On this day

1371 - King Robert II of Scotland succeeded to the throne, beginning the Stuart dynasty.

1797 - Over 1,000 French troops attempted to invade Britain and landed at Fishguard, but were soon captured by the brave ladies of the town. No other foreign force has managed to invade mainland Britain since.

1940 - Five-year-old Tenzin Gyatso was enthroned as the 14th Dalai Lama in Lhasa, Tibet.

1956 - Elvis Presley entered the music charts for the first time, with Heartbreak Hotel.

1956 - The first football match to be played under floodlighting in Britain took place at Portsmouth. The home side lost 2-0 to Newcastle United.

1997 - A sheep named Dolly was cloned by scientists in Edinburgh. It was hailed as one of the most significant breakthroughs of the decade

2006 - In Britain's largest cash robbery, thieves stole $96 million (£53 or €78 million) from a Bank of England depot in Tonbridge, Kent.

2011 – In Christchurch, New Zealand a magnitude 6.3 earthquake caused widespread damage and multiple fatalities.

(22-02-2011 13:09 )skully Wrote:  ~~~~
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1956 - Elvis Presley entered the music charts for the first time, with Heartbreak Hotel.
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1836 - The siege of the Alamo began in San Antonio, Texas, led by Mexican General Santa Anna.

1863 - Lake Victoria, in Africa, was declared to be the source of the River Nile by British explorers John Speke and J.A. Grant.

1893 - Rudolf Diesel received a patent in Germany for the engine that bears his name.

1920 - The first regular broadcasting service in Britain started from Marconi's studio in Writtle, near Chelmsford. The 30-minute programme was transmitted twice daily.

1941 – Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.

1945 – World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines and a commonly forgotten U.S. Navy Corpsman, reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo would later win a Pulitzer Prize and become the model for the national USMC War Memorial.

1965 - The death of Stan Laurel, film comedian, born in Ulverston, Cumbria in 1890.

2006 - The one billionth song was downloaded from the iTunes Music Store.

Wow! That's some top stuff today.
Anyone else hear the story that the Mount Suribachi photo was staged after the event, and that another flag had already been raised on the summit prior to this famous episode?
Apparently the first flag (borrowed from a US fleet auxiliary) was considered a bit too small by certain commanders, added to the fact that when it was raised, the US Marines all let out a huge roaring cheer while USN warships sounded their horns so that the Japanese defenders realised something was up (literally!) and opened fire on the first flag-raisers. All they hit was the photographer's camera.

Missing key events. Talking bollocks. Making stuff up.
~~~SAVE THE KRILL!~~~

1582 - The Gregorian Calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII; it replaced the Julian Calendar.

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

1821 - Mexico declared its independence from Spain.

1909 - Suffragettes attempted to break into the Houses of Parliament.

1923 - The Flying Scotsman began hauling scheduled services between London & Scotland.

1938 - Nylon toothbrush bristles were first produced in the U.S., the first commercial use of nylon.

1942 – Battle of Los Angeles: a UFO flying over wartime Los Angeles causes a blackout order at 2:25 a.m. and attracts a barrage of anti-aircraft fire, ultimately killing 3 civilians - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles

1988 - The first baby born from an embryo frozen after the fertilization of a donated egg was delivered at Dulwich Hospital, south London, to Mrs Ann Forrester, 37, by Caesarean section.

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'.

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.

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 patented his revolver.

1939 - The first Anderson air raid shelters appeared. Two and a half million were built in total.

1946 - The first bananas arrived in Britain, following the war.

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 was a violation of the Human Rights Convention.

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

1797 - The Bank of England issued the first ever one pound note.

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

1839 - The first Grand National Steeplechase was run at Aintree near Liverpool.

1933 - Ground was broken for the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

1952 - Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Britain had developed its own atomic bomb.

1962 - The filming of Dr. No was started, it was the first James Bond film.

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.

2002 - London Mayor Ken Livingstone confirmed that motorists would be charged £5 per day to drive into London on weekdays.

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.

1974 – People magazine is published for the first time.

1991 - The Gulf War came to an end with the liberation of Kuwait & the retreat of Iraqi forces.

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 – Central Chile is hit with an 8.8 magnitude earthquake.

202 BC – The coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as Emperor Gaozu of Han takes place, initiating four centuries of the Han Dynasty's rule over China.

1066 - Westminster Abbey, the most famous church in England, opened.

1954 – The first-ever color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public.

1959 – Discoverer 1, an American spy satellite that is the first object to achieve a polar orbit, is launched.

1993 – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group's leader David Koresh. Four BATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.

1994 - In the first military action in the 45-year history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), U.S. fighter planes shot down four Serbian warplanes engaged in a bombing mission in violation of Bosnia's no-fly zone.

2001 – Six passengers and four railway staff are killed and a further 82 people suffer serious injuries in the Selby rail crash.

(28-02-2011 12:38 )skully Wrote:  ~~~~
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1954 – The first-ever color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public.
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NTSC was never as good as later systems such as PAL.
The joke was that NTSC stood for "Never The Same Colour"
or "Never The Same Color" if you were American.