Today in history

25 th April 1792

The Guillotine's first kiss :
Highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine.

The robbery and subsequent sentencing
Pelletier routinely associated with a group of known criminals. On the night of 14 October 1791, with several unknown accomplices, he attacked a passerby in the rue Bourbon-Villeneuve in Paris and stole his wallet and several securities. During the robbery he also killed the man, though this is disputed in later literature as possibly just having been an assault and robbery or also an assault, robbery, and rape. He was apprehended and accused that same night, for the cries for help alerted the city, and a nearby guard arrested Pelletier. Judge Jacob Augustin Moreau, the District Judge of Sens, was to hear the case.

A legal advisor was given to Pelletier, but despite his efforts and calls for a fairer court hearing, the judge ordered a death sentence for 31 December 1791. On 24 December 1791, the Second Criminal Court confirmed Judge Moreau's sentence. The execution was stayed, however, after the National Assembly made decapitation the only legal method of capital punishment. Pelletier waited in jail for more than three months as the guillotine was built in Strasbourg under the direction of the surgeon Antoine Louison, at a cost of thirty-eight livres. Meanwhile, the public executioner Charles Henri Sanson tested the machine on corpses in the Bicêtre Hospital. Sanson preferred the guillotine over the former decapitation by sword, as the latter reminded him of the nobility's former privileges that the revolutionaries had worked to eliminate. On 24 January 1792, a third criminal court confirmed the execution.

The execution was delayed due to the ongoing debate on the legal method of execution. Finally, the National Assembly decreed on 23 March 1792 in favour of the guillotine.

Execution day
The guillotine was placed on top of a scaffolding outside the Hôtel de Ville in the Place de Grève, where public executions had been held under the reign of King Louis XV. Pierre Louis Roederer, thinking that a large number of people would come to see the first-ever public execution-by-guillotine, thought that there might be difficulty in preserving order. He wrote to General Lafayette to ask for National Guardsmen to make sure the event went smoothly.

The execution took place at 3:30 in the afternoon. Pelletier was led to the scaffolding wearing a red shirt. The large crowd predicted by Roederer was already there waiting, eager to see the novel invention at work. The guillotine, which was also red in color, had been previously fully prepared, and Sanson moved quickly. Within seconds, the guillotine and Pelletier were positioned correctly, and Pelletier was instantly decapitated.

The crowd, however, was dissatisfied with the guillotine. They felt it was too swift and "clinically effective" to provide proper entertainment, as compared to previous execution methods, such as hanging, death-by-sword, or breaking at the wheel. The public even called out, "Bring back our wooden gallows!"

26 th April 1986

Chernobyl :
The Chernobyl disaster occurs in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.


The Chernobyl disaster: what happened, and the long-term impact
The accident at a nuclear power plant in Ukraine shocked the world, permanently altered a region, and leaves many questions unanswered.

On April 25 and 26, 1986, the worst nuclear accident in history unfolded in what is now northern Ukraine as a reactor at a nuclear power plant exploded and burned. Shrouded in secrecy, the incident was a watershed moment in both the Cold War and the history of nuclear power. More than 30 years on, scientists estimate the zone around the former plant will not be habitable for up to 20,000 years.

The disaster took place near the city of Chernobyl in the former USSR, which invested heavily in nuclear power after World War II. Starting in 1977, Soviet scientists installed four RBMK nuclear reactors at the power plant, which is located just south of what is now Ukraine’s border with Belarus.

Routine maintenance was scheduled at V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station’s fourth reactor, and workers planned to use the downtime to test whether the reactor could still be cooled if the plant lost power. During the test, however, workers violated safety protocols and power surged inside the plant. Despite attempts to shut down the reactor entirely, another power surge caused a chain reaction of explosions inside. Finally, the nuclear core itself was exposed, spewing radioactive material into the atmosphere.

Firefighters attempted to put out a series of blazes at the plant, and eventually helicopters dumped sand and other materials in an attempt to squelch the fires and contain the contamination. Despite the death of two people in the explosions, the hospitalisation of workers and firefighters, and the danger from fallout and fire, no one in the surrounding areas—including the nearby city of Pripyat, which was built in the 1970s to house workers at the plant—was evacuated until about 36 hours after the disaster began.

Publicising a nuclear accident was considered a significant political risk, but by then it was too late: The meltdown had already spread radiation as far as Sweden, where officials at another nuclear plant began to ask about what was happening in the USSR. After first denying any accident, the Soviets finally made a brief announcement on April 28.

Historic disaster
Soon, the world realised that it was witnessing a historic event. Up to 30 percent of Chernobyl’s 190 metric tons of uranium was now in the atmosphere, and the Soviet Union eventually evacuated 335,000 people, establishing a 19-mile-wide “exclusion zone” around the reactor.

At least 28 people initially died as a result of the accident, while more than 100 were injured. The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has reported that more than 6,000 children and adolescents developed thyroid cancer after being exposed to radiation from the incident, although some experts have challenged that claim.

International researchers have predicted that ultimately, around 4,000 people exposed to high levels of radiation could succumb to radiation-related cancer, while about 5,000 people exposed to lower levels of radiation may suffer the same fate. Yet the full consequences of the accident, including impacts on mental health and even subsequent generations, remain highly debated and under study.

What remains of the reactor is now inside a massive steel containment structure deployed in late 2016. Containment efforts and monitoring continue and cleanup is expected to last until at least 2065.

Long-term impacts
The impact of the disaster on the surrounding forest and wildlife also remains an area of active research. In the immediate aftermath of the accident, an area of about four square miles became known as the “Red Forest” because so many trees turned reddish-brown and died after absorbing high levels of radiation.

Today, the exclusion zone is eerily quiet, yet full of life. Though many trees have regrown, scientists have found evidence of elevated levels of cataracts and albinism, and lower rates of beneficial bacteria, among some wildlife species in the area in recent years. Yet, due to the exclusion of human activity around the shuttered power plant, the numbers of some wildlife, from lynxes to elk, have increased. In 2015, scientists estimated there were seven times more wolves in the exclusion zone than in nearby comparable reserves, thanks to humans’ absence.

The Chernobyl disaster had other fallout: The economic and political toll hastened the end of the USSR and fueled a global anti-nuclear movement. The disaster has been estimated to cost some $235 billion in damages. What is now Belarus, which saw 23 percent of its territory contaminated by the accident, lost about a fifth of its agricultural land. At the height of disaster response efforts, in 1991, Belarus spent 22 percent of its total budget dealing with Chernobyl.

Today, Chernobyl beckons to tourists who are intrigued by its history and its danger. But though Chernobyl symbolises the potential devastation of nuclear power, Russia never quite moved beyond its legacy—or its technology. As of 2019, there are still 11 operational RBMK reactors in Russia.

27 th April 1992


Call me Madam :
Betty Boothroyd becomes the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history.

1992: Betty Boothroyd is new Speaker
The House of Commons elected a woman to the post of Speaker for the first time in its 700-year history.
Betty Boothroyd, then 62-year-old Labour MP for West Bromwich West, won her historic victory by a decisive 134-vote majority. It is the first time since World War II that a member of the opposition party has held the job.

Her appointment was contested, for the first time since 1951. Five Conservatives are known to have said they were interested, but despite a frantic last-minute campaign, only two, the former Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Brooke, and former minister Sir Giles Shaw, had enough support to be potential candidates.


The fact that it was a contested election adds, I believe, to your success

Prime Minister John Major


Sir Edward Heath, who as the new Father of the House presided over the election, called on Mr Brooke's supporters first to put their case. They were followed by the former Conservative cabinet minister, John Biffen, who proposed the amendment to substitute Miss Boothroyd's name.

More than 70 Conservative MPs filed in to the lobby to vote for her, and her election was carried without asking for more candidates.

MPs broke with Commons protocol by standing and applauding her to her chair.

Clearly moved, she said, "I wish to thank the House for the very great honour it has bestowed on me. I pray that I shall justify its confidence and I pledge that I shall do all in my power to preserve the Speakership and its traditions."

The Prime Minister, John Major, congratulated her and said, "You have become our Speaker-elect because this House trusts you. It believes you enjoy in abundance the qualities necessary to protect and sustain the House and to safeguard its rights. The fact that it was a contested election adds, I believe, to your success."

Miss Boothroyd, 62, from Yorkshire, worked for Britain's most famous chorus line dancers, the Tiller girls, before she became an MP in 1974. During the previous five years, as deputy Speaker, she became popular with MPs across the political divide. Known for her briskness and good humour. Famously, when MPs asked what to call her when she took up the post of deputy Speaker, she replied, "Call me Madam."

28 th April 1789

Mutiny on the Bounty :
Mutiny on the Bounty: Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 sailors are set adrift and the rebel crew returns to Tahiti briefly and then sets sail for Pitcairn Island.



HISTORY
The real story behind the infamous mutiny on the H.M.S. Bounty
The British naval crew’s rebellion is legendary. But here’s what happened afterward—from marooned mutineers to court-martials.

Idyllic islands. An epic journey. A rebellious crew. When the H.M.S. Bounty set sail from England in November 1787, its captain and crew could never have anticipated that their peaceful voyage would end with court-martials, marooned mutineers, and generations of settlers on a far-flung island in the South Pacific.

Now famous for its mutiny, the Bounty has become a big-screen legend, spawning five feature films in the 20th century alone. But the ship’s voyage, and its unforeseen consequences, were very real.

The Bounty sets sail to Tahiti
The Bounty was a vessel of Britain’s Royal Navy, but its mission was peaceful. Veteran captain William Bligh had been tasked with a voyage to gather breadfruit, a tropical fruit related to the fig that the British crown thought would make cheap, nutritious rations for the enslaved workers at sugar plantations in the British West Indies.

Carrying a crew of 46, including two botanists, the ship had no commissioned officers except for Bligh and sailed alone, lacking the protection of other British vessels. But Bligh anticipated a peaceful journey to Tahiti, which had been visited by Captain James Cook in 1769 and was viewed by British mariners as a breadfruit-laden paradise.

In October 1788, after a storm-tossed journey spanning 10 months and 27,000 miles, the Bounty finally reached Tahiti. It was as idyllic as the Bounty’s crew had been told it would be, and they took full advantage of it. They were welcomed by the Tahitians, who traded with them and even took them into their homes. They also formed attachments to the island’s women, who sold sexual favours in exchange for items like nails.

By day, the crew gathered breadfruit and tended the plants; by night, they revelled. Over the course of five months on the island, more than 40 percent of the men were treated for sexually transmitted diseases that had been imported to Tahiti years before by English and French explorers.

Mutiny breaks out
When the Bounty set sail again on April 1, 1789, the seeds of mutiny had already been planted. The men had experienced Tahiti as a paradise, and Bligh, who was widely known as a strict disciplinarian, was frustrated by his crew’s lack of discipline. The captain was “fault-finding, insulting, petty and condescending” on the journey, writes Bounty expert and author Sven Wahlroos, and “seems to have relished humiliating all his officers.” He singled out his master’s mate Fletcher Christian, scapegoating and punishing him in front of the crew. On April 27, he accused Christian of stealing from the Bounty’s stash of coconuts and punished the entire crew for the theft.

Though historians still argue about the true cause of the mutiny, they agree that for Christian, his captain’s accusation was the final straw. On April 28, a group of mutineers led by Christian armed themselves with the Bounty’s muskets and burst into Bligh’s cabin, taking him prisoner. “I have been in hell for weeks past with you,” Christian reportedly told Bligh.

Chaos ensued and the ship’s crew split into two factions, one loyal to Bligh, the other determined to desert. The 23 mutineers put the captain and 18 other men on a boat, gave them some rations and a sextant to help them navigate, and set the boat adrift. The Bounty was under rebel command.


Christian and his crew, which included a few captives who remained loyal to Bligh, wanted to build a permanent settlement and set their sights on the Tongan island of Tubuai, about 400 miles south of Tahiti. There they met and killed a group of hostile native islanders, then went back to Tahiti to seek labourers and supplies. Certain that the Tahitian chiefs, who had good relations with Britain, would refuse to help them if they knew what had happened, the mutineers covered up the mutiny, lied about their mission, and returned to Tubuai with 30 Tahitians. But they gave up the fight for Tubuai after continued hostilities with the islanders and growing divisions among the crew made a takeover unsustainable.

The mutineers returned to Tahiti, only to find that their lie had been discovered. Desperate and cornered by a new plot to mutiny against him, Christian lured a group of Tahitians onto the Bounty for a party, then took them captive and set sail again. Sixteen British sailors were left behind in Tahiti.

Meanwhile, Bligh and his loyalists were on a wild journey of their own. At first, they headed for a different Tongan island, but abandoned it after hostile encounters with its native residents, who stoned the ship’s quartermaster to death. With dwindling rations, the group set out for a Dutch settlement in Timor, some 3,500 nautical miles away. After 47 days they arrived and reported the mutiny to the Crown.

Several died on the way home to England, but Bligh survived. “I have lost the Bounty,” he wrote to his wife before his journey home. “My conduct has been free of blame, & I showed everyone, that tied as I was, I defied every Villain to hurt me.”

The mutiny’s aftermath
At home, Bligh was court-martialled and acquitted of responsibility for the loss of the ship. H.M.S. Pandora then set sail from England on a mission to capture the mutineers. When the crew arrived in Tahiti in March 1791, they captured the 14 surviving mutineers whom Christian had abandoned. But the Pandora ran into a disaster of its own when it foundered on the Great Barrier Reef, and four of the shackled captives drowned.

In September 1792, the 10 men who had been brought back to England faced court-martial. Under English law, any man who remained on the ship was guilty of mutiny regardless of whether he had actively participated. Four were acquitted, and six sentenced to death by hanging. Three of those six were ultimately pardoned, but the other three mutineers—Thomas Burkett, John Millward, and Thomas Ellison—were hanged on October 29, 1794.

By this time, the remaining mutineers and their Tahitian captives had found a safe haven on Pitcairn Island, a far-flung island in the southern Pacific. The verdant, uninhabited island seemed like a potential paradise, and the mutineers soon burned the Bounty and set up a permanent colony there.

But the tensions that had marred their voyage persisted on the island. The Tahitians the mutineers had taken captive resented the English men’s abuse of the women, whom they treated as sexual possessions. One of the Tahitian women, Tevarua, is thought to have killed herself in response to her ongoing mistreatment. In September 1793, the Tahitian men killed four of the eight mutineers, including Christian. Within the next decade, all but one of the remaining mutineers, John Adams, died.

In the years that followed, the mutineers’ descendants set down roots on Pitcairn Island, though they abandoned and returned to the island multiple times in search of supplies and more productive land. Those descendants still live on the tiny island, which is a British Overseas Territory with a population of around 50. In 1957, National Geographic Explorer Luis Marden found what remained of the Bounty off the island’s east coast.

Today, the story of the Bounty is remembered for its infamous place in Britain’s colonial history as much as its adventure and drama. Between disease, the arrival of Christian missionaries, and the sexual exploitation of women, historian Diana Preston told National Geographic in 2017, European explorers “effectively destroyed all the things that people had found exotic and attractive about Tahitian culture.”

29 th April 1909


The peoples budget :



On this day in 1909, David Lloyd George delivered his “People's Budget”, waging war “against poverty and squalidness”. It eventually ed to reform of the house of lords.
l
Life in Edwardian England is often depicted, Downton Abbey style, as a terribly civilised and genteel affair; a time of “peace and plenty”.

But of course, there wasn't plenty for everyone: 25% of the country was living in utter poverty. A quarter of children born in Britain's disease-ridden slums wouldn't survive to the age of one. If they did, they were sent out to work at a scandalously young age to help support the family.

The Liberal Party of the day was becoming more radical. The government of Herbert Asquith was keen to push through a swathe of social welfare reforms, with Winston Churchill chief among the advocates of a land value tax.


And on this day in 1909, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, introduced the “People's Budget” to Parliament, claiming it would “wage implacable warfare against poverty and squalidness”. Its social insurance provisions, paid for out of increased land and income taxes, laid the foundations of the welfare state that would follow.

In the Budget, the over-70s were given a pension. Acts provided for new schools, and increased access to secondary education for working class pupils. Tax relief was given to those with children, and free school meals were introduced. A probation service for young offenders was set up, and labour exchanges were created to help alleviate unemployment.

Of course, not everyone was in favour. The Conservatives waged a campaign against it; newspapers, including The Times and Daily Mail, petitioned for its rejection; landed gentry organised protest meetings up and down the country.

The House of Lords rejected the Budget, and sparked a constitutional crisis. The Liberals went on the offensive, and vowed to reform the Lords.

Lloyd George quipped that “a fully-equipped Duke costs as much to keep as two Dreadnoughts and they are just as great a terror and they last longer”, and demanded to know if “500 men, ordinary men, chosen accidentally from among the unemployed”, should override the judgement of “millions of people who are engaged in the industry which makes the wealth of the country”.

The crisis resulted in the introduction of the Parliament Act of 1911 stripping the Lords of their power of veto.

30 th April 1980

The Iranian Embassy siege in London:
The Iranian Embassy siege begins in London.


The Iranian Embassy siege took place from 30 April to 5 May 1980, after a group of six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy on Prince's Gate in South Kensington, London. The gunmen, Iranian Arabs campaigning for sovereignty of Khuzestan Province, took 26 people hostage, including embassy staff, several visitors, and a police officer who had been guarding the embassy. They demanded the release of prisoners in Khuzestan and their own safe passage out of the United Kingdom. The British government quickly decided that safe passage would not be granted and a siege ensued. Subsequently, police negotiators secured the release of five hostages in exchange for minor concessions, such as the broadcasting of the hostage-takers' demands on British television.

By the sixth day of the siege the gunmen were increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress in meeting their demands. That evening, they killed a hostage and threw his body out of the embassy. The Special Air Service (SAS), a special forces regiment of the British Army, initiated "Operation Nimrod" to rescue the remaining hostages, abseiling from the roof and forcing entry through the windows. During the 17-minute raid they rescued all but one of the remaining hostages and killed five of the six hostage-takers. An inquest cleared the SAS of any wrongdoing. The sole remaining gunman served 27 years in British prisons.

The Iran–Iraq War broke out later that year and the hostage crisis in Tehran continued until January 1981. Nonetheless, the operation brought the SAS to the public eye for the first time and bolstered the reputation of Thatcher's government. The SAS was quickly overwhelmed by the number of applications it received from people inspired by the operation and experienced greater demand for its expertise from foreign governments. The building, damaged by fire during the assault, was not reopened until 1993. The SAS raid, televised live on a bank holiday evening, became a defining moment in British history and proved a career boost for several journalists; it became the subject of multiple documentaries and works of fiction, including several films and television series.

1 st May 1707

Act of union :
The Act of Union joining England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain takes effect.

The Acts of Union were two Acts of Parliament: the Union with Scotland Act 1706 passed by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act passed in 1707 by the Parliament of Scotland. They put into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on July 22, 1706, following negotiation between commissioners representing the parliaments of the two countries. By the two Acts, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland—which at the time were separate states with separate legislatures, but with the same monarch—were, in the words of the Treaty, “United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain”.


Prior to 1603, England and Scotland were separate kingdoms; as Elizabeth I never married, after 1567, her heir became the Stuart king of Scotland, James VI, who was brought up as a Protestant. James was the double first cousin twice removed, of Queen Elizabeth I. After her death in 1603 the two countries shared a monarch when King James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne.

Although described as a Union of Crowns in 1603 there were in fact two separate Crowns resting on the same head (as opposed to the implied creation of a single Crown and a single Kingdom, exemplified by the later Kingdom of Great Britain). The two Crowns were held in personal union by James, as James I of England, and James VI of Scotland. He announced his intention to unite the two, using the royal prerogative to take the title “King of Great Britain”, and give a British character to his court and person. However, the titles and the attempted uniting of the two crown were not sanctioned by Parliament.


Prior to the Acts of Union there had been three previous attempts (in 1606, 1667, and 1689) to unite the two countries by Acts of Parliament, but it was not until the early 18th century that both political establishments came to support the idea, albeit for different reasons.

The Acts took effect on 1 May 1707 during the reign of Queen Anne who then became the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. On this date, the Scottish Parliament and the English Parliament united to form the Parliament of Great Britain, based in the Palace of Westminster in London, the home of the English Parliament. Hence, the Acts are referred to as the Union of the Parliaments. On the Union, the historian Simon Schama said “What began as a hostile merger, would end in a full partnership in the most powerful going concern in the world … it was one of the most astonishing transformations in European history.”


Political Background prior to 1707

1603–1660

The 1603 Union of England and Scotland Act established a joint Commission to agree terms, but the English Parliament was concerned this would lead to the imposition of an absolutist structure similar to that of Scotland. James was forced to withdraw his proposals, and attempts to revive it in 1610 were met with hostility.

The Acts of Union should be seen within a wider European context of increasing state centralisation during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, including the monarchies of France, Sweden, Denmark and Spain. While there were exceptions, such as the Dutch Republic or the Republic of Venice, the trend was clear.

The dangers of the monarch using one Parliament against the other first became apparent in 1647 and 1651. It resurfaced during the 1679 to 1681 Exclusion Crisis, caused by English resistance to the Catholic James succeeding his brother Charles. James was sent to Edinburgh in 1681 as Lord High Commissioner; in August, the Scottish Parliament passed the Succession Act, confirming the divine right of kings, the rights of the natural heir ‘regardless of religion,’ the duty of all to swear allegiance to that king and the independence of the Scottish Crown. It then went beyond ensuring James’s succession to the Scottish throne by explicitly stating the aim was to make his exclusion from the English throne impossible without ‘…the fatall and dreadfull consequences of a civil war.’

English perspective

The English purpose was to ensure that Scotland would not choose a monarch different from the one on the English throne. The two countries had shared a king for much of the previous century, but the English were concerned that an independent Scotland with a different king, even if he were a Protestant, might make alliances against England. The English succession was provided for by the English Act of Settlement 1701, which ensured that the monarch of England would be a Protestant member of the House of Hanover. Until the Union of Parliaments, the Scottish throne might be inherited by a different successor after Queen Anne: the Scottish Act of Security 1704 granted parliament the right to choose a successor and explicitly required a choice different from the English monarch unless the English were to grant free trade and navigation.

Scottish perspective

The Scottish economy was severely impacted by privateers during the 1688 to 1697 Nine Years War, and the 1701 War of the Spanish Succession, with the Royal Navy focusing on protecting English ships. This compounded the economic pressure caused by the Darien scheme, and the Seven ill years of the 1690s, when between 5–15% of the population died of starvation. The Scottish Parliament was promised financial assistance, protection for its maritime trade, and an end of economic restrictions on trade with England.

It’s interesting to note that only four monarchs reigned with title of “King/Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. With the passing of the Act of Union on May 1, 1707 Queen Anne’s title changed from Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland to Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Kings George I and King George II reigned as King of Great Britain and Ireland.

King George III reigned as the King of Great Britain until The Acts of Union 1800 (sometimes referred to as a single Act of Union 1801) where parallel acts of the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland (previously in personal union) to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The acts came into force on 1 January 1801, and the merged Parliament of the United Kingdom had its first meeting on January 22, 1801. George III’s title then changed to King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.


From the 1340s to the 19th century, excluding two brief intervals in the 1360s and the 1420s, the Kings and Queens of England (and, later, of Great Britain) also claimed the throne of France. The claim dates from King Edward III, who claimed the French throne in 1340 as the sororal nephew of the last direct Capetian, Charles IV.

Edward III and his heirs fought the Hundred Years’ War to enforce this claim, and were briefly successful in the 1420s under Henry V and Henry VI, but the House of Valois, a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty, was ultimately victorious and retained control of France. Despite this, English and British monarchs continued to prominently call themselves Kings/Queens of France, and the French fleur-de-lis was included in the royal arms. This continued until the 1801 Act of Union when the claim to the title was officially dropped. By this time France no longer had any monarch, having become a republic. The Jacobite claimants, however, did not explicitly relinquish the claim.

2 nd May 2011


Osama Bin Laden :
Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI's most wanted man, is killed by the United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.



The helicopters swooped in the dead of night, flying in formation across the lower ranges of the Himalayas, then dropping precipitously on their target, a three-storey house on an acre of land in a wealthy suburb of Abbottabad, the training ground of Pakistan's powerful military officer corps.

In one of the houses nearby, Omar Nazeer, a 30-year-old official at Pakistan's petroleum ministry, was up late, working on his laptop. As the MH-60 Black Hawks thundered overhead he gave a start, spilling coffee on to the keyboard. "Our windows were shivering because the helicopters were so close," he said.

The aircraft – three or four, according to different reports – carried soldiers from the US navy's elite Seal Team Six, a highly secretive counter-terrorism unit that works closely with the CIA. One hovered over the target house; al-Qaida militants fired on it with a rocket-propelled grenade. Then disaster struck: the chopper stalled and slumped towards the ground.


Thousands of miles away in the US, officials watching on live video feeds had a heart-stopping moment. Some thought of "Black Hawk Down" – the infamous 1993 debacle in Somalia that precipitated America's withdrawal from that country. But the pilot put his craft down safely and the Seals tumbled out, pressing towards their target, the 54-year-old Saudi fugitive who had eluded them for over a decade, now closer than ever.

The Americans had been led there by one of Osama bin Laden's most trusted men: a courier, first identified by detainees at Guantánamo Bay through his nom de guerre. He was said to be protege of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged architect of the 9/11 attack. The Americans discovered his name four years ago, and discovered that he lived in the Abbottabad region with his brother two years ago.

Last August they narrowed his location to this compound in Abbottabad, an affluent military town about 35 miles north of Islamabad named after its first deputy commissioner, the British officer Major James Abbott. At first the Americans were puzzled: the compound, built in 2005 and valued at $1m (£600,000), was no ordinary home. Perimeter walls up to six metres (18ft) high were topped with barbed wire, there was no internet or telephone connection and there were few windows. Oddly, the inhabitants burned their rubbish inside the compound instead of leaving it outside.

The neighbours knew the owners of the house – the courier and his brother, described as ethnic Pashtuns – as secretive types. They dispatched children to buy food at local shops, and although they regularly prayed at a local mosque, they didn't engage in small talk.

Salman Riaz, a film actor, said that five months ago he and a crew tried to do some filming next to the house but were told to stop by two men who came out. "They told me that this is haram [forbidden] in Islam," he said. He did not know that he had stumbled across a bespoke terrorist hideaway "custom-built to hide someone of significance", according to a US official.

Monitoring the house with satellite technology and other spy tools, the CIA determined that a family was living in the house with the two men. Last February the CIA determined "with high probability" that it was Bin Laden and his clan. Officials scrambled to formulate a plan to kill him.

The first idea was to bomb the house using B2 stealth bombers dropping 2,000-pound JDAMs (joint direct attack munitions), according to ABC News. But Barack Obama rejected it, saying he wanted definitive proof that the Saudi was inside. "The helicopter raid was riskier," said one US official. "[But] he didn't just want to leave a pile of rubble."

An air assault plan was formulated. The Seal Team Six, officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group and based in Virginia, held rehearsals at a specially constructed compound in early April. Meanwhile Obama officials engaged in regular meetings, chaired by national security adviser, Tom Donilon, and counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, to determine when – and how – to strike.


On 28 April, shortly after he nominated CIA director, Leon Panetta, to replace Robert Gates as defence secretary, Obama held a final meeting. In the secrecy of the White House situation room, he listened to recommendations from all sides, but reserved the final decision. Finally last Friday morning, with the eyes of the world glued on the royal wedding in London, he signed off on the air assault.

Only a tiny handful of people within the administration were aware of the operation. US officials say that no other country, including Pakistan – as far as some were concerned, especially Pakistan – was informed, even though the US helicopters would be invading Pakistani airspace. Pakistani officials agreed on Monday that they knew nothing.

"Not a thing," said an official with the ISI spy agency.

But there are signs that statement may be untrue: some reports on the strike, sourced in Washington, suggest the Seals took off from Ghazi airforce base at nearby Tarbela Dam. If true, that suggests a convenient contrivance so that Pakistan could avoid ownership of an operation certain to rankle with the notoriously anti-American public.

Obama handed control of the assault to Panetta – still CIA director until July – who transformed the conference room at its headquarters into a command centre from where he could be in constant contact with the Seal leaders – an unusual case of a civilian spy leading a military team.

Saturday came, the day of the planned assault, but bad weather conspired against the Americans. On Sunday, Obama spent part of his day on the golf course, but cut short his round to return to the White House for a meeting where he and top aides reviewed final preparations. Hours later the Seals took off – probably from Jalalabad or Bagram airbases in Afghanistan, the ISI official said – and entered Pakistani airspace.

What happened next is subject to the American account only. Local residents reported three large blasts shortly after the helicopters passed overhead. The al-Qaida fighters holed up inside fought back, trading gunfire for nearly 40 minutes, as the US troops cleared the compound floor by floor, Pentagon officials said.

The Pashtun courier – he has not been identified – and his brother were killed, as was one of Bin Laden's adult sons, possibly Hamza, who was a senior al-Qaida member. One woman reportedly died and two others were injured.

The Americans then reached Bin Laden – the man with a $25m bounty, the embodiment of the national terrorist nightmare, the subject of greater American passions and frustrations than perhaps any other figure of the past decade.


According to the Pentagon he was identified by name by one of his own wives. As the raiding party closed in on the last unsecured room in the compound, Bin Laden, who according to the White House had no weapon, was shot dead.

US officials say – and there is no independent verification of this fact – he was shot twice, once in the chest and once in the head. "Done in by a double tap – boom boom – to the left side of his face," wrote Marc Ambinder of the National Journal, a beltway insider's journal. Word of the kill went up the chain of command. Thousands of miles away, at the CIA in Virginia and at the White House, cheers erupted.

The Americans scoured the house for intelligence, took photos of the body, using facial recognition technology to compare it with pictures. It was him. Before withdrawing, the Seals blew up the wreckage of the helicopter. An orange fireball lit up the night sky over Abbottabad.

Bin Laden's body was taken to the US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the Arabian Gulf. Back in Abbottabad, the wounded were taken to the Combined Military hospital in Abbottabad. Omar Nazeer, the government official cowering in his house, said six children and three women had been wounded. He knew, he said, because his brother, a military official, worked at the hospital.

Hours later, Bin Laden's body was wrapped in white cloth, and – after, it is said, the administration of Islamic burial rites – it was weighted and dropped from a plank into the sea. The location was not revealed. "We don't want a bunch of people going to the shrine for ever," an official told the Washington Post.

Obama called former presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton to inform them of the news. Keith Urbahn, the former chief of staff to Bush's defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, tweeted. "So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama bin Laden. Hot damn."

Then Obama gave a press conference, and gave the news to the rest of the world. "No matter how long it takes," he said. "Justice will be done."

3 rd may 2007


                Maddie :
                          The three-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann disappears in Praia da Luz, Portugal, starting "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history".


Three-year-old Madeleine McCann goes missing in Portugal

On May 3, 2007, less than two weeks before her fourth birthday, Madeleine McCann of Rothley, England, vanishes during a family vacation at a resort in southern Portugal. McCann’s disappearance prompted an international search; however, she has never been found.

In May 2007, the McCann family—parents Gerry and Kate McCann, Madeleine and her 2-year-old twin siblings Sean and Amelie—were vacationing with a group of friends at the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz (“Beach of Light”), a tourist village along Portugal’s Algarve coast. On the evening of May 3, Gerry and Kate McCann went with friends to the Ocean Club’s tapas bar, leaving a sleeping Madeleine and her brother and sister in the family’s ground-floor apartment, located near the tapas bar. The McCanns and their friends agreed to check on the children every half hour. At around 10 p.m., Kate McCann went to the apartment and discovered Madeleine was missing.

Portuguese police initially believed the little girl had wandered off and would be quickly found. As a result, they failed to promptly distribute a description of the missing child or search cars crossing the Portugal-Spain border, less than two hours from Praia da Luz.

McCann’s disappearance generated widespread media coverage in Europe and beyond. English soccer star David Beckham made a televised plea for her safe return, and “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling reportedly donated millions to help find the little girl. Gerry and Kate McCann, observant Catholics, also had an audience in Rome with Pope Benedict, who blessed a photo of Madeleine.

On September 7, 2007, Portuguese officials named Gerry and Kate McCann, both of whom are physicians, as suspects in their daughter’s disappearance. Soon after, authorities leaked word that Madeleine’s DNA had been discovered in the trunk of the car her parents rented in Portugal almost a month after she vanished. There was speculation that the McCanns, in order to enjoy an evening out, had given their children sedatives and that Madeleine had a fatal reaction to the dosage she received. Afterward, the McCanns faked her abduction and hid her body for weeks before transferring it to the trunk of their rental car. Gerry and Kate McCann labeled this theory ridiculous, particularly given the fact that they were under intense media scrutiny and constantly followed by reporters. The local Portuguese police chief later admitted that the DNA tests were inconclusive.

In July 2008, Gerry and Kate McCann were formally cleared by Portuguese officials of any involvement in their daughter’s disappearance. A third person who had been considered the case’s only other formal suspect, a British man living in Portugal, was cleared as well. Additionally, Portugal’s attorney general said there was insufficient evidence for police to continue their investigation.

The McCanns hired private detectives to keep looking for their daughter and have made publicity tours throughout Europe and the U.S. to raise awareness about her plight.

4 th May 1979

                  Margaret Thatcher :
                                               Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.


Margaret Thatcher, leader of the Conservative Party, becomes Britain’s first female prime minister on May 4, 1979. The Oxford-educated chemist and lawyer took office the day after the Conservatives won a 44-seat majority in general parliamentary elections.

Margaret Hilda Roberts was born in Grantham, England, in 1925. She was the first woman president of the Oxford University Conservative Association and in 1950 ran for Parliament in Dartford. She was defeated but garnered an impressive number of votes in the generally liberal district. In 1959, after marrying businessman Denis Thatcher and later giving birth to twins, she was elected to Parliament as a Conservative for Finchley, a north London district. During the 1960s, she rose rapidly in the ranks of the Conservative Party and in 1967 joined the shadow cabinet sitting in opposition to Harold Wilson’s ruling Labour cabinet. With the victory of the Conservative Party under Edward Heath in 1970, Thatcher became secretary of state for education and science.

In 1974, the Labour Party returned to power, and Thatcher served as joint shadow chancellor before replacing Edward Heath as the leader of the Conservative Party in February 1975. She was the first woman to head the Conservatives. Under her leadership, the Conservative Party shifted further right in its politics, calling for privatization of national industries and utilities and promising a resolute defense of Britain’s interests abroad. She also sharply criticized Prime Minister James Callaghan’s ineffectual handling of the chaotic labor strikes of 1978 and 1979.

As Margaret Thatcher took office as Britain’s first female prime minister in May 1979, she confronted a nation mired in economic recession. Businesses were failing, and inflation and unemployment were rising. Thatcher immediately set out to turn the economic situation around, according to her firm belief in the independence of the individual from the state .


When Argentina’s military junta invaded the Falkland Islands, a British colony, in April 1982, Margaret Thatcher’s political future was in serious question. Britain’s first female prime minister was facing sharp criticism from both her cabinet and the public in response to her domestic policies. Savage government spending cuts, a declining manufacturing industry and high unemployment .


She was born in an apartment above her father’s grocery store. Born Margaret Hilda Roberts, the future prime minister was the daughter of a grocer and local alderman who later became mayor of Grantham, England. The cramped apartment above her father’s corner store in which Thatcher grew up lacked running water, and central heating .

In March 1979, Callaghan was defeated by a vote of no confidence, and on May 3 a general election gave Thatcher’s Conservatives a majority in Parliament. The next day, Prime Minister Thatcher immediately set about dismantling socialism in Britain. She privatized numerous industries, cut back government expenditures, and gradually reduced the rights of trade unions. In 1983, despite the worst unemployment figures for half a decade, Thatcher was reelected to a second term, thanks largely to the decisive British victory in the 1982 Falklands War with Argentina.

In other foreign affairs, the “Iron Lady” presided over the orderly establishment of an independent Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) in 1980 and took a hard stance against Irish separatists in Northern Ireland. In October 1984, an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb exploded at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton. The prime minister narrowly escaped harm.

In 1987, an upswing in the economy led to her election to a third term, but Thatcher soon alienated some members of her own party because of her poll-tax policies and opposition to further British integration into the European Community. In November 1990, she failed to received a majority in the Conservative Party’s annual vote for selection of a leader. She withdrew her nomination, and John Major, the chancellor of the Exchequer since 1989, was chosen as Conservative leader. On November 28, Thatcher resigned as prime minister and was succeeded by Major. Thatcher’s three consecutive terms in office marked the longest continuous tenure of a British prime minister since 1827. In 1992, she was made a baroness and took a seat in the House of Lords.

In later years, Thatcher worked as a consultant, served as the chancellor of the College of William and Mary and wrote her memoirs, as well as other books on politics. She continued to work with the Thatcher Foundation, which she created to foster the ideals of democracy, free trade and cooperation among nations. Though she stopped appearing in public after suffering a series of small strokes in the early 2000s, her influence remained strong. In 2011, the former prime minister was the subject of an award-winning (and controversial) biographical film, The Iron Lady, which depicted her political rise and fall. Margaret Thatcher died on April 8, 2013, at the age of 87.

5 th May 1905

   Fingerprint evidence :
                                 The trial in the Stratton Brothers case begins in London, England; it marks the first time that fingerprint evidence is used to gain a conviction for murder.


HOMETRUE CRIME
How the Stratton Brothers Became the First British Killers Busted by a Fingerprint
A thumbprint on a cashbox led police to the murderers—and changed the course of criminal history.


Albert Stratton was born in 1882; his brother Alfred was born in 1884. By June 1905, both brothers were dead, having unwittingly ushered in a new era of scientific crime investigation.

They were the first British murderers convicted and hanged based on fingerprint evidence.

At 8:30 A.M. on March 27, 1905, William Jones arrived for work at Chapman’s Oil and Colour Shop in the London neighborhood of Deptford. He was greeted by a chilling sight.

There on the floor was the brutalized body of Jones’ employer, Thomas Farrow. He was dead, having been severely beaten. Annie Farrow, Thomas Farrow’s wife, was near-death, having also been severely beaten, and would soon succumb to her injuries. There was no sign of forced entry, indicating that the assailants were either customers or known to their victims.

Jones immediately summoned the police. Chief Inspector Frederick Fox, as well as Melville Macnaghten, then Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard and head of the Criminal Investigation Department, took over the case. Macnaghten, an advocate for the fledgling science of fingerprinting, noticed a smudge on an empty cash box.

Macnaghten decided this might be just the case on which to test out the new technique. He carefully wrapped the box and sent it to the new Fingerprinting Bureau at Scotland Yard.

Detective Inspector Charles Collins, head of the bureau and the foremost fingerprinting expert of the time, believed the smudge was a print of a right thumb. Later analysis confirmed this to be the case. Now the police had only to match to print to a person, and then they’d have their suspect.

The print was quickly eliminated as belonging to Jones, the Farrows, or anyone else with regular access to the shop. Fortunately, multiple witnesses saw two men loitering near the building around the time of the crime. Two people saw them leave the building at around 7:30 A.M., an hour before Jones arrived. One of the loiterers was positively identified as Alfred Stratton.



Under questioning, Alfred’s girlfriend mentioned that he had asked for a pair of dark woollen stockings—later confirmed to have been used as masks—before the crime took place. He also asked her to dispose of the clothes he’d worn on the day the crime was committed. Based on this testimony alone, the outlook was bleak for the Stratton brothers.

It soon became considerably bleaker.

Arrest warrants were issued, and both men were picked up on April 2. The print on the box turned out to be an exact match for Alfred Stratton.


The pair was put on trial at the Old Bailey during the first week of May, 1905. By now, the case had earned a series of nicknames—From “The Mask Murders” to “The Deptford Murders” and “The Farrow Murders.” The legendary Sir Richard Muir served as lead prosecutor. Muir called over 40 witnesses to the stand, including Albert Stratton, whom Muir trapped in a series of inconsistencies and lies. Muir also called William Gittings, a jailer, to testify that Albert had said, “I reckon he (meaning Albert’s brother, Alfred) will get strung up and I shall get about 10 years. He has led me into this.”

The jury deliberated only two hours before convicting both brothers. They were condemned to death. Appeals were quickly filed and just as quickly denied. At 9:00 A.M. on May 23, both men were hanged.

With the groundbreaking Stratton case, the science of fingerprinting was firmly established as paramount to the criminal investigation process. This was, without a doubt, a watershed moment in crime history.

6 th May 1954

3:59.4
Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.


The Daily Telegraph, at the time had described the sub-four-minute mile as “sport’s greatest goal”, something “as elusive and seemingly unattainable as Everest” (another apparently impossible human achievement that had recently been chalked off by Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay).

Indeed, Bannister had been told by physiologists that not only was running the four-minute mile impossible for an athlete to do, but attempting to do so was dangerous to one's health.



Born in Harrow, England, the then 25-year-old Oxford University medical student was regarded as Britain’s best middle-distance runner, but had recently experienced crushing disappointment after finishing fourth in the 1500 metres at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki – a race he had been widely expected to win.

The following months saw Bannister toying with the idea of giving up athletics, before he decided to set himself a new goal of becoming the First man to run a mile in under four minutes.

Inspired by his running hero Sydney Wooderson, who had made a remarkable comeback in 1945 by setting a new British record in the same event, Bannister set out to achieve the holy grail of athletics.

The scene for Bannister’s finest moment was an early race in the 1954 season at Oxford University’s ramshackle Iffley Road track, during the annual match between the Amateur Athletic Association (AAA) and the university.

Alongside Bannister, the two other principal runners involved for the AAA were his friends Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher, with the attempt carefully planned between the three.

Chataway was an underbrewer at the Guinness Brewery in Park Royal, London. He would go on to introduce the race’s timekeeper and old university friend, Norris McWhirter, to the brewery’s owner, Sir Hugh Beaver, recommending him and his brother Ross as editors for the company’s new publication – a book that would compile superlatives to help settle pub arguments.



Down to the last moment before the race, Bannister had misgivings about the weather, which had seen a strong wind gather at the track, but he was persuaded to go ahead with the attempt by his two pacemakers.

The first two laps saw Brasher set out at the front with a speed Bannister at the time feared was too slow. In fact, the tempo proved to be just right, with Brasher reaching the halfway mark in 1 minute 58 seconds.

Chataway then took up the mantle halfway through the third lap, with Bannister following intently behind.

As the crowd’s roar began to get louder, and sensing the moment of a lifetime, Bannister took his cue on the far straight of the last lap and lengthened his stride to speed past Chataway around the final bend.

Recalling his burst of speed on the home stretch, Bannister says: “The earth seemed to move with me. I found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never knew existed.”
Throwing in all his reserves, he broke the tape and collapsed to the ground.

When remembering the end of the race, Bannister says: “Doctors and scientists said that breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead.”
In a style that ramped up the anticipation and excitement and would later become a trademark during the countless record attempts he presided over, McWhirter gave a long pause as he delivered the race result.

As he began announcing Bannister’s finishing time, he was rendered inaudible by the ecstatic crowd, which erupted upon hearing the word “three”, covering up confirmation that the winning time was 3:59:04 and history had been made.

As is so often the case with world records, once Bannister proved a human could in fact run a mile under four minutes, it left the world stunned, and helped shatter a collective mental barrier.

Australian John Landy bettered the Iffley Road record the following month with a time of 3 minutes 57.9 seconds, while in the three years that followed that historic day in Oxford, a further 15 runners would go on to also perform the same feat.

Bannister had changed the expectation of possibilities through the achievement of his high goal. He had helped shift the entire paradigm through which other runners viewed the world and in turn helped redefine what the human body could achieve.

..........................................................................................................................................................................................

Today being King Charles's coronation day , is this a coincidence?

6 th May 1910
– George V becomes King of Great Britain, Ireland, and many overseas territories, on the death of his father, Edward VII.

7 th May 1915

Sinking of Lusitania:
World War I: German submarine U-20 sinks RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. Public reaction to the sinking turns many former pro-Germans in the United States against the German Empire.

RMS Lusitania: 18 Minutes That Shocked The World
RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915. The luxury passenger liner was crossing the Atlantic from New York to Liverpool when the German submarine U-20 fired without warning. After a second explosion – the cause of which is still debated – the ship quickly sank. It went under in 18 minutes, killing 1,200 of almost 2,000 passengers and crew on board.

On 4 February 1915, Germany declared a war zone around Britain in which any shipping – military or civilian – would be sunk on sight. During the early stages of the war, U-boats followed 'prize rules'. They would surface before attacking merchant ships, carry out formal searches of the cargo and allow time for passengers and crew to escape before the ship was sunk. Germany eventually abandoned prize rules and began its campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare, partially due to the British introduction of 'Q-Ships' – warships disguised as merchant ships.

The Lusitania was launched on 7 June 1906. It had been specially built to be easily converted to a warship and was registered with the British Admiralty as an armed auxiliary cruiser. Following the outbreak of the First World War, it continued to operate as a passenger liner despite being used to carry British war material.

The sinking of RMS Lusitania caused international outrage and helped turn public opinion against Germany, particularly in the then-neutral United States. Of the 1,200 people killed, 128 were American citizens. But the incident did not immediately bring the United States into the war. Instead, the American government issued a severe protest to Germany. Following immense pressure from the US and recognising the limited effectiveness of the policy, Germany abandoned unrestricted submarine warfare in September 1915.


The Lusitania became a focus for British and American propaganda and was used to bolster recruitment efforts. However, Germany claimed that the sinking was justified because munitions were being carried on board. In the days prior to the Lusitania's final voyage, the German embassy had also published warnings in American newspapers stating the dangers and risks of travelling through the war zone.

Germany resumed its campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917 after failing to take control of the sea at the Battle of Jutland the previous year. This, along with the interception of the Zimmerman telegram, brought the US into war against Germany on 6 April 1917.

13 th May 1373


Julian of Norwich :
Julian of Norwich, a Christian mystic and anchoress, experiences the deathbed visions described in her Revelations of Divine Love.


The Short Text of Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love
Page of text with decorated initials from a manuscript of the Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich.


In May 1373, a woman took to her bed, believing that she was shortly going to die. She was 30 years old. To offer her comfort at the point of her death, a curate (a priest’s assistant) at her bedside held a crucifix out in front of her. At this moment, the woman – who is today known as Julian of Norwich – experienced a series of 16 extraordinary visions.

These visions are described in the Revelations of Divine Love, which is the first work in English to be authored by a woman. Two versions of the text exist. The Short Text, shown here in this manuscript, has a searing immediacy.

It appears to have been written down soon after Julian recovered from the illness that nearly killed her in 1373. In it, Julian describes the terrifying recent events of her deathbed and the spiritual comfort she received during her darkest hour. Another version – the so-called ‘Long Text’ – was composed around 20 years later. In the later text, Julian strives to make out the meaning of the visions she experienced. It is around four times longer and appears to show the work of an editor or editors.

Who was Julian of Norwich?
We know very little about Julian. She gives away almost no personal information in her Revelations. What we know can be gleaned from a rubric (a few lines of introductory text) in this manuscript which describes her as a ‘Julyan that is recluse ate Norwyche’ [Julian, who is a recluse in Norwich] (f. 97r – digitised image 1). Here, the word ‘recluse’ means that Julian was an anchoress – a woman who had retreated from the world to live a life of prayer and contemplation, alone in a cell. We know her today as Julian because she was attached to the church of St Julian in Norwich (although the name ‘Julian’ could also be given to a woman in this period). If she had another name, we do not know what it was.

Anchoresses were often bricked up into their cells – known as anchorholds. At the moment of their ‘enclosure’ a funeral mass was said, to signify that they were now dead to the world. The recommended size of the cell was 12 feet – just over 3.5 metres – square. Anchoresses and anchorites (male recluses) were common in England from the 13th century until the Reformation of the early 16th century. Much of what we know about their life comes from a 13th-century guide for anchoresses called the Ancrene Wisse.

A simple creature?
Aside from being the first work in English to be written by a woman, Julian’s work is all the more extraordinary because she claims that she was illiterate, calling herself a ‘simple creature that cowde [knew] no letter’. Despite her claim, the work is a sophisticated piece of theological writing which contains many powerful images, including one famous one in which Julian has an image of the universe as a thing so small that it is like a hazelnut lying in the palm of her hand. The text reads:

He showed me a little thing the size of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, and to my understanding it was as round as a ball. I looked at it and thought, ‘what may this be?’ and I was answered generally thus, ‘it is all that is made’. I marvelled at how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly fall into nothing for its littleness and I was answered in my understanding ‘it lasts and ever shall, for God loves it’.

9 th May 1671

Theft of crown jewels:
Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempts to steal England's Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.


Thomas Blood, believed to have been some sort of double-secret agent, engineered an insane plot in the only close attempt in history to steal the priceless jewels from the Tower of London

Known as one of the most audacious thieves in British history Colonel Thomas Blood attempted to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London using a disguise and plan that turned into madness and ended in arrest.

Blood was born in County Clare, sometime around 1618, according to Clare Library. He was the son of a prosperous English blacksmith with lands in Meath and County Wicklow. Blood was raised in Meath. His grandfather Edmund Blood of Kilnaboy and Applevale was a Member of Parliament.

In 1642 the English Civil War broke out and Blood traveled to England to fight alongside King Charles I. However when it became clear to him that Oliver Cromwell was going to win, he swapped sides and joined the Roundheads.


After Charles I's defeat, in 1653, Blood was made the Justice of the Peace and granted a large estate. However, in 1660 when Charles returned to the throne Blood fled back to Ireland with his wife and son.

In Ireland, Blood was joined with defeated and disgruntled Cromwellians who attempted to take seize Dublin Castle and take its governor, Lord Ormonde prisoner. This plot failed and Blood was forced to fall to Holland, with a price on his head for his crimes. He was now one of the most wanted men in England.



As the Clare Library’s research puts it:

“Thomas was a mysterious character. He was linked to various dissident groups who were hostile to the Government, though he was also involved in Government Counsels. It is thought that he worked as a Double-Agent, playing both sides against each other.”

Despite the bounty on his head Blood returned to England taking on the name Ayloffe. He even practiced medicine at a doctor in Romford, in east London.

In 1670, after yet another failed attempt at kidnapping Lord Ormonde, Blood turned his focus towards a scheme to steal the Crown Jewels.

The Jewels were protected, at the Tower of London, behind a metal grille. The Keeper of the Jewels, Talbot Edwards, lived on the same floor, the basement, with his family.

Blood donned the disguise of a “parson” and went to see the Jewels. He became friendly with their Keeper, Edwards, and returned at a later date with a woman who was pretending to be this “parson’s” wife. Just as the visitors were leaving the fake wife had a violent stomach ache and was taken to the Edwards quarters to rest.

Four days later Blood returned, still disguised as the parson, with four pairs of white gloves for Mrs. Talbot, to show their gratitude. The families became friends and there were even discussions of Edward's pretty daughter meeting up with the parson’s wealthy nephew.

On May 9, 1671, the parson, along with his “nephew” and two other men made visited Edwards. While the young nephew chatted with Edward’s daughter the others in the party expressed an interest in viewing the Crown Jewels.

Edwards led the way and unlocked the metal door. At that very moment, Blood knocked him out cold, from behind.

The grille was removed from in front of the jewels and the crown, orb, and scepter were taken out. The crown was flattened with a mallet and put into a bag. The orb was stuffed down Blood’s trousers. The scepter, however, was too long to put in a bag so Blood’s brother-in-law, named Hunt, tried to saw it in half.

When Edwards regained consciousness he shouted “Murder, Treason"

Blood and his merry men dropped the scepter and tried to run. Blood was arrested having tried to flee the Iron-Gate, after trying to shoot one of the guards.

Once in custody Blood refused to answer questions. Instead, he repeated, “I’ll answer to none but the King himself.”

Irish charm saves his neck
Quite amazingly Blood was right. Charles I was known to have a penchant for scoundrels and Blood was confident that his Irish charm might actually and literally save his neck yet again.

At the Palace, Blood was questioned by King Charles, Prince Rupert, The Duke of York, and other members of the royal family.

Charles was indeed amused at Blood’s audacity. His amusement was noted especially when Blood told him that the Crown Jewels were not worth the £100,000 as they were valued at, but only £6,000.

When the King asked, “What if I should give you your life?” Blood replied, “I would endeavor to deserve it, Sire!”

Not only was Blood pardoned but, much to the disgust of Lord Ormonde, he was also gifted land in Ireland worth £500 a year.

Blood, a turncoat, con man, and thief, became a familiar figure around London and made frequent appearances at the Royal Court.

Once again how Blood got away with his crimes is questioned. The Clare Library asks again if Blood was a secret agent.

They said:

“The mystery remains as to what Colonel Blood had done to gain the King's pardon. At some time in his life Blood must have served the King well as a Secret Agent. This was his reward.”

Luck of the Irish runs out… finally
In 1679, Blood’s phenomenal luck ran out. The Clare man quarreled with his former patron, the Duke of Buckingham, who had demanded £10,000 in compensation for some insulting remarks Blood had made about his character.

Blood became ill in 1680 the Duke never got paid. Blood died on August 24, 1680, of that year at the age of 62.

10 th May 1941

Hose of commons bombing:
World War II: The House of Commons in London is damaged by the Luftwaffe in an air raid.




The Palace of Westminster, home to both Houses of Parliament, is an iconic British landmark that exudes history from its spot on the River Thames.

But, like the rest of the country, it felt the effects of World War Two.

In the thick of the Blitz in the May of 1941, the Commons was destroyed by an air raid, leaving MPs without a home in the midst of a national crisis.

But, as we well know, you cannot keep British parliamentarians quiet for long...

Monday 26 October 2020 marks the 70th anniversary of their return to the Palace of Westminster.

And BBC Four revived a documentary - first aired in 1950 - to tell the full story of how the Commons fell and rose again from the ashes.

The bombing took place overnight on 10 and 11 May and saw both the Commons chamber and the roof of Westminster Hall - the oldest part of the Palace of Westminster - set ablaze.

Fire services decided they could not save both and focused their efforts on Westminster Hall, leaving the Commons to be totally destroyed.

According to UK Parliament historians, the House of Lords was also struck by a bomb, but it passed through the floor of the Chamber without exploding.


Unbeknownst to the public, MPs were already holding their daily business in the nearby Church House - the headquarters of the Church of England - during the war, as they were sure Parliament would be a target for the German air force.

In fact, Prime Minister Winston Churchill made some of his most historic speeches, not at the Commons despatch box, but in the secret location.

After the bombing, the Lords joined them, and the two Houses carried on with their work in the secret location.

In June 1941, MPs moved into the House of Lords and peers moved into the Robing Room next door, but again, this was kept quiet so as not to attract the attention of the enemy.


Wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his successor Clement Atlee returned to Church House after the war to thank the organisation
Meanwhile, work was going on behind the scenes to rebuild the Commons to reflect its original glory, with a few little tweaks - including microphones, speakers and air conditioning.

Gifts from across the Commonwealth, such as new doors from India and Pakistan, and a new Speaker's chair from Australia, arrived to fill the renewed chamber.

And, after almost a decade, on 26 October 1950, it was ready for MPs to return.

English oak was specially cut to re-make the famous panelling in the Commons
A huge ceremony took place to mark the occasion.

As well as speeches from the Speakers of the Commons and Lords - and the attendance of 29 speakers from around the Commonwealth - three generations of the Royal Family were present.

They included King George VI and the future Queen, Princess Elizabeth.

The King also gave a speech to the throngs of politicians in Westminster Hall - the only monarch to address both Houses since Charles I - promising a bright future for the unshakeable democracy of Britain.

And ever since, the Commons has remained home to the elected members of the land.

11 th May 1985

Bradford City disaster :
Fifty-six spectators die and more than 200 are injured in the Bradford City stadium fire.


38 years ago, Bradford City FC was devastated by fire. It was one of the worst stadium fire disasters in history.

On 11 May 1985, 56 people died and hundreds more were injured when the timber stand, which had been built in 1908, caught fire. At 3.40pm the TV commentator reported the fire. In less than 4 minutes, in windy conditions, it engulfed the whole stand. It was a shocking event that rocked the city of Bradford and the country as a whole.

A committee of Inquiry chaired by Sir Oliver Popplewell was held to investigate the causes and find ways to improve safety. The resulting investigation discovered there had been no fire extinguishers in the stand for fear of vandalism, and most of the exits at the back were either locked or shut and there were no stewards present to open them. In his interim report, Popplewell made a number of observations, one of which was his view that a lack of inter-agency communication was a contributory factor to the outbreak of the fire.

In the years since the Bradford fire, sports grounds in the UK have been transformed and are amongst the safest in the world. This includes the Fire Safety and Safety of Places of Sports Act 1987. This legislation, brought in after the Bradford fire, extends the provisions for local authority safety certification to include covered stands with accommodation for more than 500 spectators in sports grounds not designated under the 1975 Act, known as ‘regulated stands’.

The SGSA continues to work closely with football grounds, local authorities and others on all issues of safety, including fire safety. Our overall aim is improve the safety of the sector, both domestically and internationally and ensure everyone can enjoy sport safely.

Our thoughts are with all of those affected by the Bradford City fire 38 years on.

12 th May 2017


Ransomeware cyber attack and the NHS :
The WannaCry ransomware attack impacts over 400,000 computers worldwide, targeting computers of the United Kingdom's National Health Services and Telefónica computers.


This report investigates the NHS’s response to the cyber attack that affected it in May 2017 and the impact on health services.

Jump to downloads
On Friday 12 May 2017 a computer virus, known as WannaCry, which encrypts data on infected computers and demands a ransom payment to allow users access, was released worldwide. WannaCry was the largest cyber attack to affect the NHS in England, although individual trusts had been attacked before 12 May.

The National Audit Office investigation focused on the ransomware attack’s impact on the NHS and its patients; why some parts of the NHS were affected; and how the Department and NHS national bodies responded to the attack.

The key findings of the investigation are:

The Department was warned about the risks of cyber attacks on the NHS a year before WannaCry and although it had work underway it did not formally respond with a written report until July 2017. The Department and Cabinet Office wrote to trusts in 2014, saying it was essential they had “robust plans” to migrate away from old software, such as Windows XP by April 2015. In March and April 2017, NHS Digital had issued critical alerts warning organisations to patch their systems to prevent WannaCry. However, before 12 May 2017, the Department had no formal mechanism for assessing whether local NHS organisations had complied with their advice and guidance and whether they were prepared for a cyber attack.
The attack led to disruption in at least 34% of trusts in England although the Department and NHS England do not know the full extent of the disruption. On 12 May, NHS England initially identified 45 NHS organisations including 37 trusts that had been infected by the WannaCry ransomware. In total at least 81 out of 236 trusts across England were affected. A further 603 primary care and other NHS organisations were infected by WannaCry, including 595 GP practices. However, the Department does not know how many NHS organisations could not access records or receive information, because they shared data or systems with an infected trust. NHS Digital told us that it believes no patient data were compromised or stolen.
Thousands of appointments and operations were cancelled and in five areas patients had to travel further to accident and emergency departments. Between 12 and 18 May, NHS England collected some information on cancelled appointments, to help it manage the incident, but this did not include all types of appointment. NHS England identified 6,912 appointments had been cancelled, and estimated over 19,000 appointments would have been cancelled in total. Neither the Department nor NHS England know how many GP appointments were cancelled, or how many ambulances and patients were diverted from the five accident and emergency departments that were unable to treat some patients.
The Department, NHS England and the National Crime Agency told us that no NHS organisation paid the ransom, but the Department does not know how much the disruption to services cost the NHS. Costs included cancelled appointments; additional IT support provided by NHS local bodies, or IT consultants; or the cost of restoring data and systems affected by the attack. National and local NHS staff worked overtime including over the weekend of 13 to 14 May to resolve problems and to prevent a fresh wave of organisations being affected by WannaCry on Monday 15 May.
The cyber attack could have caused more disruption if it had not been stopped by a cyber researcher activating a ‘kill switch’ so that WannaCry stopped locking devices. Between 15 May and mid-September NHS Digital and NHS England identified a further 92 organisations, including 21 trusts, as contacting the WannaCry domain, though some of these may have been contacting the domain as part of their cyber security activity. Of the 37 trusts infected and locked out of devices, 32 were located in the North NHS Region and the Midlands & East NHS region. NHS England believe more organisations were infected in these regions because they were hit early on 12 May before the WannaCry ‘kill switch’ was activated.
The Department had developed a plan, which included roles and responsibilities of national and local organisations for responding to an attack, but had not tested the plan at a local level. As the NHS had not rehearsed for a national cyber attack it was not immediately clear who should lead the response and there were problems with communications. Many local organisations could not communicate with national NHS bodies by email as they had been infected by WannaCry or had shut down their email systems as a precaution, though NHS Improvement did communicate with trusts’ Chief Executive Officers by telephone. Locally NHS staff shared information through personal mobile devices, including using the encrypted WhatsApp application.
NHS England initially focused on maintaining emergency care. Since the attack occurred on a Friday it caused minimal disruption to primary care services, which tend to be closed over the weekend. Twenty-two of the 27 infected acute trusts managed to continue treating urgent and emergency patients throughout the weekend. However, five, in London, Essex, Hertfordshire, Hampshire and Cumbria had to divert patients to other Accident and Emergency departments, and a further two needed outside help to continue treating patients. By 16 May only two hospitals were still diverting patients. The recovery was helped by the work of the cyber security researcher that stopped WannaCry spreading.
NHS Digital told us that all organisations infected by WannaCry shared the same vulnerability and could have taken relatively simple action to protect themselves. Infected organisations had unpatched, or unsupported Windows operating systems so were susceptible to the ransomware. However, whether organisations had patched their systems or not, taking action to manage their firewalls facing the internet would have guarded organisations against infection.
The NHS has accepted that there are lessons to learn from WannaCry and is taking action. NHS England and NHS Improvement have written to every major health body asking boards to ensure that they have implemented all alerts issued by NHS Digital between March and May 2017 and taken essential action taken to secure local firewalls.
“The WannaCry cyber attack had potentially serious implications for the NHS and its ability to provide care to patients. It was a relatively unsophisticated attack and could have been prevented by the NHS following basic IT security best practice. There are more sophisticated cyber threats out there than WannaCry so the Department and the NHS need to get their act together to ensure the NHS is better protected against future attacks.”

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office

13 th May 1912

History of the R.A.F:
The Royal Flying Corps, the forerunner of the Royal Air Force, is established in the United Kingdom.

The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was the air arm of the British Army before and during the First World War until it merged with the Royal Naval Air Service on 1 April 1918 to form the Royal Air Force. During the early part of the war, the RFC supported the British Army by artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance. This work gradually led RFC pilots into aerial battles with German pilots and later in the war included the strafing of enemy infantry and emplacements, the bombing of German military airfields and later the strategic bombing of German industrial and transport facilities.

At the start of World War I the RFC, commanded by Brigadier-General Sir David Henderson, consisted of five squadrons – one observation balloon squadron (RFC No 1 Squadron) and four aeroplane squadrons. These were first used for aerial spotting on 13 September 1914 but only became efficient when they perfected the use of wireless communication at Aubers Ridge on 9 May 1915. Aerial photography was attempted during 1914, but again only became effective the next year. By 1918, photographic images could be taken from 15,000 feet and were interpreted by over 3,000 personnel. Parachutes were not available to pilots of heavier-than-air craft in the RFC – nor were they used by the RAF during the First World War – although the Calthrop Guardian Angel parachute (1916 model) was officially adopted just as the war ended. By this time parachutes had been used by balloonists for three years.

On 17 August 1917, South African General Jan Smuts presented a report to the War Council on the future of air power. Because of its potential for the 'devastation of enemy lands and the destruction of industrial and populous centres on a vast scale', he recommended a new air service be formed that would be on a level with the Army and Royal Navy. The formation of the new service would also make the under-used men and machines of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) available for action on the Western Front and end the inter-service rivalries that at times had adversely affected aircraft procurement. On 1 April 1918, the RFC and the RNAS were amalgamated to form a new service, the Royal Air Force (RAF), under the control of the new Air Ministry. After starting in 1914 with some 2,073 personnel, by the start of 1919 the RAF had 4,000 combat aircraft and 114,000 personnel in some 150 squadrons.

Origin and early history

Royal Flying Corps Sweetheart Brooch


With the growing recognition of the potential for aircraft as a cost-effective method of reconnaissance and artillery observation, the Committee of Imperial Defence established a sub-committee to examine the question of military aviation in November 1911. On 28 February 1912 the sub-committee reported its findings which recommended that a flying corps be formed and that it consist of a naval wing, a military wing, a central flying school and an aircraft factory. The recommendations of the committee were accepted and on 13 April 1912 King George V signed a royal warrant establishing the Royal Flying Corps. The Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers became the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps a month later on 13 May.

The Flying Corps' initial allowed strength was 133 officers, and by the end of that year it had 12 manned balloons and 36 aeroplanes. The RFC originally came under the responsibility of Brigadier-General Henderson, the Director of Military Training, and had separate branches for the Army and the Navy. Major Sykes commanded the Military Wing and Commander C R Samson commanded the Naval Wing. The Royal Navy however, with different priorities to that of the Army and wishing to retain greater control over its aircraft, formally separated its branch and renamed it the Royal Naval Air Service on 1 July 1914, although a combined central flying school was retained.

The RFC's motto was Per ardua ad astra ("Through adversity to the stars"). This remains the motto of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and other Commonwealth air forces.

The RFC's first fatal crash was on 5 July 1912 near Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain; Captain Eustace B. Loraine and his observer, Staff Sergeant R.H.V. Wilson, flying from Larkhill Aerodrome, were killed. An order was issued after the crash stating "Flying will continue this evening as usual", thus beginning a tradition.

In August 1912 RFC Lieutenant Wilfred Parke RN became the first aviator to be observed to recover from an accidental spin when the Avro G cabin biplane, with which he had just broken a world endurance record, entered a spin at 700 feet above ground level at Larkhill. Four months later on 11 December 1912 Parke was killed when the Handley Page monoplane in which he was flying from Hendon to Oxford crashed.

14 th May 1939

                   Worlds youngest mother:
                                                      Lina Medina becomes the youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five.


 
Lina Medina is the world’s youngest documented mother in medical history. At the time of delivery, she was 5 years, 7 months, and 17 days old.

In 1933, Lina Medina was born in Ticrapo, Peru. At the age of five years, Lina was brought to the hospital by her parents who complained of abdominal extreme growth.

The girl’s parents initially thought their daughter was suffering from a massive abdominal tumor, but after being examined by doctors in Pisco, Peru, they discovered she was seven months pregnant.

Dr. Geraldo Lozada became Lina’s attending doctor, fully taking over the case. Dr. Lozada took Lina to a more advanced hospital in Lima to confirm the pregnancy diagnosis.

The diagnosis was confirmed. Lina was born with a rare condition called “precocious puberty”. Precocious puberty is basically the early onset of sexual development.

Most girls begin experiencing puberty around the age of ten (boys usually start a little later, around the ages of 11 or 12). Lina had experienced her first menstrual cycle at the age of two and a half or three. She had fully developed breasts by the age of four. Within five years, her body displayed pelvic widening and advanced bone maturation.

Lina Medina officially became the youngest confirmed mother in medical history, aged five, seven months, and 21 days. She gave birth to a boy by a cesarean section on May 14, 1939, necessitated by her small pelvis. The surgery was performed by Lozada and Dr. Busalleu, with Dr. Colareta providing anesthesia.

The child, weighing 2,700 grams (6 pounds), was well-formed, in good health, and was named Gerardo after the doctor who delivered him. The child and mother were able to leave the clinic after only a few days.

The child, weighing 2,700 grams, was well formed and in good health and was named Gerardo after the doctor who delivered him.

As might be expected, sexual abuse was immediately considered. The father of Lina was arrested on suspicion of rape and incest. He was released due to a lack of evidence. Lina Medina never revealed who the real father of her child is, or the circumstances surrounding its impregnation.

According to a 1955 article reviewing the case: “some have pointed out, there were frequent festivities celebrated by the Indians in the Andean villages like the one where Lina was born. These often ended in orgies where rape was not uncommon”.



Throughout the years, many people have called her story a complete hoax, however, a number of doctors over the years have verified it based on biopsies, X-rays of the fetal skeleton in utero, and photographs taken by the doctors caring for her.



Gerardo was raised believing that Medina was his sister, but found out at the age of 10 that she was his mother. He led a healthy life until 1979 when he died from bone marrow disease at the age of 40.

In young adulthood, Medina worked as a secretary in the Lima clinic of Dr. Lozada, who gave her an education and helped put her son through high school.

Medina later married Raúl Jurado and in 1972 had a second son, 33 years after her first.

15 th May 1536

Anne Boleyn trial and execution:
Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, stands trial in London on charges of treason, adultery and incest; she is condemned to death by a specially-selected jury.

Anne Boleyn trial and execution: What was the Queen of England accused of?

On 25 January 1533, Anne Boleyn gave into years of pursuits and attempts at seduction to marry Henry VIII, the King of England.

So desperate was Henry to marry Anne that he broke from the Catholic Church and, with his chief minister Thomas Cromwell’s help, made himself the head of the new Church of England, so that he could divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Catherine had not brought him a male heir, and Henry hoped Anne would be the solution.

But after just three years of marriage, Anne had suffered several miscarriages and fallen from Henry’s favour when she failed to give birth to a son.

Impatient, Henry tried to find reasons to annul their marriage. And in April 1536, Henry had Anne investigated for high treason.

Here’s a look at what Anne was accused of, and her trial and execution, all depicted in a new TV series on Channel 5 starring British actor Jodie Turner-Smith.


Accused of conspiracy and adultery
Unable to produce a male heir, Anne was no longer useful to the King and was accused of sorcery, adultery and incest.

Henry VIII also claimed she conspired against him and had her investigated for high treason.

Historians including Anne’s own biographer have argued that Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII, led a conspiracy against Boleyn which led to her untimely death.

Cromwell, it has been argued, was a threat to Boleyn, who disagreed with Cromwell over foreign policy and the use of Church revenue, which she believed belonged with charitable and educational institutions.

Trial for treason and sorcery
Anne was arrested and sent to solitary confinement in the Tower of London on 2 May 1536.

Her trial took place two weeks later on 15 May, when over two thousand spectators watched as she was found guilty by a jury that included her own uncle.

She was found guilty of multiple charges, including incest with her own brother and sorcery to bewitch the king.

Many historians claim the charges led against Boleyn were unlikely to be true.


A private execution
Anne was beheaded in private by a French swordsman, in place of the usual executioner and his axe, on Tower Green on 19 May.

Boleyn’s friends Mark Smeaton, Francis Weston, William Brereton, Henry Norris and her brother George were all executed for allegedly committing adultery with the queen.

By calling for his wife’s execution, Henry VIII was now clear to marry his third wife-to-be, Jane Seymour, with whom he had been having an affair during his marriage to Anne.

The King married his new queen consort following Anne’s execution, but they were only wed for a year before Seymour died from childbirth complications, just two weeks after the birth of her only child, the future King Edward VI.

She is the only one of Henry’s six wives to be buried beside him in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.

16 th May 1568


Mary:
Mary, Queen of Scots, flees to England.

ENGLISH HERITAGE.

On 16 May 1568, a small fishing boat carrying Mary Queen of Scots set sail from Scotland for English shores. After months of conflict and turmoil in Scotland, she had decided to entrust her fate to her cousin, Elizabeth I of England. Two days later Mary was escorted to Carlisle Castle – and so began almost 19 years as a prisoner, before her eventual execution in 1587.

Why did she seek refuge in England, and how did her two-month stay at Carlisle turn into a lifetime of captivity?

THE TROUBLE IN SCOTLAND
Born in 1542, Mary became Queen of Scotland when she was just six days old. During her childhood Scotland was ruled by regents. In 1558 she married Francis, the heir to the French crown, and in July 1559 he became king, uniting the thrones of France and Scotland. Eight months earlier, Mary’s cousin Elizabeth had become Queen of England.

But Francis died suddenly in 1560, and Mary, who had lived in France for most of her life, found herself no longer welcome there. She decided to return to Scotland to rule in person. What followed was an uneasy balancing act. As a Catholic queen, Mary struggled to govern a country that was officially Protestant and allied to its former enemy, England.

The balance tipped from 1565 after Mary married her cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who was a Catholic. Their son, James, was born the following year, but the marriage soon deteriorated. A series of disasters – the murder of David Rizzio, Mary’s secretary, by Darnley and others; the murder of Darnley himself; and Mary’s marriage to her adviser James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, three months later – led many Scottish nobles to rise against her.

Mary and Bothwell confronted their opponents on 15 June 1567. Mary surrendered and was imprisoned, on condition that Bothwell be allowed to go into exile. In July she was forced to abdicate in favour of her infant son. The following May she escaped from her prison, Lochleven Castle – only for her forces to be defeated soon afterwards at Langside, near Glasgow.

ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND
It was at this point that Mary decided to seek refuge in England. Her supporters begged her to stay in Scotland or head for Catholic France. But she was convinced that Elizabeth – her cousin, and like her an anointed monarch – would help her raise an army to return to Scotland in triumph. Before leaving Scotland she wrote to Elizabeth requesting a meeting and sending a diamond ring as a token of her friendship.

Without waiting for a reply, she and 16 supporters made the four-hour crossing of the Solway Firth (the strait that forms part of the border between England and Scotland). They arrived at the port of Workington in Cumberland (modern-day Cumbria) in the early evening.

The following morning Richard Lowther, the deputy governor of Cumberland, provided an escort to take Mary to nearby Carlisle Castle.

At this point, Mary’s status was uncertain. She had arrived of her own free will, and was neither a captive nor a hostage. From the moment of her arrival at Carlisle Castle Mary was put under armed guard. Yet on 20 May she wrote to a supporter that she had been ‘right well received and honourably accompanied and treated’.

MARY AT CARLISLE
Elizabeth sent Sir Francis Knollys, one of her trusted courtiers, to Carlisle to keep an eye on Mary. He was charmed by her in person:

She was a notable woman because she had no care for ceremonies beyond the acknowledgement of her royal estate; then she spoke freely to everyone, whatever their rank and showeth a disposition to speak much and to be bold and to be pleasant and to be very familiar.

However, he lived in constant fear that Mary would escape. He let her walk on the grass in front of the castle – thereafter known as ‘the lady’s walk’. Twice he allowed her to watch members of her entourage playing football against each other. But when she went out on horseback to hunt hare, ‘she galloping so fast upon every occasion’, he put his foot down and said that this could not happen again.

Having arrived with only a handful of attendants, Mary was allowed to send for many of her old staff, as well as her own clothing – she refused to wear anything else. Cartloads of clothes and personal effects soon arrived from Lochleven. Her numerous attendants included Mary Seton, a lady-in-waiting who had helped her escape from captivity in Scotland. The queen had cut off much of her hair after the Battle of Langside to escape recognition. But Mary Seton styled it so skilfully that ‘every other day-lighte … she hath a new devyce of head dressing’.

Mary borrowed money from city merchants to help her keep up a suitably royal appearance. However, the cost of maintaining her little court fell mainly on Queen Elizabeth. The English queen paid an average of £56 a week for commodities such as meat, fish, spices, biscuits, butter, peat for heating and wine.

QUEEN MARY’S TOWER
Mary was housed in what was then known as the Warden’s Tower, in the south-east corner of the inner ward. It later became known as Queen Mary’s Tower.

This two-storey building was added to the castle in 1308 to provide fine accommodation. It was said to have a window from which Mary could look towards Scotland. This is confirmed by a description of the 1830s of ‘a spacious room called the queen’s bedchamber lighted by two windows facing to the south and one to the north’ on the first floor. The tower was also described as being ‘in a richer style of architecture than the other parts of the castle’.

In 1835 the tower was demolished when it was on the verge of collapse. All that now survives is an octagonal turret housing a staircase that once gave access to this tower.

A DISASTROUS MISTAKE
Whatever Mary may have hoped, her decision to seek refuge in England was a disastrous mistake. It put Elizabeth in a difficult position. Privately she sympathised with Mary, as a fellow monarch who had been imprisoned and deposed. However, both she and her advisers – most forcefully her chief adviser, William Cecil – saw Mary as highly dangerous.

As a Catholic with a claim to the English throne, Mary’s presence on English soil provided both a potential rallying point for Catholic rebels at home and a possible cause for invasion by Catholic powers abroad. If she was restored to the Scottish throne, England would be surrounded by Catholic countries. It suited the English to keep the Earl of Moray, Mary’s half-brother and a Protestant, as regent in Scotland.

Looming over Mary was the suspicion that she had been involved in the murder of her second husband, Darnley. Cecil and Moray soon exploited this.

Although Mary hoped for a swift return to her throne, in late May Knollys told her that there was no prospect of this unless she was cleared of murdering Darnley. Mary protested her innocence and refused to stand trial, insisting that only God could judge a sovereign. Despite her impassioned letters to the queen requesting a face to face meeting, Elizabeth would not budge.

YEARS OF CAPTIVITY
Eventually, Mary reluctantly agreed to an inquiry into the charges against her. In late July 1568, before it began, she was moved south to Bolton Castle in Yorkshire. Four carriages, 20 packhorses and 23 riding horses were needed to convey her, her retinue and her belongings.

The inquiry began in October. Despite the Scots producing incriminating evidence against Mary (which was almost certainly falsified), in January 1569 Elizabeth declared that there was no proof either way. Yet although she was no longer accused of any crime, Mary remained in England. She was now without doubt a prisoner.

Bolton Castle was the first of many places where she would be held over the years that followed. From early 1569 the Earl of Shrewsbury, a leading nobleman, became her custodian, and Mary was shuttled between several of his castles and manors.

Although under house arrest she was treated as an exiled ruler and guest – she had her own household, could receive visitors, and was afforded luxuries and privileges. This put a huge strain on Shrewsbury’s finances, as well as his marriage. Mary initially spent many hours with Shrewsbury’s countess, Bess of Hardwick. Eventually, though, the two fell out, Bess suspecting Mary of having an affair with her husband.

Over her many years in captivity, Mary’s presence on English soil triggered various Catholic plots to murder Elizabeth and place Mary on the throne of England. Elizabeth hesitated to move against her while there was no proof of her involvement. However, in 1586 Mary was implicated in a plot to assassinate Elizabeth. She was found guilty of treason. Elizabeth, finally convinced that Mary would always remain a threat while she lived, signed her death warrant. Mary was beheaded on 8 February 1587.

17 th May 1943

Operation chastise :
World War II: Dambuster Raids commence by No. 617 Squadron RAF.


The Incredible Story Of The Dambusters Raid.

On the night of 16-17 May 1943, Wing Commander Guy Gibson led 617 Squadron of the Royal Air Force on an audacious bombing raid to destroy three dams in the Ruhr valley, the industrial heartland of Germany. The mission was codenamed Operation 'Chastise'.

The dams were fiercely protected. Torpedo nets in the water stopped underwater attacks and anti-aircraft guns defended them against enemy bombers.

But 617 Squadron had a secret weapon: the 'bouncing bomb'.


The targets

The Möhne dam in Germany's Ruhr valley secured the water supply for much of the surrounding area. Water from its reservoir was also used to generate electricity. It was thought that destruction of this dam and others in the region would cause massive disruption to German war production. Plans for an attack on the dams had first been considered in 1937, but it took until 1942 to develop a weapon capable of destroying the dams - and the aircraft to deliver it.

A breakthrough in the back garden

In 1942 British engineer Barnes Wallis began working on plans for a bomb that could skip across water. He developed the idea by experimenting with bouncing marbles across a water tub in his back garden. Wallis thought the new weapon could be used to attack moored battleships, but research soon focused on using it against the dams that were vital to German industry.

Perfecting the technique.

The Admiralty and the RAF carried out extensive tests at sites around the country. These revealed that the drum-shaped bomb (codenamed 'Upkeep') needed to be dropped from a height of 60 feet (18m), and at a ground speed of 232mph. The bomb would spin backwards across the surface of the water before reaching the dam. Its residual spin would then drive the bomb down the wall of the dam before exploding at its base. All that was needed now was men to fly specially modified Lancaster bombers which would carry the 'Upkeep'.


The squadron comes together

In late March 1943, a new squadron was formed to carry out the raid on the dams. Initially codenamed Squadron X, 617 Squadron was led by 24-year old Wing Commander Guy Gibson and was made up of aircrew from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. With one month to go before the raid, and with only Gibson knowing the full details of the operation, the squadron began intensive training in low-level night flying and navigation. They were ready for Operation 'Chastise'.

The plan

The three main targets were the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams.The Möhne dam was a curved 'gravity' dam and was 40m high and 650m long. There were tree-covered hills around the reservoir, but any attacking aircraft would be exposed on the immediate approach. The Eder dam was of similar construction but was an even more challenging target. Its winding reservoir was bordered by steep hills. The only way to approach would be from the north. The Sorpe was a different type of dam and had a watertight concrete core 10m wide. At each end of its reservoir the land rose steeply, and there was also a church spire in the path of the attacking aircraft.


The night of the raid

From 9.28pm on 16 May, 133 aircrew in 19 Lancasters took off in three waves to bomb the dams. Gibson was flying in the first wave and his aircraft was first to attack the Möhne at 12.28am, but five aircraft had to drop their bombs before it was breached. The remaining aircraft still to drop their bombs then attacked the Eder, which finally collapsed at 1.52am. Meanwhile, aircraft from the two other waves bombed the Sorpe but it remained intact.

The result

53 men were killed and three became prisoners of war. On the ground, almost 1,300 people were killed in the resulting flooding. Although the impact on industrial production was limited, the raid gave a significant morale boost to the people of Britain.

Celebrity status

The surviving aircrew of 617 Squadron were lauded as heroes, and Guy Gibson was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions during the raid. The raid also established 617 Squadron as a specialist precision bombing unit, experimenting with new bomb sights, target marking techniques and colossal new 'earthquake' bombs developed by Barnes Wallis.

18 th May 1812

John Bellingham :
John Bellingham is found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging for the assassination of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.



18 May 1812 – John Bellingham.
A spell in a Russian prison left this prolific killer an embittered man. John Bellingham was so set on revenge after he’d been left to fester in a foreign jail that he took it out on a key head of state. Who did he target?

He only had eyes for the Prime Minister who had so singularly let him down. And that’s how the only successful assassination of a British PM came about.

Bellingham’s life started off well enough. He was a successful businessman, although some sources put his living down to more modest means. He was involved with imports and exports, which sent him over to Russia on occasion. On one such trip, a ship carrying some of his cargo sank in the White Sea.

Underwriter, Lloyds of London smelled a rat and refused to cough up, so the hauliers panicked not wanting to foot the bill for all the items lost at sea. Instead they litigiously turned to the cargo owners – of whom Bellingham was one. As a result Bellingham found himself banged up in a foreign prison…for…well no-one was 100% sure, not least our man Bellingham.

Brit abroad
So he did what any Brit abroad would do – he appealed to the British Embassy. But his plea fell on deaf ears – Lord Gower failed to lift a finger to help his fellow comrade and Bellingham was therefore left to the mercy of bread and water for two long years, with only rats for company.

In the meantime, his business fell apart and he was reduced to bankruptcy. When he was released from prison he had creditors knocking down the door.

Embattled, it seemed only fair and proper that he be compensated for his catastrophic slump from grace. And, to this end he sat in on parliament sessions from the viewing gallery and wrote to the PM – Spencer Percival, who replied flatly refusing as there appeared to be no basis for recompense.

Lobbied
Well Bellingham just lost it. Completely incensed, he accosted the PM in the Houses of Parliament lobby, drew out his firearm and shot him point blank.

A bloodied Percival, stating the bleeding obvious, of course, shouted ‘I am murdered, I am murdered’ and sure enough, for once, a politician gave a fair and honest appraisal of the situation.

Percival went on to die of his wounds, but get this…when Bellingham was led away, crowds had got wind of the situation and had rallied – they even tried to help him escape. For it turns out that Bellingham had done them all a favour. But their attempts failed and he was taken to Newgate while the coroner adjourned in the pub to work out what to do. A trial at the Old Bailey was the outcome of that particular session and a jury took just 10 minutes to send the beleaguered Bellingham down.

The sentence was death followed by dissection. In the run-up to his hanging while on the scaffold, he asked not to be blindfolded, but the condemned man was denied his dying wish. So he was strung up by Debtors’ Door, aged 35.

18 th May 2018


Harry and Megan wedding :
The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is held at St George's Chapel, Windsor, with an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion.

The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was held on Saturday 19 May 2018 in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle in the United Kingdom. The groom is a member of the British royal family; the bride is American and previously worked as an actress, blogger, charity ambassador, and advocate. On the morning of the wedding, Prince Harry's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, conferred upon him the titles of Duke of Sussex, Earl of Dumbarton and Baron Kilkeel. On her marriage, Markle gained the style Her Royal Highness and titles Duchess of Sussex, Countess of Dumbarton and Baroness Kilkeel. Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated at the wedding using the standard Anglican church service for Holy Matrimony published in Common Worship, a liturgical text of the Church of England. The traditional ceremony was noted for the inclusion of African-American culture.

Wedding
Planning
Preparation for the wedding
Unlike the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, the wedding day of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was not declared a bank holiday. The wedding was on the same date as the FA Cup Final, which Prince Harry's brother William normally attends in his role as President of the Football Association Holding the royal wedding on a weekend is a break with the royal tradition of having weddings on a weekday. On 12 February 2018, Kensington Palace announced that the ceremony would commence at 12:00 Midday BST.

Venue

St George's Chapel, Windsor

Combined coat of arms of Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
The wedding took place on Saturday, 19 May 2018, at St George's Chapel, Windsor. The chapel had previously been the venue for the weddings of Prince Harry's uncle, the Earl of Wessex, as well as that of his cousin, Peter Phillips, and for the blessing of the marriage of the then Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, Harry's stepmother.

Cost
The royal family announced that they would pay for the wedding. The costs for the cake, the florist, and the catering had been estimated to be £50,000, £110,000, and £286,000 respectively, and the overall cost was expected to be around £32 million. The security costs were expected to be lower than those of the 2011 wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. By the end of May, it was estimated that the security costs were "between £2 million and £4 million". The police and crime commissioner could also apply for special funding if the costs were to exceed 1% of the Thames Valley Police force's annual budget, but at the time the cost was "well below the £4 million required to make a claim". The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead reportedly spent £2.6 million on cleaning the town and roads. It was predicted that the wedding would trigger a tourism boom and boost the economy by up to £500 million. It was later estimated that the wedding generated £1 billion for the British economy, including an additional £300 million brought in by foreign tourists for travel and accommodation and £50 million spent on merchandise and souvenirs.