Today in History

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January 26th
1972
Flight attendant Vesna Vulović survived the world’s highest fall without a parachute after falling 33,330 feet.

1936
Stalin and officials walked out of Lady Macbeth opera, calling it a “muddle,” not music.




1926
Scottish inventor John Logie Baird changed the world of communication and entertainment forever when he demonstrated television for the first time.

Source-The History of Wales
The Abermule train disaster on the 26th January 1921 resulted in the death of 17 people.

The crash was a head-on collision between a train from Whitchurch and another from Aberystwyth, which arose from a miscommunication, which allowed both trains onto a section of the line that was single tracked.
The subsequent enquiry found that safety measures had been relaxed and resulted in major changes to railway safety procedures.




1907 A riot broke out in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on the first night of J.M. Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, when the audience took offence at the ‘foul language’. The riots continued for a week, but the show went on, heavily guarded by police.



1962 - ClassicBands.com

January 26
Bishop Joseph A. Burke of the Buffalo, New York Catholic Diocese bans the Twist, in any form, from all of his school's functions. In a directive sent to the city's Catholic schools, the bishop said, "For a number of reasons, not the least of which is the development of pupils in a proper sense of decorum and good taste, the current popular dance, commonly referred to as "the twist is not to be permitted at any school or parish dance."

The ban would gradually disappear after Burke passed away the following October.



1841 Hong Kong Kong was proclaimed British sovereign territory.



1871 The Rugby Football Union was formed, in London, by an initial 20 clubs.



Source-the history of Wales
On this day 1788, Mary Watkins, a 20 year old from the Vale of Glamorgan, along with four Welshmen men and two other women from Wales, were passengers of the six convict ships that had docked in Port Jackson (now known as Sydney) and a deputation had been sent ashore to establish the first permanent European colony on the Australian continent.


Mary's adventure had begun after being sentenced to seven years transportation overseas for stealing sixpence worth of clothing. She was boarded onto the "Friendship" in Portsmouth and the fleet set sail on 13 May 1787. Conditions on board were harsh and food soon ran short, as officials organising the trip had underestimated what was needed for the 8-month voyage.

 

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1606: The trial of Guy Fawkes and seven other conspirators implicated in the failed Gunpowder Plot against King James I begins at Westminster Hall. Found guilty the same day, all are sentenced to a traitors death – to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

1825 – The U.S. Congress approves Indian Territory (in what is today Oklahoma), thereby setting the stage for the forced relocation of Native American tribes on the “Trail of Tears”



On 27th January 1884, 18 men were killed in a gas explosion at the Naval Collieries, Penygraig in the Rhondda Valley. It was reported that a white column shot up from the pit's mouth followed by clouds of sparks and showers of fiery dust. Ironically, the explosion occurred during a safety inspection and those who lost their lives were company officials, firemen and the attendants of the pit horses.
Source-The History of Wales.


Strumble Head Lighthouse was first operational on 27th January 1908.
The lighthouse stands imposingly on Ynysmeicl (St. Michael's Island), an islet to the west of Fishguard, it is connected to the mainland by a by a footbridge across the narrow sound.
The station was built by Trinity House for the greater safety of sea traffic between Ireland and the new Fishguard Harbour. The new light formed a link with the existing South Bishop light, 18 miles to the south-west, guarding what is a very dangerous stretch of coast. Some 60 vessels are known to have been lost along it in the 19th Century alone.
Source-The History of Wales


On 27th January 1940, Wales was engulfed by a freak ice storm.

It had been an extremely cold January in Wales, with a temperature of -23 being recorded in Rhayader a few days earlier. The precipitation of 27th January was of the supercooled nature, so when the rain hit the surface it would freeze instantly. This is a rare event in the UK and the 1940 ice storm is reckoned to be the severest that has struck the UK in recorded history.

The storm lasted for 48 hours in places, causing telegraph poles and wires to snapped, unable to cope with the weight of the ice. Tree branches were snapped off and birds were grounded. Travel was nearly impossible as roads iced over and inclines were impossible to climb.
Source The History of Wales



1945 The Nazis' biggest concentration camp at Auschwitz in south-western Poland was liberated. The millions killed during the Holocaust are remembered each year in services across the UK, as part of Holocaust Memorial Day.


1967: American astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee are killed in a fire during a non-flight test of their Apollo 1 spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. An electrical fault in their capsule had ignited its high-pressure oxygen atmosphere.


Music1970: John Lennon writes, records and mixes his song "Instant Karma!" all in one day. Written in the morning and recorded at Abbey Road Studios the same evening, backed by George Harrison, Klass Voormann Alan White and Billy Preston, the song ranks as one of the fastest-released songs in music history being released to record stores only ten days later.