has written, the thrill of an illicit ride on this early railway soon became a natural part of the games of children from the area:

"What could be more fun for the children than a coach ride along the shore to Mumbles? One hears the thud of the horses' hooves, the gritting of sand between rail and wheel, the thunder and swish of breakers."
At this stage the operation was known as the Oystermouth Railway, only later acquiring the correct name of the Swansea and Mumbles Railway - or the Mumbles Railway as it was soon called. There was no road link between Swansea and Mumbles and, when they looked at the children hitching rides on the trams, it did not take local entrepreneurs long to realise that some form of passenger service, for people who wanted or needed to make the trip, could be something of a goldmine.

In 1807 permission was given for the line to carry passengers. Benjamin French, one of the early investors in the project, paid £20 for the right to run the line and carry passengers.

The concession was for one year only and on 25 March 1807 the world's first passenger railway began operations. It was a huge success, so much so that French and his partners quickly upped their offer to £25 a year in order to continue with the arrangement.

It was an amazing achievement for small investors from south Wales. George Stephenson did not open his Stockton and Darlington Railway (the first public railway to use steam powered locomotives) until 1825 and by then the Mumbles Railway had been running for nearly 20 years.

Despite the ground-breaking achievement of Trevithick's steam engine at Merthyr, the first passenger wagons on the Mumbles Railway were actually drawn by horses. Over the years several other means of transportation were tried, ranging from a short-lived attempt at sail power to steam and electric - more means of transportation than any other railway ever attempted.

However, towards the end of the 1820s a turnpike road was built between Swansea and Mumbles, the road actually running parallel to the railway line. The success of this road deprived the Mumbles Railway of much of its traffic and Simon Llewellyn, who was then running the railway, decided to stop carrying passengers after 1826 - by sheer coincidence, at the very moment when Stephenson's Stockton and Darlington Railway was gathering force and momentum.

For some years the line was almost derelict although it was still used for occasional deliveries of coal from mines in the Clyne Valley. Then, in 1855, George Byng Morris decided to take a hand and invest in the railway. He replaced the plates on which the original wagons had run with edged rails and installed standard gauge lines (four foot, eight and a half). A horse drawn passenger service was duly reintroduced.

Steam power replaced horse-drawn vehicles in 1877 although, for a number of years, horses were still used as a dispute between the railway and the Swansea Improvements and Tramway Company (which owned the locomotives) rumbled on.

The line celebrated its centenary in 1907 and was electrified in 1928. A full 'tram' service began in 1929 with eleven double decker trams, the largest ever built in Britain, being delivered for use on the Railway.

After World War Two it quickly became clear that the age of the tram car was nearly over as modern buses, more effective and efficient than trams - but not nearly so atmospheric - began to be introduced in cities right across the United Kingdom. In 1958 the Mumbles Railway was bought by the South Wales Transport Company. They ran coaches and buses in the Swansea area and it soon became clear what they had in mind.

On 5 January 1960 the last tram left Swansea for the Mumbles and the railway, which had run for over 150 years finally closed down. At the time of its closure the Mumbles Railway was the longest running railway in the world but that meant nothing to the businessmen who were concerned solely with efficiency and with profit.

There have been many talks about re-opening the railway/tramway but these have never got beyond the discussion stage. Wales - and Swansea and the Mumbles - can be proud, however, because this railway line will always be remembered as the first passenger railway service in the world.

26 th March 1934

Driving test :
The United Kingdom driving test is introduced.

The need for introducing driving tests arose from the shocking recognition that by 1934 the number of annual deaths caused by road accidents had risen to a record high of 7,343, to which 231,603 injured victims had to be added. Futhermore, about half of the fatalities had been pedestrians killed by reckless, drunken and/or inexperienced or inept drivers, and of that half, two thirds had been victimised in “built-up areas”. As the newly appointed Minister of Transport Leslie Hore-Belisha (1893-1957) is quoted to have said, what happened on the roads was nothing but “mass murder”. He knew what he was talking about as he had nearly fallen victim to such an onslaught himself.


There was no doubt that developments in the car industry in the 1920s – making cars faster and cheaper, which in turn enlarged the number of those who could afford them – had led to a rapid increase in the number of vehicles circulating in public. Lagging far behind this development were traffic regulations, road security, and the enforcement by the law of the little that did exist in terms of rules. The Motor Car Act of 1903 required that cars be registered and a driving licence be obtained (without a test) for a small fee. Speed limits had variably been introduced, generally about 20 mph, but as no one respected them they were altogether abolised by the Road Traffic Act in 1930. On the other hand, this last Act did provide for compulsory third-party insurance of the driver; it introduced a basic Highway Code and empowered local authorities to make use of one-way streets, roundabouts, road signs and traffic lights (then called “traffic control robots”) to regulate the local traffic.

Meanwhile, a Pedestrian Association had been set up in 1929 to lobby for stricter traffic regulations, adequate road safety measures and law enforcement. They met with fierce opposition by the Automobile Association and the Royal Automobile Club, both of which defended their clients’ (the drivers’) interest. Arguments against regulations ran thus:

regulations were felt to be an infringement of the driver’s individual liberty;
why the fuss over 7,000 traffic deaths, when no one was bothered by 6,000 suicides;
pedestrians were the more dangerous party, provoking accidents by irresponsible behaviour;
in the heydays of carriages, dogs and other animals had also run in front of driving vehicles and been killed, until descendants learnt the lesson – so would pedestrians eventually learn to stay free of approaching cars. It was a matter of time, not rules, to reduce the number of casualties.
Incensed, the Pedestrian Association pointed out that cars should be treated by the law like ‘wild beasts’ – an argument made plausible by the fact that the strength that made them move was measured in ‘horse power’. The fact that the compact power of 45 horses was concealed in a metal box that moved about in relative silence (compared to 45 living horses) did not diminish its terribly destructive force on impact. There had to be restraints and safety measures. More from Juliet Gardiner’s The Thirties: An Intimate History Of Britain.

Belisha Beacon
A Belisha Beacon

After a hot debate, the Road Traffic Act 1934 was passed. It reintroduced for cars the speed limit of 30 mph in areas with enough buildings to justify a street lamp. The UK driving test was made compulsory for all who wanted to drive after 1 April 1934. Initially, tests were voluntary, as the infrastructure of the new authority had first to be created. As of 1 June 1935, the driving test was fully compulsory. Furthermore, legislation relating to the driver’s insurance were tightened. The Minister of Transport, Leslie Hore-Belisha, saw to it – especially after his own close shave – that crossings for pedestrians were made more visible; included among the measures was an amber light globe mounted on a black and white pole next to each crossing – the “Belisha Beacon”. While these did produce positive effects in the beginning, they did not last, and with time habit produced ‘oversight’ so that by the 1950s, crossing the street had once more become a life-threatening undertaking, as this humourous road safety trailer goes to show. Pedestrian crossings were consequently redesigned.

Driving tests were suspended during World War II and once more during the Suez Canal crisis in 1956. The UK driving theory test was introduced rather late for European standards: only in July 1996. It was followed, in November 2002, by an additional Hazard Perception Test.

27 th March 1977


Teneriffe airport disaster :
Tenerife airport disaster: Two Boeing 747 airliners collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 (all 248 on KLM and 335 on Pan Am). Sixty-one survived on the Pan Am flight. This is the deadliest aviation accident in history.

The Tenerife airport disaster occurred on March 27, 1977, when two Boeing 747 passenger jets collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport (now Tenerife North Airport) on the Spanish island of Tenerife. The collision occurred when KLM Flight 4805 initiated its takeoff run while Pan Am Flight 1736 was still on the runway. The impact and resulting fire killed everyone on board KLM 4805 and most of the occupants of Pan Am 1736, with only 61 survivors in the front section of the aircraft. With 583 fatalities, the disaster is the deadliest accident in aviation history.

A bomb set off by the Canary Islands Independence Movement at Gran Canaria Airport had caused many flights to be diverted to Los Rodeos, including the two aircraft involved in the accident. The airport quickly became congested with parked airplanes blocking the only taxiway and forcing departing aircraft to taxi on the runway instead. Patches of thick fog were drifting across the airfield, so visibility was greatly reduced for pilots and the control tower.

The subsequent investigation by Spanish authorities concluded that the primary cause of the accident was the KLM captain's decision to take off in the mistaken belief that a takeoff clearance from air traffic control (ATC) had been issued. Dutch investigators placed a greater emphasis on a mutual misunderstanding in radio communications between the KLM crew and ATC, but ultimately KLM admitted that their crew was responsible for the accident and the airline agreed to financially compensate the relatives of all of the victims.

The disaster had a lasting influence on the industry, highlighting in particular the vital importance of using standardized phraseology in radio communications. Cockpit procedures were also reviewed, contributing to the establishment of crew resource management as a fundamental part of airline pilots' training. The captain is no longer considered infallible, and combined crew input is encouraged during aircraft operations

28 th March 1933

First aircraft sabatoge :
The Imperial Airways biplane City of Liverpool is believed to be the first airliner lost to sabotage when a passenger sets a fire on board.


On 28 March 1933, an Armstrong Whitworth Argosy II passenger aircraft, named City of Liverpool and operated by British airline Imperial Airways, crashed near Diksmuide, Belgium, after suffering an onboard fire; all fifteen people aboard were killed, making it the deadliest accident in the history of British civil aviation to that time. It has been suggested that this was the first airliner ever lost to sabotage, and in the immediate aftermath, suspicion centred on one passenger, Albert Voss, who seemingly jumped from the aircraft before it crashed.

Accident
The aircraft was employed on Imperial's regular London–Brussels–Cologne route, which it had flown for the previous five years. On this leg of the journey the plane was travelling from Brussels to London, which route would take it north from Brussels heading over Flanders before crossing the coast for the 50-mile (80 km) flight across the English Channel and then making the brief traverse over the Kent countryside to land at Croydon Airport in Surrey. The two-hour journey began, slightly delayed, just after 12:30 pm.

While flying over the fields of northern Belgium, the plane was seen by onlookers to catch fire before losing altitude and plunging into the ground. As the aircraft began its descent, a passenger was seen to exit the aeroplane and fall to earth without a parachute. He was later identified as Albert Voss, a German who had emigrated to the United Kingdom, where he practised as a dentist in Manchester. At approximately 200 feet (60 m), the aircraft split into two sections which hit the ground separately, instantly killing all those still on board.

Investigation and inquest
The subsequent investigation found that the fire had started towards the rear of the plane, in either the lavatory or the luggage area at the back of the cabin. No items recovered from the front portion of the wreckage showed any evidence of fire damage before the impact, nor was there any evidence of fire in the engines or fuel systems. The investigators narrowed the cause down to the firing of some combustible substance, either accidentally by a passenger or crew member or through vibration or some other natural occurrence, or deliberately by bombing.

At the inquest into Albert Voss's death at least one witness, his estranged brother, accused him of being culpable, claiming that Voss's business trips to the continent to buy anaesthetics masked a lucrative sideline in drug smuggling. This rumour had followed Voss for some time before his death and was alleged to have been the subject of investigations by the Metropolitan Police. Voss, according to his brother, was travelling aboard the aircraft together with his niece, and they were aware that the authorities were on to them. Under this theory, Voss sought to escape from the authorities by destroying the aircraft using various flammable substances to which his work gave him easy access and then bailing out in the confused circumstances, hoping that in the aftermath no one would notice one fewer body than there should have been. An autopsy showed that, other than some minor burns, Voss was unharmed before he exited the aircraft. The inquest jury eventually returned an open verdict – indicating that they believed his death may not have been accidental, but that they were unable, on the evidence before them, to come to a definite conclusion – rather than the verdict of accidental death the coroner attempted to direct them towards.

29 th March 1361

The battle of Towton :
Battle of Towton: Edward of York defeats Queen Margaret to become King Edward IV of England, bringing a temporary stop to the Wars of the Roses.



Wars of the Roses
The Battle of Towton took place on 29 March 1461 during the Wars of the Roses, near Towton in North Yorkshire, and "has the dubious distinction of being probably the largest and bloodiest battle on English soil".[4] Fought for ten hours between an estimated 50,000 soldiers in a snowstorm on Palm Sunday, the Yorkist army achieved a decisive victory over their Lancastrian opponents. As a result, Edward IV deposed the Lancastrian Henry VI and secured the English throne.

Henry VI succeeded his father Henry V when he was nine months old in 1422, but was a weak, ineffectual and mentally unsound ruler, which encouraged the nobles to scheme for control over him. The situation deteriorated in the 1450s into a civil war between his Beaufort relatives and Queen Margaret of Anjou on one side, with those of his cousin Richard, Duke of York on the other. In October 1460, Parliament passed the Act of Accord naming York as Henry's successor, but neither the queen nor her Lancastrian allies would accept the disinheritance of her son, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. They raised a large army, who defeated and killed York and his second son Edmund at Wakefield in December. Financed by the City of London his son and heir, Edward, found enough backing to denounce Henry and declare himself king. The Battle of Towton was to affirm the victor's right through force of arms to rule over England.

On reaching the battlefield, the Yorkists found themselves heavily outnumbered, since part of their force under the Duke of Norfolk had yet to arrive. The Yorkist leader Lord Fauconberg turned the tables by ordering his archers to take advantage of the strong wind to outrange their enemies. The one-sided missile exchange, with Lancastrian arrows falling short of the Yorkist ranks, provoked the Lancastrians into abandoning their defensive positions. The ensuing hand-to-hand combat lasted hours, exhausting the combatants. The arrival of Norfolk's men reinvigorated the Yorkists and, encouraged by Edward, they routed their foes. Many Lancastrians were killed while fleeing; some trampled one another and others drowned in the rivers, which are said to have run red with blood for several days. Several high-ranking prisoners were also executed.

The strength of the House of Lancaster was severely reduced as a result of this battle. Henry fled the country and many of his most powerful followers were dead or in exile after the engagement, leaving a new king, Edward IV, to rule England. In 1929 the Towton Cross was erected on the battlefield to commemorate the event. Various archaeological remains and mass graves related to the battle have been found in the area centuries after the engagement.

30 th March 1944

The R.A.Fs darkest night :
Out of 795 Lancasters, Halifaxes and Mosquitos sent to attack Nuremberg, 95 bombers do not return, making it the largest RAF Bomber Command loss of the war.



RAF's darkest night: 95 planes lost, 545 men killed on ill-fated World War 2 raid
Former RAF Navigator and Gulf War PoW John Nichol tells the tale of heroes such as Cyril Barton in new book 'The Red Line'


It was a clear, cloudless night and bright moonlight illuminated the landscape as the stream of aircraft forged a track deep into Germany. But what began as a normal bombing operation would soon turn into the bloodiest night in the RAF’s history.

Of 795 aircraft that took off from British bases to target Nuremberg on March 30, 1944, 95 would not return.


More RAF men died in blazing aircraft that night – 545 – than the total killed during the entire 15 weeks of the Battle of Britain.

The disaster, 70 years ago this week, warranted only a mention in Churchill’s memoirs, and no reference at all in Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris’ account of the war.

But it was a brutal illustration of the dangers faced by the young men of Bomber Command. Of its 125,000 men, all volunteers, 55,753 would not survive the war.

My association with the men of Bomber Command began back in 1991. As a young Tornado navigator I had been shot down over Iraq during the first Gulf War, captured, tortured and paraded on TV.

My short but deeply unpleasant ­experience brought me into contact with my forebears, who had flown the early bombers into the heart of Hitler’s Germany.

I joined their gatherings – most were raucous and beer-driven events. But others were sombre and poignant with long-buried stories of lost friends.

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Despite my 16 years’ RAF service, I had never heard the events of March 30, 1944, mentioned. When I discovered the terrible losses, I was driven to record their stories so their sacrifice would never be forgotten.


Cyril Barton, a pilot on 578 Squadron flying Halifax bombers, was typical of so many of those heroic young men. In many ways, he was perhaps nondescript, a teetotaller and committed Christian who worked hard.

He was a family man who loved his little sisters, Cynthia and Joyce.

Cynthia, then 13, remembers him as like a “little father to us”. For Joyce, then aged nine, a most treasured memory is of her big brother teaching her to paint a ­magnificent watercolour sunset.

Cyril was also a man of huge courage and staggering fortitude. Like so many young boys, he had always wanted to fly.

He used what little pocket money he amassed to buy model aeroplanes.

But the onset of the Second World War offered Cyril the opportunity to fulfil his dream of taking to the skies. In 1941, he wrote a ­beautifully formal letter to his dad seeking permission to volunteer for the RAF.

Perhaps understandably, bearing in mind his own service in the trenches of the Great War, his father was­ reluctant to agree.

But he finally wavered and wrote: “­Naturally, your mother and I are not too keen on you ‘joining up’, more especially as I know by experience what such a step entails, but… I rather grudgingly give my consent… may God bless you and help you in the days that lie ahead… goodbye and ‘happy ­landings’. Dad.”

Three years later, on the morning of March 30, Cyril, then 22, awoke at RAF Burn in North Yorkshire.

Ops over Germany were scheduled for later, but first he had an important task to complete – it was his youngest sister Joyce’s birthday.

He dug out a card with an ­illustration of “Hush-a-bye-baby” on the front. He scribbled: “Hope the nursery rhyme isn’t too babyish for you!”, addressed the ­envelope and tucked it in his locker. He would post it home to New Malden, South West London, the following day.

In crewrooms across England, thousands of young men later gathered for the daily briefing.

Navigation officers drew back curtains covering maps to reveal a red line of string stretching from home bases, across the North Sea, into deepest Germany.

“Gentlemen, tonight, your target is Nuremberg.”


Cyril’s Halifax left Burn at 10.12pm. His crew were all idealistic youngsters like him and they idolised their “skipper”. Rear gunner Freddie Brice said: “I had little fear flying with him – never any panic, and his calmness seemed to reach us all.”

But as they embarked on their 19th ­operation, Freddie had deep concerns about the bright, moonlit night, the lack of forecast cloud cover and the long, straight slog across the enemy’s heartland.

Inside the freezing bombers, the smell of hot oil permeated everything and the roar and vibration of the giant engines made conversation impossible.

The interior was so cramped it was d­ifficult to stand up straight, but discomfort was the least of their worries. Luck was on the German side that night and the Luftwaffe fighters were already making good use of the ­shimmering moonlight. Across the German border, the slaughter began.

From his Lancaster in the middle of the stream, pilot Dick Starkey watched in horror as the drama unfolded. Multi-coloured tracer from the fighters’ guns stitched wild patterns across the night sky and in seconds bombers were falling earthwards in flames.

As blinding flashes lit the sky and the bright night turned blood red, the intercom calls echoed between horrified crewmen. They vividly remembered the unfolding tragedy as they recounted their stories for me 70 years later. “Bomber going down in flames to port,” said one frenzied message.

Others continued: “Christ! Another one on the starboard side.”

“One going down in front, Skipper.”

“Oh God! Look at the burning trail on the ground!”

Within minutes Starkey had counted 30 bombers plummeting from the sky.

“Fire would rip through the aircraft until it reached the bomb bay,” he remembers. “Then it would blow up and shower debris like flaming confetti. The ground was ­actually ablaze with wreckage.”

As the bedraggled stream arrived at the turning point north of Nuremberg, 60 giant bombers, each with six or seven crew, had already been lost. Worse was to come.


Cyril Barton had just turned his four-engined Halifax towards the target when a series of explosions battered the aircraft as the guns of a German Junkers 88 fighter found their target.

Desperately trying to evade the fire, Cyril threw his giant aircraft around the sky while calling out to his crew.

A Messerschmitt 210 joined the fight and shells thudded home as deadly tracer sprayed the limping bomber. Len Lambert, Cyril’s navigator, remembers: “There was a terrific clatter as cannon shells hit us and a brilliant display of blue flashes and flames came from the electrical circuits.”

The intercom was destroyed. With no communication and the aircraft on fire and falling, some of the crew believed the Halifax was doomed and began to bail out.

But Cyril stayed at his controls and managed to bring the wounded aircraft back under control. Still on board with him were Freddie Brice and “Timber” Wood, his gunners, and Maurice Trousdale, his flight engineer.

They had endured a relentless attack, only half the crew remained, and they were flying a dying aircraft, no longer on fire but now limping on just three engines.

All around them, bombers continued to plummet to the earth and the parachutes of the few fortunate survivors fluttered down through the night sky. But Cyril was in no doubt. They would press on to the target.

Incredibly, with no navigator, wireless operator or bomb aimer, and as fuel leaked from ruptured tanks, they still managed to drop their bombs before turning for the near five-hour journey home.

With the aid of his tiny and unreliable pilot’s compass, and the shining North Star, Cyril weaved a path around searchlights and flak batteries towards safety.

With fuel running low, faltering engines and no radios, their situation looked grim. But as dawn broke, and with only minutes of fuel remaining, they saw the English coast ahead.

Then shells started to explode around them. Freddie Brice could not believe it. They had been chased, harried, blasted by fighters, and now, just seconds from safety, their own coastal defences were shooting at them, mistakenly identifying them as a German bomber.

Precious minutes evaporated as they tried to evade the friendly fire and as the last drops of fuel ran out the engines stuttered into silence.

Cyril decided to put his faith in luck and the Lord and set his plane on course to crash land. Using every remaining ounce of skill and strength, he fought to bring the Halifax down as safely as possible.

The aircraft thundered over the houses near Ryhope Colliery on the Durham coast, coming down with an almighty shriek of tortured metal and stone.


Within seconds, rescuers were on the scene searching for survivors. Brice, Wood and Trousdale were quickly pulled from the wreck and joined the search for Cyril.

The aircraft’s nose had broken off and been thrown across a ravine.


At 7pm there was a knock on the door of the Bartons’ home. The telegram boy stood on the doorstep clutching an envelope. With trembling hands, Cyril’s mother tore it open, seeing only the first few words, “Regret to inform you” and then the last – “funeral”. She burst into tears.

Among the personal belongings returned to his family was the birthday card he wrote for his beloved sister. A month after he was buried, another letter arrived at the family home.


Cyril was to be awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross – the highest award in the land – for his “unsurpassed courage and devotion to duty”.

Undoubtedly proud as his family were of their son and brother, perhaps his mother’s words on hearing of the award are a ­reflection of all those who lost loved ones during that conflict.

Staring at the letter, she simply said: “It won’t bring him back, will it?”