Today in history

4 th November 1922

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

                 
The famous pharaoh died more than 3,000 years ago. Now, in an immersive exhibition, he guides museum visitors back to ancient Egypt and tells them about his life.

When the child king died in 1323 BC at the tender age of 18 or 19, he had to face the judgment of Osiris, the god of the dead. More than three millennia later, Tutankhamun no longer stands alone before the guardians of the underworld: Visitors can follow him into eternal life in the "Fields of Laru" — the afterlife of the ancient Egyptians.

The immersive exhibition, which has its German premiere in Hamburg on November 3, 2023, uses state-of-the-art technology to make this experience possible: With multimedia illusions of image and sound and VR goggles, visitors are immersed in the long-lost world of ancient Egypt, which continues to fascinate people to this day.

It was 101 years ago that one of the world's most spectacular discoveries was made. For six years, British archaeologist Howard Carter had dug up the desert sands in Egypt's Valley of the Kings area, near Luxor, in search of the tomb of the famed boy pharaoh Tutankhamun— but to no avail. His financier, the Earl of Carnarvon, had become impatient, and Carter had one last chance to discover the crypt.

Then, on November 4, 1922, a local boy named Hussein Abd el-Rassul, who was bringing water to the workers, hit a stone step under the rubble. Carter later liked to tell the story that the boy had wanted to emulate the archaeologists from Europe and had therefore poked around with a stick. In the process, he said, he hit the stone surface.

A black-and-white photo of the Valley of the Kings showing the entrances to the tombs of Tutankhamen (lower left) and Ramses VI.A black-and-white photo of the Valley of the Kings showing the entrances to the tombs of Tutankhamen (lower left) and Ramses VI.

'Wonderful things'
From then on, gripped with anticipation, the excavation team did not stop. They uncovered 16 steps in all and also found two seals with Tutankhamun's royal mark. But it wasn't until Lord Carnarvon arrived from England that Carter opened the tomb's antechamber on November 26, 1922, and the real breakthrough happened.

"Can you see anything?" Lord Carnavon, standing in the dark passage, is said to have asked.

"Yes, wonderful things," Carter answered back.

The men had stumbled upon priceless treasures that no human eye had seen in more than 3,000 years. "We had the impression of looking into the prop room of the opera of a vanished civilization," Carter later described his first impressions. "Details from inside the chamber slowly emerged from the mist — strange animals, statues, gold. Everywhere, the glint of gold."

'Egyptomania'
Word of the sensational find spread quickly, triggering worldwide "Egyptomania."

Harry Victor Frederick Winstone, author of "Howard Carter and the Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun," first published in 1991, writes how the discovery prompted architects to create Egyptian-style facades. Handbags, cookie jars and juice bottles bore the unmistakable symbol of the gilded king's mask, Winstone wrote, adding that even Tutankhamun blouses were for sale and that carmaker General Motors touted a vehicle inspired by the pharaoh.

In the Valley of the Kings itself, onlookers crowded the excavation site. Locals and tourists from all over the world wanted to catch a glimpse of the treasures while possibly grabbing a souvenir. Carter and his team had trouble keeping people away.

World-famous: Tutankhamun's death mask.

For 10 years, Howard Carter and his assistants meticulously cataloged every tomb artifact. Each piece was photographed and packaged; larger items were transported to the Nile by a small narrow-gauge railway and loaded onto ships. The most important finds are now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and in Luxor itself.


The most famous of the approximately 5,400 objects found is 11-kilogram blue-and-gold death mask of Tutankhamun himself. Carter found it in the coffin chamber. Enclosed by four reliquaries of gilded wood, a stone sarcophagus and three mummy-shaped coffins placed one inside the other, the embalmed pharaoh lay within a 225-kilogram coffin of pure gold. The death mask covered his face.  

In another chamber, a statue of the Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis, guarded a reliquary containing Tutankhamun's entrails.

Tutankhamun's mummy was contained in several coffins, the last of which was made of pure gold.

Tutankhamun's parentage is a matter of scholarly debate. Many experts believe he was the son of Pharaoh Akhenaten, whose great royal wife was Nefertiti. But Akhenaten had several consorts and concubines, and a genetic study conducted on  mummies suggests Tutankhamun was the child of a mistress, possibly the sister of his father, identified through DNA testing as an unknown mummy referred to as "the younger lady."


The young pharaoh ascended the throne around the age of eight or nine. At first, he was called Tutankhaton — "living image of Aton" — because at his birth the god Aton was still worshipped. Later, when the priesthood worshipped the god Amun, he changed his name to Tutankhamun.

The child king of the New Kingdom of the 18th Dynasty died in 1323 B.C. at the age of just 18 or 19. Examinations of the mummy indicate that Tutankhamun died in an accident, though this is not known for sure.

Apparently, however, the young pharaoh was quite frail during his lifetime. A team of scientists from Tübingen, Germany, Bolzano in northern Italy, and Cairo found out years ago that he suffered from a severe bone disease and malaria, as well as genetic deformities such as a cleft palate and a clubfoot.


The curse of the pharaohs.
In his lifetime Tutankhamun was not a powerful pharaoh. Today the whole world knows his name. KV62, the scientific name for his tomb (KV stands for King's Valley), is still a tourist magnet today. Unlike the treasures found within, the sarcophagus with the mummified body of the pharaoh still rests in the burial chamber. On its walls, magnificent paintings illustrate the life and death of Tutankhamun.

                         

                         Tutankhamun welcomes visitors to his immersive exhibition

5 th November 1605

The gunpowder plot:
Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes is arrested in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament, where he had planted gunpowder in an attempt to blow up the building and kill King James I of England.

King James learns of Gunpowder Plot

Early in the morning, King James I of England learns that a plot to explode the Parliament building has been foiled, hours before he was scheduled to sit with the rest of the British government in a general parliamentary session.

At about midnight on the night of November 4-5, Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, found Guy Fawkes lurking in a cellar under the Parliament building and ordered the premises searched. Some 20 barrels of gunpowder were found, and Fawkes was taken into custody. During a torture session on the rack, Fawkes revealed that he was a participant in an English Catholic conspiracy to annihilate England’s Protestant government and replace it with Catholic leadership.


What became known as the Gunpowder Plot was organized by Robert Catesby, an English Catholic whose father had been persecuted by Queen Elizabeth I for refusing to conform to the Church of England. Guy Fawkes had converted to Catholicism, and his religious zeal led him to fight in the Spanish army in the Netherlands. Catesby and the handful of other plotters rented a cellar that extended under Parliament, and Fawkes planted the gunpowder there, hiding the barrels under coal and wood.

As the November 5 meeting of Parliament approached, Catesby enlisted more English Catholics into the conspiracy, and one of these, Francis Tresham, warned his Catholic brother-in-law Lord Monteagle not to attend Parliament that day. Monteagle alerted the government, and hours before the attack was to have taken place Fawkes and the explosives were found. By torturing Fawkes, King James’ government learned of the identities of his co-conspirators. During the next few weeks, English authorities killed or captured all the plotters and put the survivors on trial, along with a few innocent English Catholics.

Guy Fawkes himself was sentenced, along with the other surviving chief conspirators, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered in London. Moments before the start of his gruesome execution, on January 31, 1606, he jumped from a ladder while climbing to the hanging platform, breaking his neck and dying instantly.

In 1606, Parliament established November 5 as a day of public thanksgiving. Today, Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated across Great Britain every year on November 5 in remembrance of the Gunpowder Plot. As dusk falls, villagers and city dwellers across Britain light bonfires, set off fireworks, and burn effigies of Guy Fawkes, celebrating his failure to blow Parliament and James I to kingdom come.

6 th November 2004

Ufton Nervet rail disaster:
2004 – An express train collides with a stationary car near the village of Ufton Nervet, England, killing seven and injuring 150.

A suicidal car driver may have caused the train crash which killed seven and injured 150.

Police investigated whether a man who stopped his car on an unmanned level crossing near the village of Ufton Nervet, in Berkshire, and remained stationary as the barriers came down and the high-speed train hurtled towards him, did so deliberately.

His actions were witnessed by an off-duty policeman, who drove up to the crossing on Saturday evening and saw a Mazda 323 car on the track.

In the next few seconds the officer, who has not been named, made frantic attempts to avert disaster as he saw the red crossing lights flash and the barriers lower.

He ran to the emergency phone booth and tried to get a call through to the signal box, but before he received any response the First Great Western train came through at 100mph and collided with the car.

In an explosion of metal on metal, the locomotive and its eight carriages were hurled across the tracks and the saloon was crushed into an unrecognisable wreck.

Six people, including the drivers of the train and the car and an eight-year-old girl, were killed in the collision. One more died a day later

Another 150 people were injured. The accident, which is the first big train crash for nearly two years, prompted criticism of the safety record of Britain's 7,900 level crossings. Less than 18 months ago three farm labourers were killed when their minibus was hit by a train at an unmarked level crossing in Worcestershire.

Network Rail revealed that there had been 96 collisions at level crossings over the last five years.

Bob Crow, the leader of the RMT rail union, demanded that all level crossings on intercity lines be replaced with bridges or tunnels.

"If we can spend millions of pounds building motorways, I can't see why we shouldn't spend money on tunnels of just 50 or 60 yards," he said.

However, his call was rejected by rail bosses, who said it could cost billions. George Muir, the director general of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said the money would be better spent improving safety on Britain's roads.

A Thames Valley police spokesman confirmed that suicide was being considered as a likely reason for the driver stopping on the crossing. But a senior officer denied reports that the off-duty policeman had screamed at the man, urging him to run for his life.

Andy Trotter, deputy chief constable of the British Transport Police, said the officer had been driving towards the level crossing.

"As he approached, he saw a stationary saloon car on the crossing and he was obviously concerned," he said.

"At that time the barriers were up. He stopped his vehicle and before he could do anything the barriers came down.

"Realising there was a potential disaster, he ran to the emergency phone to call the signal box, but before he got a response the train came through," he said.

The 17.35 express from London to Plymouth was less than an hour into its journey when it hit the car.

Roger Taylor, who was at the crossing seconds after the collision, said: "The crossing lights were flashing red, the barriers were down and it was terribly silent. There was this terrible, horrible silence. Then I heard the sound of people shouting and crying out in the darkness."

After the crash, passengers used light from their mobile phones and glow sticks from bonfire night celebrations to tend to fellow travellers and find ways off the train.

"It was terrifying," said Jon Stace, a student. "I thought I was going to die. All I could feel was my body being thrown, with people on top of me."

Throughout yesterday fire crews worked at the scene in the Berkshire countryside, cutting through mangled metal and guiding hydraulic lifting gear into the area to begin raising the carriages.

Forensic teams searched through the debris for clues and the unrecognisable wreckage of the silver grey saloon car was covered with a yellow tent in order to preserve evidence. By the following night all the bodies had been recovered from the wreckage.

The crash has also raised questions about communication on the network.

Keith Norman, the acting general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef, said: "Level crossings are a major site for deaths on the railway network. The technology exists to give train drivers advanced warning of blockages on the tracks."

Network Rail said its efforts to improve contact between signallers and train drivers had been hampered by opposition to the construction of radio masts by railway lines.

Travellers were warned to expect delays and cancellations for at least a week. Network Rail said it might take three days to lift the train.

7 th October 1492

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

It is hard to say what any of us would have thought of meteorites if we had lived back in the days before modern astronomy. Question for students (and subscribers): What do you think you would have thought?

8 th November 1987

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

The Remembrance Day bombing (also known as the Enniskillen bombing or Poppy Day massacre) took place on 8 November 1987 in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. A Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb exploded near the town's war memorial (cenotaph) during a Remembrance Sunday ceremony, which was being held to commemorate British military war dead. Eleven people (10 civilians and a police officer) were killed, many of them elderly, and 63 were injured. The IRA said it had made a mistake and that its target had been the British soldiers parading to the memorial.

The bombing was strongly condemned by all sides and undermined support for the IRA and Sinn Féin. It also facilitated the passing of the Extradition Act, which made it easier to extradite IRA suspects from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom. Loyalist paramilitaries responded to the bombing with revenge attacks on Catholic civilians. The bombing is often seen as a turning point in the Troubles, an incident that shook the IRA "to its core", and spurred on new efforts by Irish nationalists towards a political solution to the conflict.

Explosion.

The bomb exploded as a parade of Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldiers was making its way to the memorial and as people waited for the ceremony to begin. It blew out the wall of the Reading Rooms, where many of the victims were standing, burying them under rubble and hurling masonry towards the gathered crowd.[failed verification] Bystanders rushed to free those trapped underneath. Evidence indicated that the bomb used in the attack was made from Semtex supplied by the Libyan government under Muammar Gaddafi.

Eleven people were killed, including three married couples. The dead were Wesley and Bertha Armstrong (aged 62 and 55), Kit and Jessie Johnston (aged 71 and 62), William and Agnes Mullan (aged 74 and 73), John Megaw (67), Alberta Quinton (72), Marie Wilson (20), Samuel Gault (49) and Edward Armstrong (52). Edward Armstrong was a serving RUC officer and Gault had recently left the force.[20] Gordon Wilson, whose daughter Marie died in the blast and who was himself injured, went on to become a peace campaigner and member of Seanad Éireann. The twelfth fatality, Ronnie Hill, died after spending 13 years in a coma (aged almost 69). Sixty-three people were injured, including thirteen children, some of them permanently. Ulster Unionist politicians Sammy Foster and Jim Dixon were among the crowd; the latter received extensive head injuries but recovered. A local businessman captured the immediate aftermath of the bombing on video camera. His footage, showing the effects of the bombing, was broadcast on international television. All the victims were Protestant.

A few hours after the blast, the IRA called a radio station and said it had abandoned a 150-pound (68 kg) bomb in Tullyhommon, 20 miles (32 km) away, after it failed to detonate. That morning, a Remembrance Sunday parade (which included many members of the Boys' and Girls' Brigades) had unwittingly gathered near the Tullyhommon bomb. Soldiers and RUC officers had also been there, and the IRA said it attempted to trigger the bomb when soldiers were standing beside it. It was defused by security forces and was found to have a command wire leading to a firing point across the border.

9 th November 1907

The Cullinan diamond:
The Cullinan Diamond is presented to King Edward VII on his birthday.

The largest diamond ever found was unearthed over a century ago, on 26 January 1905 at the Premier Mine near Pretoria, South Africa.

Named after the mine’s owner, Thomas Cullinan, the rough diamond weighed 3,106.75 carats (621.35 g; 1.37 lb) and measured 10.5 cm (4.1 in) at its longest point.

The Cullinan Diamond was three times larger than the previous record holder, the Excelsior Diamond, found in 1893 at another South African mine.

Uncovered 5.5 metres (18 ft) underground, the Cullinan is estimated to have been formed at a depth of 410–660 km (255–410 miles), reaching the Earth’s surface 1.18 billion years ago.


After its discovery, it was briefly put on public display at the Standard Bank in Johannesburg, where up to 9,000 people came to see it.

In April of the same year, Premier Mining Co. sent the Cullinan to London to be sold.

News circulated of the diamond being transported on a steamboat, where it was locked in the captain’s safe and protected by detectives. However, this was all a diversionary tactic to mislead potential robbers; the real Cullinan was simply posted to England in a plain box.

When it arrived in London, the Cullinan was taken to Buckingham Palace and viewed by King Edward VII before being put up for sale.

Despite attracting much interest, it remained unsold for two years until 1907, when the Transvaal Colony government bought it for £150,000, which is equivalent to £14.9 million ($18.1 m) adjusted for inflation in 2023.

The Transvaal Colony was the name given to South Africa’s Transvaal region under direct British Rule after the Second Boer War. Its Prime Minister, Louis Botha, proposed purchasing the Cullinan as a gift for King Edward VII to demonstrate the region’s loyalty to the British monarchy.

Sir Richard Solomon, Agent-general of the colony, presented the Cullinan to the king at his 66th birthday party, witnessed by many high-profile guests such as the queens of Spain and Sweden.

King Edward VII later announced, via his colonial secretary Lord Elgin, that he’d accepted the “great and unique” diamond to preserve it “among the historic jewels which form the heirlooms of the Crown".

The Cullinan was then sent to Amsterdam to be cut and polished by Joseph Asscher & Co. Three workers took eight months to cut the rough stone into nine major stones and 96 minor brilliants.

The largest one, Cullinan I, was nicknamed the “Great Star of Africa” by the king, and the second-largest, Cullinan II, was dubbed the “Second Star of Africa”. Both became part of the UK’s Crown Jewels.

Weighing 530.2 carats (106 g; 3.7 oz), Cullinan I is the world’s largest clear cut diamond. It sits at the top of the Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross, the ornamental rod held by the British monarch at their coronation.

Cullinan II is mounted in the Imperial State Crown, which is worn by the monarch at the annual State Opening of Parliament.


The seven other major diamonds, in addition to several minor brilliants and unpolished fragments, went into the possession of Queen Mary, daughter-in-law of King Edward VII and wife of King-Emperor George V.

After her death, they were inherited by Queen Elizabeth II, who was said to refer to the smaller ones as “Granny’s rocks”.

The inheritors of Queen Elizabeth II’s private jewel collection have not been confirmed, but it is thought that much of it has gone to Queen Consort Camilla and the Princess of Wales.

Cullinan I and II remain part of the Crown Jewels, currently in the custody of King Charles III.

10 th November 1871

When Stanley met Livingstone:
Henry Morton Stanley locates missing explorer and missionary, David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, famously greeting him with the words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"



In November 1871, journalist Henry Morton Stanley located the missing missionary David Livingstone in the depths of Africa. The famous meeting launched Stanley’s tumultuous career as an explorer.


Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone (1813-1873) was the first European to discover the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi river in central Africa. While searching for the source of the Nile in the late 1860s he became seriously ill and went missing. He was found by Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904) in 1871 and Stanley joined him in exploring the area. Livingstone never fully recovered from his illness and died in Bangwelulu, Zambia.

On March 21, 1871, Henry Morton Stanley set out from the African port of Bagamoyo on what he hoped would be a career-making adventure. The 30-year-old journalist had arrived on the “Dark Continent” at the behest of the New York Herald newspaper, yet he wasn’t chasing any ordinary scoop. He had been placed in charge of a grand expedition to find the explorer David Livingstone, who had vanished in the heart of Africa several years earlier.



Stanley, a Welsh-born orphan who had previously fought on both sides of the American Civil War, took to the mission with gusto. Despite never having set foot in Africa before, he assembled a caravan of over 100 porters and struck out into the unknown. “Wherever [Livingstone] is, be sure I shall not give up the chase,” he later wrote to the New York Herald’s editor. “If alive you shall hear what he has to say. If dead I will find him and bring his bones to you.”

At the time that Stanley began his relief operation, Dr. David Livingstone was the most renowned of all the explorers of Africa. Among other exploits, the Scottish missionary and abolitionist had survived a lion attack, charted the Zambezi River and walked from one side of the continent to the other. In 1866, he embarked on what was supposed to be his last and greatest expedition: a quest to locate the fabled source of the Nile River. The mission was supposed to last two years, yet by 1871, nearly six years had passed with only a few scattered updates on Livingstone’s whereabouts. Many Europeans had given him up for dead.

Stanley knew that Livingstone had last been spotted in the vicinity of Lake Tanganyika, but reaching the area proved to be a monumental task. Between March and October of 1871, the New York Herald expedition endured repeated setbacks as it trudged through endless miles of swampland and jungle. Crocodiles and swarming tsetse flies killed their pack animals, and dozens of porters abandoned the caravan or died from illnesses.


Stanley himself was ravaged by dysentery, smallpox and a near-fatal case of cerebral malaria, yet he continued to urge his party forward at a breakneck pace. By the time they arrived at Ujiji, a remote village in what is now Tanzania, they had crossed more than 700 miles of territory.

On November 10, 1871, after hearing rumors of a white man living in Ujiji, Stanley donned his finest set of clothes and entered the town with a small band of followers. As crowds of locals gathered around them, Stanley spied a sickly looking European with an unruly beard and white hair. Sensing that he had found his man, he approached, extended his hand and asked a now-famous question: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” When the stranger answered in the affirmative, Stanley let out a sigh of relief. “I thank God, doctor, I have been permitted to see you,” he said.

As Stanley soon learned, Livingstone had been languishing in the heart of Africa for several years. His Nile expedition had been beset by thievery and mass desertions by his porters, and a succession of tropical diseases had sapped his strength and forced him to travel with Arab slave traders. He was wasting away in a small hut when the relief operation finally reached him.


Despite his failing health, Livingstone refused an offer to return home and resumed his search for the source of the Nile. After being resupplied by Stanley, he parted ways with his rescuers in March 1872 and made his way south to Lake Bangweulu in modern-day Zambia. His illnesses later caught up with him, however, and he died from malaria and dysentery on May 1, 1873.

Even as Livingstone’s career as an explorer was ending, Stanley’s was just beginning. The journalist became a celebrity after returning from the New York Herald expedition, and he later penned a bestselling book titled “How I Found Livingstone.” In 1874, having grown bored with his old reporter’s gig, he secured funding from the Herald and the London Daily Telegraph and returned to Africa to resume Livingstone’s unfinished explorations.

Stanley’s 1874 expedition would go down as one of the most audacious journeys in the history of African exploration. Over the course of 999 days, his party successfully trekked into the continent’s central watershed and scoured its lakes in a 24-foot boat.


Stanley became the first person to circumnavigate Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest body of water, and he later charted Lake Tanganyika before venturing 1,800 miles down the Congo River to the Atlantic Ocean. Roughly half of the expedition’s 227 members died from disease, drowning and repeated altercations with native tribes, but its geographical achievements helped make Stanley’s name as an adventurer. In 1878, author Mark Twain argued that “Stanley is almost the only man alive today whose name and work will be familiar one hundred years hence.”

While Stanley’s trans-Africa expedition cemented his reputation as the heir to Livingstone, his subsequent activities on the continent would forever tarnish his legacy. In 1878, the explorer signed on with King Leopold II of Belgium for a project to bring trade and Christianity to the African Congo.

The expedition was originally sold to Stanley as a sweeping humanitarian endeavor, yet in reality, King Leopold was only using charity as a screen to create a “Congo Free State” whose people and resources he would eventually exploit for his own enrichment. As the King’s agent, Stanley built roads, outposts and even a railroad, earning the nickname “Bula Matari,” or “Breaker of Rocks,” for his tireless construction efforts. Historians still debate how much he knew about Leopold’s true plans, but the infrastructure he created later helped facilitate years of forced labor and violence that may have led to the deaths of millions of Congolese.



The controversy only continued to follow Stanley in 1887, when he led an African expedition to rescue Emin Pasha, a German territorial governor who was under attack from Muslim rebels in southern Sudan. The journey proved to be a disaster on almost all fronts. Stanley split the expedition in half and eventually reached Pasha with the front column in 1888, but not before several hundred members of his party perished from disease and Pygmy attacks. Even more horrific were the atrocities committed by the expedition’s unsupervised rear column, whose members indiscriminately tortured and murdered countless Africans.

The Pasha expedition would be Stanley’s last. He returned to London in 1890, and later authored books and toured the lecture circuit before serving in the British parliament. He was widely hailed as a hero and even knighted by Queen Victoria, yet by the early 20th century, revelations about the brutality of the Congo Free State had permanently cast a shadow over his career. When the journalist-turned-explorer later died in 1904, his connection to the Congo atrocities saw him denied burial in Westminster Abbey alongside his old associate, David Livingstone.

11 th November 1918


Armastice:
World War I: Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne.

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives. In addition, at least five million civilians died from disease, starvation or exposure.

On June 28, 1914, in an event that is widely regarded as sparking the outbreak of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, was shot to death with his wife by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Ferdinand had been inspecting his uncle’s imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the threat of Serbian nationalists who wanted these Austro-Hungarian possessions to join newly independent Serbia. Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the problem of Slavic nationalism once and for all. However, as Russia supported Serbia, an Austro-Hungarian declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention.



On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers collapsed. On July 29, Austro-Hungarian forces began to shell the Serbian capital, Belgrade, and Russia, Serbia’s ally, ordered a troop mobilization against Austria-Hungary. France, allied with Russia, began to mobilize on August 1. France and Germany declared war against each other on August 3. After crossing through neutral Luxembourg, the German army invaded Belgium on the night of August 3-4, prompting Great Britain, Belgium’s ally, to declare war against Germany.

For the most part, the people of Europe greeted the outbreak of war with jubilation. Most patriotically assumed that their country would be victorious within months. Of the initial belligerents, Germany was most prepared for the outbreak of hostilities, and its military leaders had formatted a sophisticated military strategy known as the “Schlieffen Plan,” which envisioned the conquest of France through a great arcing offensive through Belgium and into northern France. Russia, slow to mobilize, was to be kept occupied by Austro-Hungarian forces while Germany attacked France.

The Schlieffen Plan was nearly successful, but in early September the French rallied and halted the German advance at the bloody Battle of the Marne near Paris. By the end of 1914, well over a million soldiers of various nationalities had been killed on the battlefields of Europe, and neither for the Allies nor the Central Powers was a final victory in sight. On the western front—the battle line that stretched across northern France and Belgium—the combatants settled down in the trenches for a terrible war of attrition.

Why World War I Ended With an Armistice Instead of a Surrender
Both sides had suffered too much to continue, but Germany would be left battered by harsh terms.

The Last Official Death of WWI Was a Man Who Sought Redemption
The six-hour delay between the armistice signing and World War I’s official end cost the lives of nearly 3,000 soldiers, including one American in the war’s final minute.

How Many People Died in World War I?
The carnage of the First World War was so extreme that historians have had a difficult time agreeing on exactly how many people lost their lives.


In 1915, the Allies attempted to break the stalemate with an amphibious invasion of Turkey, which had joined the Central Powers in October 1914, but after heavy bloodshed the Allies were forced to retreat in early 1916. The year 1916 saw great offensives by Germany and Britain along the western front, but neither side accomplished a decisive victory. In the east, Germany was more successful, and the disorganized Russian army suffered terrible losses, spurring the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917. By the end of 1917, the Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia and immediately set about negotiating peace with Germany. In 1918, the infusion of American troops and resources into the western front finally tipped the scale in the Allies’ favor. Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies on November 11, 1918.

World War I was known as the “war to end all wars” because of the great slaughter and destruction it caused. Unfortunately, the peace treaty that officially ended the conflict—the Treaty of Versailles of 1919—forced punitive terms on Germany that destabilized Europe and laid the groundwork for World War II.

12 th November 1912

Scott of the antarctic :
The frozen bodies of Robert Scott and his men are found on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

This Explorer's Corpse Has Been Trapped in Ice for More Than a Century.

You may know the sad story of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the British explorer who aimed to be the first to reach the South Pole—only to arrive in January 1912 to find a Norwegian flag had been planted by explorer Roald Amundsen five weeks prior. Among other setbacks, the Scott expedition was plagued by technical difficulties, infirm ponies, and illness during their 800-mile trek across the Ross Ice Shelf back to their base camp in McMurdo Sound.

Ultimately, all five men perished before they reached the camp. Petty Officer Edgar Evans suffered a head injury, a serious wound on his hand, and frostbite before dying at a temporary campsite on the return journey. Captain Lawrence Oates, suffering severely from frostbite, voluntarily left the camp one night and walked right into a blizzard, choosing to sacrifice himself rather than slow the other men down. Captain Scott, Lieutenant Henry "Birdie" Bowers, and Doctor Edward Adrian Wilson subsequently died in late March of a vicious combination of exposure and starvation.

The makeshift camp in which the last three men died was only 11 miles from a supply depot. When their frozen corpses were discovered on the ice shelf by a search party the following November, a cairn of snow was built around them, tent and all, as there was no soil in which to bury them. A cross made of skis was added to the top. Before they left, surgeon Edward Leicester Atkinson, a member of the search party, left a note in a metal cylinder at the site:

November 12, 1912, Lat. 79 degrees, 50 mins. South. This cross and cairn are erected over the bodies of Captain Scott, C.V.O., R.N., Doctor E. A. Wilson, M.B. B.C., Cantab., and Lieutenant H. R. Bowers, Royal Indian Marine—a slight token to perpetuate their successful and gallant attempt to reach the Pole. This they did on January 17, 1912, after the Norwegian Expedition had already done so. Inclement weather with lack of fuel was the cause of their death. Also to commemorate their two gallant comrades, Captain L. E. G. Oates of the Inniskilling Dragoons, who walked to his death in a blizzard to save his comrades about eighteen miles south of this position; also of Seaman Edgar Evans, who died at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. “The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

But something even more curious happened next.

In the century and change since Scott and his comrades died, the cairn-tomb has been slowly moving. That’s because it was erected on top of a 360-foot-thick section of ice—the Ross Ice Shelf, which is constantly fed by glaciers on either side. As of 2011, according to the Polar Record, it was buried under approximately 53 feet of ice, as the surface accumulates more ice and the bottom of the shelf melts and refreezes. Assuming the rate of accumulation has been approximately the same for the last five years, they’re about 55 feet inside the ice by now.

The north edge of the ice shelf also grows and shifts, as the entire plate moves slowly toward the water’s edge. As such, the cairn, the tent, and the corpses have traveled about 39 miles away from their original geographic location, and they’re still on the move. No one seems to have pinpointed exactly where they are, but glacierologists who have weighed in on the topic generally believe the bodies are still preserved intact.

Within another 250 years or so, the bodies of Scott, Bowers, and Wilson will have at last traveled to the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, where it meets McMurdo Sound in the Ross Sea. By then, they’ll be encased in more than 325 feet of ice. The ice is not as thick at the front of the shelf as it is where the cairn began its journey, and so they could be embedded low by the time they get to the water.

It’s tempting to imagine that once the bodies meet the edge of the ice shelf in about two and a half centuries, they’ll just slide out of the melted ice and splash into the ocean. But that’s not quite how it works. As the Ross Ice Shelf advances further out to sea, every 50 to 100 years it can no longer support its own weight and the shelf calves off an iceberg. The particular chunk of the ice shelf holding the remains of Scott and his men is expected to break off into an iceberg (or possibly a mini version called a growler or bergy bit) before they get to the front of the ice shelf at the water. Back in 2011, the Polar Record forecasted that the special day will fall in 2250 or thereabouts.

If all goes as predicted, this means that Captain Scott, Lieutenant Bowers, and Doctor Wilson will then get to ride around the Ross Sea—and later the Southern Ocean—inside of an iceberg about 350 years after their deaths.

Depending on where the berg with the British bodies breaks off from the ice shelf, it will probably stay local and head toward the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands. The iceberg will almost certainly melt someday, be it in a decade or a century. Then, the dead men will be free-floating in the water, where, depending on a host of circumstances, they’ll stay until currents and sea animals have their way with them. Their skeletons are then predicted to wash up somewhere, possibly the South Shetlands—but who can say for sure? All we can really do is keep an eye out for them in the area in about 250 years.

Although the deaths of Robert F. Scott and his team were tragic, it’s possible to imagine that as explorers, they might have approved of the far-out adventure their bodies would endure—centuries after their final one got cut a bit short.

13 th November 1887


Bloody Sunday:
Bloody Sunday clashes in central London's Trafalgar square.


Today in 1887, the working class from London's East End took a stand for justice in Trafalgar Square and were attacked for their trouble.

Eleanor Marx, Annie Besant, William Morris, George Bernard Shaw – all these giants of the early British labour movement converged on Trafalgar Square today in 1887.

They marched there with a crowd of at least 10,000 working-class Londoners.

It was a protest against soaring unemployment in the city as well as the ruling Tory government’s coercive treatment of Ireland (many workers in the contemporary East End were Irish).

Mobilised by the growing socialist movement in England, this demo was a formidable combination of economic protest with anti-colonial solidarity.

As such, the arm of the state came down hard on the assembled workers.

Scared by the prospect of popular discontent in Ireland linking up with working-class anger in London, the government deployed 2,000 policemen – reinforced by the army – to confront the unarmed marchers.

What followed was a police riot like Orgreave in 1984.

Countless protestors were wounded by police truncheons and cavalry horses. Four hundred were arrested. Two of the march leaders – John Burns and Robert Cunninghame-Graham – were locked up for six weeks.

At one point, a Tory businessman who ran a firm which made fire engines, offered one of them to the police for use as a water cannon. It was naked class warfare in the middle of London.

Thankfully, this ‘Bloody Sunday’ of 1887 was not as murderous as its more familiar successor in Derry. No one was killed (although it came awfully close, with soldiers lined up against the protestors, bayonets fixed).

What’s more, while defeated on the day, the cause of the protest won out in time.

Within a few decades, Liberal politicians had been driven by increasingly organised pressure from the working class across the British Isles to introduce the beginnings of a social welfare system. This was small change compared to the project of Attlee’s post-war Labour government, but it was a start.

The cause of Irish autonomy, too, was at last made a government priority in the 1910s – a concession which the Irish people soon turned into full self-determination after the Easter Rising.



These political victories for the oppressed belong to those who fought and suffered in Trafalgar Square on 13th November 1887.

The public squares and streets of our cities are not just empty space – there is radical history seeping through them, if only we’ve the eyes to see.

Trafalgar Square has hosted many a brave protest, from Nye Bevan’s denunciation of the Suez War to the mass demos against Thatcher’s poll tax in 1990.

Elsewhere in London, Cable Street is also hallowed ground in the history of British anti-fascism. There, in 1936, another generation of East Enders took their stand against Mosley’s Blackshirts.

At a time when we’re unable to enter most public buildings, let's appreciate our outdoor public spaces – they’re full of the radical history created by those who went before.

14 th November 1952

U.Ks first pop chart:
The New Musical Express publishes the first regular UK Singles Chart.

The fist ever U.K official Singles Chart - revisited!

60 years ago today, on November 14, 1952, the first ever Official Singles Chart was published in NME. To celebrate, OfficialCharts.com reveal the first ever Top 12 complete with streaming playlists!

In the US, Billboard had been compiling a weekly chart based on record sales since 1940, but here in the UK a song’s popularity was measured not by its physical sales, but by sales of the accompanying sheet music.

In 1952, Percy Dickins, one of the founders of the New Musical Express (which later became the NME) decided to produce a chart based on UK record sales. Dickins compiled the chart by telephoning 20 record shops up and down the country every week and tallying up their biggest-selling singles. The first ever Top 12 (which was actually a Top 15 given that sales of the Number 7, Number 8, and Number 11 singles were tied) was published in the New Musical Express on November 14, 1952.




American crooner Al Martino took the inaugural Official Singles Chart Number 1 with his track Here In My Heart. He would hold onto the top spot for nine consecutive weeks, a feat which has only been beaten by David Whitfield’s Cara Mia (10 consecutive weeks), Rihanna’s Umbrella (10 consecutive weeks), Frankie Laine’s I Believe (11), Wet Wet Wet’s Love Is All Around (15) and Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It for You (16).

Jo Stafford, who would go on the become the Official Singles Chart’s first female chart topper, debuted at Number 2 with You Belong To Me, while Nat King Cole’s Somewhere Along The Way entered at Number 3. Bing Crosby’s The Isle of Innisfree entered at Number 4, and Guy Mitchell’s Feet Up (Pat Him On The Po Po) completed the first ever Top 5.

Further down the chart, Frankie Laine’s High Noon and Vera Lynn’s Forget Me Not were tied for Number 7. Doris Day And Frankie Laine’s Sugarbush and Ray Martin’s Blue Tango were joint Number 8, and Max Bygraves' Cowpuncher’s Cantata and Mario Lanza’s Because You’re Mine were joint Number 11.

The first ever Official Singles Chart was as follows:

1 Here In My Heart Al Martino
2 You Belong To Me Jo Stafford
3 Somewhere Along The Way Nat King Cole
4 The Isle Of Innisfree Bing Crosby
5 Feet Up (Pat Him On The Po-Po) Guy Mitchell
6 Half As Much Rosemary Clooney
7 High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me) Frankie Laine
7 Forget Me Not Vera Lynn
8 Sugarbush Doris Day And Frankie Laine
8 Blue Tango Ray Martin
9 The Homing Waltz Vera Lynn
10 Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart Vera Lynn
11 Cowpuncher's Cantata Max Bygraves
11 Because You're Mine Mario Lanza
12 Walkin' My Baby Back Home Johnnie Ray

15 th November 1985


The Anglo - Irish agreement:
The Anglo-Irish Agreement is signed at Hillsborough Castle by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.


Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 (Hillsborough Agreement)
The Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) was signed at Hillsborough Castle (the symbolic seat of British power in Northern Ireland) on 15 November 1985 by the British and Irish premiers, Margaret Thatcher and Garret FitzGerald. It was the sixth in a series of intergovernmental summits that began in May 1980. Hillsborough was qualitatively different in that the earlier summits had taken place in an atmosphere strained by the hunger strikes, the Falklands/Malvinas War, and the Brighton bomb. The communiqué accompanying the agreement recognized its historic significance. It came into effect on 29 November after it was ratified by the Dáil and the British House of Commons and was registered at the United Nations on 20 December 1985.

The agreement had a strong institutional framework. Article 2 represented one powerful axis. In part 2(a) it established an Intergovernmental Conference concerned with Northern Ireland and with relations between the two parts of Ireland to deal on a regular basis with "(i) political matters; (ii) security and related matters; (iii) legal matters, including the administration of justice; and (iv) the promotion of cross-border cooperation"; and 2(b) stated that "the United Kingdom Government accepts that the Irish Government will put forward views and proposals on matters relating to Northern Ireland within the field of activity of the Conference insofar as those matters are not the responsibility of a devolved administration in Northern Ireland." It could be said that Article 2 gave constitutional nationalism greater influence than it had ever enjoyed since partition. The countervailing axis existed in Article 1, which attempted to reassure unionists of the prevailing constitutional status of Northern Ireland, and in Articles 4(b), 5(c), and 10(b), which acted as a catalyst toward achieving devolution in place of an enhanced role for the conference. Additionally, Article 11 allowed for a review of the working of the conference within three years.

The AIA is significant for three reasons. First, both governments were now committed to working together on the historic Anglo-Irish conflict. A permanent Anglo-Irish secretariat (staffed by senior personnel from Dublin and London) was a manifestation of its rigor. The structures were built to withstand boycotts, physical threats, general strikes, or whatever. The Intergovernmental Conference, chaired by the British secretary of state and the Irish foreign minister, represented both structure and process. Second, the agreement received much international approbation. A goodwill manifest in Article 10(a) promoted cross-border social and economic development by securing international support through the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), which was established on 18 September 1986 with financial support from the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. In the next fourteen years the IFI was associated with investing 1.1 billion pounds. Third, the agreement symbolized profound attitudinal change. Article 1 represented a historic shift in Irish nationalists' attitude toward Northern Ireland. Equally, British concessions to the Irish heralded an era of intense intergovernmental cooperation. They had set in motion a process of change that was to culminate in the Belfast Agreement of April 1998.

16 th November 1992

The Hoxne hoard:
The Hoxne Hoard is discovered by metal detectorist Eric Lawes in Hoxne, Suffolk.


A Search for a Lost Hammer Led to the Largest Cache of Roman Treasure Ever Found in Britain
Today, archaeologists are still debating just how old the hoard is—and what it tells us about the end of the Roman Empire in Britain

When Eric Lawes set off for a field in Hoxne village, Suffolk on November 16, 1992, it wasn’t on a treasure hunt. The metal detector he’d received as a retirement gift was meant to find a hammer lost on the farmland. But the detector picked up a strong signal in the earth, leading Lawes to start digging, and it quickly became apparent that he had indeed found treasure.

After bringing up only a few shovelfuls of silver spoons and gold coins, Lawes quickly retreated and called the police and the local archaeological society. The very next day, as covertly as possible, the archaeologists excavated a chunk of earth with the treasure still contained within. This way, they could remove the objects under laboratory conditions, which would help determine the age and storage method of the cache. By the time everything had been removed from the dirt, the archaeologists had nearly 60 pounds of gold and silver objects, including 15,234 Roman coins, dozens of silver spoons and 200 gold objects.

Lawes received £1.75 million from the British government for finding the gold and leaving it intact, which he split with the farmer on whose land the hoard was uncovered (he also eventually found the hammer, which later went on exhibit). As for archaeologists, they had their own reward: of the 40 treasure hoards discovered in Britain, the Hoxne Hoard was “the largest and latest ever found in Britain,” says Rachel Wilkinson. The project curator for Romano-British collections at the British Museum, where the artifacts reside, Wilkinson says the unique way this hoard was excavated, compared to how most are retrieved by farmers plowing their field, makes it invaluable.

In the 30 years since the unearthing of the Hoxne hoard, researchers have used the objects to learn more about one of Britain’s most turbulent periods: the island’s separation from the Roman Empire in 410 A.D.

*****

The end of the fourth century A.D. was an unsettled time for the Roman Empire. The territory stretched across the entirety of the Mediterranean world, including all of the land that would come to be Italy, Spain, Greece and France and large chunks of North Africa, Turkey and Britain. Under Emperor Theodosius, Christianity became the sole religion of the empire, while all other belief systems became illegal, a dramatic change after centuries of polytheism. And while parts of the Empire continued to thrive, the Western Roman Empire was deteriorating. Gothic warriors won battles and killed leaders like Emperor Valens, and in 410 the Visigoths (nomadic Germanic peoples) sacked Rome. Meanwhile, Roman subjects in Britain were left to fend for themselves against raiders from Scotland and Ireland, having lost the support of Roman soldiers even before the separation from the Empire.

“The years from the later fourth century to 450, the period including the British hoarding peak, witnessed numerous invasions into the [mainland Europe] Empire by Germanic and Hunnic groups often followed by largescale devastation and disruption,” writes Roman archaeologist Peter Guest, the author of The Late Roman Gold and Silver coins from the Hoxne Treasure.

This level of societal upheaval has led to the “hoards equal hordes” hypothesis. Basically, Romano-British citizens who no longer had the protection of the Roman Empire were so terrified of the raiding Saxons, Angles, Picts and others that they buried their most valuable belongings. According to an entry from 418 in the 9th-century text Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, “In this year the Romans collected all the treasures which were in Britain and hid some in the earth so that no one afterwards could find them, and some they took with them into Gaul.”

For all their fears of “barbarians,” the Romano-British weren’t only the only people in the Roman Empire to experience upheaval—yet nowhere else have hoards been discovered in as dense of numbers as in Britain. Could there be an alternate explanation for why some wealthy family buried so much gold in the ground?

Because no organic materials survived in the Hoxne hoard, radiocarbon can’t be used as a dating technique. Instead, archaeologists use the age of coins, which they arrive it by looking at inscriptions on the coin as well as the ruler depicted on its face.

“The date after which Hoxne must’ve been buried is 408 or 409 [based on the age of the coins] and the traditional model would suggest it was buried around about that point in time,” Guest said in an interview with Smithsonian.com. “My perspective is that actually we’ve been misdating these hoards. If you look at them a little more carefully, then they should be dated to the period after the separation of Britain from the Roman Empire.”


Guest argues that the coins may have been in circulation around Britain for decades after the Roman Empire removed its influence from the island. One bit of evidence he offers for this hypothesis is a practice called clipping. Of the more than 15,000 coins in the Hoxne cache, 98 percent are clipped—bits of their edges have been removed, reducing their size by as much as a third. Based on chemical analyses, Guest and others have found that the metal removed from those coins was used to make imitation Roman coins that remained in circulation for longer.

“The Roman Emperor wasn’t supplying Britain with new gold and silver coins, and in light of that, the population tried to get over this sudden cutoff in the supply of precious metals by making the existing supplies go further,” Guest said.

But part of the value of the Hoxne hoard is that it contains more than just a massive quantity of coins. In The Hoxne Late Roman Treasure: Gold Jewelry and Silver Plate, archaeologist Catherine Johns speculates that the Roman family to whom the treasure belonged kept them as sentimental objects.

This suggestion is possible thanks to an analysis of not just what was in the hoard, but also how it was hoarded. Surrounding the coins and gold objects were nails, hinges, locks, scraps of wood, bone and ivory. Some of the objects were packed with straw, while others were placed in smaller, leather-lined wood boxes. Some of the items revealed significant wear, such as the silver handle in the shape of a tiger that had been detached from its vase, and the damaged pepper pots. All these details imply the stash might have been buried with care rather than being hurriedly hidden. And they also offer archaeologists plenty of fodder for theories about life for a wealthy family at the turn of the fifth century.

Take the dozens of silver spoons, for example. Some of them are worn down and show evidence of being repaired. Others are marked with words, including names (Aurelius Ursicinus and Silvicola) and a Latin phrase (vivas in deo). And while most of the spoons are inscribed to be read from a right-handed position, one spoon looks as if it was made for a leftie.



The silver pepper pot is hollowed out, in the shape of a noble lady. At the base the pot can be turned to three sittings, one closed, one with small holes for sprinkling, and one open for filling the pot with ground pepper. British Museum.

Or look at the pepper pot, selected by the BBC as one of 100 objects to tell the story of the history of the world. The silver pot is molded in the shape of a noble woman, with holes in the base of the object for pepper to be shaken out. Not only does the pot tell us the owners engaged in international trade—pepper had to be shipped and purchased from India—but it also reveals details about women’s fashion. As Johns writes for the BBC, “The most striking aspect of the lady’s appearance is her intricate hairstyle. It would have required very long, thick hair and the attentions of a skilled hairdresser to create,” and included decorative pins arranged to look like a tiara.

Even the jewelry reveals tiny glimpses of what life may have looked like for women. There’s a gold body chain for an adolescent girl, several rings missing their gemstones, and multiple bracelets, including one with the inscription utere felix domina Iuliane—“use this and be happy, Lady Juliane.”

“Were Aurelius and Juliane the owners of the treasure, or perhaps their ancestors? We do not know,” writes Kenneth Lapatin in the Times Literary Supplement. “These people remain ciphers to us and, unlike their possessions, are largely irrecoverable.”

Archaeology is a field that often requires making inferences. The Hoxne hoard offers tantalizing slivers of the past without enough detail to allow for definitive answers. Even something as simple as when the treasure was buried currently remains unknowable. “You can’t prove or disprove either of these two positions,” Guest said of the hypothesis that the treasure was buried at the end of the Roman Empire in Britain or in the years after the end. “The dating of material culture to produce our chronologies and the difficulty of that goes back a long way in archaeology.”

But even surrounded by unanswered questions, the Hoxne treasure is an irresistible collection that tells a dramatic story: the end of one empire, the earliest days of what would eventually become another empire. And whatever else it might provide archaeologists, it also provides the public with a happy ending—sometimes you find buried treasure when you least expect it.

17 th November 2019

First Covid victim:
The first known case of COVID-19 is traced to a 55-year-old man who had visited a market in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.


A 55-year-old individual from Hubei province in China may have been the first person to have contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus spreading across the globe. That case dates back to Nov. 17, 2019, according to the South China Morning Post.

That's more than a month earlier than doctors noted cases in Wuhan, China, which is in Hubei province, at the end of December 2019. At the time, authorities suspected the virus stemmed from something sold at a wet market in the city. However, it's now clear that early in what is now a pandemic, some infected people had no connection to the market. That included one of the earliest cases from Dec. 1, 2019 in an individual who had no link to that seafood market, researchers reported Jan. 20 in the journal The Lancet.

Scientists suspected this coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, originated in a bat and somehow hopped to another animal, possibly the pangolin, which then passed it on to humans. The disease is now spreading between people without any animal intermediary.

Doctors and scientists were trying to trace the virus back to where it originated to learn more about its spread. If, for instance, doctors can find the earliest cases, they may be able to identify the animal host where the virus lurks.

They found that following the Nov. 17 case, about one to five new cases were reported every day and by Dec. 15, the total infections reached 27. Daily cases seem to have increased after that, with the case count reaching 60 by Dec. 20, the SCMP reported.

On Dec. 27, Dr. Zhang Jixian, head of the respiratory department at Hubei Provincial Hospital, reported to health officials in China that a novel coronavirus was causing the disease; by that day, it had infected more than 180 individuals. (Doctors may not have been aware of all of those cases at the time, but only identified those cases after going back over the records, the Morning Post reported.)

Even with this Nov. 17 case identified, doctors can't be certain the individual is "patient zero," or the very first individual to have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, and there's a chance even earlier cases will be found, the SCMP reported.

18 th November 1987


Kings Cross fire:
King's Cross fire: In London, 31 people die in a fire at the city's busiest underground station, King's Cross St Pancras.

The King's Cross fire was a fire in 1987 at a London Underground station with 31 fatalities, after a fire under a wooden escalator suddenly spread into the underground ticket hall in a flashover.

The fire began at approximately 19:30 on 18 November 1987 at King's Cross St Pancras tube station, a major interchange on the London Underground. As well as the mainline railway stations above ground and subsurface platforms for the Metropolitan, Circle, and Hammersmith & City lines (the latter of which was part of the Metropolitan line at the time), there were platforms deeper underground for the Northern, Piccadilly, and Victoria lines. The fire started under a wooden escalator serving the Piccadilly line and, at 19:45, erupted in a flashover into the underground ticket hall, killing 31 people and injuring 100.

A public inquiry was conducted from February to June 1988. Investigators reproduced the fire twice, once to determine whether grease under the escalator was ignitable, and the other to determine whether a computer simulation of the fire—which would have determined the cause of the flashover—was accurate. The inquiry determined that the fire had been started by a lit match being dropped onto the escalator. The fire seemed minor until it suddenly increased in intensity, and shot a violent, prolonged tongue of fire, and billowing smoke, up into the ticket hall. This sudden transition in intensity, and the spout of fire, was due to the previously unknown trench effect, discovered by the computer simulation of the fire, and confirmed in two tests on scale models.

London Underground was strongly criticised for its attitude toward fires; staff were complacent because there had never been a fatal fire on the system, and had been given little or no training to deal with fires or evacuation. The report on the inquiry resulted in resignations of senior management in both London Underground and London Regional Transport and led to the introduction of new fire safety regulations. Wooden escalators were gradually replaced with metal escalators on the Underground.

Fire
King's Cross St Pancras tube station has subsurface platforms for the Metropolitan, Circle, and Hammersmith & City lines.[a] Deeper underground are the platforms for the Northern line City branch and the Piccadilly and Victoria lines. An escalator shaft led down to the Victoria line and another led down to the Piccadilly line, and from that to the Northern line. Stairs connected the Piccadilly and Victoria line platforms and from these there was a subway to King's Cross Thameslink railway station platforms used by British Rail Midland City (later Thameslink) trains to Moorgate and an entrance in Pentonville Road.

At approximately 19:30, several passengers reported seeing a fire on a Piccadilly line escalator. Officers of the British Transport Police (BTP) and station staff went to investigate and on confirming the fire one of the policemen went to the surface to radio for the London Fire Brigade (LFB), which sent four fire appliances and a turntable ladder at 19:36. The fire was beneath the escalator and was impossible to reach by use of a fire extinguisher. There was water fog equipment, but staff had not been trained in its use. At 19:39, BTP officers made the decision to evacuate the station using the Victoria line escalators. The LFB arrived a few minutes later, and several firemen went down to the escalator to assess the fire. They saw a fire about the size of a large cardboard box, and planned to fight it with a water jet and men with breathing apparatus.

At 19:42, the entire escalator was aflame, producing superheated gas that rose to the top of the shaft enclosing the escalator, where it was trapped against the tunnel ceiling, which was covered with about twenty layers of old paint from past repainting. As the superheated gases pooled along the ceiling of the escalator shaft, the layers of paint began absorbing the heat. A few years before the fire, the Underground's director of operations had warned that the accumulated paint might pose a fire hazard. However, painting protocols were not in his purview, and his suggestion was widely ignored by his colleagues.

At 19:45, there was a flashover and a jet of flames shot up the escalator shaft, filling the ticket hall with intense heat and thick black smoke, killing or seriously injuring most of the people still in the ticket hall. This trapped below ground several hundred people, who escaped on Victoria line trains.] A police constable, Richard Kukielka, found a seriously injured man and tried to evacuate him via the Midland City platforms, but found the way blocked by a locked Bostwick gate[b] until it was unlocked by a passing cleaner. Staff and a policewoman trapped on a Metropolitan line platform were rescued by a train.

At 22:00, the full horror of the fire blaze was evident, after the death toll jumped to 28. David Fitzsimons, a Metropolitan Police superintendent, told reporters: "We are talking about a major tragedy; many people are horribly burned."

Thirty fire crews—over 150 firefighters—were deployed. Fourteen London Ambulance Service ambulances ferried the injured to local hospitals, including University College Hospital. The fire was declared out at 01:46 the following morning.] On a television program about the fire, an official described King's Cross underground station's layout as "an efficient furnace"

19 th November 1994

First Lottery draw:

In the United Kingdom, the first National Lottery draw is held. A £1 ticket gave a one-in-14-million chance of correctly guessing the winning six out of 49 numbers.

National Lottery draw
Twenty nine years ago today, 22 million people watched in hopeful anticipation as the National Lottery made its first draw.


“Release the balls!” On this day in 1994, in a one-hour TV extravaganza hosted by Saturday evening TV institution Noel Edmonds, 18-year-old Deborah Walsh pressed the button that inaugurated the UK's National Lottery. 22 million people watched as the numbers were called: in ascending order, they were 3, 5, 14, 22, 30, 44, and the bonus ball was number 10.

The frequency of draws was doubled in February 1997 when a Wednesday draw was added. The use of the same range of numbers 1-49 was controversial, as it encouraged people to play who might otherwise not have, in case “their” numbers came up. Some wanted numbers 51-99 to be used instead.

The odds of winning are, famously, 14 million to one (actually 13,983,816 to one). But in that first week, seven people shared the jackpot, scooping £839,254 each.



However, this was not England's first National Lottery. That took place on 11 January 1569. In 1566 Queen Elizabeth instructed Sir John Spencer to set up a lottery to raise funds to be "employed to good and public acts and beneficially for our realm and our subjects". 400,000 tickets were sold at ten shillings a pop for the chance of a £5,000 jackpot. Other prizes included immunity from arrest for a week, and free entry to libraries. Collectors got sixpence a ticket.
And in 1694, the English State Lottery was launched. Also called the “Million Lottery”, 100,000 tickets were sold at £10 each, partly to fund war against France (who else?).



Noel Edmunds with the winning balls after the first draw.

20 th November 1992

Windsor castle fire:
In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage.

The 1992 Windsor Castle Fire "Absolutely Devastated" Queen Elizabeth
The destructive blaze in November 1992 is a key plot point in season five of The Crown.

On November 20, 1992, a fire broke out at Windsor Castle. The flames took 15 hours to contain, and by the time it was extinguished, the blaze had consumed 115 rooms in the historic royal residence. Season five of The Crown depicts the destruction, with Burghley House standing in for the Castle. Here, details of the real-life royal crisis—and how Queen Elizabeth reacted.

The fire started in Queen Victoria's Private Chapel.

Around 11:15 a.m. on Friday, November 20, 1992 a faulty spotlight in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle ignited a curtain. Per the official report on the Windsor Castle Fire released by Buckingham Palace, "Three officers of the Royal Household were present in the Chapel at the time and were studying one of the Queen's pictures with a view to restorative work." Around 11:15, the report continues, one of those present "detected a faint smell of burning." Yet, there "was no visual evidence of fire other than what was believed to be an undue amount of dust in the air."

At some time between 11:20 and 11:30 a.m., likely more between 11:25 and 11:30, the fire was discovered, and the three members of the royal household left the chapel. The palace's report details what happened next:

All three persons present left the Chapel at this stage and no attempt was made to extinguish the fire. One of the officers went into the adjacent St George's Hall and sought the help of contractors working there. Another went to the Holbein Room and summoned assistance from other picture restorers. The third went to the Queen's Vestibule and made an emergency call from the telephone located there using the internal 222 number directed to the Castle Switchboard. In so doing she would have passed the red fire telephone connected directly to the Castle Fire Control Room.
By 11:34, the Castle Fire Station had been alerted, and at 11:36, the Royal Berkshire Fire department had been notified; Chief Fire Officer, Marshall Smith, told them "Windsor Castle here; we have got a fire in the Private Chapel. Come to the Quadrangle as arranged."

Most of the art and furniture in the fire's path was saved.

As Windsor Castle's fire department and the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service began to fight the fire, staff worked to remove works of art from the path of the fire. Per the Royal Collection Trust, "The Castle's Quadrangle was full of some of the finest examples of French 18th-century furniture, paintings by Van Dyck, Rubens and Gainsborough, Sèvres porcelain and other treasures of the Collection." Ultimately, only two works of art were destroyed in the Windsor Castle Fire: A painting by Sir William Beechey and a rosewood sideboard.

Per the New York Times, Prince Andrew was involved in helping carry valuables out of the castle. He was the only member of the royal family on the grounds during the time of the fire. According to the Palace's report on the fire, approximately 370 people took part in the salvage process, including 125 Castle employees and community members.

Over two hundred firefighters from seven counties battled the fire.

225 firefighters were involved in getting the fire under control, using 36 pumps and 1.5 million gallons of water, per the RCT. The water was sourced from hydrants, a swimming pool, and a pond in the East Terrace Gardens.

The floors of Brunswick Tower collapsed under the fire, as did the Roof of St George's Hall. It took the firefighters until 8 p.m. to get the fire under control, and by 11 p.m., the main fire was extinguished. By 2:30 a.m. on November 21, the last secondary fires were finally extinguished—fifteen hours after the original fire began.

Why was the Windsor Castle fire so destructive?

"The fire at Windsor Castle occurred during its refurbishment, a time when any building is at its most vulnerable," the report states. "The work in process can be linked directly to the cause of the fire (removal and replacement and rewiring of spotlights), its rapid early development (officials and contractors unfamiliar with the facilities available for first aid firefighting and summoning help) and the subsequent hindering of firefighting effort by the presence of scaffolding."

The report continues, "It appears likely that the fire was burning for a significant time before it was ultimately sighted. By that stage it was virtually out of control. A sophisticated automatic detection system would probably have prevented this stage being reached and it is likely that an automatic suppression system would have at least contained the fire until the arrival of the fire brigade."

Essentially, the severity and rapid spread was due to the lack of basic fire protective measures in Windsor Castle, and no fire detection (i.e. fire alarm) and suppression systems (i.e. sprinklers).

How did Queen Elizabeth react to the fire?

Prince Andrew was the one to alert his mother of the fire. Queen Elizabeth traveled to Windsor that afternoon, where she stayed for about an hour. Andrew described her as "absolutely devastated" to the press.

Her chief spokesman, Dicky Arbiter, told reporters, "Probably the same reaction as yours if you saw your house burning down. She appeared very upset."

Four days later, in a speech marking forty years on the throne, she said, "1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis."

The Queen continued, "Indeed, I suspect that there are very few people or institutions unaffected by these last months of worldwide turmoil and uncertainty. This generosity and whole-hearted kindness of the Corporation of the City to Prince Philip and me would be welcome at any time, but at this particular moment, in the aftermath of Friday's tragic fire at Windsor, it is especially so. And, after this last weekend, we appreciate all the more what has been set before us today."

The cost of the repairs was around £36.5 million.
The cost for repairs and restoration was met by charging the public for entry to Windsor Castle, and by opening Buckingham Palace for admission. In addition, Queen Elizabeth contributed £2 million of her own money, and she agreed to start paying income taxes.

According to the BBC, "Buckingham Palace has denied the announcement is related to growing public concern about the rising cost of the monarchy. Questions have been raised about who will foot the bill for repairing Windsor Castle, which was severely damaged in a fire last week... a palace spokesman said the Queen and Prince Charles had made their decision before the July summer recess of Parliament."

The restoration work was completed five years later, in November 1997.

21 st November 1974

The Birmingham pub bombings:
The Birmingham pub bombings kill 21 people. The Birmingham Six are sentenced to life in prison for the crime but subsequently acquitted.


Birmingham pub bombing, terrorist bomb attack on two pubs in Birmingham, England, on November 21, 1974. The explosions killed 21 people, making it the deadliest attack on English soil during the Troubles, the 30-year struggle over the fate of Northern Ireland.

In the late 1960s conflict intensified between republican Roman Catholics and unionist Protestants in Northern Ireland. Armed paramilitary groups that had sprung up in both communities were prepared to use violence to protect themselves and achieve their ends. The largest armed organization on the republican, or nationalist, side was the Irish Republican Army (IRA). By the start of 1974, the leaders of the IRA had come to believe that the British were growing weary of their involvement in the conflict and that a serious escalation of violence would push the British into withdrawal. Accordingly, the IRA began a series of terrorist attacks on Britain’s mainland.

THE TROUBLES EVENTS
The IRA began its campaign when in February 1974 a bomb exploded on a bus that was transporting soldiers and their families to an army base in North Yorkshire; 12 people were killed, including two young children. Other bomb attacks followed over the course of the year, targeting such locations as the Tower of London and the Houses of Parliament. At least six people died as result of the attacks, with scores more injured. Of particular note was the October 5 bombing of a pair of pubs in Guildford, Surrey, the timing and execution of which strongly resembled the later Birmingham attack.


On November 21 a duffel bag containing a bomb was hidden at the Mulberry Bush, a popular pub in downtown Birmingham. A second bomb was left at another nearby pub, Tavern in the Town. It was a Thursday night, and both bars were crowded. Shortly after 8:00 PM a vague warning was phoned to the Birmingham Post and Mail offices; within minutes the two bombs exploded. Ten people were killed in the Mulberry Bush blast; 11 were killed in the Tavern in the Town; and almost 200 were injured in the explosions.

Following the bombings, anti-Irish sentiment ran high in Britain, especially in Birmingham, which had a substantial Irish immigrant community. By late November six Irish immigrants had been arrested and charged with the bombings. Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Hill, Gerry Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, Billy Power, and Johnny Walker became known as the “Birmingham Six.” They were convicted in August 1975 and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1991, after a long campaign had been conducted on their behalf, an appeals court overturned all six convictions, citing police mishandling of the evidence and indications that the confessions had been coerced.

22 nd Novemner 1963


J.F.K. assassination :
U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated and Texas Governor John Connally is seriously wounded by an assassin, who also kills Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippit after fleeing the scene. U.S Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th President of the United States afterwards .



NOVEMBER 22, 1963: DEATH OF THE PRESIDENT
Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas.
By the fall of 1963, President John F. Kennedy and his political advisers were preparing for the next presidential campaign. Although he had not formally announced his candidacy, it was clear that President Kennedy was going to run and he seemed confident about his chances for re-election.

At the end of September, the president traveled west, speaking in nine different states in less than a week. The trip was meant to put a spotlight on natural resources and conservation efforts. But JFK also used it to sound out themes—such as education, national security, and world peace—for his run in 1964.

Campaigning in Texas
A month later, the president addressed Democratic gatherings in Boston and Philadelphia. Then, on November 12, he held the first important political planning session for the upcoming election year. At the meeting, JFK stressed the importance of winning Florida and Texas and talked about his plans to visit both states in the next two weeks.

Mrs. Kennedy would accompany him on the swing through Texas, which would be her first extended public appearance since the loss of their baby, Patrick, in August. On November 21, the president and first lady departed on Air Force One for the two-day, five-city tour of Texas.

President Kennedy was aware that a feud among party leaders in Texas could jeopardize his chances of carrying the state in 1964, and one of his aims for the trip was to bring Democrats together. He also knew that a relatively small but vocal group of extremists was contributing to the political tensions in Texas and would likely make its presence felt—particularly in Dallas, where US Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson had been physically attacked a month earlier after making a speech there. Nonetheless, JFK seemed to relish the prospect of leaving Washington, getting out among the people and into the political fray.

The first stop was San Antonio. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Governor John B. Connally, and Senator Ralph W. Yarborough led the welcoming party. They accompanied the president to Brooks Air Force Base for the dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health Center. Continuing on to Houston, he addressed the League of United Latin American Citizens, and spoke at a testimonial dinner for Congressman Albert Thomas before ending the day in Fort Worth.

Morning in Fort Worth
A light rain was falling on Friday morning, November 22, but a crowd of several thousand stood in the parking lot outside the Texas Hotel where the Kennedys had spent the night. A platform was set up and the president, wearing no protection against the weather, came out to make some brief remarks. "There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth," he began, "and I appreciate your being here this morning. Mrs. Kennedy is organizing herself. It takes longer, but, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it." He went on to talk about the nation's need for being "second to none" in defense and in space, for continued growth in the economy and "the willingness of citizens of the United States to assume the burdens of leadership."

The warmth of the audience response was palpable as the president reached out to shake hands amidst a sea of smiling faces.

Back inside the hotel the president spoke at a breakfast of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, focusing on military preparedness. "We are still the keystone in the arch of freedom," he said. "We will continue to do…our duty, and the people of Texas will be in the lead."

On to Dallas
The presidential party left the hotel and went by motorcade to Carswell Air Force Base for the thirteen-minute flight to Dallas. Arriving at Love Field, President and Mrs. Kennedy disembarked and immediately walked toward a fence where a crowd of well-wishers had gathered, and they spent several minutes shaking hands.

The first lady received a bouquet of red roses, which she brought with her to the waiting limousine. Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie, were already seated in the open convertible as the Kennedys entered and sat behind them. Since it was no longer raining, the plastic bubble top had been left off. Vice President and Mrs. Johnson occupied another car in the motorcade.

The procession left the airport and traveled along a ten-mile route that wound through downtown Dallas on the way to the Trade Mart where the President was scheduled to speak at a luncheon.

The Assassination
Crowds of excited people lined the streets and waved to the Kennedys. The car turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. As it was passing the Texas School Book Depository, gunfire suddenly reverberated in the plaza.

Bullets struck the president's neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy. The governor was shot in his back.

The car sped off to Parkland Memorial Hospital just a few minutes away. But little could be done for the President. A Catholic priest was summoned to administer the last rites, and at 1:00 p.m. John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead. Though seriously wounded, Governor Connally would recover.

The president's body was brought to Love Field and placed on Air Force One. Before the plane took off, a grim-faced Lyndon B. Johnson stood in the tight, crowded compartment and took the oath of office, administered by US District Court Judge Sarah Hughes. The brief ceremony took place at 2:38 p.m.

Less than an hour earlier, police had arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a recently hired employee at the Texas School Book Depository. He was being held for the assassination of President Kennedy and the fatal shooting, shortly afterward, of Patrolman J. D. Tippit on a Dallas street.

On Sunday morning, November 24, Oswald was scheduled to be transferred from police headquarters to the county jail. Viewers across America watching the live television coverage suddenly saw a man aim a pistol and fire at point blank range. The assailant was identified as Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner. Oswald died two hours later at Parkland Hospital.

The President's Funeral
That same day, President Kennedy's flag-draped casket was moved from the White House to the Capitol on a caisson drawn by six grey horses, accompanied by one riderless black horse. At Mrs. Kennedy's request, the cortege and other ceremonial details were modeled on the funeral of Abraham Lincoln. Crowds lined Pennsylvania Avenue and many wept openly as the caisson passed. During the 21 hours that the president's body lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda, about 250,000 people filed by to pay their respects.

On Monday, November 25, 1963 President Kennedy was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. The funeral was attended by heads of state and representatives from more than 100 countries, with untold millions more watching on television. Afterward, at the grave site, Mrs. Kennedy and her husband's brothers, Robert and Edward, lit an eternal flame.

Perhaps the most indelible images of the day were the salute to his father given by little John F. Kennedy Jr. (whose third birthday it was), daughter Caroline kneeling next to her mother at the president's bier, and the extraordinary grace and dignity shown by Jacqueline Kennedy.

As people throughout the nation and the world struggled to make sense of a senseless act and to articulate their feelings about President Kennedy's life and legacy, many recalled these words from his inaugural address:

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days, nor in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this administration. Nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

23 rd November 1867

The Manchester martyrs:
The Manchester Martyrs are hanged in Manchester, England, for killing a police officer while freeing two Irish Republican Brotherhood members from custody.

The tale of the Manchester Martyrs
‘Who were the Manchester Martyrs?
William Allen, Michael Larkin, and Thomas Maguire were executed on 18 September 1867 for the murder of Sergeant Charles Brett and hanged outside the New Bailey Prison in Salford. They were the first Irishmen executed for a political crime by the British state since the Republican rebel, Robert Emmet, in 1803. It was the last public execution to take place in the area and a crowd of thousands, many from the local Irish community and sympathetic to the Republican cause, attended. Fenian propagandists rapidly transformed the three dead men into the ‘Manchester Martyrs’, which brought many Irish into the Fenian movement as active members, and thousands more as newly sympathetic supporters.

Who were the Fenians?
In Victorian Ireland there was a real, popular sense of mistreatment, ripe for agitation. And it was to seize this political opportunity that, in 1858, the Irish Republican Brotherhood had come into being. Founded in the US and soon known as just ‘the Fenians’, this Brotherhood called for an Irish republic independent of Britain, to be achieved by armed force.

Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church (more from fear of losing its political dominance of Ireland than out of a principled objection to violence), the Fenians quickly grew in popularity. Appealing to a popular mythology of armed struggle against the English crown which they cleverly situated in contemporary grievances with British rule, the Fenians soon had a network of cells across Ireland and, crucially, the Irish diaspora.

What was Ireland like in 1860?
Ireland was uneasy in the 1860s. The Great Famine – for which most, with justification, blamed the fatal non-intervention of the British government – was still a hulking shadow over Irish hearts and memories. Moreover, the multiplying Irish voices for Home Rule as a solution to this sort of governmental neglect were met with political hostility and derision from the English elites.

How is Manchester steeped in Irish history?
Manchester’s story has long been tied to Ireland’s. For two centuries and more, since the city began its transformation into an industrial metropolis, the Irish have come – and kept coming – in search of work and a better life for their families, enriching Mancunian cultural and social life in the process (we’d have no Gallagher brothers – so no Oasis – without the Manchester Irish!).

By 1861, Irish born citizens made up 15.2% of the Manchester population, concentrated in areas like Ancoats and Angel Meadows. Near Hulme, there was a slum going by the name of ‘Little Ireland’ due to the sheer number of its residents who had come to Manchester from across the Irish Sea.

What did the Fenians do in Manchester?
Manchester was on the frontline between Irish nationalists and the British state in the 1860s. Fenianism walked onto fertile political ground in cities like Manchester. Here, the Irish – many of whom were recent refugees from the Great Famine – had their various national grievances compounded by the biting alienation and poverty which characterised working class life in Victorian cities. Fenian talk of solidarity and liberation spoke to a need in their bitterly exploited lives.

So, when two high profile Irish American Fenian leaders, Thomas J Kelly and Timothy Deasy, were arrested in Manchester on 11 September 1867, the Fenian Brotherhood found a flock of Mancunian volunteers eager to help rescue them from police custody.

The city was about to become a dangerous battleground in the fight between Irish republicanism and the English crown…

What happened on 18 September 1867?
On 18 September 1867, Thomas J Kelly and Timothy Deasy were being transported to Belle Vue Prison in Manchester. When their police convoy was driving down Hyde Road, it was ambushed by no fewer than 40 armed Fenians.

The Irish were there to rescue their two commanders and they were under orders that none of the policemen should be harmed.

All initially went according to their plan; the police surrendered or fled and the Fenians established control of the road. But then, unable to gain access to the van holding Kelly and Deasy with crowbars, they shot the lock off the van, accidentally killing the policeman sat with them inside, Sergeant Charles Brett.

Why were the Manchester Martyrs hanged?
Shocked by the audacity of the Fenians to act so openly in England itself, and using the death of Sergeant Brett as capital, an enraged British establishment cried out for Irish blood. Writing on the Fenian raid, the conservative press announced, ‘one of the most audacious outrages that have occurred in this country for many years.’[1] The Times newspaper made ominous calls for a ‘stern and decisive repression,’ preaching that, ‘there is but one way of meeting unlawful terrorism. It must be repelled by lawful terrorism.’[2]

With the viscerally anti-Irish Tories in power at the time, these hardliners got the response they wanted. Heavy handed and barely discriminate police raids of the Irish districts in Manchester produced 29 arrests. After a quick and procedurally dubious trial process, five of these men were convicted of the murder of Sergeant Brett and condemned to death by hanging.

After one of them (Michael O’Brien) was pardoned because he quite obviously hadn’t been at the ambush, and another (Edward Condon) had his sentence commuted after the intervention of the US government (he was an American citizen who had fought for the Union in the Civil War), three Irishmen were left to hang – publicly – at the New Bailey Prison in Salford, shortly after 8.00am on 23 November 1867.

Where are the Manchester Martyrs buried?
The Manchester Martyrs were buried within the walls of the New Bailey Prison and also quickly given a shared tombstone in the hallowed grounds of Glasnevin (Ireland’s national cemetery) by their Irish admirers; mock funeral processions (including one made up of 60,000 people in Dublin, and two in Manchester itself) followed as well as a song composed to mark their death (God Save Ireland – named for the closing words of Edward Condon’s trial speech), which became the de facto Irish national anthem.

There is a memorial to Police Sergeant Charles Brett at the western end of St Ann’s Church in central Manchester.

25 th November1984

                   Band Aid:
                                  Thirty-six top musicians gather in a Notting Hill studio and record Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

                                 ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’: Band Aid’s Era-Defining Call To Action
On November 25, 1984, an entire studio of British pop stars came together in London. They came to be known as Band Aid.

Published on November 25, 2022By Paul Sexton

On the momentous date of November 25, 1984, an entire studio full of British pop stars gathered in London. They came to be known as Band Aid and helped to turn a Bob Geldof and Midge Ure composition into a record that helped define the 1980s and sold 3.75 million copies in the UK alone.

“Do They Know It’s Christmas” was recorded at Sarm West Studios on that Sunday, as the British music industry rallied in the most extraordinary fashion to Geldof’s outrage at the plight of famine victims in Ethiopia. His initial hope was that the all-star single might raise perhaps £70,000 for the cause; it actually realised an estimated £8 million in a year, as the entire nation got involved in special events to add money to the swelling coffers.

The featured solos on “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” by such stars as Paul Young, Boy George, George Michael, and Bono, soon became instantly recognizable highlights of the track. Other artists that appeared on the single included some surprising and sometimes incongruous contributors. These included members of Geldof’s Phonogram labelmates and soul-pop hitmakers Kool and the Gang; Jody Watley of another hit US soul crossover group, Shalamar, and Glenn Gregory of cutting-edge electronic band Heaven 17.

Several major British stars were unable to appear on the track because of prior commitments, including Paul McCartney and David Bowie; they added spoken messages to the B-side, as did Holly Johnson of the biggest new UK act of that year, Frankie Goes To Hollywood. It’s not always remembered, either, that Phil Collins is playing drums on the recording, or that John Taylor of Duran Duran is on bass.

Band Aid, Live Aid and USA For Africa
“Do They Know It’s Christmas” entered the UK chart at No.1 in mid-December and stayed there for five weeks, well into January 1985. The original returned to the bestsellers the following Christmas, reaching No.3, by which time it, and the Live Aid extravaganza, had inspired the equivalent American contribution, USA For Africa’s “We Are The World.”

While the British song itself only made No.13 on the Billboard Hot 100, it was certified gold in the US before the 1984 festive season arrived. After George Michael’s appearance on “Do They Know,” Wham! donated all the royalties from their own festive smash “Last Christmas”/“Everything She Wants” to the Band Aid trust.

Bob and Midge’s song has continued to reappear in new all-star recordings on significant anniversaries, in 1989 (billed as Band Aid II), 2004 (Band Aid 20) and 2014 (Band Aid 30). All three remakes topped the UK chart, and the original version also returned to the Top 30 in Great Britain in 2007 and 2016. As streaming became ever more dominant in chart computation, “Do They Know” made No.7 in the UK’s Christmas charts of 2017, No.6 in 2018 and No.15 in 2019.

                                   

                                                                   Band Aid 'Do They Know It's Christmas' artwork - Courtesy: UMG

Sorry about this:oops: Ive done yesterdays as the 25 th:sleep: . So todays is yesterdays and yesterdays is todays
if that makes any sense:scratch:

24 th November 1974

Lucy:
1974 – Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discover the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed "Lucy" (after The Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"), in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression.



When and where was Lucy found?

Lucy was found by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray on November 24, 1974, at the site of Hadar in Ethiopia. They had taken a Land Rover out that day to map in another locality. After a long, hot morning of mapping and surveying for fossils, they decided to head back to the vehicle. Johanson suggested taking an alternate route back to the Land Rover, through a nearby gully. Within moments, he spotted a right proximal ulna (forearm bone) and quickly identified it as a hominid. Shortly thereafter, he saw an occipital (skull) bone, then a femur, some ribs, a pelvis, and the lower jaw. Two weeks later, after many hours of excavation, screening, and sorting, several hundred fragments of bone had been recovered, representing 40 percent of a single hominid skeleton.


How did Lucy get her name?

Later in the night of November 24, there was much celebration and excitement over the discovery of what looked like a fairly complete hominid skeleton. There was drinking, dancing, and singing; the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” was playing over and over. At some point during that night, no one remembers when or by whom, the skeleton was given the name “Lucy.” The name has stuck.


How do we know she was a hominid?

The term hominid refers to a member of the zoological family Hominidae. Hominidae encompasses all species originating after the human/African ape ancestral split, leading to and including all species of Australopithecus and Homo. While these species differ in many ways, hominids share a suite of characteristics that define them as a group. The most conspicuous of these traits is bipedal locomotion, or walking upright.


How do we know Lucy walked upright?

As in a modern human’s skeleton, Lucy's bones are rife with evidence clearly pointing to bipedality. Her distal femur shows several traits unique to bipedality. The shaft is angled relative to the condyles (knee joint surfaces), which allows bipeds to balance on one leg at a time during locomotion. There is a prominent patellar lip to keep the patella (knee cap) from dislocating due to this angle. Her condyles are large and are thus adapted to handling the added weight that results from shifting from four limbs to two. The pelvis exhibits a number of adaptations to bipedality. The entire structure has been remodeled to accommodate an upright stance and the need to balance the trunk on only one limb with each stride. The talus, in her ankle, shows evidence for a convergent big toe, sacrificing manipulative abilities for efficiency in bipedal locomotion. The vertebrae show evidence of the spinal curvatures necessitated by a permanent upright stance.



How do we know she was female?

Evidence now strongly suggests that the Hadar material, as well as fossils from elsewhere in East Africa from the same time period, belong to a single, sexually dimorphic species known as Australopithecus afarensis. At Hadar, the size difference is very clear, with larger males and smaller females being fairly easy to distinguish. Lucy clearly fits into the smaller group.


How did she die?

No cause has been determined for Lucy’s death. One of the few clues we have is the conspicuous lack of postmortem carnivore and scavenger marks. Typically, animals that were killed by predators and then scavenged by other animals (such as hyaenas) will show evidence of chewing, crushing, and gnawing on the bones. The ends of long bones are often missing, and their shafts are sometimes broken (which enables the predator to get to the marrow). In contrast, the only damage we see on Lucy's bones is a single carnivore tooth puncture mark on the top of her left pubic bone. This is what is called a perimortem injury, one occurring at or around the time of death. If it occurred after she died but while the bone was still fresh, then it may not be related to her death.


How old was she when she died?

There are several indicators which give a fair idea of her age. Her third molars (“wisdom teeth”) are erupted and slightly worn, indicating that she was fully adult. All the ends of her bones had fused and her cranial sutures had closed, indicating completed skeletal development. Her vertebrae show signs of degenerative disease, but this is not always associated with older age. All these indicators, when taken together, suggest that she was a young, but fully mature, adult when she died.


Where is the "real" Lucy?

IHO has replicas of Lucy‘s bones, which were produced in the Institute‘s casting and molding laboratories. The “real” Lucy is stored in a specially constructed safe in the Paleoanthropology Laboratories of the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Because of the rare and fragile nature of many fossils, including hominids, molds are often made of the original fossils. The molds are then used to create detailed copies, called casts, which can be used for teaching, research, and exhibits.


How old is Lucy?

The hominid-bearing sediments in the Hadar formation are divided into three members. Lucy was found in the highest of these—the Kada Hadar or KH—member. While fossils cannot be dated directly, the deposits in which they are found sometimes contain volcanic flows and ashes, which can now be dated with the 40Ar/39Ar (Argon-Argon) dating technique. Armed with these dates and bolstered by paleomagnetic, paleontological, and sedimentological studies, researchers can place fossils into a dated framework with accuracy and precision. Lucy is dated to just less than 3.18 million years old.



How do we know that her skeleton is from a single individual?

Although several hundred fragments of hominid bone were found at the Lucy site, there was no duplication of bones. A single duplication of even the most modest of bone fragments would have disproved the single skeleton claim, but no such duplication is seen in Lucy. The bones all come from an individual of a single species, a single size, and a single developmental age. In life, she would have stood about three-and-a-half feet tall, and weighed about 60 to 65 pounds.

26 th November 1983

Brinks-Mat bullion heist:
Brink's-Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26 million are stolen from the Brink's-Mat vault at Heathrow Airport.

The story of the largest gold heist in British history is a cautionary tale about how tenuous the concept of 'honour amongst thieves' is, especially when the prize is worth a staggering £26 million. However, it seems there was stupidity on all sides. Despite the short sightedness of some of the criminals involved, throwing around money like water, the police nevertheless failed to catch the majority of those involved in the raid and subsequent distribution, nor have they ever managed to recover the bulk of the bullion.

At 6.30 am on 26 November 1983, a South London gang of six armed robbers, headed by Brian Robinson and Mickey McAvoy, broke into the Brinks Mat warehouse at Heathrow Airport, expecting to make off with about £3 million in cash. Inside help was provided by Anthony Black, a Brinks Mat security guard who happened to be living with Brian Robinson’s sister at the time.

Black’s information gave the gang quick access to the site, where they overpowered the guards and encouraged them to provide the combination to the safe, by pouring petrol over them and threatening to set them alight.

Black’s information also assisted with the disarming of a vast array of electronic security systems and, when the safe was finally opened, the expected piles of easily transported cash turned out to be 6,800 gold bars divided into 76 cases, as well as a stash of £100,000 worth of cut and uncut diamonds, all bound for the Far East. It quickly became apparent that the transport of many tonnes of gold would be challenging, and the quick 'smash and grab' became a protracted operation, as several members of the gang were sent to seek sturdier transport.

The gang used the warehouse’s forklift truck to load the gold into the getaway van but it still took them almost two hours to clear the safe of its contents. By 8.15 am they left the Brinks Mat warehouse, and the alarm was raised by one of the guards at 8.30 am.The conversion of £26 million worth of bullion into cash was to prove a major headache for the gang and they were forced to approach a senior underworld figure, known only as 'The Fox'. He had the necessary gangland connections to smelt down and distribute the gold, specifically with the assistance of the Adams family, one of London’s most notorious crime syndicates. They recruited a jeweller named Solly Nahome, who agreed to sell on the smelted down goods.


Timeline
26 November 1983: gang break into the Brinks Mat warehouse at Heathrow Airport

December 1984:- McAvoy and Robinson jailed for 25 years

January 1985: Noye discovered DC John Fordham in his garden at his Kent home and stabbed the officer to death

1986: Noye put on trail, following the discovery of 11 bars of gold in his home. He received a 14-year prison sentence

1990: Kenneth Noye released, but 10 years later was convicted of murdering Stephen Cameron in a road-rage incident on the M2516 November 2001 - Brian Perry gunned down

The Trial
After realising that the game was up, McAvoy hoped to use his considerable newly found wealth to negotiate a lighter sentence, so he placed his faith in the 'honour amongst thieves' maxim, and entrusted his share of the gold with a variety of friends for safekeeping, including one named Brian Perry.

In December 1984, following their trial, both McAvoy and Robinson were jailed for 25 years.Not surprisingly, when McAvoy sought to reclaim his property to negotiate a reduced sentence, neither gold nor money was forthcoming. McAvoy felt betrayed by Perry, who was subsequently arrested for handling the gold. Perry’s life was threatened during his trial, for failing to return the property and, after serving a nine-year sentence, he was gunned down on 16 November 2001 shortly after his release.

Despite the incarceration of Robinson and McAvoy, the police made scant headway in the search for the missing bullion, which still required conversion into cash. Perry recruited Kenneth Noye into the ever-growing circle of Brinks Mat associates. Noye appeared to have some expertise in the gold smelting trade, as well as connections with John Palmer, the owner of a Bristol-based gold dealership.

Noye's brilliant idea was to introduce copper into the gold during the smelting process, thereby altering its carat rating, making it virtually untraceable. What he had in technical expertise, however, he lacked in pure common sense, and he was caught when the gang withdrew £3 million in cash from a single bank branch in Bristol, a sum so large that the Treasury and police became involved.

In January 1985, during an undercover operation, Noye discovered DC John Fordham in his garden at his Kent home and, in the row that ensued, the officer was stabbed to death. Noye was arrested for murder but at his trial, the jury believed the defence case that he acted in self-defence, and he was acquitted by a majority decision.

Following the discovery of 11 bars of gold in his home, Noye was on trail again in 1986, along with one of the Adam’s family, Thomas Adams, which led to his conviction of conspiracy to handle the Brinks Mat gold, in addition to VAT evasion charges. He received a 14-year prison sentence and was also fined a total of £700,000.He was released in 1990, but ten years later was convicted of murdering Stephen Cameron, in a road-rage incident on the M25,.

Police estimate that 15 people were involved in the planning of the Brinks Mat robbery but only three of the gang members were ever convicted. Despite concerted efforts to bring the rest to justice and investigative work spanning two decades, the police have been forced to accept that the majority of the loot has been spirited away to foreign safety deposits or simply recycled into the wider London jewellery trade, providing for the comfortable old age of a number of criminals still at large.


The Investigation
Scotland Yard Flying Squad Chief Commander Frank Cater was appointed to lead the hunt for the thieves. Given the boldness and highly skilled nature of the operation, the police were quickly able to narrow down the list of potential suspects to McAvoy and Robinson, who had not been particularly secretive about recruiting participants for a rumoured 'inside job' that they had planned. Robinson, whose nickname was 'The Colonel', was already well known to the police, while McAvoy was considered to be one of South London's most prolific armed robbers.

Quickly realising that the sheer knowledge available to the gang pointed to an insider participant, the police soon came across Anthony Black, who had been late to work on the day of the robbery and who had missed the entire heist. The connection to Robinson’s sister led to a swift confession by Black, who gave up the names of the newly wealthy McAvoy and Robinson.

Neither McAvoy nor Robinson helped themselves by 'laying low'. Within weeks of the heist, both moved from humble South London council houses to a grand estate in Kent, paid for in cash. Rumours that McAvoy had bought two Rottweiler dogs to protect his mansion and named them 'Brinks' and 'Mat', did not win him any awards for subtlety.

27 th November 1809

The Berners Steet hoax:
The Berners Street hoax is perpetrated by Theodore Hook in the City of Westminster, London.

The Berners Street hoax was perpetrated by Theodore Hook in Westminster, London, England, in 1809. Hook had made a bet with his friend Samuel Beazley that he could transform any house in London into the most talked-about address in a week, which he achieved by sending out thousands of letters in the name of Mrs Tottenham, who lived at 54 Berners Street, requesting deliveries, visitors, and assistance.

History
On 27 November, at five o'clock in the morning, a sweep arrived to sweep the chimneys of Mrs Tottenham's house. The maid who answered the door informed him that no sweep had been requested, and that his services were not required. A few moments later, another sweep presented himself, then another, and another; twelve in all. After the last of the sweeps had been sent away, a fleet of carts carrying large deliveries of coal began to arrive, followed by a series of cakemakers delivering large wedding cakes, then doctors, lawyers, vicars and priests summoned to minister to someone in the house they had been told was dying. Fishmongers, shoemakers and over a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with "six stout men bearing an organ". Dignitaries, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of London, also arrived. The narrow streets soon became severely congested with tradesmen and onlookers. Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing a large part of London to a standstill.

Every Officer that could be mustered was enlisted to disperse the people, and they were placed at the corners of Berners Street to prevent trades people from advancing towards the house with goods. The street was not cleared at a late hour, as servants of every denomination wanting places began to assemble at five o'clock. It turned out that letters had been written to the different trades people, which stated recommendations from persons of quality. A reward has been offered for the apprehension of the author of the criminal hoax.

Hook stationed himself in the house directly opposite 54 Berners Street, from where he and his friend spent the day watching the chaos unfold.

Despite a "fervent hue and cry" to find the perpetrator, Hook managed to evade detection, although many of those who knew him suspected him of being responsible. It was reported that he felt it prudent to be "laid up for a week or two" before embarking on a tour of the country, supposedly to convalesce.
After all was said and done, Hook won his one-guinea bet (£87 in 2021 terms)

28 th November 1919

Lady Astor,fist female M.P to sit iin parliament:
Lady Astor is elected as a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. She is the first woman to sit in the House of Commons. (Countess Markievicz, the first to be elected, refused to sit.)

The first woman of British parliament.

The first woman elected to Westminster was Constance Markiewicz, but the first one to take up her seat in Parliament in 1919 was American-born Nancy Astor.

Background
Nancy Witcher-Longhorne was born in Virginia, USA in 1879. Her family’s fortunes initially fluctuated, but by 1892 they possessed considerable wealth. By 1903, she was a divorcee with a small child. Her father suggested that she should move to England. In 1906 she married an American-born Briton, Waldorf Astor, one of many eligible men who sought her hand. She was a beauty; he was heir to one of the richest men in the country and was besotted with her. It was a good social match.

They moved in high social circles. Nancy used these connections to steer Waldorf away from his family’s interests in newspapers, which he hated, and into politics. In 1908 he was selected as the Unionist candidate for Plymouth. Nancy was an ardent campaigner for him. He came third in the election in January 1910, but was elected as the MP for Plymouth in December that year.

In 1914, she converted to Christian Science. Combined with the teetotalism adopted in response to her father’s drinking, this would become a strong influence on her life. Waldorf and Nancy took a pastoral interest in his constituency. This increased with the advent of war in 1914 and Nancy committed herself to welfare work.

The vacant seat
On his father’s death on 18 October 1919, Waldorf was immediately elevated to the House of Lords as the 2nd Viscount Astor. Despite his wish to stay in the Commons he was obliged to renounce his seat. He considered relinquishing his seat in the Lords. To do so, though, required an Act of Parliament, which his party was unwilling to support for political reasons.

The Unionist Party had to appoint another candidate. They originally approached Waldorf’s brother, who declined because of his war wounds. Despite the strength of the Waldorf name, they originally hesitated to adopt Nancy. Only one woman was elected in the general election in 1918, the first in which women could stand, Constance Markievicz. As an Irish Nationalist, she did not take her seat. So putting forward a woman candidate was still considered a political risk. Other concerns about Nancy’s suitability were that she was glamorous, sharp-tongued, and previously divorced.

It was Waldorf’s idea that she should stand, with the hope that he would be able to return to his constituency role. This left Nancy in a quandary. If she successfully ran, and accepted the position in a caretaker capacity, it would be damaging to women’s fight for equality. To take on the position fully would not help Waldorf.

Standing for parliament
She faced 2 opponents, from the Labour Party and the Liberals. Neither of them had fought in the war, something she focused on when campaigning. A disadvantage for the Labour candidate was that the Labour Party opposed the government’s intervention against the Bolsheviks in Russia. In a naval city like Plymouth, this was not a vote winner.

She campaigned hard, just as she had applied herself to relief work during the war. She faced hecklers. Her glamour did not count against her, as it increased the curiosity of her audience about her. One organisation supporting her was the Association for Social and Moral Hygiene. Her advisers told her not to focus on temperance as an issue in her campaign. However, as both of her opponents were themselves teetotal, it did not count against her as much as it might have.

The election took place on 15 November, but the votes were not counted until 28 November. This was to allow time for postal votes from those serving overseas to be included. The voter turnout was high – 73%. It had been 60% in the general election the previous year. Nancy won with a majority of over 5,000.

Taking her seat
Nancy described her first 5 years in the Commons as ‘hell’. Some members of the House, including previous friends, were unwelcoming. Others, such as Lloyd George, endorsed her.

It was not until 1922 that any other women took their seats in Parliament. Although Nancy was not associated with women’s suffrage prior to her election, she initially supported other women MPs, irrespective of party.

Her priority was welfare issues relating to under-privileged women and children. Her strongest passion, connected to this, lay in supporting teetotalism. She led the bill to raise the legal drinking age from 14 to 18.