Today in History

October 10th


October 10th, 1831Angry at the defeat of the Second Reform Bill a crowd burnt down Nottingham Castle, England, home of the Duke of Newcastle, who had opposed the bill in parliament.




1881 The Savoy Theatre, the first public building to be lit by electricity, opened with a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Patience'.



October 10th, 1903Emmeline Pankhurst
founded the Women's Social and Political Union, a militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.


And on this day in 1957 Paul Anka was still at Number One with Diana.
You can work out why I looked that up!
 

10th October

1969 The British Government accepted the recommendations of the Hunt committee on policing in Northern Ireland which include the abolition of the Ulster Special Constabulary, know as the 'B Specials'. The Home Secretary, Jim Callaghan, ordered a commission, headed by Lord Hunt, in response to the summer's violence in the Bogside area of Londonderry.

1957 A major radiation leak was detected at the Windscale (now known as Sellafield) nuclear plant in Cumbria after an accident three days earlier. Milk from about 500 square km. of nearby countryside was diluted and destroyed for about a month. Windscale Piles: Cockcroft's Follies avoided nuclear disaster

1970 Canadian minister seized by gunmen. Quebec's Labour and Immigration Minister, Pierre Laporte, was kidnapped. He was seized from his home in Montreal by two men armed with machine guns.

1980 The Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made a defiant speech to Conservatives at the party conference in Brighton. Responding to recent expectations of an about-turn on counter-inflationary policies, Mrs Thatcher declared to widespread cheers: "To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning!"
 
October 11th
1216 King John lost his crown and jewels whilst crossing 'The Wash', on the north-west margin of East Anglia.




1983: The Tudor ship Mary Rose is raised from the Solent near the Isle of Wight after 438 years on the seabed. She famously sank on 19th July 1545 in full view of King Henry VIII after making a sharp manoeuvre while leading the attack on the galleys of a French invasion fleet.






1988 Women began to study at Magdalene College, Cambridge for the first time. To mark the occasion male students wore black armbands and the porter flew a black flag.


11 Oct 1969
One Hit Wonders Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Je t'aime... Moi non plus.' Banned by many radio stations for its sexual content and sounds and for first time in the history of the show, the BBC’s Top of the Pops producers refused to air the No. 1 song.

11 Oct 1968
During a Beatles recording session at Abbey Road six saxophonists recorded parts for 'Savoy Truffle' for the forthcoming White Album . George Harrison. distorted the saxophones to get the desired sound.
 

1881
U.S. inventor David Houston patents roll film for cameras
1950
U.S. FCC{ Federal Communications Commission} issues 1st license to broadcast television in color to CBS
1975
Saturday Night live{SNL} comedy sketch show created by TV producer, Lorne Michaels debuts live at 11:30 pm with comedian George Carlin as host
1978
Columbia Records releases Billy JOel's 6th studio album' 52nd Street' featuring hit singles, 'My Life, Honesty, Big Shot,Until the Night
2017
Trip Advisor customer poll names The Black Swan in Oldstead, North Yorkshire as the world's best restaurant. Its still open owned& operated by the Banks family
2024
archaeologists announce the discovery of one of the oldest churches in the world from 4th century AD,during excavations in Artaxata, Armenia
 
12th October 1955
The Chrysler Corporation introduces high fidelity record players for their 1956 line-up of cars.
The unit measured about four inches high and less than a foot wide and mounted under the instrument panel.
The seven-inch discs spun at 16⅔ rpm and required almost three times the number of grooves per inch as an LP.
The players would be discontinued in 1961.
 
12th October 1912
The Mount Lyell Mining Disaster at Queenstown, Tasmania occurred, resulting in the deaths of 42 miners.
The disaster was caused by a buildup of gas within the mine, leading to a catastrophic explosion that trapped workers underground and left families devastated.
(My hometown, I worked 10 years in that underground Copper mine.)

1918
Australian children's classic "The Magic Pudding" authored by Norman Lindsay is first published.

2002
Eighty-eight Australians are killed in the Bali bombings.
 
October 12th

1823 Charles Macintosh of Scotland began selling raincoats, now better known as - Macs. He was first employed as a clerk but before he was twenty resigned his clerkship to take up the manufacture of chemicals. The essence of his patent for waterproof fabrics was the cementing together of two pieces of natural India-rubber, the rubber being made soluble by the action of naphtha, a byproduct of tar. For his various chemical discoveries he was, in 1823, elected a fellow of the Royal Society.




1969: WKNR radio in Cleveland, Ohio receives an anonymous phone call saying that if you play The Beatles "Strawberry Fields Forever" backwards, you'll hear John Lennon saying "I buried Paul." This helped kickstart the conspiracy rumour that Paul McCartney had died and been replaced by a look-alike.




1979 The publication of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy.
by the English writer and dramatist Douglas Adams.
And without which we would never have enjoyed Vogon poetry.





Oh freddled gruntbuggly,

Thy micturations are to me, (with big yawning)
As plurdled gabbleblotchits,

On a lurgid bee,

That mordiously hath blurted out,

Its earted jurtles, grumbling

Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer.
[drowned out by moaning and screaming]

Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles,

Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts,

And living glupules frart and stipulate,

Like jowling meated liverslime,

Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes,

And hooptiously drangle me,

With crinkly bindlewurdles.

Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don't!
 
October 13th54AD: Ageing Roman Emperor Claudius is poisoned to death under mysterious circumstances, possibly by his final wife Agrippina mother of Claudius' 17-year-old stepson Nero who would succeed him to the Roman throne.

1773 – Charles Messier Discovers the Whirlpool Galaxy On October 13, 1773, French astronomer Charles Messier discovered the first spiral galaxy.
He named it the "Whirlpool Galaxy".
Centuries later, scientists confirmed the spiral shape of our own Milky Way.
Today, the Whirlpool Galaxy is one of the most studied galaxies in the universe.



1884: The International Meridian Conference, held in Washington DC selects the Greenwich Meridian in London as the international standard for zero degrees longitude.




1963 The term Beatlemania was coined after The Beatles appeared at the Palladium. They made their debut as the top of the bill on ITV's 'Sunday Night at The London Palladium.'
 
1066: The Battle of Hastings is fought between the armies of King Harold Godwinson and Duke William of Normandy. Culminating in Harold's death, the decisive Norman victory ends Anglo-Saxon rule in England.
Was Harold shot in the eye?Mmmm….( got my History hat on)
Harold was killed and Edgar the Ætheling was proclaimed king but never crowned.

1913 Britain's worst pit disaster. More than 400 miners were killed in an explosion down a mine at Senghenydd in Glamorgan, S. Wales.

1929 The world's largest airship, the R101, made its maiden voyage.




1947: U.S. Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager flies a Bell X-1 rocket-powered experimental aircraft at Mach 1 over the high desert of Southern California becoming the human to break the sound barrier.



Music1971: Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty is accused of plagiarising Little Richard's "Good Golly, Miss Molly" in his song "Travelin' Band". Music publishing firm Arco Industries would eventually drop the $500,000 dollar lawsuit. In 2008 Fogerty would perform "Good Golly, Miss Molly" on stage with Little Richard at the Grammy Awards Show.
Ocober 14th
 
14th October

1954 Ethiopian emperor visited UK. Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie arrived in Portsmouth on the cruiser the Gambia. His visit wass part of a world tour, his first since his triumphant return to Ethiopia in 1941.

1969 Ahead of the complete changeover to decimalization, Britain scrapped the 10 shilling note and introduced the 50 pence coin.

1976 Blue Peter (UK Children's TV show) showed off a phone with no cable that you could even take outside. It'll never catch on.

1973 Thai army shoots protesters. Dozens of people were killed in the Thai capital of Bangkok in street battles between government troops and demonstrators. Most of the victims were students from Thammasat University, who had gathered in large numbers for a second day of protests against the Thai military regime.

1986 An historic moment for Queen Elizabeth II as she became the first British monarch to walk along the Great Wall of China.

1994 Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and two Israelis, the Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, named the winners of the Nobel peace prize.
 
October 15th
1666Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that Charles II had started wearing the first known waistcoat. The King was so overweight that he left the bottom button undone, a fashion custom followed to this day.


1888: The Whitechapel Vigilance Committee in London receive the 'From Hell' letter signed by 'Jack the Ripper' as well as part of a human kidney.


1927Britain's Public Morals Committee attacked the use of contraceptives, on the basis that they caused 'poor hereditary stock'.




1987: In what becomes known as the Great Storm of 1987 a violent extratropical cyclone hits England, France and the Channel Islands. Fallen trees block roads and railways and there is widespread structural damage to property. Many radio stations are off the air due to power and aerial problems. Radio Caroline from the radio-ship Ross Revenge is one of the few that still broadcasting as dawn breaks over the devastation.

Music 1980: Abbey Road Studios in London auctions off thousands of pounds worth of recording equipment, including some used for Beatles recordings. At the same time it is reported that a roll of toilet paper with ‘Property of EMI’ stamped on every sheet sold for £500.
 
15th October

1953 The British nuclear test Totem 1 was detonated at Emu Field in South Australia.

1964 Khrushchev 'retired' as head of USSR.The official Soviet news agency, Tass, announced that a plenary meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee had accepted Mr Khrushchev's request to depart "in view of his advanced age and the deterioration of his health".

1969 Millions marched in US Vietnam Moratorium. Moratorium Day involved mass protests across the US. Religious services, rallies and meetings were held, aiming to bring the war to an end.

1976 Two men from the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) were jailed for 35 years in connection with the murders of members of the Miami Showband. The Miami Showband effectively ceased to exist as a popular musical act after a 1975 attack during the Troubles, where loyalist paramilitaries ambushed the band's bus, killing three members in a bomb-and-gun attack and shattering Ireland's music scene.

2017 The round £1 coin, introduced in 1983, went out of circulation at midnight. Its replacement was 12 sided and had additional security features
 
On This Day In History, October 16th

1986 – First Person to Scale all Eight-Thousanders
Italian Mountaineer, Reinhold Messner scaled the Lhotse, in Nepal. It is the world’s 4th tallest peak, and it is one of the 14 eight-thousanders – mountains that are more than 8000 meters above sea level.

1978 – First Non-Italian to Win the Papacy since 1523
Karol Józef Wojtyła, the Archbishop of Kraków, won the papal elections that were held after his predecessor Pope John Paul I died after only 33 days in office. As Pope, Wojtyła took on the name of John Paul II. He was the second-longest serving pope in modern history, after Pope Pius IX, who was in office for over 31 years.

1964 – First Chinese Nuclear Test
Codenamed Chic-1 or 596, the 22 kiloton uranium fission device was dropped at Lop Nur. With this test, China became the fifth nuclear power state in the World. The other four are the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France. Israel is thought to have nuclear weapons; however, they do not publicly admit the fact.

1945 – Food and Agriculture Organisation established
The Food and Agriculture Organisation, popularly known as the FAO was established in Quebec City, Canada.

1923 – The Walt Disney Company is Founded
A leader in the international entertainment industry, the company was created by brothers Walt and Roy as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. Today, the company is synonymous with cartoon and animated movies and characters.
 

Births on 16th October 🎂

1977 – John Mayer
American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer

1974 – Paul Kariya
Canadian ice hockey player

1925 – Angela Lansbury
English/American actress, singer

1888 – Eugene O'Neill
American playwright, Nobel Prize laureate

1886 – David Ben-Gurion
Israeli politician, 1st Prime Minister of Israel

Deaths on 16th October 🪦

2011 – Dan Wheldon
English race car driver

1981 – Moshe Dayan
Israeli general, politician, 5th Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel)

1951 – Liaquat Ali Khan
Indian/Pakistani lawyer, politician, Prime Minister of Pakistan

1793 – Marie Antoinette
Austrian wife of Louis XVI of France

1791 – Grigory Potemkin
Russian military leader, politician
 
16th October 1967
Folk singer Joan Baez was arrested, along with 123 others, for blocking the entrance to an Armed Forces Induction Center in Oakland, California. After she served an 11 day jail sentence, Baez would say, "I went to jail for eleven days for disturbing the peace; I was trying to disturb the war."

1992
Irish singer Sinead O'Connor is booed off the stage at a show honoring Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden.
The crowd was reacting to O'Connor's tearing up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live two weeks earlier.
 
October 16th



1834 The original Houses of Parliament were almost completely destroyed by fire. The blaze, which started from overheated chimney flues, spread rapidly throughout the medieval complex and developed into the biggest conflagration to occur in London since the Great Fire of 1666. Westminster Hall and a few other parts of the old Houses of Parliament survived the blaze and were incorporated into the New Palace of Westminster, which was built over the following decades.




1923: Walt Disney and his brother Roy form the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio to produce their Alice Comedies, a series of animated cartoons featuring a live action young girl named Alice (played by Virginia Davis) and an animated cat named Julius having adventures in an animated landscape.



Replied by SirFurrryAnimalWales2
October 16th1958 Britain's most popular children's television programme 'Blue Peter' was first broadcast on BBC TV. The first presenters were Leila Williams and Christopher Trace.







1964 Harold Wilson became Prime Minister of a Labour Government. He was the first Labour PM in 13 years.
 
16th October

1555 English bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley were burnt at the stake for heresy.

1974 Three prison staff were treated in hospital after rioting prisoners set fire to the Long Kesh Maze prison near Belfast. More than 130 prisoners were injured in the trouble - nine needed hospital treatment. One officer was treated for a suspected fractured skull.

1987 Southern Britain began a massive clear-up operation after the worst night of storms in living memory.

1996 British Home Secretary Michael Howard announced stringent new gun controls following the mass shooting in March 1996 of children at a school in Dunblane, Scotland.
 
October 17th

1091 A tornado struck London. It was Britain's earliest reported tornado. The wooden London Bridge was demolished, and the church of St. Mary-le-Bow in the city of London was badly damaged. Other churches in the area were demolished, as were over 600, mostly wooden, houses.



1931: American gangster, bootlegger and racketeer Al Capone is convicted of income tax evasion and receives an 11 year jail sentence.




1956: Calder Hall, the world's first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II at Sellafield, in Cumbria, England.



1967Promoter Sid Bernstein, who had promoted The Beatles at their first two Shea Stadium concerts, offers one million dollars to the group, who is retired from the road, to perform a third concert there. They refuse.
 
17th October

1860 The world's first professional golf tournament was held, at Prestwick in Scotland. Willie Park Snr was the winner.

1968 Two black American athletes made history at the Mexico Olympics by staging a silent protest against racial discrimination.

1978 Public pressure led ministers to reduce the number of grey seals to be culled in Scotland.

1980 The Queen made history after becoming the first British monarch to make a state visit to the Vatican.

1989 An earthquake rocked San Francisco. The Loma Prieta earthquake occurred at the Central Coast of California.
 
On This Day In History, October 18th

2007 – Benazir Bhutto returns to Pakistan
The former Prime Minister of Pakistan and daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the 9th PM of Pakistan, Benazir returned to Pakistan after living 8 years in London and Dubai in a self-imposed exile. Two months later she was assassinated in a bombing while campaigning for the forthcoming elections.

1998 – Jesse Pipeline Explosion in Nigeria Kills Over 200
The oil pipeline, which was owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, was situated just outside the city of Lagos. Over 200 people died in the resulting fire that raged for 6 days before it could be put out.

1967 – First Space Probe to Enter the Atmosphere of Another Planet
The Soviet Probe Venera 4 entered Venus’ atmosphere and sent back information to Earth for about 90 minutes before it lost contact. When Venera 7 landed on Venus a few years later, it became the first probe to land on another planet.

1867 – Alaska Becomes a Part of the United States
US had purchased the large and sparsely populated territory of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. The purchase was not seen as a positive acquisition by many American citizens who believed that adding Alaska to the US’s territory was a waste of taxpayers’ money. Many called the act, Seward's folly after Secretary of State William H. Seward, who was responsible for making the purchase. Alaska was admitted to the Union as a state in 1959. October 18 is annually celebrated as Alaska Day in Alaska.

1851 – Moby Dick is Published for the First Time
The epic written by American novelist, Herman Melville, is about a sailor's obsession with tracking down and killing an elusive whale that took his leg in a previous encounter. The book was published as The Whale in London for the first time and then a month later as Moby Dick in the United States. It is thought to be one of the best works of fiction written in modern times.
 
Births on 18th October 🎂

1987 – Zac Efron
American actor, singer

1984 – Lindsey Vonn
American skier

1960 – Jean-Claude Van Damme
Belgian martial artist, actor, director

1921 – Jesse Helms
American politician

1919 – Pierre Trudeau
Canadian politician, 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Deaths on 18th October 🪦

1973 – Leo Strauss
German/American philosopher

1931 – Thomas Edison
American businessman, invented the light bulb, phonograph

1871 – Charles Babbage
English mathematician, engineer, invented the Difference engine

1744 – Sarah Churchill
English Duchess of Marlborough

1541 – Margaret Tudor
English wife of James IV of Scotland
 
October 18th




1957: Paul McCartney makes his debut with John Lennon's Quarrymen at a Conservative Club social held at the New Clubmoor Hall in the Norris Green section of Liverpool.



1954: The world's first commercially produced transistor radio, the Regency TR-1, is announced. It has four transistors and one diode and costs $49.95


Today 05:54
October 18th
1826 Britain's last state lottery was held, prior to the launch of the National Lottery in 1994.

1851 Herman Melville's book Moby-Dick was first published as 'The Whale' by Richard Bentley of London
 
On This Day In History, October 19th

2005 – Trial of Saddam Hussein
The Iraqi Special Tribunal started the trial of the deposed President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, and 7 other defendants for crimes against humanity. Hussein, who was the fifth President of Iraq, was found guilty and was executed by hanging a year later on December 30, 2006.

1954 – Cho Oyu Scaled for the First Time in Recorded History
The 6th-highest mountain peak in the world, Cho Oyu, is part of the Himalayan mountain range and lies on the Nepal-China border. It was scaled by Nepalese Pasang Dawa Lama and Austrians Joseph Jöchler and Herbert Tichy.

1950 – Battle of Chamdo (Qamdo) Ends
Also known as the Liberation of Tibet in China, the war between China and Tibet began on October 6, when Chinese military forces under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping entered the country from Sichuan. At the end of the battle, the Chinese had taken over the border city of Chamdo. The battle was the starting point for negotiations between the two countries over the status of Tibet.

1943 – Streptomycin is Discovered
The miracle antibiotic that became the first line of defence against tuberculosis in the mid-20th century was isolated for the first time by graduate student Albert Schatz while working under Selman Abraham Waksman at Rutgers University. Schatz later sued Waksman to gain a portion of the profits and notoriety which came from the discovery. Waksman eventually received the Nobel Prize for the achievement. However, there was controversy as the award went to Waksman only.

1914 – First Battle of Ypres
Part of the Battle of Flanders during the First World War, the First Battle of Ypres was fought in the Belgian city of Ypres. It was fought between German forces on one side and the Belgian, French and British troops on the other. Fighting continued until November 22, when harsh weather forced the two sides to take a break from the hostilities.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top