Today in history

Reet ,any excuse for a Blackpool weekend this time its the world championship firework display. So
heres weekend's history back Monday around tea time.

20 th September 1973

Tennis, The battle of the sexes:
1973 – Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome.

On Sept. 20, 1973, before a crowd of more than 30,000 at the Houston Astrodome, female tennis star Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in a match dubbed “The Battle of the Sexes.”

In the Sept. 21 New York Times, Neil Amdur wrote, “Most important, perhaps for women everywhere, she convinced skeptics that a female athlete can survive pressure-filled situations and that men are as susceptible to nerves as women.”

Mr. Riggs was a 55-year-old former Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion who in retirement became a tennis “hustler.” In the early ‘70s, he challenged the top female players in the world to matches and “bolted to national prominence with his blunt putdowns of women’s tennis and the role of today’s female,” reported Mr. Amdur.
Ms. King initially declined Mr. Riggs’ challenge, but changed her mind after Mr. Riggs defeated women’s number one Margaret Court in May 1973. She later explained, “I thought it would set us back 50 years if I didn’t win that match. It would ruin the women’s tour and affect all women’s self-esteem.”

Though the match was more of a spectacle than a sporting event, it had enormous symbolic importance. Played just a year after the passage of “Title IX,” an amendment to Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which among other things required that women be granted equal access to athletics by high schools and colleges, the match helped legitimize women’s athletics and encouraged girls to take up sports.

21 st September 1809


The Castlereagh-Canning duel:
British Secretary of War Lord Castlereagh and Foreign Secretary George Canning meet in a duel on Putney Heath, with Castlereagh wounding Canning in the thigh.

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, was not entirely inexperienced in duels. As a young man, he had fought one in Ireland, over a girl, with her guardian. Shots were exchanged, but neither man was hurt and by that evening Castlereagh told his alarmed father he had already forgotten the details. The situation in 1809, however, was altogether more serious. With Britain at war with Napoleon, Castlereagh was war minister in the government under the Duke of Portland.
Also in the cabinet was George Canning, as foreign secretary. Canning was devouringly ambitious and for some months he had been intriguing with colleagues and with Portland to get the war minister dropped. This had all been behind Castlereagh’s back and he had no idea of what was going on until September. Outraged at being betrayed by a colleague and apparent friend, he wrote a long letter to Canning, reproaching him for damage to his honour and reputation, and ending: ‘Under these circumstances, I must require that satisfaction from you to which I feel myself entitled to lay claim.’
Receiving this bulky missive, Canning said he would sooner fight than read it and replied: ‘The tone and purport of your Lordship’s letter (which I have this moment received) of course precludes any other answer, on my part, to the misapprehensions and misrepresentations, with which it abounds, than that I will cheerfully give to your Lordship the satisfaction that you require.’
The duel was organised for the following day, at 6am on Putney Heath, where Castlereagh’s second, Lord Yarmouth, owned a cottage. Canning, who had never fired a pistol in his life, wrote his will and a farewell letter to his wife. When the parties reached the appointed spot, his second, his friend Charles Ellis, tried to patch up the quarrel, but in vain, and the seconds agreed the distance and measured out the ground. Ellis was so nervous trying to load Canning’s pistol that Lord Yarmouth did it for him. The first shots both missed and another attempt to compose the quarrel failed because Canning still refused to apologise. His second shot was deflected by a button on Castlereagh’s coat and Castlereagh’s second struck Canning in the thigh. Castlereagh helped Canning limp away and afterwards told his father that Canning’s conduct ‘was very proper on the ground’.
The two men soon adopted a polite civility and Castlereagh would go on to be one of Britain’s greatest foreign ministers, but Canning’s career was badly damaged. It was generally felt that he had behaved thoroughly badly and this was part of the reason why he failed to achieve his ambition to be prime minister until the last few months of his life, in 1827.

22nd September 1892

The Lindal railway incident:
A locomotive shunting, falls into a hole in the ground, leading to the burial of the locomotive.

The Lindal railway incident happened on Thursday 22 September 1892 near Lindal-in-Furness, a village lying between the Cumbria towns of Ulverston and Dalton-in-Furness. A Furness Railway D1 locomotive, No.115, was shunting in sidings when it disappeared into the ground after a large, deep hole opened up beneath it. The D1 was never recovered and still lies buried beneath the railway, though the depth remains a source of speculation.

The story
East of Lindal station on the Barrow-Carnforth route, the two main lines and two goods lines ran along an embankment, with five sidings to the north. The 7am Barrow-Carnforth goods had stopped at the sidings behind Furness Railway locomotive No.115, a D1 class 0-6-0 built by the firm of Sharp Stewart between 1866 and 1885.

The ‘Sharpie’ (as the class were nicknamed) was busy shunting when the driver, Thomas Postlethwaite, saw cracks opening up in the ground right below. Knocking off steam, he jumped for his life, no sooner clear than the earth opened up to expose a sheer-sided hole 30 feet (9.1 m) across and similar in depth. The driver and his fireman stared in disbelief as their locomotive fell into it front first, the funnel and front part embedded, with only the tender remaining visible above the surface. The rails on which the engine had been standing were snapped off and went down with it, while the supporting baulks under the main lines were laid bare. The adjacent up passenger line was left hanging lopsidedly, its ballast having cascaded into the abyss.

23 rd September 1459

Battle of Blore Heath:
The Battle of Blore Heath, the first major battle of the English Wars of the Roses, is won by the Yorkists.

Battle of Blore Heath - Background:
Open fighting between the Lancastrian forces of King Henry VI and the Richard, Duke of York began in 1455 at the First Battle of St. Albans. A Yorkist victory, the battle was a relatively minor engagement and Richard did not attempt to usurp the throne. In the four years that followed, an uneasy peace settled over the two sides and no fighting occurred. By 1459, tensions had again risen and both sides actively began recruiting forces. Establishing himself at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire, Richard began summoning troops for action against the king.

These efforts were countered by the Queen, Margaret of Anjou who was raising men in support of her husband. Learning that Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury was moving south from Middleham Castle in Yorkshire to join Richard, she dispatched a newly raised force under James Touchet, Baron Audley to intercept the Yorkists. Marching out, Audley intended to set an ambush for Salisbury at Blore Heath near Market Drayton. Moving onto the barren heathland on September 23, he formed his 8,000-14,000 men behind a "great hedge" facing northeast towards Newcastle-under-Lyme.

Battle of Blore Heath - Fighting Begins:
The fighting opened with fire from the opposing armies' archers. Due to the distance separating the forces, this proved largely ineffectual. Realizing that any attack on Audley's larger army was doomed to fail, Salisbury sought to lure the Lancastrians out of their position. To accomplish this, he began a feigned retreat of his center. Seeing this, a force of Lancastrian cavalry charged forward, possibly without orders. Having accomplished his goal, Salisbury returned his men to their lines and met the enemy assault.

Battle of Blore Heath - Yorkist Victory:
Striking the Lancastrians as they crossed the stream, they repelled the attack and inflicted heavy losses. Withdrawing to their lines, the Lancastrians reformed. Now committed to the offensive, Audley led a second assault forward. This achieved greater success and the bulk of his men crossed the stream and engaged the Yorkists. In a period of brutal fighting, Audley was struck down. With his death, John Sutton, Baron Dudley, took command and led forward an additional 4,000 infantry. Like the others, this attack proved unsuccessful.

As the fighting swung in the favor of the Yorkists, around 500 Lancastrians deserted to the enemy. With Audley dead and their lines wavering, the Lancastrian army broke from the field in a rout. Fleeing the heath, they were pursued by Salisbury's men as far as the River Tern (two miles away) where additional casualties were inflicted.

24 th September 1929

Flying Blind :
Jimmy Doolittle performs the first flight without a window, proving that full instrument flying from take off to landing is possible.

On September 24 Lt. Jimmy Doolittle made the world’s first completely “blind” flight—taking off, flying a prescribed course, and landing on instruments only. He was in a Consolidated NY-2 “Husky” biplane with two cockpits. Doolittle flew it from the rear cockpit, which was covered in canvas so that he could not see out. In the front cockpit was a safety pilot, Lt. Ben Kelsey, who could take over if necessary. Kelsey held his hands in the air during the flight to show that Doolittle was controlling the plane.

The main problem blind flight was meant to solve was flying in poor visibility—at night or in bad weather. The airplanes of the time tended to drift, like a car with no one controlling the steering wheel. If visibility was good and the pilot could see the horizon, he would notice if the plane was sliding into a banked turn and could bring it back to straight and level flight. But without that visual information, sensing up from down during a turn was often impossible. The acceleration in three dimensions made it feel as if “down” was toward the cockpit floor even when the plane was severely tilted. The pilot would, however, think the plane was diving during such a turn, and his attempts to counteract the dive would lead to a downward spiral, possibly ending in a crash.

Doolittle’s plane was equipped with the latest instrumentation, including an artificial horizon and a gyrocompass. He took off from Mitchel Field in Garden City, New York, climbed to 1,000 feet, flew an oval course totaling about 15 miles (tracking his position with the help of a radio signal broadcast from the ground), and landed safely. The flight took 15 minutes. Landing was the hardest part, since Doolittle’s altimeter, while extremely sensitive, was accurate to within five feet at best. Without knowing exactly when he would hit ground, he flew the plane at a low angle into a large, grassy field, relying on a set of especially rugged shock absorbers to soften the jolt.

25 th September 1983.

The Maze prison escape:
Thirty-eight IRA prisoners, armed with six handguns, hijack a prison meals lorry and smash their way out of the Maze Prison.

The Maze Prison escape (known to Irish republicans as the Great Escape) took place on 25 September 1983 in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. HM Prison Maze (also known as Long Kesh) was a maximum security prison considered to be one of the most escape-proof prisons in Europe. It held prisoners suspected of taking part in armed paramilitary campaigns during the Troubles, with separate wings for loyalists and for republicans. In the biggest prison escape in UK peacetime history, 38 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoners escaped from H-Block 7 (H7) of the prison. One prison officer died of a heart attack during the escape and twenty others were injured, including two who were shot with guns that had been smuggled into the prison.

The escape was a propaganda coup for the IRA, and a British government minister faced calls to resign. The official inquiry into the escape placed most of the blame onto prison staff, who in turn blamed the escape on political interference in the running of the prison.

26 th September 1953

Rationing:
Rationing of sugar in the United Kingdom ends.

Sugar rationing ends 71 years ago today.

If you were a child on 25th September 1953 a whole new world emerged that day. Sweets and chocolate became more readily available because eight years after the end of the Second World War sugar rationing came to an end.

During the war sugar was one of dozens of what today we would consider to be everyday food items that was rationed to ensure that everyone got a fair share of a scarce resource. Sugar in 1940s Britain mostly came from abroad and had to be shipped into the country. These ships were a prime target for German’s U-boat wolf packs and many millions of tons of ships and the men who crewed them went to the bottom of the ocean.

But it wasn’t the first time that Briton’s had been denied the sweet taste of sugar because during the First World War the same situation had played out. In February 1917 German submarines sank 230 vessels bringing food and vital supplies into the country. Great Britain very nearly starved. In 1917 the weekly allowance for sugar was just 340 grams. At one stage in the First World War there was only four days’ supply of sugar in the whole of the United Kingdom.

So, when the end of World War Two came it took a very long time to recreate the infrastructure necessary to allow people to freely buy however much sugar they wanted. New crops of Sugar Beet were established across Britain and new plantations of sugar cane were planted around the world.

On 25th September 1953 sugar once again became freely available to everyone. In the 21st century we are now asked to cut back on sugar intake for another reason, other than war, now it is to consider our health.

27 th September 1825

                       Worlds first steam railway:

                        The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, is ceremonially opened with the engine Locomotion pulling wagons with coal and passengers from Shildon to Darlington to Stockton.

                           Shildon, the cradle of the railway and locomotion No1.

                On 27 September 1825 a small steam locomotive coupled up to a train at Shildon in County Durham. There were officially around 300 ticket holders but many more—possibly twice as much again—had jumped on board. As the train headed eastwards to the port of Stockton, huge crowds gathered to watch its progress. This was a momentous day indeed for this was the first steam-hauled passenger train on a public railway, a journey that would change the world forever.
                         Named Locomotion, the locomotive on that historic day had been the first to be built at the celebrated Stephenson works in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but for its working life it was indelibly associated with Shildon—the world’s first railway town—where it will return for the first time in over 150 years as part of ambitious plans to redevelop the town’s railway museum, itself named Locomotion after the history-making locomotive.

Locomotion was not the first steam locomotive, nor did it possess innovative technology. Its significance and fame rests with its involvement on that September day in 1825. However, it also enjoyed a lengthy career on the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) where it was directly associated with Shildon for the majority of its working life. This may come as a surprise to some as the name of the railway on which the locomotive served was, of course, S&DR even though the line itself began near Shildon some distance west of both Darlington and Stockton.

28 th September 1928

Discovery of penecilin:
Alexander Fleming notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.

The way that we treat illnesses has changed a huge amount over the last century.

On 28 September 1928 - 96 years ago - a substance was discovered that completely transformed the history of medicine.

It was called penicillin and it was the world's very first antibiotic - vital for creating medicines to kill bacterial infections.

One of the most interesting things about the drug is that it was discovered almost by accident!

We take a look back at its amazing story.

Where did penicillin come from?
Ninety years ago, doctors weren't able to treat certain conditions that nowadays are much easier to deal with, simply because they didn't have the right medicines.
Something as simple as a sore throat could prove to be fatal if the infection spread to the lungs, and pneumonia and infections after operations used to kill one in every three people who got them.

At the time, a man called Alexander Fleming was a scientist working at St Mary's Hospital in London, carrying out research into the influenza virus.
One day, he went on holiday. When he returned to his laboratory, he discovered something very strange had taken place.

Before he had gone away, he hadn't cleared away all of the dishes of bacteria that he had been working on and a blob of mould had developed in one of his dirty dishes.

But while bacteria was growing everywhere else in the dish, none was growing around the mould.

This told Mr Fleming that something in the mould was killing the bacteria.

He worked out what this substance was and called it penicillin. It was the world's first antibiotic.