On this day

1606 - The trial of Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators began. They were charged with treason for attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament in November 1605.

1880 - Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.

1926 - John Logie Baird gave a special public demonstration of television to members of the Royal Institution in London. Baird's invention used mechanical rotating disks to scan moving images into electronic impulses.

1945 – World War II: The Red Army liberates the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.

1951 - The era of atomic testing in Nevada's desert began as an Air Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flats.

1967 – Apollo program: Apollo 1 – Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee are killed in a fire during a test of their spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center.

1967 – More than sixty nations sign the Outer Space Treaty banning nuclear weapons in space.

1993 - Veronica Bland became the first passive smoking worker in the UK to win compensation for damage to her health at work when she agreed to a settlement of £15,000 from Stockport Council in a personal injury claim.

1995 - Manchester United's Eric Cantona was fined £20,000 and banned from playing football over his kung fu-style attack on a fan.

1996 – Germany first observes International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

(27-01-2011 12:13 )skully Wrote:  1967 – Apollo program: Apollo 1 – Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee are killed in a fire during a test of their spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center.

Although always known as "Gus", Grissom's real name was Virgil, and if that sounds familiar it's because "The Thunderbirds" were named after five of the first six US astronauts (1. ALAN Shepperd 2. VIRGIL Grissom 3. JOHN Glenn 4. SCOTT Carpenter and 6. GORDON Cooper). They missed out the 5th, presumably because they didn't want a Thunderbird called WALLY (Schirra).

"Brains" was based the Head of the Apollo programme, Werner von Braun.

By early 1967, Grissom was America's top astronaut, and he had already been pencilled in to be the first man on the moon.

Their deaths were particularly grisly, and for years NASA resisted all attempts to release the video and audio of the event (out of decency, not secrecy - the last communication from inside the capsule ends with a chilling scream from Roger Chaffee as he is burnt alive, and some of the autopsy photos are too gruesome to describe) but under American Freedom of Information Laws they were forced to release a number of items including the audio and some of the autopsy photos, all of which have found their way on to Youtube.

1547 - Exactly 100 years after the birth of his father, Henry VIII dies. His nine year old son, Edward VI becomes King and also the first Protestant ruler of England.

1624 – Sir Thomas Warner founds the first British colony in the Caribbean, on the island of Saint Kitts.

1813 – Pride and Prejudice is first published in the United Kingdom.

1820 – A Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev discovers the Antarctic continent approaching the Antarctic coast.

1829 - The public hanging of Irish body-snatcher William Burke took place in Edinburgh.

1855 – The first locomotive runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean on the Panama Railway.

1902 – The Carnegie Institution of Washington is founded in Washington, D.C. with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.

1918 - The Bolsheviks occupied Helsinki, Finland.

1933 – The name Pakistan is coined by Choudhary Rehmat Ali Khan and is accepted by the Indian Muslims who then thereby adopted it further for the Pakistan Movement seeking independence.

1935 - Iceland became the first country to introduce legalized abortion.

1958 – The Lego company patents the design of its Lego bricks.

1986 – The Space Shuttle program: STS-51-L mission – Space Shuttle Challenger breaks apart after liftoff killing all seven astronauts on board.

1596 - The most famous English seaman and adventurer of the Elizabethan era, Sir Francis Drake, was buried at sea.

1820 - King George III died, aged 81, at Windsor Castle. At the time he was the longest reigning monarch (over 59 years).

1856 - Queen Victoria instituted Britain’s highest military decoration, the Victoria Cross (VC).

1886 - The first successful gasoline-driven motorcar, built by Karl Benz, was patented.

1891 - Queen Liliuokalani became the last monarch of the Hawaiian Islands.

1950 - Riots broke out in Johannesburg, South Africa, over the policy of Apartheid.

1991 – Gulf War: The Battle of Khafji, the first major ground engagement of the war, as well as its deadliest, begins.

1996 - President Jacques Chirac announces a "definitive end" to French nuclear testing.

2002 – In his State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush describes "regimes that sponsor terror" as an Axis of Evil, in which he includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

1606 - Thomas Winter, Sir Everard Digby, John Grant and Thomas Bates who had tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in November 1605 were hung, drawn and quartered for their part in the Gunpowder Plot.

1649 – King Charles I of England is beheaded.

1661 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England is ritually executed two years after his death.

1790 – The first boat specializing as a lifeboat is tested on the River Tyne.

1948 – Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is assassinated by Pandit Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist.

1964 – Ranger program: Ranger 6 is launched - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_program

1965 - The state funeral in London of Sir Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of Britain took place. It was the biggest state funeral of its kind since the burial of the Duke of Wellington in 1852.

1969 - The Beatles made their last public appearance together, on the roof of their Apple Studios in London.

1972 - In Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators were shot dead by British Army paratroopers, a day later known as Bloody Sunday.

(30-01-2011 12:24 )skully Wrote:  ~~~~
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1965 - The state funeral in London of Sir Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of Britain took place. It was the biggest state funeral of its kind since the burial of the Duke of Wellington in 1852.
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Queen Victoria's state funeral in 1902 must surely have been bigger?

1606 - Guy Fawkes, was hung, drawn and quartered for his part in the Gunpowder Plot.

1788 - Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), died in Rome. Charles was recognised as King Charles III by his supporters, after the death of his father.

1858 - The Great Eastern (the steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and John Scott Russell), was launched at Millwall. It was the world's largest ship at the time.

1876 – The United States orders all Native Americans to move into reservations.

1917 - Germany announced the renewal of unlimited submarine warfare in the Atlantic, and German torpedo-armed submarines prepare to attack any and all ships sighted in war-zone waters.

1918 – A series of accidental collisions on a misty Scottish night, leads to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines with over a hundred lives and damage to another five British warships.

1958 - The United States entered the Space Age with its first successful launch of a satellite into orbit, Explorer I.

1966 – The Soviet Union launches the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program.

1983 - It became compulsory in Britain to wear seat belts when travelling by car.

2000 - Dr Harold Shipman was jailed for life for murdering 15 of his patients, making him Britain's most prolific convicted serial killer. An official inquiry concluded that Shipman may have killed as many as 250 patients over 23 years.

2001 – In the Netherlands a Scottish court convicts Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and acquits another Libyan citizen for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

1587 - Elizabeth I, Queen of England, signed the Warrant of Execution for Mary Queen of Scots.

1709 – Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being shipwrecked on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

1884 - The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was published. James Murray was its most famous editor but he had only reached the letter T after working 44 hours per week for 35 years, so hundreds of people sent in their own contributions.

1893 – Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey.

1920 – The Royal Canadian Mounted Police begins operations.

1974 - Escaped Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs was arrested by Brazilian police in Rio. He escaped extradition because he was the father of a child by his Brazilian girlfriend.

1978 – Director Roman Polanski skips bail and flees the United States to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl.

2003 – Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

2004 – Janet Jackson's breast is exposed during the half-time show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, resulting in US broadcasters adopting a stronger adherence to Federal Communications Commission censorship guidelines.

2009 – Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir is elected as the first female Prime Minister of Iceland, becoming the first openly gay head of government in the modern world.

(30-01-2011 12:43 )TheWatcher Wrote:  

(30-01-2011 12:24 )skully Wrote:  ~~~
1965 - The state funeral in London of Sir Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of Britain took place. It was the biggest state funeral of its kind since the burial of the Duke of Wellington in 1852.
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Queen Victoria's state funeral in 1902 must surely have been bigger?

Probably not. The tradition for large public royal funerals is a fairly modern one and largely fuelled by the media age. Indeed, the monarchy dropped in popularity very badly especially during the reigns of George I - IV, and Victoria herself was very unpopular in the middle of her reign. The funeral of Prince Albert was a private affair.

It is hard to for us to comprehend that when Victoria died there wasn't even radio, let alone television. Moving film was still in its infancy. There was no air travel for foreign dignitories to attend. Morse code telegraphy was in existence by then but in earlier times, especially before the coming of the railways, news of the death of the monarch might even not reach outlying parts of the UK until after the funeral had already been held. Very few people would have attended from outside the Greater London area due to the cost and not being able to take time off work (although it was a Saturday most people worked a six day week in those days) and also it was snowing that day.

Victoria's funeral was the first biggie of the modern era, but we'll probably never know for sure how it stacks up against events from the pre-movie era.

1665 - British forces captured New Amsterdam, the centre of the Dutch colony in North America. The trading settlement on the island of Manhattan was renamed New York in honour of the Duke of York, its new governor.

1801 - The first parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland assembled.

1848 - The United States paid Mexico $15 million for lands that eventually became Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas.

1887 - The first Groundhog Day was celebrated in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

1901 – The funeral of Queen Victoria took place.

1935 – Leonarde Keeler tests the first polygraph machine.

1989 - The last Soviet Union armored column left Kabul, ending nine years of military occupation in Afghanistan.

1990 – Apartheid: F.W. de Klerk allows the African National Congress to function legally and promises to release Nelson Mandela.

2004 – Swiss tennis player Roger Federer becomes the No. 1 ranked men's singles player, a position he will hold for a record 237 weeks.

2006 - An aging Egyptian passenger ferry carrying more than 1,400 people sank in the Red Sea off the Saudi coast.