The UK Babe Channels Forum

(23-02-2012 15:53 )skully Wrote: [ -> ]1987 – Supernova 1987a is seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Of all the external forces that could destroy the Earth, a nearby supernova is (thankfully) not high on the list of risks. Scientists aren't too sure of the exact figures, but they're pretty certain that we should be safe from anything more than 30 to 100 light years away (the 1987 supernova was 168,000 light years away). The damage wouldn't be caused by an explosion but by the effects of solar flares and radiation on the atmosphere which would lead to the destruction of the ozone layer.

There are only 37 stars within 50 light years of earth (which puts into context the difficulties of finding other worlds or civilizations or them finding us - that's a 100 year round trip at light speed just to go around the immediate neighbourhood!) and there is nothing on our cosmic doorstep with the remotest chance of going bang within at least the next five million years.

The nearest likely candidate is 150 light years away in the constellation of Pegasus. One easily visible candidate is Betalgeuse - that's the big red star above the row of three in the belt of Orion - but 640 light years away.

T Phyxidis is sometimes quoted as a potential global destroyer but at a distance of more than 3,000 light years that's rather more media hype that a genuine threat.

1303 - The Battle of Roslin - a battle of the First War of Scottish Independence.

1809 – London's Drury Lane Theatre burns to the ground, leaving owner Richard Brinsley Sheridan destitute.

1821 - Mexico declared its independence from Spain.

1903 - The United States signed an agreement acquiring a naval station at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

1917 – World War I: The U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom is given the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany pledges to ensure the return of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico if Mexico declares war on the United States.

1923 - The Flying Scotsman began hauling scheduled services between London & Scotland. She has undergone a major restoration at York's National Railway Museum and is due to return to mainline working in 2012.

1932 - Malcolm Campbell beat his own land speed record at Daytona Beach by reaching 253.96 mph.

1942 – The Battle of Los Angeles, one of the largest documented UFO sightings in history; the event lasted into the early hours of February 26.

1962 - The Beatles played a concert at the Birkenhead YMCA for a fee of £30. The audience didn't enjoy the show and the Beatles were booed off stage.

1999 - Home Secretary Jack Straw published the McPherson Report into the police handling of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. The Metropolitan Police were criticised for what the report called 'institutionalised racism'.

1999 – The State of Arizona executes Karl LaGrand, a German national convicted of murder during a botched bank robbery, in spite of Germany's legal action to attempt to save him.

2007 – Japan launches its fourth spy satellite, stepping up its ability to monitor potential threats such as North Korea.

2008 – Fidel Castro retires as the President of Cuba after nearly fifty years.

1964: Cassius Clay crowned world champion
Cassius Clay, 22, has been crowned heavyweight champion of the world after beating Sonny Liston in one of the biggest upsets in boxing's history.
Clay, from Kentucky, was announced the winner after the hot favourite retired at the end of the sixth round in Miami.

When the bell rang for the start of the seventh round, Liston stayed on his stool in the corner of the ring - saying he did not want to continue.

Florida state attorney Richard Gerstein is to launch an inquiry into the fight.

Clay was earlier fined around £900 for disgraceful conduct after he ranted at his 32-year-old opponent during the weigh-in.

He had chanted "I wanna rumble...I wanna rumble!" before saying "You're a tramp. I am going to eat you up. Somebody's going to die at the ringside tonight. Are you scared?"


I was born to be great. I am great and I will be greater - the greatest

Cassius Clay


Liston had built his reputation on two first round knock-outs of Floyd Patterson and in the boxing world he was thought to be invincible.

Clay had come into the fight after suffering his greatest humiliation to date - being knocked down by Henry Cooper's left hook.

Liston reigned supreme when he was challenged by former Olympic gold medallist Clay, who ring experts said was "all talk".

The majority of sports journalists covering the bout thought that Clay, who was 7-1 underdog, would be no match for Liston. Only half of the seats had been sold and around 8,000 people attended the fight.

The fight started at 0310 GMT at the Convention Hall in Miami Beach and Liston had been widely expected to retain his title in the third round.


I can't lose

Sonny Liston


Liston, known as the "dark destroyer", had managed to pin Clay to the ropes during round two but in round three the champion was forced to retreat, with his left eye pouring with blood.



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Watch/Listen

Poster of the Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston pre-fight weigh-in


Clay: "I am the greatest"




In Context
The World Boxing Association let Cassius Clay keep his heavyweight championship following the controversy over his fight with Sonny Liston at Miami Beach.
Ed Lassman, president of the WBA, had earlier demanded that Clay be stripped of his title and recommended giving the title back to him if his conduct improved over the next five months.

Miami State attorney Richard Gerstein said a month-long inquiry revealed no evidence of match-fixing. He added that there was little doubt that Liston was suffering from a sore shoulder during the fight.

Both the original fight and the rematch a year later in Maine, which Clay won with a first-round knockout, have been dogged by allegations of rigging.

Muhammad Ali, as he was later known to his adoring fans, said the victory in Miami over Liston was the most important of his career - because he had proved he was qualified to be champion of the world.

Shortly after the fight, Clay surprised the sports world by announcing that he had joined the Nation of Islam and had changed his name to Muhammad Ali.

His boxing career lasted 20 years, during which he won 56 fights and scored 37 knock-outs.

As an admirer once said, Ali would, "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee". In December 1981, Ali decided to retire from the ring and Parkinson's disease was later diagnosed.


Stories From 25 Feb
1986: Corazon Aquino is Philippines president
1964: Cassius Clay crowned world champion
1994: Jewish settler kills 30 at holy site
1956: Khrushchev lashes out at Stalin
1972: Miners call off crippling coal strike
1991: Birmingham Six on verge of freedom
1982: Parents can stop school beatings
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates...504777.stm

1570 - Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V. He declared her a usurper for her severe persecution of Roman Catholics in England.

1836 – Samuel Colt is granted a United States patent for the Colt revolver.

1866 – Miners in Calaveras County, California, discover what is now called the Calaveras Skull, human remains that supposedly indicated that man, mastodons, and elephants had co-existed.

1897 - The birth of Peter Llewelyn Davies, the namesake of Peter Pan. The author, J. M. Barrie publicly identified him as the source of the name for the title character in his famous play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up.

1913 - English suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst went on trial for a bomb attack on the home of David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

1947 – The State of Prussia ceases to exist.

1955 - Britain's largest ever aircraft carrier, the Ark Royal, was completed. She was the fourth ship of that name to have served the Crown.

1982 - The European Court of Human Rights ruled that corporal punishment in schools (if it was against the parents' wishes) was a violation of the Human Rights Convention.

1991 – Gulf War: An Iraqi scud missile hits an American military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia killing 28 U.S. Army Reservists from Pennsylvania.

2006 - The world's estimated population reaches 6.5 billion.

1987 - The Church of England gives the go-ahead for the ordination of women priests.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates...516299.stm

1991 - Kuwait City is liberated by the Gulf War Allied Forces.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates...716868.stm

1993 - A car bomb detonates in the basement of the World Trade Centre in New York City. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of what was to come at that location.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates...516469.stm

1797 - The Bank of England issued the first ever one pound note. Printed on watermark paper with a vignette of Britannia on the top left hand corner, the hand-signed white £1 notes were withdrawn in the 1820s.

1815 - Napoleon left his exile on the island of Elba, returning to France to attempt a second conquest.

1914 – HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, is launched at Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.

1919 – President Woodrow Wilson signs an act of the U.S. Congress establishing most of the Grand Canyon in Arizona as a United States National Park.

1935 – Robert Watson-Watt carries out a demonstration near Daventry which leads directly to the development of RADAR (radio detection and ranging) in the United Kingdom.

1935 – Adolf Hitler orders the Luftwaffe to be re-formed, violating the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

1946 – Finnish observers report the first of many thousands of sightings of ghost rockets.

1952 - Churchill told the House of Commons that Britain now had an atomic bomb which it intended to test in Australia.

1962 - The start of filming of Dr. No, the first film involving English agent 007 - James Bond.

1995 - Barings, the country's oldest merchant bank, declared bankruptcy after discovering that Nicholas Leeson, the firm's chief trader in Singapore, had lost approximately £625 million of the bank's assets on unauthorized futures and options transactions.

(25-02-2012 13:40 )bombshell Wrote: [ -> ]1964: Cassius Clay crowned world champion
Miami State attorney Richard Gerstein said a month-long inquiry revealed no evidence of match-fixing. He added that there was little doubt that Liston was suffering from a sore shoulder during the fight.

Both the original fight and the rematch a year later in Maine, which Clay won with a first-round knockout, have been dogged by allegations of rigging.

ESPN Classic showed the two fights in full a couple of years ago, and had a couple of veteran American commentators to reminisce and discuss what might have happened. Liston had had a rough upbringing, had a long criminal record, and it was astonishing to think that Clay/Ali was so unpopular in his early days with his rantings that Liston was cheered for the first time in his life!

Their opinion of the first fight was that Liston had been unprepared and out of condition. He had only had to box for six rounds in four fights in the previous four years (victories in R3,1,1, and 1). He also had a reputation for heavy drinking and was rumoured to have had a skinful the night before the fight. Liston battered Clay/Ali in the first couple of rounds and the challenger was lucky to survive, but as the fight went on it was obvious that Liston was tiring. He clearly wasn't expecting to have to go beyond the first few rounds and having disposed of Patterson, Foley and Williams without breaking sweat wasn't prepared for this.

As for the second fight, the accusation was that Liston had taken a dive after being hit by nothing more than a glancing blow but the ringside commentators both believed that Ali had caught him with a genuine punch and it was just the camera angle that had made it look inocuous.

Liston carried on fighting for another five years, winning 15 of his 16 fights (14 of them inside the distance and 7 within 3 rounds). His one defeat was being knocked out by Leotis Martin towards the end of a fight where he was well ahead on points.

In his final fight in 1970 he took on world number 5 Chuck Wepner. Wepner was being talked of as a potential champion until he met Liston. The fight was stopped in the 9th round and Wepner was so badly beaten he needed 43 stitches in his face. There was even talk of Liston fighting Joe Frazier for the world title but it was not to be.

Liston was found dead in his home by his ex-wife in January 1971. He had been dead for around a week. There were suggestions that he had been murdered by the mob or had died of a heroin overdose but although he drank there had never been any evidence of him using drugs. His age at death was for legal purposes put at 38 but there was no official record of his birth (in a poor rural plantation in Arkansas) and from his outward appearance and autopsy findings he could well have been some years older.

Officially Liston died of lung congestion and heart failure and the autopsy found he had been suffering from hardening of the heart muscle and lung disease before his death.

Only got a few pieces of info for you. My colleagues will no doubt post more.

1801 - Washington DC, then a new planned city and capital of the United States, is placed under the jurisdiction of U.S. Congress. The act of congress is known as the District of Columbia Organic Act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of...ct_of_1801

1844 - Official day of independence for the Dominican Republic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican_Republic

1953 - Proposals to simplify English spelling successfully pass through a second reading in the UK Parliament. The private member's Spelling Bill was first introduced by Labour MP Mont Follick.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates...801617.stm

1560 - The Treaty of Berwick, which would expel the French from Scotland, was signed by England and the Protestant noblemen known as the Congregation of Scotland.

1782 - The British Parliament voted to abandon the American War of Independence.

1870 – The current flag of Japan is first adopted as the national flag for Japanese merchant ships.

1883 - Oscar Hammerstein of New York City patented the first practical cigar-rolling machine.

1900 - The British Labour Party was founded. Ramsay MacDonald became secretary.

1907 - London's main criminal court, the Old Bailey was built, on the site of Newgate Prison.

1964 – The government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.

1997 - Divorce became legal in Ireland; it had been the only nation in Europe in which divorce was illegal.

1999 - While trying to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon, British pilots Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after being in a hot air balloon for 233 hours and 55 minutes.

2010 – An earthquake measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale strikes central parts of Chile leaving over 500 victims, and thousands injured. The quake triggered a tsunami which struck Hawaii shortly after.

1935 - American chemist Wallace Carothers invents nylon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Carothers

1986 - Sweden's prime minister, Olaf Palme, is assassinated in Stockholm. His wife was also wounded in the shooting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates...802181.stm

1991 - US President George Bush declares a ceasefire in the Gulf War.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates...515289.stm

2000 - British Nuclear Fuels chief executive John Taylor resigns over the falsified safety records scandal at Sellafield Power Plant.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates...515111.stm