Today in history

12 th June 1817

                    On yer bike:
                                      The earliest form of bicycle, the dandy horse, is driven by Karl von Drais.

                           Karl Drais Invents the Two-Wheeled Bicycle- the First Personalized Mechanical Transport

In 1817 German inventor Karl DraisOffsite Link invented the Laufmaschine ("running machine"), later called the velocipedeOffsite , draisine (English) or "draisienne" (French), or nick-named, dandy horseOffsite . This incorporated the two-wheeler principle that is basic to the bicycleOffsite Link and motorcycle and represented the beginning of mechanized personal transportation. Drais took his first recorded ride on the Laufmachine from MannheimOffsite Link to RheinauOffsite , now a suburb of Mannheim on June 12, 1817.

"The dandy-horse was a two-wheeled vehicle, with both wheels in-line, propelled by the rider pushing along the ground with the feet as in regular walking or running. The front wheel and handlebar assembly was pivoted to allow steering.

"Several manufacturers in France and England made their own dandy-horses during its brief popularity in the summer of 1819 -- most notably, Denis Johnson of London, who used an elegantly curved wooden frame which allowed the use of larger wheels. Riders preferred to operate their vehicles on the smooth pavements instead of the rough roads, but their interactions with pedestrians caused many municipalities to enact laws prohibiting their use. A further drawback of this device was that it had to be made to measure, manufactured to conform with the height and the stride of its rider, as none of its manufacturers are known to have built an adjustable version. After its brief moment in the limelight, the dandy-horse quickly faded into oblivion.

"However, in the 1860s in France, the vélocipèdeOffsite bicycle was created by attaching rotary cranks and pedals to the front-wheel hub of a dandy-horse

                           

                                  Karl von Drais on his original Laufmaschine, or draisine, the earliest two-wheeler, in 1819. Arist unknown.

13 th June 1895

First motor race:

Émile Levassor wins the world's first real automobile race. Levassor completed the 732-mile course, from Paris to Bordeaux and back, in just under 49 hours, at a then-impressive speed of about fifteen miles per hour (24 km/h).

This famous race took place between the 11th and 13th of June, and covered a distance of 1178 kilometres { 732 miles }. There were a total of twenty competitors, thirteen of whom were in petrol driven machines, six in steam powered vehicles and one electric car. { yes we had electric cars well over a hundred years ago }. The regulations for the entrants were kept to a minimum.



Competing vehicles had to capable of carrying more than two persons.
Any repairs had to be carried out by either the driver or the riding mechanic, using only the spares that the vehicle was carrying.
A time limit of 100 hours was set to complete the course.
The competitors drove in procession from the Arc De Triumphe to the Place des Armes at Versailles where the race was to start from a proper. A Peugeot driven by M.Rigoulot was the first away, but the steam car of Count Jules de Dion, the unofficial winner of the Paris-Rouen trial of 1894, soon took the lead.

Following on closely behind was a second steam powered racer; that of Bollee's seven-seater omnibus. Both of these steam vehicles had broken down before the race was a quarter over, and by the time that the remaining field had reached Tours, Emile Levassor, driving a Panhard et Levassor, had taken the lead.

The middle-aged Frenchman arrived at Tours at 6.45pm, and continued on into the night. It was a clear evening and he managed to attain an average speed of some 15 m.p.h., despite having only oil lamps to show the way.

Stopping occasionally to re-fuel and fill up with water, he reached Ruffec at 3.30am in the morning, some 190 kilometres { 120 miles } north of Bordeaux. He had a sizeable lead over his nearest rivals; Rigoulot and Doriot, both of whom were driving Peugeots.

His relief driver was still in bed, and Levassor was unable to locate the hotel in which the man was staying. He did however locate one of the event officials who recorded that Emile had reached the town. Rather than wait for his relief driver to be located Levassor chose to drive on. He finally reached Bordeaux at 10.40am the following morning, after driving for some twenty-two hours. He was three and half hours ahead.

By the time his pursuers arrived at the halfway point Emile was well on his way back to the French capital city. The rapport that the Frenchman had built up with the car, with its 1.2 litre two cylinder engine, designed by his partner Rene Panhard, and was known as the Phenix bearing the number 5, developing nearly 4 h.p., influenced his decision to complete the return leg alone.

News of this epic drive travelled somewhat faster than he did, and as Emile entered the Port Malliot in Paris, after 48 hours and 47 minutes at the tiller, he was greeted by a tremendous reception. He had won the first motor race in history.

Eleven cars had reached Bordeaux but only nine of the original field made it back to Paris. The second competitor to cross the line, nearly six hours adrift of the winner, was Rigoulot in his Peugeot, arriving at 6.30pm. The last finisher, that of the repaired Bollee omnibus, trundled into Porte Malliot at six the following morning.

The Panhard won the race by so much distance, not because it went faster that the other competitors, but more because it kept on going. Over the whole race distance of 732 miles, Levassor made only one involuntary stop, lasting twenty-two minutes.

Although first to arrive in Paris, Levassor was penalised for infringing the seating capacity rule, and placed second. The technical winner of the race was the Peugeot driven by Koechlin which crossed the finish in third. However the kudos of winning went to the Panhard et Levassor, and rightly so.

14 th June 2017

Grenfell tower disaster:
2017 – A fire in a high-rise apartment building in North Kensington, London, UK, leaves 72 people dead and another 74 injured.

Grenfell Tower fire kills 72 in London

Shortly before 1:00 A.M. on June 14, 2017, a fire tears through West London’s 24-story Grenfell tower. Seventy-two people died in the blaze, scores were injured and hundreds were left homeless in Britain’s deadliest fire in more than a century.

The fire started in a Hotpoint brand fridge-freezer in a fourth-floor apartment. The flames traveled from the kitchen and up the exterior side of the building, which was filled with 300 low-income residents. From there, the flames moved fast, engulfing the other sides of the building as well. Firefighters soon arrived, but the fire quickly reached the top floor. By 2 A.M., the fire was declared a “major incident.”

Because residents followed Grenfell’s “stay-put” fire policy, the death toll surged. Unsuspecting victims had been led to believe that their building was designed to contain a fire inside an apartment until it could be put out. So even as smoke filled the building’s single narrow stairwell, many residents heeded instructions to stay in their apartments, while others moved to higher floors, believing the blaze would be contained below them. Some ignored the policy and evacuated the building anyway. As the blaze spread around the sides of the building, it eventually made its way back inside several apartments. At 2:47 building officials abandoned the stay-put policy, telling residents to try and leave, if possible; but for many, it was too late. By 4:30, the flames completely engulfed the tower. Upward of 200 firefighters and 40 fire engines responded, but the fire took more than 24 hours to finally burn out.

As rescue workers underwent the grisly recovery of victims’ remains, and the death count was still being tallied, Londoners—angry over what they called Prime Minister Theresa May’s “flimsy” response to the tragedy—protested, demanding more help for survivors. People were insulted that May had met with firefighters before victims. To quell the rising frustration, the British government promised to allocate more money to support and get them into new housing as quickly as possible.

For many, it wasn’t enough—especially those who saw the tragedy as totally avoidable. Documents obtained by BBC revealed that the cladding—or siding—on the building was extremely flammable, and that the council overseeing the building chose it to save money on a refurbishment. (They saved £293,000). Similar buildings subsequently had their cladding tested and failed, too. A public inquiry followed, and days later, the officials responsible for managing the Grenfell tower resigned.

A BBC investigation also found that the fire department was not even properly trained or equipped to fight the blaze. Challenges such as low water pressure and radio problems hindered their efforts, while equipment—like a tall ladder—was either lacking or had not arrived before the fire.

One year later, the remains of the tower were illuminated to mark the anniversary of the disaster.

15 th June 1996

The Manchester bombing:
The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonates a powerful truck bomb in the middle of Manchester, England, devastating the city centre and injuring 200 people.

The 1996 Manchester bomb: A day that changed our city forever
It was the biggest ever bomb the IRA exploded on the British mainland

It was a day Manchester will never forget.

On June 15, 1996, the IRA singled out our city to be victim of the biggest bomb it had ever exploded on the British mainland.

It would injure hundreds and leave no building within half a mile unscathed, ultimately triggering a masterclass in city regeneration and a tooth-and-nail fight by the M.E.N. to report the truth.

This was a blast that tore through the heart of Manchester and which, within seconds, would have an impact that would last for two decades.

The day started in blazing midsummer sunshine.

Two hundred miles south in London, anti-terror police were on high alert amid fears the IRA could target the Queen’s Trooping the Colour parade.

Just a few months earlier the Provos had ended a 17-month ceasefire by blowing up a lorry in Canary Wharf, killing two people.

In Manchester things were more relaxed. But police were nonetheless prepared for trouble – as thousands of football fans prepared to pour into town ahead of that afternoon’s Euro 96 match between England and Scotland.

TV crews from across Europe were in town to cover the next day’s Russia v Germany game at Old Trafford. Thousands of shoppers were preparing to hit the streets too, many of them on the look-out for Father’s Day gifts.

Unknown and unnoticed a white van was already on its devastating journey.

Just before 9.20am, the streets had already begun filling up with crowds when two men in hooded anoraks and sunglasses left a heavily loaded Ford Cargo van outside Marks and Spencer on the corner of Cannon Street and Corporation Street. It was parked on double yellow lines with its hazard lights flashing.

It contained 3,300lbs of homemade explosive, three times the size of the Canary Wharf bomb.

They walked away, ringing an IRA chief in Ireland to let them know the job was done. The pair escaped in a burgundy Ford Granada, later abandoned in Preston.

Three minutes after the van was abandoned, a traffic warden slapped a ticket on it.

Some time after 9.38am a man with an Irish accent called Granada TV, Sky News, Salford University, North Manchester General Hospital and the Garda police in Dublin to warn a bomb would go off in one hour. He gave the location and used a code word known to Special Branch.

On their CCTV camera in Bootle Street station, officers watched in horror as footage was relayed showing people pushing up against and sliding along the side of the van, awkwardly parked on one of the city’s busiest shopping streets.

Officers then began one of the most extraordinary policing operations the country has ever seen: the evacuation of 80,000 people.

At first, they were not keen to go. Mancunians had become used to bomb scares and they had things to be getting on with.

One hairdresser refused to let his clients leave because they still had chemicals in their hair, arguing it would be ‘too dangerous’. A group of workmen wanted to stay put because they were on weekend rates.

Police officer Wendy McCormick found herself telling people in the Arndale: “I don’t want to die because somebody won’t finish their pizza.”

It was a Herculean task, aided by the luck of having extra police on duty for the match. Gradually, grudgingly, people began to move, turning into a flood as word spread that the scare was real. The police cordon extended out and out to a quarter of a mile, until there were no more officers to take it any further.

By 11.10am, the heart of Manchester city centre was deserted. Only one or two people were still within the exclusion zone, having somehow escaped knowledge of the evacuation.

A pair of women working in the Arndale, on their way out for a walk, were only saved because they nipped back inside to get their bags. Two minutes before the blast, they were standing on the bridge directly above it.

Shortly after 11am the army bomb disposal squad – which had hurtled to Manchester down the M62 from Liverpool – was preparing to detonate the device from 200 yards away, just off Cross Street near Sam’s Chophouse.

Inspector Dave Comerford, link man between the police and the army, told colleagues over the radio that there would be two blasts – a smaller one as a remote controlled robot blew a hole in the side of the van, followed by the second, which would disable it.

At 11.16am, the first blast went off. At 11.17am, they ran out of time.

When the bomb exploded, the blast could be heard from 15 miles away. It issued a force so powerful it travelled around 90 degree corners, knocking people to the ground and blowing out virtually every window within half a mile, leaving a 15m crater around it.

Glass rained from the sky: a fine dust followed by shards and eventually a torrent of rubble and debris. From his vantage point on Cross Street, Chief Inspector Ian Seabridge later recalled that there was then a ‘sudden air of stillness’.

Then every alarm in the city centre started wailing.

In Bootle Street police station, the screens showing CCTV pictures of the army operation went black. At Belle Vue ambulance control they heard the boom and the telephone switchboard lit up.

Within five minutes there were 60 calls to every street in the city centre. Five fire engines and 30 firefighters raced to the city centre from across the region. For over an hour afterwards 999 crews toured the city centre to pick up victims.

At Manchester Royal Infirmary they were treating 70 casualties within minutes.

For hours afterwards dazed, confused people staggered out of the city centre to find transport. People as far away as Kendals department store - now House of Fraser - had been injured as the windows blew out, having wrongly believed they would be safe under the store's canopy.

More than 200 people were hurt in the blast. Yet one fact from that day remains breathtaking – and a testament to that heroic policing operation. Nobody had been killed.

Nevertheless, Manchester city centre lay in ruins. Mannequins hung eerily from windows. Historic landmarks such as Manchester Cathedral, Chetham’s School of Music, the Corn Exchange and the Royal Exchange theatre would take years and millions of pounds to restore.

Longridge House, the office block next to Marks and Spencer, would be demolished, while the bus station under the Arndale centre would never reopen.

Much of the city centre became a no-go zone for its residents and shopkeepers. Some 700 businesses were affected, wiping out a third of the city centre’s floorspace and leaving the council to leap into action in the days that followed in an attempt to save livelihoods.

By the time then-home secretary Michael Howard and later the Prime Minister, John Major, visited the ravaged city in the days that followed, city leaders were already planning how to get Manchester back on its feet.

A reminder of more troubled times, thankfully and hopefully behind us.

I visited Manchester town centre many weeks later and remember the buildings covered in plastic sheeting and scaffolding.

16 th June 1487


    War of the Roses, battle of Stoke field:
                                                           Battle of Stoke Field: King Henry VII of England defeats the leaders of a Yorkist rebellion in the final engagement of the Wars of the Roses.

           The Battle of Stoke Field - 1487
The Battle of Stoke Field took place on 16 June 1487 and is the last Battle of the infamous Wars of the Roses.  It is Nottinghamshire’s only registered battlefield.

The battlefield route on a sunny day.  Please keep to the public footpaths.

The battle was the last major conflict between the Houses of York and Lancaster and was a battle to gain control of the crown. The Battle of Bosworth Field, two years previously, had established King Henry VII on the throne, ending the last period of Yorkist rule and initiating that of the Tudors.

The Battle of Stoke Field was an attempt to unseat King Henry VII in favour of a 10 year old boy called Lambert Simnel who was an imposter pretending to be Edward, Earl of Warwick, the son of Edward IV’s brother, the Duke of Clarence. Simnel was used as a pawn by leading Yorkists to try and re-establish their hold on the crown.

The rebel Yorkists, led by the Earl of Lincoln and a German mercenary named Colonel Martin Schwartz, controlled an army made up of around 8,000 men, mainly poorly armed Irish troops led by Thomas Fitzgerald and Swiss/German mercenaries. King Henry’s forces totalled around 15,000 with the vanguard of around 6,000 led by John de Vere, the Earl of Oxford with two support groups, one led by the King and the other by George Stanley, Lord Strange.

Although only Oxford’s vanguard were engaged by the rebels the battle itself was a bloody one with heavy casualties, particularly amongst the poorly armoured Irish who were shot through by English archers. Towards the end of the battle almost all the leading Yorkists, Martin Schwartz and Fitzgerald were killed. The Yorkist army began to flee towards the River Trent but were chased down and captured or killed.  The River Trent is said to have “run red with blood”.

The Red Gutter is said to be the area where the massacre took place, although it is unclear whether this natural escarpment is so called due the blood split there during the battle or whether it derives its name from red clay deposits.


In the end, Henry VII's victory was crushing. The number of casualties are believed to have been in the region of 7,000.

In the aftermath of the battle, Lambert Simnel was captured, but was pardoned by Henry in a gesture of clemency. Henry realised that Simnel was merely a puppet for the leading Yorkists. He gave Simnel a job in the royal kitchen, and later promoted him to falconer.

17 th June 1940

R.M.S Lancastria:
World War II: RMS Lancastria is attacked and sunk by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France. At least 3,000 are killed in Britain's worst maritime disaster.

The Lancastria sinking: A secret disaster
Of the estimated 6,000 people on board the Lancastria, less than half survived

The evacuation of British troops from France in 1940 did not end with Dunkirk.

British forces were still being rescued two weeks later when Britain's worst maritime disaster of World War II took place.

On 17 June, 1940 the British troopship Lancastria was sunk off the Brittany port of Saint-Nazaire. More than 3,000 people lost their lives.

The Lancastria, a converted liner, was carrying an estimated 6,000 people.

At 1557 she was struck by bombs below the waterline which ruptured the boat's fuel tanks

The Cunard ship was carrying RAF personnel as well as civilians, and some estimate there could have been up to 9,000 people aboard who had already just been rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk, along the French coast.

The ship sustained a direct hit, when a bomb landed down a funnel. The ship sank within minutes of being struck, killing over half of those on board.

At the time news of the disaster was suppressed by the British Government because of the impact it might have on the country's morale.

It was not until nearly six weeks later, on July 26, 1940, that the world discovered what had happened. The New York Times broke the story, printing some of the dramatic pictures of the disaster.

Those who managed to escape overboard were engulfed by huge quantities of leaking fuel oil.
Some of the survivors, including Dorothy Cox's father, survived by clinging to debris from the ship in the oily waters off France.

She told us: "He never got over the experience and had nightmares for the remainder of his life, which sadly was short. He could never forget the men and women clinging to the hull of the ship singing patriotic songs as it sunk below the waves, and the young airman who jumped overboard and was cut to pieces by the propellers.

Exhausted and covered in oil, many were loaded onto ships bound for the UK

"Dad was rescued by a fishing boat and taken to Dover, along with other survivors. From there he hastily wrote a message to my mother on a cigarette packet and threw it from the train window. Some kind passerby picked it up and posted it. It read 'I'm OK'."

A dreadful event and the fact the news was suppressed for 6 weeks.

18 th June 1984

Orgreave:
A major clash between about 5,000 police and a similar number of miners takes place at Orgreave, South Yorkshire, during the 1984–85 UK miners' strike.

Battle of Orgreave.

The Battle of Orgreave was a violent confrontation on 18 June 1984 between pickets and officers of the South Yorkshire Police (SYP) and other police forces, including the Metropolitan Police, at a British Steel Corporation (BSC) coking plant at Orgreave, in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. It was a pivotal event in the 1984–1985 UK miners' strike, and one of the most violent clashes in British industrial history.

Journalist Alastair Stewart has characterised it as "a defining and ghastly moment" that "changed, forever, the conduct of industrial relations and how this country functions as an economy and as a democracy". Most media reports at the time depicted it as "an act of self-defence by police who had come under attack". In 2015, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) reported that there was "evidence of excessive violence by police officers, a false narrative from police exaggerating violence by miners, perjury by officers giving evidence to prosecute the arrested men, and an apparent cover-up of that perjury by senior officers".

Historian Tristram Hunt has described the confrontation as "almost medieval in its choreography ... at various stages a siege, a battle, a chase, a rout and, finally, a brutal example of legalised state violence".

71 picketers were charged with riot and 24 with violent disorder. At the time, riot was punishable by life imprisonment. The trials collapsed when the evidence given by the police was deemed "unreliable". Gareth Peirce, who acted as solicitor for some of the pickets, said that the charge of riot had been used "to make a public example of people, as a device to assist in breaking the strike", while Michael Mansfield called it "the worst example of a mass frame-up in this country this century".

In June 1991, the SYP paid £425,000 in compensation to 39 miners for assault, wrongful arrest, unlawful detention and malicious prosecution.

Following the 2016 inquest verdict into the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, previously censored documents suggesting links between the actions of senior SYP officers at both incidents were published. This led to renewed calls for a public inquiry to be held into the actions of the police at Orgreave.

In October 2016, in an Oral Answer to a Question in the House of Commons, a written ministerial statement to the House of Commons and Lords, and in a letter to the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC), Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced there would be no statutory inquiry or independent review. In 2016, Alan Billings, the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner, admitted that the SYP had been "dangerously close to being used as an instrument of state".

Despite the police evidence subsequently being deemed unreliable in court, it has been claimed that the police at Orgreave "were upholding the law in the face of intimidation from thousands of strikers"

19 th June 1922

The burning of Knockcroghery:

The village of Knockcroghery, Ireland, was burned by British forces.

The burning of Knockcroghery Village on 19th June 1921 occurred after wrong information was gleaned by British intelligence agents in Athlone. At that time, Sean Mac Eoin “the blacksmith of Ballinalee” was under sentence of death and a plan was made by volunteers in Westmeath to capture General Lambert (who was the officer commanding all British troops in the Western Command), hold him as a hostage and then bargain for Mac Eoin’s release.

General Lambert’s movements were watched and it was known that he frequently visited friends near the village of Glasson, Athlone. An ambush was laid near Glasson. On the evening of June 17th, General Lambert travelled in a car driven by his wife to pay a social call at the house of a friend in Glasson. When the car approached the scene where the Westmeath Volunteers lay in wait, a volunteer officer stepped out on the road and signalled to the driver to halt. The car slowed down and then suddenly gathered speed and attempted to drive through the cordon of volunteers. Shots rang out and General Lambert was killed instantly. His wife, who was unhurt, drove on towards Glasson and the Volunteers dispersed.

In the course of their inquiries, British intelligence agents were told that the Volunteers who laid the ambush had come directly across Lough Ree from the Knockcroghery or Galey Bay side. This information was not correct, but in the early hours of the morning of June 19th, four lorry loads of Black and Tans, police and auxiliaries arrived in the village of Knockcroghery from Athlone. All of them were “under the influence”.

They fired shots into the air, banged on the doors of the houses in the village and ordered the inhabitants to get out. The residents of Knockcroghery – men, women and children in their night attire were driven out in the street. The raiding forces then spilled petrol on the vacated houses and set fire to them, having first looted each house for anything they considered of value. Many of the houses had thatched roofs and in a very short time the village was ablaze from end to end.

One of the first houses to be visited was that of Parish Priest Canon Bartley Kelly. The Canon, who was in bed, refused to leave and the Tans immediately set his house on fire. Neighbours who saw his plight went to the Canon’s assistance and rescued him through an upstairs window. They then helped to bring the fire under control, but not before considerable damage was done. The Canon crossed the fields and sought refuge with his friend, the Church of Ireland rector, the late Canon Humphries.

Only two houses, side by side, were untouched. One building, which was owned by the Feeney family, housed John S Murray’s Pub and Grocery Shop. The fact that it also housed the local Post Office saved it from destruction. The other building, a small pub and grocery owned by Mrs. Mary “The Widow” Murray was also left alone. She gathered her children around her in the kitchen near the door and refused to leave her home. The Tans threatened to burn the house with her in it. One of the officers took pity on her, ordered his men out and told them to leave her and her family alone. They left the building helping themselves to some money, cigarettes and tobacco as they went.

Meanwhile the raiding forces drove up and down the village, firing shots at random, cursing loudly and laughing at the plight of the people of Knockcroghery. The people were terrified particularly the children, whose cries of fear added to the terrible scene. The homeless people of the village were given shelter in the houses of friends, neighbours and relations in the district and some of them, along with Canon Kelly, found temporary accommodation with Canon Humphries at the rectory.

Next morning the extent of the devastation was seen with the advantage of daylight. The sight was horrible to behold. All that was left of each building was a smoking shell. Very little, if anything could be salvaged from the ruins. Canon Kelly and Canon Humphries resolved to do everything in their power to help relieve the plight of the homeless. They set up a relief committee and sent fund raisers far and wide to collect as much money as they could. In spite of having very little money to spare, the people of the area responded magnificently. One good woman gave the only thing she could, a gold sovereign. When the collector was handing in his collection to the joint chairmen, Canon Humphries spotted the gold coin. Turning to Canon Kelly, he asked if he might have it. To which Canon Kelly replied, “you can have that one, I have plenty of them.” Canon Humphries thanked him and put it in his pocket having first replaced it with a pound note. The total amount collected has long since been forgotten but it went a long way in relieving the hardship of many

20 th June 1982

The Falklands:
The Argentine Corbeta Uruguay base on Southern Thule surrenders to Royal Marine commandos in the final action of the Falklands War.

Argentine surrender in the Falklands War.

On 20 June, the British retook the South Sandwich Islands and declared hostilities to be over after removing Argentina's Southern Thule garrison at the Corbeta Uruguay base. Corbeta Uruguay was established in 1976, but the Argentine base was only contested through diplomatic channels by the UK until 1982.

The war lasted 74 days, with 255 British and 649 Argentine soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen, and three civilian Falklanders killed.

The British Government decreed that all classified information would be available to the public in the year 2082. However, following the Freedom of Information Act, a great deal of formerly classified material is now available.

The surrender document is on display at the Imperial War Museum in London. As noted in the museum, the time of surrender was backdated three hours in order that both Zulu time (UTC) and the local time were recorded as 14 June even though technically it was already 15 June in London, in order to prevent possible confusion by Argentine troops who might have mistakenly thought that they were permitted to keep fighting until the next day, 15 June 1982.

Relations between the UK and Argentina were not restored until 1989 and only under the umbrella formula which states that the islands sovereignty dispute will remain aside.

14 June has been a public holiday in the Falkland Islands since 1984, officially called as "Liberation Day".

Thanks Gassey. Crikey! 42 years!

I remember being told by someone I know, who worked in Ashton Town Hall at the time, that the conscription papers etc for us where in progress should the conflict escalate! We'd probably have replaced troops here rather than being sent into action.

21 st June 1813

Napolionic wars, battle of Vitoria:

1813 – Peninsular War: Wellington defeats Joseph Bonaparte at the Battle of Vitoria.

Battle of Vitoria
Napoleonic Wars

Battle of Vitoria, (June 21, 1813), decisive battle of the Peninsular War that finally broke Napoleon’s power in Spain. The battle was fought between a combined English, Spanish, and Portuguese army numbering 72,000 troops and 90 guns under Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington, and a French army numbering 57,000 troops and 150 guns commanded by King Joseph Bonaparte.

The French occupied a defensive position in the basin of Vitoria, an area about 12 mi (19 km) long and 7 mi deep, surrounded by mountains and protected to the north and west by the Zadorra River, which was spanned by several lightly held bridges. Just after 8 AM the allies advanced in four columns against the whole front, crossed the river at several bridges to the west, and eventually compelled the French left and centre to withdraw in order to cover Vitoria. The French right, after heavy fighting, finally gave way. By 7 PM the French were in full retreat toward Pamplona, leaving behind vast quantities of plunder, baggage, and all their artillery. The French losses (killed, wounded, and captured) were about 8,000 and those of the allies about 5,000. By their victory the British and their allies gained control of the Basque provinces, and compelled the French forces to retreat over the Pyrenees and back into France.

I know very little about that period of history, so that is an interesting read.
It's notable that we fought with the Spanish who in previous history we have fought against them.
Good post Gassey.

22 nd June 1948

The Windrush generation:
The ship HMT Empire Windrush brought the first group of 802 West Indian immigrants to Tilbury, marking the start of modern immigration to the United Kingdom.



“What were they thinking these 492 Jamaicans, as the Empire Windrush slid upstream with the flood between the closing shores of Kent and Essex? Standing by the rail this morning high above the landing-stage at Tilbury, one of them looked over the unlovely town to the grey-green fields beyond and said, ‘If this is England I like it.’ A good omen, perhaps. May he and his friends suffer no sharp disappointment.” —Manchester Guardian, June 23, 1948

On June 22, 1948, the Empire Windrush arrived at the port of Tilbury, Essex and four hundred and ninety-two people from the West Indies came ashore. These African-Caribbeans who came “with hope in their eyes’ were the beginning of the modern history of Black people in the United Kingdom (UK). Within a decade later, nearly 125,000, had made a similar journey across the Atlantic to the UK. They would become known as the Windrush Generation.

After WWII, Britain encouraged immigration from Commonwealth countries, to help rebuild the country as there was a labor shortage crisis. The British Nationality Act 1948 was going through parliament, when the Empire Windrush, docked in Kingston, Jamaica, to pick up servicemen who were on leave. The Act was granting the status of citizenship to people of the commonwealth, giving them the right to live and work in Britain. With the ship being far from full, an opportunistic advertisement was placed in a Jamaican newspaper offering cheap transport on the ship for anybody who wanted to come and work in the UK.

Most of the Windrush migrants, who took up the opportunity were young adult men, including a number of ex‐servicemen, a small group of boxers, and the Trinidadian calypso artist Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts). As he disembarked he was met by a film crew from Pathe News, who asked him to perform his newly composed song, ‘London is the Place to Be’. Like Lord Kitchener, most were enticed to Britain by the prospect of long-term job opportunities and prosperity (some believed that the streets were paved with gold); to get an education, and others had decided to make the journey just to see what the ‘mother country’ was like. The journey to Britain cost £28 for travel on the troopdeck (around £1,000 today) and £48 for cabin class travel.

The British government, however, did not welcome their arrival; and viewed it as an ‘invasion’ of Britain by West Indians.

The British government had hoped to receive Commonwealth migrants from Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand; people of European descent. Therefore, the government went into a panic over who had authorized the West Indians to come to the UK. There had even been attempts to prevent the Windrush from leaving Jamaica. The Prime Minister had made enquiries as to whether the Windrush might be diverted to East Africa, where the migrants would be offered work on groundnut farming projects there. However, once it became clear that the government could not prevent the migrants who were British subjects from coming, they changed their strategies. The Windrush migrants were to be dispersed across the country, and while this was being arranged they were warehoused in an old deep-level air-raid shelter near Clapham South underground station, which was reopened to accommodate them. The Minister of Labour, George Isaacs, was quick to warn that rather than opportunities, the Windrush migrants should expect to encounter difficulty and disappointment.

Nevertheless, when the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury on 22 June, the passengers were greeted with some degree of civility. Most of this initial group subsequently found employment within a month, and gradually were able to establish themselves within the community at large.

Today the arrival of the Empire Windrush is viewed as a turning point in the recent history of Britain and has come to symbolize the many ways in which Caribbean people have contributed to and transformed aspects of British life. The Windrush was, however, just one of a whole series of ships that would subsequently bring African-Caribbean immigrants to Britain over the next thirteen years. The Empire Windrush herself played no further role in this movement of people from the West Indies and was lost at sea after a massive fire in her engine room in March 1954.

23 rd June 1973.

The Hull arsonist:

A fire at a house in Hull, England, which kills a six-year-old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by serial arsonist Peter Dinsdale.

British Serial Murderer Kills First of 26 Victims.

A Brief History
On June 23, 1973, British serial arsonist and murderer, Bruce George Peter Lee started a fire that killed a 6 year old boy, his first known victim. The fire, like the next 10 that followed was ruled accidental after investigations, and was not found to be arson and murder until Lee confessed after being caught for an 11th fire.

Digging Deeper
Born Peter Dinsdale in 1960, he had changed his name to Lee in honor of martial arts actor Bruce Lee. The son of a prostitute, Lee was born with a birth defect that left him lame on the right side and with a non-functional right arm, as well as spastic and epileptic. He was brought up in a series of children’s homes and was known as “daft Peter” to his neighbors and co-workers.

In 1979 Lee started the fire that killed his last 2 victims (2 fifteen year old boys). When police investigating the incident found antipathy toward the family that lived in the burned house and toward the boys who died, they questioned local teens to discover what enemies the victim family may have had. Lee was questioned among others and admitted setting the fire. He told police the victims had extorted money from him by threatening to tell police they had sexual contact with the 19 year old Lee. Additionally, Lee had taken a liking to the victims’ sister and had been rebuffed in his advances, as well as ridiculed by the rest of the family.

Lee then stunned police with confessions to the other 10 fires, which had killed 24 other people in addition to the 2 teenagers killed in the 1979 fire. Lee plead not guilty to murder, but guilty to manslaughter for the 26 arson-murders, claiming diminished capacity. Among his victims were a 6 month old baby and 11 elderly men. Many more people suffered burns and injury from smoke inhalation.

Lee was shipped off to Rampton Secure Hospital, and the 11 convictions for the elderly men were later overturned when that fire was ruled accidental. Although Lee was accused of the most murders by a British serial killer at the time, the trial of the “Yorkshire Ripper,” Peter Sutcliffe, going on at the same time took most of the publicity from Lees’s trial.

The Sunday Times newspaper reported that Lee’s confession had not been voluntary, causing the detective that handled the case to sue for libel, which was settled out of court in the detective’s favor in 1987.

24 th June 1314

Bannockburn:
First War of Scottish Independence: The Battle of Bannockburn concludes with a decisive victory by Scottish forces led by Robert the Bruce.

Battle of Bannockburn: What was it all about?
The Battle of Bannockburn, fought on 24 June 1314, was one of the most famous events in the wars of independence.

It saw the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, win a key victory over the English forces of King Edward II, despite being outnumbered two-to-one and facing what was regarded as the finest army in the medieval world.

On the 700th anniversary of the battle, here's some things you might not know about the historic event.

It was one of the most famous battles ever fought, yet nobody's sure exactly where it happened.

The backdrop was Stirling Castle, the last English stronghold in Scotland, which was targeted by Robert the Bruce while on the comeback trail during the wars of independence.

The constable of Stirling agreed to hand over the castle to the Scots unless an English force arrived to relieve him by the 24 June, 1314. They duly pitched up the day before.

Robert the Bruce was thought to have made his stand on what's now known as "monument hill", where his statue sits.

It was the perfect location, on high ground with a good field of vision, but getting up the hill to fight would have been a massive challenge for the English forces.

It seems more likely the main battle was fought on a nearby area of flat, low ground known as the Carse, where the English had camped overnight.

The main threat to Robert the Bruce's forces was the fearsome English cavalry - 2,000 heavily armoured men on horseback which could easily crush infantry.

Thinking outside the box, Bruce ordered hundreds of holes, measuring just a few feet, to be dug at a crucial point where the English army was advancing.

The small pits, capable of snapping horse's legs, meant the cavalry had to stick to a narrow Roman road and, unable to fan out, were left defensively vulnerable.

Robert the Bruce's other great anti-cavalry weapon was the "schiltron" - a body of troops wielding long pikes.

Looking like massive, deadly hedgehogs when fully formed, the tightly packed group would deploy their pikes on three levels, creating a wall of death which was virtually impregnable to a heavy horse charge.

This sort of tactic was vital, since many Scots couldn't even afford swords let alone war horses, and often had to make do with axes and other working tools.

The day before the main battle saw an event which set the tone for what was to come.

Sir Henry De Bohun, a young English knight looking to make a name for himself, arrived with a vanguard and spotted Robert the Bruce addressing some of his men.

The story went that Sir Henry, seeing an opportunity to take down the king of Scots, got tooled up and charged.

Bruce, armed with only an axe, reciprocated - taking out Sir Henry with such force that his head split in two, from the skull to the chest bone and breaking his weapon in the process.

Another much less heroic account, said to be from an English eyewitness, stated that Robert the Bruce clocked Sir Henry and cut him down as he was trying to get away.

Whatever the truth, English cavalry then charged the Scots, only to taste the sharp end of the schiltron. It was a morale dampener.

As King Edward arrived on the battlefield, did he also see the defeat of Robert the Bruce as an opportunity to settle a personal score?

Back when his father, Edward I, was on the throne, he hired an English nobleman called Piers Gaveston to work in his son's household.

Chroniclers at the time suggested Gaveston and the then Prince Edward became lovers, and the noble was sent into exile.

On his elevation to the throne Edward II recalled Gaveston, bestowing on him an earldom and other gifts.

But the other English nobles - enraged at the privileged access he had to the king - banded together to see Gaveston banished once again.

According to the contemporary book Vita Edwardi Secundi (The Life of Edward II) the king, sometime before Bannockburn, promised full recognition for Robert the Bruce as king of Scots, in return for giving Gaveston refuge in Scotland.

Bruce refused, and Gaveston was eventually executed in England as an enemy of the state.

Put simply, King Edward may have seen victory at Bannockburn as an opportunity to avenge Gaveston's death on Robert the Bruce, and force the English nobles to bow to his will.

The main battle commenced not long after first light, on 24 June, 1314.

The Scots forces emerged from Balquhidderock Wood, before getting down on their knees to pray.

The tactic was more than spiritual - it allowed the captains an extra crucial few minutes to form up the battle lines.

Nevertheless, across the Carse, King Edward, with his 16,000-strong army, thought the Scots were surrendering.

He got a shock when prayers finished and the Scots got ready to attack.

As battle drew near, a row broke out between King Edward and the Earl of Gloucester, one of England's most powerful men, who complained the English forces needed rest after spending a sleepless night in marshland getting eaten alive by dreaded Scottish midges.

When the King accused the 23-year-old earl of cowardice in front of the men, Gloucester - pride fully dented - jumped on his horse and charged towards the Scots.

He was promptly met by - yes, you guessed it - the business end of the schiltron, and carved up in full view of both sides. Another morale dampener.

The Bannockburn - the long, snaking waterway after which the battle was named - proved to be Kind Edward's nemesis.

As battle commenced, the Scots troops moved across the battlefield, to close the gap.

Penned in between the burn - in reality a large river in some places - and the Scots pikes, the English forces had no choice but to cross back over the waterway, which was almost impossible because of the heavy armour they wore.

As the Scots pushed forward, the English became penned between the water and the enemy pikes, and panic gripped the ranks.

Even the archers, the other feared super-weapon of the English army, ultimately proved useless because the crush left them with no space to shoot arrows.

Sensing defeat, King Edward's minders dragged him off the field and fled towards Stirling Castle.

But he wasn't well received by the remainder of the English garrison, who told him it was best if he didn't come in.

Shunned by his own men, the king ended up in the East Lothian coastal town of Dunbar, where he got a lift back to England on a ship.

It's arguable whether the Battle of Bannockburn settled all that much.

Despite the outcome, Robert the Bruce had to wait another 14 years for the king's son, Edward III, to recognise him as the rightful king of an independent Scotland.

Bruce died just one year later, in 1329, while the wars of independence rumbled on.

However, if nothing else, Bannockburn did establish Robert the Bruce as someone who was not to be messed with.

An interesting, if long, read DF LOL
It’s amazing how the outnumbered and militarily inferior Scots won the battle.
I remember reading about the Schiltron, a adefensive circle of pikes before, which the Scots used to great effect.

Burn is the most important thing here, the English were bitten to death by midges

25 th June 1848

First newspaper photograph:

A photograph of the June Days uprising becomes the first known instance of photojournalism.

THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH PUBLISHED IN A NEWSPAPER —1848

It would be difficult for modern readers to accept the text-only version of a newspaper.

One online source containing “a brief history of the birth of photojournalism,” states that the first illustration to appear in a newspaper, similar to modern courtroom renderings, was around 1806, and the first actual photograph to accompany a news story appeared in July, 1848 .


That photo was printed in a French weekly periodical L’Illustration. It depicted barricaded Parisian streets caused by a worker’s strike. The 1848 June Days Uprising occurred from June 22nd to 26th 1848. but the much slower pace of news gathering at that time, coupled with the weekly publication schedule, meant that the article didn’t appear until July 1st. The published image was likely an inked engraving from the original photograph.

The same French publication was the “first paper to publish a color photograph in 1891 and 1907 respectively.” (Note: Editor unable to confirm this.) Sadly, it was reporting of war that gave photojournalism its big boost, especially Roger Fenton’s Crimean War photographs and the American Civil War. Unfortunately, providing the public with visual documentation of war’s horrors did not reduce or limit its recurrence.


With improvements in technology and more widespread use of cameras, illustrations based on photographs began to appear more regularly in newspapers after the Civil War. “By 1900, images were expected rather than cherished.” Today, news does not exist without accompanying images. It only took a century for photography to go from an interesting addition to print journalism to a journalistic force in its own right.”



The first newspaper photograph.

26 th June 1974

                           The first barcode scanning:
                                                                 The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio.

 
Pack of chewing gum becomes first-ever item scanned with a UPC barcode

On the morning of June 26, 1974, at a supermarket in Troy, Ohio, a pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum becomes the first grocery item scanned with a Universal Product Code, or UPC. The result of years of scientific experimentation and industry cooperation, the UPC barcode would go on to be used well beyond the grocery checkout counter, becoming a ubiquitous feature of modern commerce, with billions of barcodes scanned daily.


The first version of a barcode was drafted by inventor Joe Woodland in the sand on Miami Beach in 1949. He designed a pattern of thick and thin lines arranged in concentric circles, readable by a scanner from any angle. Woodland took the inspiration for his design from Morse Code, but instead of communicating through dots and dashes, the barcode relayed information through thick and thin lines. He applied for a patent for his invention in 1949 and received it in 1952.

It took two decades to translate Woodland's idea into a functional barcode scanning system. In 1949, there was no practical way to "read" a barcode's image. The invention of the laser in 1960 created new possibilities for scanning technology.  At the same time, computers became smaller and more affordable. Barcode scanners took advantage of both these advances. The new scanners used the ultra-bright light of a laser to sweep across the black-and-white image of a barcode, communicating information about the product and the price to a computerized cash register.

Grocery industry executives recognized the potential of these new technologies to improve efficiency and keep costs down in their stores. They also realized that they needed a standardized system to effectively introduce barcodes industry-wide. The "Ad Hoc Committee of the Grocery Industry" convened in 1970 to develop a plan for implementing barcodes and scanners at the nation's grocery checkouts. Kroger, independently, became the first store to install a pilot program of barcode scanners in their stores in 1972. Kroger and RCA collaborated on an automated supermarket checkstand, which used Woodland's "bull's-eye" barcode design.

The round design proved somewhat unreliable, however, because it tended to get smudged coming out of the printer. The Ad Hoc Committee selected a different design, based on a last-minute submission by IBM engineer George Laurer. He redesigned the barcode as a rectangle, rather than a bull's-eye, which made the image easier to print accurately. Laurer's winning design, named the Universal Product Code (UPC), combined vertical stripes with a row of 12 digits. Clyde Dawson, head of research and development for Marsh Supermarkets, ceremonially scanned the first grocery item with a UPC on June 26, 1974, at 8:01 a.m. It was a pack of Wrigley's chewing gum, proving that barcodes could work on even the smallest items.

The new barcodes and scanners in grocery stores garnered mixed reactions from shoppers, however. Some thought the lines and numbers represented the "mark of the beast" from the biblical Book of Revelation. More widespread was the belief that barcodes would provide stores with a new way to rip off customers. The Consumer Federation of America launched a campaign against barcodes nationwide, and protesters picketed stores with barcode scanners. The U.S. Senate even held a "symposium on the Universal Product Coding System." Due to the pushback from customers, grocery stores were slow to embrace barcode scanners, with only 1 percent adopting the new devices by the end of the 1970s. A decade later, however, the consumer backlash had ebbed, and more than half of U.S. grocery stores relied on UPC scanners. Since then, it has become arguably the most pervasive technology of the retail shopping experience.

27 th June 1556


The Stratford martyrs:
The thirteen Stratford Martyrs are burned at the stake near London for their Protestant beliefs.


Stratford Martyrs

The Stratford Martyrs were eleven men and two women who were burned at the stake together for their Protestant beliefs, either at Stratford-le-Bow, Middlesex or Stratford, Essex, both near London, on 27 June 1556 during the Marian persecutions.

Execution
The executions were said to have been attended by a crowd of 20,000. The exact place of the execution is unknown; the most likely site is thought to have been Fair Field in Bow (then known as Stratford-le-Bow), north of the present day Bow Church DLR station. An alternative suggested location is Stratford Green, much of which is now occupied by the University of East London Stratford Campus. This theory seems to date only from the erection of a monument to the martyrs in the nearby churchyard of the Parish Church of St John the Evangelist in 1879. According to Foxe, "eleven men were tied to three stakes, and the two women loose in the midst without any stake; and so they were all burnt in one fire".

I’m surprised that the Stratford Martyrs were Protestants.
Henry VIII had ruled until 1547 establishing the Church of England after his break with Rome.
I would’ve thought that Catholics would be more likely to be persecuted.
A good post though

more info

https://www.eastlondonhistory.co.uk/stratford-martyrs-executed/

Blackpool weekend till Monday , her's weekends history:king:

28 th June 1838

Victoria's Coronation:
Coronation of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

The coronation of Victoria as queen of the United Kingdom took place on Thursday, 28 June 1838, just over a year after she succeeded to the throne of the United Kingdom at the age of 18. The ceremony was held in Westminster Abbey after a public procession through the streets from Buckingham Palace, to which the Queen returned later as part of a second procession.


Planning for the coronation, led by the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, began at Cabinet level in March 1838. In the face of various objections from numerous parties, the Cabinet announced on Saturday, 7 April, that the coronation would be at the end of the parliamentary session in June. It was budgeted at £70,000, which was more than double the cost of the "cut-price" 1831 coronation, but considerably less than the £240,000 spent when George IV was crowned in July 1821. A key element of the plan was presentation of the event to a wider public.

By 1838, the newly built railways were able to deliver huge numbers of people into London and it has been estimated that some 400,000 visitors arrived to swell the crowds who thronged the streets while the two processions took place and filled the parks where catering and entertainment were provided. Hyde Park was the scene of a huge fair, including a balloon ascent. The fair was scheduled to take place over two days, but was in the end extended by popular demand to four days. Green Park featured a firework display the night after the ceremony. The coronation coincided with a period of fine weather and the whole event was generally considered a great success by both the press and the wider public, although those inside the Abbey witnessed a good deal of mishap and confusion, largely due to lack of rehearsal time. In the country at large, there was opposition to the coronation by Radicals, especially in the North of England.