1779 – Spain declares war on Britain, and the Great Siege of Gibraltar begins.
1816 – Lord Byron reads Fantasmagoriana to his four house guests at the Villa Diodati, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori, and inspires his challenge that each guest write a ghost story, which culminated in Mary Shelley writing the novel Frankenstein, John Polidori writing the short story The Vampyre, and Byron writing the poem Darkness.
1824 - The RSPCA Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded.
1903 – The Ford Motor Company is incorporated.
1911 – IBM is founded as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in Endicott, New York.
1958 - Yellow 'No Waiting' lines were introduced to British streets.
1963 – Soviet Space Program: Vostok 6 Mission – Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.
1977 – Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores, California, as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates.
2000 – Israel complies with UN Security Council Resolution 425 22 years after its issuance, which calls on Israel to completely withdraw from Lebanon. Israel withdraws from all of Lebanon, except the disputed Shebaa Farms.
2001 - The Leaning Tower of Pisa opened for the first time since 1990 as work to keep it from falling over was completed; it now leans only 4.1 m (13.5 ft) off perpendicular, 44 cm (17 in) less than its previous lean.
1178 – Five Canterbury monks see what is possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed. It is believed that the current oscillations of the Moon's distance from the Earth (on the order of meters) are a result of this collision.
1429 – French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc defeat the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. This turns the tide of the Hundred Years' War.
1633 - Charles I was crowned King of Scotland, at Edinburgh.
1815 - The Battle of Waterloo: Napoleon Bonaparte suffered defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington, bringing an end to the Napoleonic era of European history.
1817 - Waterloo Bridge across the River Thames was opened. Originally it was called Strand Bridge but was re-named in honour of the British victory at Waterloo in 1815.
1822 - London unveiled its first nude statue - a bronze figure of Achilles in Hyde Park by sculptor Sir Richard Westmacott. The statue later acquired a discreet fig leaf.
1858 - Charles Darwin received a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that included almost identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own, prompting Darwin to publish his theory.
1945 - William Joyce (known as Lord Haw-Haw) was charged with treason for his pro-German propaganda broadcasting during World War II, using the English language radio programme Germany Calling. He was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 3rd January 1946.
1963 - Henry Cooper knocked Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) to the floor in round four at Wembley Stadium, London, but by the sixth, with Cooper badly cut, the fight was stopped and Clay remained world heavyweight boxing champion.
1975 - The first North Sea Oil was pumped ashore in Britain.
1979 – SALT II is signed by the United States and the Soviet Union.
1983 - Astronaut Sally K. Ride became America's first woman in space as she and four colleagues blasted off aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
2006 – The first Kazakh space satellite, KazSat is launched.
1829 - Robert Peel's Act was passed, to establish a new police force in London and its suburbs. They were known as Peelers and then Bobbies, derived from his surname and Christian name respectively.
1870 – After all of the Southern States are formally readmitted to the United States, the Confederate States of America ceases to exist.
1917 - The British royal family renounced the German names and titles of Saxe-Coburg, (responding to anti-German sentiment) and became Windsor.
1961 Kuwait declared its independence from the United Kingdom, after which the state's oil industry saw unprecedented economic growth.
1987 – Basque separatist group ETA commits one of its most violent attacks, in which a bomb is set off in a supermarket, Hipercor, killing 21 and injuring 45.
2009 – Mass riots involving over 10,000 people and 10,000 police officers break out in Shishou, China, over the dubious circumstances surrounding the death of a local chef.
1214 - The University of Oxford received its charter. Oxford is the second-oldest surviving university in the world (Bologna in Italy is the oldest) and the oldest in the English-speaking world.
1756 - In India, the night of the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta, where more than 140 British soldiers and civilians were placed in a small prison cell - 18 feet by 14 feet - by the Nawab of Bengal. The following morning only 23 emerged alive.
1837 - On the death of her uncle William IV, Victoria, aged 18, acceded to the throne. Her reign of 63 years and 7 months is currently longer than that of any other British monarch and the longest of any female monarch in history.
1887 - Britain's longest railway bridge over the River Tay opened. The first had collapsed in 1879 whilst the Edinburgh to Dundee train was crossing, killing over 90 people.
1900 – Boxer Rebellion: The Imperial Chinese Army begins a 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Beijing, China.
1967 - Boxer Muhammad Ali was convicted of violating Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted. The conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court.
1979 – ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart is shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The murder is caught on tape and sparks an international outcry against the regime.
1854 - The first Victoria Cross, Britain's highest medal for bravery, was awarded to Charles Lucas, who was awarded it during the Crimean War for conspicuous bravery. The medal was made from metal from a cannon captured at Sebastopol. To date a total of 1,356 Victoria Crosses have been awarded.
1877 – The Molly Maguires, ten Irish immigrants convicted of murder, are hanged at the Schuylkill County and Carbon County, Pennsylvania prisons.
1900 – Boxer Rebellion. China formally declared war on the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Japan, as an edict issued from the Dowager Empress Cixi.
1919 - German sailors scuttled 72 warships at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys even though Germany had surrendered. It was the greatest act of self-destruction in modern military history.
1942 – World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at nearby Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by the Japanese against the United States mainland.
1945 - Japanese troops surrendered the Pacific Island of Okinawa to the United States after one of the longest and bloodiest battles of World War II.
1948 - The first stored programme to run on a computer was put through its paces on the Small Scale Experimental Machine, known as Baby, at Manchester University.
1989 - The United States Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag as a form of political protest is protected by the First Amendment.
2000 – Section 28 (of the Local Government Act 1988), outlawing the 'promotion' of homosexuality in the United Kingdom, is repealed in Scotland with a 99 to 17 vote.
2004 – SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.
(21-06-2012 13:41 )skully Wrote: [ -> ]1945 - Japanese troops surrendered the Pacific Island of Okinawa to the United States after one of the longest and bloodiest battles of World War II.
Hey all, if I may, an 'in focus' post following on from Skully's taster:
The Battle of Okinawa, part of the Pacific War timeline of World War II and codenamed Operation Iceberg, was fought across the Okinawan islands of Ryukyu.
The fighting was intense, lasting for 82 days from 1st April to 21st June 1945. Nicknamed the 'Typhoon of Steel' in English and 'Kou No Kaze' (steel wind) in Japanese because of the ferocity of the fighting and the volume of land and marine military vehicles involved, the battle is the costliest in terms of death toll in the whole of the Pacific War arc of World War II. The combined losses of Japanese and Allied soliders exceeded 165,000. Further more, tens of thousands of civilian losses were recorded.
Identified as an important step towards the planned Allied invasion of Japanese mainland which was to be codenamed Operation Downfall, the Ryukyu Islands were ideal land for military headquarters from which to organise the invasion.
The battle would also signal the beginning of the end of Japanese resistance in the Pacific. The United States carried out the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki just weeks after the climax of Okinawa, forcing the Japanese surrender and bringing the Second World War to an official end.
Aftermath
Reports stated that "90 percent of the buildings on the islands were destroyed" and that "the tropical landscape was reduced to a vast field of mud, lead, decay and maggots".
The US retains an air base at Kadena, the largest US base still garrisoned in Asia.
Military historians believe that the Okinawa campaign persuaded the Allies of the futility of any land invasion of Japan, with the US opting instead to deliver the two atomic bombs that brought the war to a close. A quote from Victor Davis Hanson taken from "Ripples In Battle":-
"...because the Japanese on Okinawa... were so fierce in their defense (even when cut off, and without supplies), and because casualties were so appalling, many American strategists looked for an alternative means to subdue mainland Japan, other than a direct invasion. This means presented itself, with the advent of atomic bombs, which worked admirably in convincing the Japanese to sue for peace [unconditionally], without American casualties. Ironically, the American conventional fire-bombing of major Japanese cities (which had been going on for months before Okinawa) was far more effective at killing civilians than the atomic bombs and, had the Americans simply continued, or expanded this, the Japanese would likely have surrendered anyway."
A memorial named Cornerstone of Peace was erected by the Okinawan government in Mabuni, in 1995. This was the site of the last fighting in South Okinawa and the memorial lists the names of all those known to have died during the battle - military and civilian, Japanese and Allies. As of June of 2008, the memorial holds 240,734 different names.
I've included a photograph of the memorial site which was taken in 2008 and have put the Wikipedia link below.
1377 - At the age of 10, Richard II became King of England following the death of his grandfather Edward III, the previous day.
1611 - Henry Hudson, English navigator, was cast adrift with some of his crew after a mutiny in the bay that now bears his name. It was the last time they were seen alive.
1633 – The Holy Office in Rome forces Galileo Galilei to recant his view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe.
1839 – Cherokee leaders Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot are assassinated for signing the Treaty of New Echota, which had resulted in the Trail of Tears.
1907 – The London Underground's Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway opens.
1910 - German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich announced a cure for syphilis.
1969 – The Cuyahoga River catches fire, triggering a crack-down on pollution in the river.
1978 – Charon, a satellite of the dwarf planet Pluto, is discovered by American astronomer James W. Christy.
1981 - Mark David Chapman pleaded guilty to killing rock star John Lennon.
1984 - The first Virgin Atlantic flight left Gatwick for New York, with a planeload of passengers who had paid just £99 for their tickets.
2001 - The Parole Board decided that Venables and Thompson, the two schoolboy murderers of 2 year old James Bulger should be released, and their identities protected, after serving just 8 years for a crime that shocked the nation.
2002 – An earthquake measuring 6.5 Mw strikes a region of northwestern Iran killing at least 261 people and injuring 1,300 others and eventually causing widespread public anger due to the slow official response.
1314 – First War of Scottish Independence: The Battle of Bannockburn (south of Stirling) begins.
1661 - A marriage contract was signed between Charles II of England and Portuguese Catherine of Braganza. Catherine's dowry secured to England Tangier, the Seven islands of Bombay, trading privileges and two million Portuguese crowns (about £300,000).
1683 - William Penn, the English Quaker, signed a treaty with the Indian chiefs of the Lenni Lenade Tribe in an attempt to ensure peace in his new American colony, Pennsylvania.
1868 – Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he called the Type-Writer.
1961 - The International Treaty of Scientific Cooperation and Peaceful Use of Antarctica was signed. It sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.
1970 - The world's first all-metal liner, Brunel’s 'Great Britain' returned to Bristol from the Falkland Islands where it had lain rusting since 1886.
1986 - Brighton bomber Patrick Magee, found guilty of planting the bomb at the Grand Hotel, Brighton during the Conservative Party Conference in 1983, was jailed for a minimum of 35 years.
1992 - Mafia boss John Gotti was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty on 14 accounts of conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering.
Today would have been the 100th birthday of Brian Johnston, one of the most popular broadcasters of all time.
“Johnners” was born into what would be regarded as a privileged background - his family had a long established coffee business and his grandfather had been the Govenor of the Bank of England. When he was ten his father drowned in a swimming accident whilst on holiday in Cornwall but his mother remarried and he went on to attend Eton and Oxford, where he admitted he spent too much time partying instead of studying and only got a third. After university he joined the family coffee business and was posted to Brazil for a while but didn't enjoy it.
When war broke out he joined the Grenadier Guards, reaching the rank of Major. He took part in the Normandy landings and was awarded the Military Cross in 1945 for recovering casualties whilst under fire. Johnston always played down his wartime exploits, and claimed that when a senior officer had asked what steps he would take if he were to see German infantry advancing on his position, he had supposedly answered, “Very large ones, sir, in the opposite direction” .
It was a chance meeting with two BBC war correspondents, Stewart MacPherson and Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, that led to his interview with Seymour de Lotbiniere at the Outside Broadcasts division and he joined the BBC in 1946.
Over the next 45 years he appeared on numerous television and radio programmes such as In Town Tonight, Down Your Way, All Your Own and Come Dancing. He covered Royal events such as the Coronation in 1953 and Charles and Diana's wedding in 1981 but it was his contribution to Test Match Special for which he is best remembered.
Originally Johnston covered cricket on television alone and it wasn't until the 1960s that he started to divide his time between radio and TV duties but one day in 1970 a journalist telephoned him and asked him for his reaction to the news that he was being dropped from the television coverage. This was the first Johnston knew of it. He was never given an explanation by the BBC and it rankled him for the rest of his life. Over the years a view grew up that Johnston's sacking was due to his sometimes flippant manner and lack of gravitas and this was bothering the cricket authorities but a far more likely reason was Johnston's views on South Africa.
Johnston was certainly no racist and no supporter of apartheid but (like many people at that time) he subscribed to the line of thought that “sport and politics shouldn't mix”, and had said so publicly and loudly on a number of occasions. Coming so soon after the furore over Basil D'Oliveira and with the threat of unofficial tours the BBC were clearly worried that their senior commentator could say something unfortunate but television's loss was radio's gain.
TMS became cult listening, with many people switching off the TV sound to listen to the radio commentary (in analogue days they weren't two seconds out of sync either!). The chocolate cakes, the bad jokes, the shaggy dog stories and the pranks (Johnston would invariably catch out a new recruit by inviting him to try the cake and as soon as he took a big mouthful stick a live microphone under his nose and ask him a question) were essential listening.
There is still dispute over whether the classic “the bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey” during an England v West Indies test match was ever said. The BBC log shows that Johnston wasn't commentating at the time Peter Willey was batting, but his colleague Henry Blofeld swears blind that he was present and heard it. One theory to explain the confusion is that Johnston was indeed commentating at the time, but on a separate feed for a West Indies radio station.
Brian Johnson died in 1994 at the age of 81. The report of his death on the BBC could only end in one way. On the second day of the 1991 Test match between England and West Indies at The Oval, Ian Botham tried to hook a bouncer from Curtly Ambrose. It was a bit too fast and Botham, struck on the body, lost his balance, went through an ungainly pirouette, and staggered towards the wicket. His last minute attempt to step over the stumps failed, and his right thigh flicked the bail. Christopher Martin Jenkins described his dismissal graphically.
After the tea break, when Johnston and Agnew were going over the details of the play, the latter analysed the hit-wicket dismissal with the words, “He just didn’t get his leg over.”
Considering the man in question was Ian Botham, the situation turned catastrophic. Johnston fought manfully against a fit of giggles for about half a minute, before falling into a helpless bout of laughter, from time to time squealing, “Aggers, do stop it.” For several minutes, all that could be heard were muffled snorts, chuckles, giggles and laughter. It brought Peter Baxter, the producer, rushing into the box hissing through clenched teeth, “Will somebody say something?”
Johnston now struggled for composure and managed, “And Tufnell came in and batted for 12 minutes, then he was caught Haynes ... England were all out for 419. I’ve stopped laughing now.”
While Agnew thought he had successfully ruined his career just a few months into the job, the 79 year old Johnston was embarrassed by the niggling thought that he had been unprofessional. However, the next day letters flooded in (there was no email in those days) with stories of traffic coming to a standstill with drivers in hysterics, several of them pulling up on pavements to get over their guffaws, men caught up on ladders, hanging on for dear life as they roared with laughter. There was a deluge of requests for dubbed cassettes. TMS had never been this popular.
Over 2,000 people attended his memorial service at Westminster Abbey (probably the only time the theme from Neighbours has been played in that hallowed establishment), and cricket loving Prime Minister John Major said “Summers simply won't be the same”.
1314 - The forces of Scotland's King Robert I defeated the English in the Battle of Bannockburn.
1374 – A sudden outbreak of St. John's Dance causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion.
1509 - Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon were crowned King and Queen Consort of England by the Archbishop of Canterbury at a lavish ceremony at Westminster Abbey.
1717 – The Premier Grand Lodge of England, the first Masonic Grand Lodge in the world (now the United Grand Lodge of England), is founded in London, England.
1916 – Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to sign a million dollar contract.
1921 - The world's largest airship, the R-38, built in the U.K. for the U.S. Navy, made its maiden flight at Bedford.
1953 - John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier announced their engagement.
1981 - The Humber Bridge was opened to traffic. It connected Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and would be the world's longest single-span suspension bridge for the next 17 years.
1997 - The U.S. Air Force released a report on the so-called Roswell Incident, saying the alien bodies witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were probably life-sized dummies.
![[Image: Cornerstone_of_Peace.jpg]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Cornerstone_of_Peace.jpg)