Today in history

23 rd December 1972

Andes flight disaster:
The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, surviving by cannibalism.

1972 Andes Plane Crash: What Happened & How Many Survivors?

On October 13, 1972, the Andes mountains witnessed the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. Forty five passengers and crew, including 19 members of the Old Christians Club rugby union team, along with their families, supporters, and friends, were aboard the flight. Three crew members and nine passengers died in the Andes plane crash.

Several others soon passed away afterward due to the frigid temperatures and the seriousness of their injuries. The survivors kept on waiting for help, and throughout the subsequent 72 days, they endured extreme hardships. Reports indicate that people faced starvation, harsh weather conditions, and other problems while trying to survive. However, 13 more people died while waiting to be rescued.

Meanwhile, authorities initiated an investigation into the case and determined that an error by the pilot, which was classified as “controlled flight into terrain,” caused the crash. Almost two and a half months after the incident, rescuers saved the last of the 16 survivors. As soon as they came back, media didn’t leave any stone unturned to have them on their shows.

Andes Plane Crash: Did the survivors resort to cannibalism to stay alive?

The flight initially took off on October 12, 1972. However, bad weather forced the pilots to stop overnight in Mendoza, Argentina. The following day, the pilots took off in the afternoon and took a U-shaped route to fly lower through a mountain pass. The pilots commenced their descent after receiving clearance from air traffic control. However, unaware that it was too soon to land, they proceeded straight into the heart of the Andes. The Andes plane crash immediately killed some people, while others tried to survive harsh weather. Shockingly, they had to turn to cannibalism to stay alive.

According to statements, the survivors constructed a device using metal from the wreckage. This device was used to melt snow into water using sunlight. They maintained hope and waited for rescue. However, on the tenth day after the crash, they learned through the plane’s transistor radio that authorities had called off the search. Driven by desperation, the survivors decided to harvest the bodies of the deceased passengers for food. As such, they consumed the bodies of the deceased passengers and explored ways to return to the normal world.

On December 23, 1972, rescuers finally saved all 16 survivors after more than two months since the crash.

The entire case received much attention worldwide. Showtime series Yellowjackets is based on the Andes plane crash and highlighted how the survivors resorted to cannibalism. Meanwhile, Netflix’s upcoming film Society of the Snow also follows the story of the crash and the survivors.~

24 th December 1914

The Christmas truce:
World War I: The "Christmas truce" begins.

Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce of 1914


On a crisp, clear morning 109 years ago, thousands of British, Belgian and French soldiers put down their rifles, stepped out of their trenches and spent Christmas mingling with their German enemies along the Western front. In the hundred years since, the event has been seen as a kind of miracle, a rare moment of peace just a few months into a war that would eventually claim over 15 million lives. But what actually happened on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day of 1914 — and did they really play soccer on the battlefield?

Pope Benedict XV, who took office that September, had originally called for a Christmas truce, an idea that was officially rejected. Yet it seems the sheer misery of daily life in the cold, wet, dull trenches was enough to motivate troops to initiate the truce on their own — which means that it’s hard to pin down exactly what happened. A huge range of differing oral accounts, diary entries and letters home from those who took part make it virtually impossible to speak of a “typical” Christmas truce as it took place across the Western front. To this day historians continue to disagree over the specifics: no one knows where it began or how it spread, or if, by some curious festive magic, it broke out simultaneously across the trenches. Nevertheless, some two-thirds of troops — about 100,000 people — are believed to have participated in the legendary truce.

Most accounts suggest the truce began with carol singing from the trenches on Christmas Eve, “a beautiful moonlit night, frost on the ground, white almost everywhere”, as Pvt. Albert Moren of the Second Queens Regiment recalled, in a document later rounded up by the New York Times. Graham Williams of the Fifth London Rifle Brigade described it in even greater detail:

“First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words Adeste Fideles. And I thought, well, this is really a most extraordinary thing ­– two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war"

The next morning, in some places, German soldiers emerged from their trenches, calling out “Merry Christmas” in English. Allied soldiers came out warily to greet them. In others, Germans held up signs reading “You no shoot, we no shoot.” Over the course of the day, troops exchanged gifts of cigarettes, food, buttons and hats. The Christmas truce also allowed both sides to finally bury their dead comrades, whose bodies had lain for weeks on “no man’s land,” the ground between opposing trenches.

The phenomenon took different forms across the Western front. One account mentions a British soldier having his hair cut by his pre-war German barber; another talks of a pig-roast. Several mention impromptu kick-abouts with makeshift soccer balls, although, contrary to popular legend, it seems unlikely that there were any organized matches.

The truce was widespread but not universal. Evidence suggests that in many places firing continued — and in at least two a truce was attempted but soldiers attempting to fraternize were shot by opposing forces.

And of course, it was only ever a truce, not peace. Hostilities returned, in some places later that day and in others not until after New Year’s Day. “I remember the silence, the eerie sound of silence,” one veteran from the Fifth Batallion the Black Watch, Alfred Anderson, later recalled to The Observer. “It was a short peace in a terrible war.” As the Great War resumed, it wreaked such destruction and devastation that soldiers became hardened to the brutality of the war. While there were occasional moments of peace throughout the rest of World War I, they never again came on the scale of the Christmas truce in 1914.

Yet for many at the time, the story of the Christmas truce was not an example of chivalry in the depths of war, but rather a tale of subversion: when the men on the ground decided they were not fighting the same war as their superiors. With no man’s land sometimes spanning just 100 feet, enemy troops were so close that they could hear each other and even smell their cooking. The commander of the British Second Corps, General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, believed this proximity posed “the greatest danger” to the morale of soldiers and told Divisional Commanders to explicitly prohibit any “friendly intercourse with the enemy.” In a memo issued on Dec. 5, he warned that: “troops in trenches in close proximity to the enemy slide very easily, if permitted to do so, into a ‘live and let live’ theory of life.”


Indeed, one British soldier, Murdoch M. Wood, speaking in 1930, said: “I then came to the conclusion that I have held very firmly ever since, that if we had been left to ourselves there would never have been another shot fired.” Adolf Hitler, then a Corporal of the 16th Bavarians, saw it differently: “Such a thing should not happen in wartime,” he is said to have remarked. “Have you no German sense of honor?”

Still, a century later, the truce has been remembered as a testament to the power of hope and humanity in a truly dark hour of history.It has been immortalized and fictionalized in children’s novels like Michael Foreman’s War Game, in films such as Joyeux Noel and Oh, What a Lovely War! and even in a controversial Christmas ad this year from Sainsbury’s, a British supermarket chain. To mark the centenary this year, Prince William unveiled a memorial on Dec. 12: a metal frame representing a soccer ball, with two hands clasped inside it, and a week later, inspired by the events of the truce, the British and German army soccer teams played a friendly match. And though the Christmas Truce may have been a one-off in the conflict, the fact that it remains so widely commemorated speaks to the fact that at its heart it symbolizes a very human desire for peace, no matter how fleeting.

A very merry Christmas to all our readers

                             

25 th December 1950

The Stone of Scone:
The Stone of Scone, traditional coronation stone of British monarchs, is taken from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist students. It later turns up in Scotland on April 11, 1951.

Background

The Stone of Scone in King Edward's Chair
The Stone of Scone, the ancient specific stone upon which Scottish monarchs had been crowned, was taken from Scone near Perth, Scotland, by troops of King Edward I of England (Longshanks) in 1296 during the Scottish Wars of Independence as a spoil of war, kept in Westminster Abbey in London and fitted into King Edward's Chair. Subsequent English and then British monarchs were crowned sitting upon the chair and Stone. At the time, the Stone was viewed as a symbol of Scottish nationhood; by removing the Stone to London, Edward I was declaring himself 'King of the Scots'.

In 1950, Ian Hamilton, a student at the University of Glasgow, approached Gavin Vernon with a plan to steal the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey in London and return it to Scotland. The heist was funded by a Glasgow businessman, Robert Gray, who was a councillor on the Glasgow Corporation. Vernon agreed to participate in the plan along with Kay Matheson and Alan Stuart who were also students in Glasgow. By removing the Stone the group hoped to promote their cause for Scottish devolution and to reawaken a sense of national identity amongst the Scottish people.

Removal of the Stone
In December 1950, a few days before Christmas, the four students from Glasgow drove to London in two Ford Anglias, a journey which took them eighteen hours. On arrival in London they had a brief meeting at a Lyons Corner House and decided to make an immediate attempt at removing the Stone from the Abbey. Later that day, Ian Hamilton hid under a trolley in the Abbey, but was caught by a nightwatchman after the Abbey doors had been closed, briefly questioned, and then let go.

The following day (Christmas Eve), Vernon and Stuart returned to Westminster Abbey and learned some information on the watchmen's shifts. In the middle of that night, the three men entered a works yard and gained entrance into Poet's Corner. Reaching the Chapel containing the tomb of Edward I and King Edward's Chair, they pulled down the barrier. On removing the Stone from under the Chair, it crashed to the floor and broke into two pieces. The three men, using Hamilton's coat, dragged the larger piece down the high altar steps, then Hamilton took the smaller piece to one of the cars waiting outside.

Ian Hamilton placed the small piece of Stone in the boot of the car and got into the passenger seat. As he did this, Kay Matheson noticed a policeman in the gaslight; Hamilton and Matheson immediately fell into a lovers' clinch. The policeman stopped and the three proceeded to have a conversation even though it was 5 a.m] Having shared some jokes and a cigarette, Matheson and Hamilton drove off to Victoria, Hamilton getting out on the way to walk back to the Abbey. On his arrival, there was no sign of Vernon and Stuart, so he proceeded to drag the large piece of stone to the car himself. As he was driving away, he saw Vernon and Stuart walking towards him.

The stone was so heavy that the springs on the car were sagging, so Vernon, fearing the alarm had been raised, made his way to Rugby, Warwickshire. Hamilton and Stuart drove to Kent, hid the large piece of stone in a field and made their way back to Scotland. Matheson left her car, containing the small piece of the Stone, with a friend in the Midlands, and like Vernon made her way back to Scotland by train. On discovering that the Stone was missing, the authorities closed the border between Scotland and England for the first time in four hundred years.

A fortnight later, Hamilton and some friends recovered the two pieces and brought them to Glasgow. They hired a stonemason, Baillie Robert Gray, to mend the Stone. Gray placed a brass rod, containing a piece of paper, inside the Stone. What was written on the paper remains unknown.

In April 1951, the police received a message and the Stone was found on the site of the High Altar at Arbroath Abbey where, in 1320, the assertion of Scottish nationhood was made in the Declaration of Arbroath. The Stone was returned to Westminster Abbey in February 19

The police conducted an investigation with a focus on Scotland. All four of the group were interviewed and all but Ian Hamilton later confessed to their involvement. The authorities decided not to prosecute as the potential for the event to become politicised was far too great. Sir Hartley Shawcross, addressing Parliament on the matter, said: "The clandestine removal of the Stone from Westminster Abbey, and the manifest disregard for the sanctity of the abbey, were vulgar acts of vandalism which have caused great distress and offence both in England and Scotland. I do not think, however, that the public interest required criminal proceedings to be taken.

26 th December 1980

  Rendlelsham forest incident:
                                         1980 – Witnesses report the first of several sightings of unexplained lights near RAF Woodbridge, in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England, United Kingdom, an incident called "Britain's Roswell".

             Rendlesham Forest UFO: Are we any closer to the truth 43 years on?  

                  Forty three years ago, a remote forest in Suffolk was the scene of one of the most famous purported UFO sightings in history. So just what did happen, and will we ever know for sure?

Vince Thurkettle was out chopping wood one morning in Rendlesham Forest in late December 1980 when a car drew up.

Out stepped two men, aged about 30, dressed in suits.

"Good morning. Do you mind if we ask you some questions?" asked one, in a well-spoken English accent.

Earlier, on 26 and 28 December, United States Air Force (USAF) security personnel stationed at nearby RAF Woodbridge had reported seeing strange lights in the surrounding forest.

          Forestry worker Mr Thurkettle's unannounced - and unidentified - visitors asked if he had been out the previous night. "I said: 'No,'" he recalls.

"They said 'Did you leave the house at all? Did you see anything?' I said: 'What?'

"They said: 'Oh, there's a report of some red lights in the forest... We're just checking.' And the two of them, very politely but firmly, asked me probably about 20 questions. I thought they were journalists.

"They suddenly said: 'Oh well, fair enough. There's probably nothing in it.' And left.

"So, I bought the papers every day for the next few days to find out what was going on and, of course, there was nothing."

       Three years later, however, the sighting made a News of the World front page story. It proclaimed: "UFO LANDS IN SUFFOLK, And that's OFFICIAL"

The story was based on a memo from RAF Woodbridge deputy base commander Lt Col Charles Halt to the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

It was released by the US government and described an encounter with an apparent UFO in the forest.

       Since then, the sighting has been the source of much debate and speculation among UFO enthusiasts and the subject of numerous books, articles and TV programmes.

In March, a documentary concluded the sighting had achieved "legend" status, like Loch Ness or King Arthur.

The forest even has its own official UFO trail, complete with a life-size replica of a flying saucer.

Mr Thurkettle says the UK authorities have said they did not learn about the incident until Halt's memo.

But the memo was not written until two weeks after he received his visit, he says.

"So someone must have told them before," he says.

Only after the visit did Mr Thurkettle began to hear rumours of a UFO sighting in the forest.

           He begged his boss to show him the scene, but when he got there, "my heart absolutely plummeted", he says.

"It was nothing. It was an absolutely normal glade in the forest with three rabbit scrapes, and they're all carefully marked, that happened to be roughly in a triangle," he says.

"I mean, there was a ring of sticks around it, marking it. And I think, fair-do's to the Americans.

"If they'd been out at night and saw a light and came back in the daytime looking for something, I could totally understand why they... said: 'This must be it.'"

As a "countryman born and bred", however, he saw nothing unusual.

"It was a completely natural glade. And they've said things like: 'But there were broken branches.' Well, the forest is full of broken branches.

"They saw burn marks on the trees. They said: 'Obviously there was heat radiating out from the spacecraft and it burnt these trees.' But it wasn't. It was one of the rangers, Bill Briggs, with an axe."

Mr Thurkettle, now 64, was one of the first people to suggest an alternative theory to explain the sighting.

   It took place, he says, in the only part of the forest where it was possible to see the since-dismantled Orfordness Lighthouse.

"It's weird because you've got a slightly sloping patch of Rendlesham Forest. Then, probably a couple of miles, then Gedgrave Hill. And there was a gap in the trees on Gedgrave Hill, then eight miles or whatever to Orfordness Lighthouse.

"UFO believers have talked to lighthouse keepers who said: 'It never beamed towards the land'. And I think: 'Rubbish'.

"I've stood in the beam of the lighthouse. I've looked at it and the forest."

          But who were Mr Thurkettle's mysterious visitors? He isn't sure, but he gets annoyed when people assume he is claiming to have been visited by the fabled "Men in Black", who, it is said, interrogate and harass UFO eyewitnesses.

"I say: 'Oh, that isn't what I'm saying. I'm telling you that the chronology which is part of this story - it's wrong.'"

                  Journalist and academic Dr David Clarke, whose requests led to the MoD's file on the Rendlesham incident being released, says the most "logical explanation" was that Mr Thurkettle's visitors were local newspaper reporters, who had possibly learned of the incident from local police.

He says the original sighting by USAF security guards has not been fully explained.

"There is still an element of mystery. What happened to those three guys on the first night I still find baffling. Maybe they did see something that was inexplicable," he says.

One of those guards was John Burroughs. He went to investigate the sighting, and says he first saw a beacon in the distance in the forest with green, red, orange and white lights.

               As he and his colleagues approached, Mr Burroughs says they saw a white light silently explode and then a red, oval, sun-like object in the clearing. It lifted up through the trees and shot back towards the coast.

Mr Burroughs, who served in the US armed forces for 27 years, says: "It's been a crazy 40 years [since the encounter]. Just when you think the story is over, another thing happens."

This month he has published a new book - Weaponization of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon - in which he outlines research that, he says, shows the incident was caused by experiments in harnessing an energy field in the forest.

"They were studying the energy field for different applications to include military use," he says.

Mr Burroughs claims the lighthouse was "emitting EM (electromagnetic) frequencies towards Rendlesham Forest".

He stresses: "I never went on the record to say it was [a spaceship] because I didn't know."

What he saw was some sort of energy or "plasma which could be a form of intelligence", he says.

               Dr Clarke, writing in a blog, has interviewed Ministry of Defence (MoD) official Simon Weeden, who told him the Rendlesham claims were found to be of "no defence significance".

Mr Weeden, who left the MoD in 1988, was the first to investigate Lt Col Halt's memo.

"Nearly always the reports we got were from ordinary members of the public," he tells Dr Clarke. "This one was very unusual in that it came from a military source."

He circulated the memo but none of the radar stations checked reported anything unusual on their logs over the Christmas holidays.

"Once we had been through all the basic checks and found there was nothing seen on radar - no obvious explanation, no obvious threat to air defence - we decided no further action was needed," says Mr Weeden.

              Writer Brenda Butler, of Leiston, Suffolk, has been amused by some of the UFO tourism that has grown up around the forest.

"You realise we've got eight landing sites down here," she says.

"Everybody has got their own take on it. If you go down there with any of the witnesses, they'll take you to somewhere else."

Ms Butler, who co-wrote the 1986 book on the case, Sky Crash, believes the US may have recovered a Russian satellite.

"It has got to be something to do with the Americans or the Russians or the Cold War," she says.

"There are loads of files still to be released, but there has been such a big cover-up, nobody will ever know what happened.

"I'd like to get to the bottom of it all but I guess we never will."

27 th December 1966

The cave of swallows:
The Cave of Swallows, the largest known cave shaft in the world, is discovered in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

December 27, 1966: World’s Largest Cave Discovered in Mexico

A Brief History
On December 27, 1966, the largest cave in the world was discovered in Aquismón, San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Boasting a single cavern that covers a ground space of 994 feet long by 442 feet wide, the so called Cave of Swallows (alternately called “The Cave of the Swallows”) had been known for many generations by indigenous Huastec people, and was considered “discovered” only when a documented descent into the cave was made by T. R. Evans, Charles Borland and Randy Sterns, the first outsiders known to have visited the cave.

Digging Deeper
Known as a “pit” type cave, the Mexicans call it “The Basement of Swallows” due to its physical nature and the large quantity of swallows that live there. A mouth, or hole in the ground, opens up to a “drop” that spans about 160 feet by 203 feet, with a widening shaft that has a vertical, uninterrupted fall of almost 1100 feet from the opening on top to the floor! (From the highest edge to the lowest edge is 1900 feet.) The cave shaft is the largest documented cave shaft in the world, though the vertical shaft is only the 11th deepest. The cave has become a favorite tourist destination, as people just do not seem to tire of any place or thing boasting to be the largest, longest, heaviest, widest or other superlative.


Other than just gawking at the natural splendor of the cavern, thrill seekers use the cave for a variety of sporting pursuits, among them free-fall parachute jumping, rappelling, vertical caving (climbing down and back up), and if you can believe it, even hot air ballooning! (A normal sized hot air balloon can actually descend straight down and then ascend back out of the mouth of the cave.) Those that choose to engage in rappelling are cautioned to bring spray bottles filled with water to spray the rappelling gear as the immense vertical distance has a tendency to overheat the ropes and equipment. A parachute jump (base jump) allows for only a few seconds of free fall and then a ten second descent, while the climb back to the top takes up to 2 hours, so plan ahead.

One thing that is rarely found in the Cave of Swallows, oddly enough, are swallows! Only a few of those particular type of birds frequent the cave, although large numbers of other bird species are present and provide another form of recreation for those people interested in bird watching. When large flocks of birds exit the cave at dusk in the early evening, they form up in large concentric rings above the cave mouth, presenting a spectacular sight. When the birds return in the morning, they perform a totally different aerobatic feat, by entering the mouth of the cave and then merely folding their wings and free falling to the floor or to the height of their nests.

The outside of the cave mouth is an a lushly vegetated area, and the inside floor is thick with guano (bird poop) built up over centuries. We recommend wearing shoes if you visit there!



The mouth of the cave.




Inside the cave with cloud formation.

28 th December 1879

The Tay bridge disaster:
1879 – Tay Bridge disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom collapses as a train passes over it, killing 75.

The Tay Bridge Disaster

At approximately 7:15 p.m. on the stormy night of 28 December 1879, the central navigation spans of the Tay bridge collapsed into the Firth of Tay at Dundee, taking with them a train, 6 carriages and 75 souls to their fate.
At the time, a gale estimated at Beaufort force 10/11 was blowing down the Tay estuary at right angles to the bridge. The collapse of the bridge, only opened 19 months and passed safe by the Board of Trade, sent shock waves through the Victorian engineering profession and general public.

The disaster is one of the most famous bridge failures and to date it is still one of the worst structural engineering failures in the British Isles. Detailed accounts of the disaster are given by Prebble and Thomas. A fully revised new edition of David Swinfen's book on the disaster was published in 2016. The book, utilising recent research, addresses the questions: What caused the disaster and who was to blame. In addition, it examines the question of how many lives were lost.



The first Tay rail bridge was completed in February 1878 to the design of Thomas Bouch. Bouch was responsible for the design, construction and maintenance of the bridge. Most of his bridges were lattice girders supported on slender cast iron columns braced with wrought iron struts and ties, such as the Belah Viaduct . The building of the Tay bridge culminated in him being knighted.

The Tay bridge was nearly two miles long, consisting of 85 spans and at the time was the longest bridge in the world. The spans carried a single rail track; 72 of these were supported on spanning girders below the level of the track; the remaining 13 navigation spans were spanning girders above the level of the track (i.e. the train runs through a tunnel of girders).

These "high girders", as they were known, were 27 ft high with an 88 ft clearance above the high water mark. It was these spans which fell. Most of the girders below track level, all of which remained standing, were transferred to the present Tay rail bridge. At the time of the collapse Bouch was working on the design of the proposed Forth Bridge. In consequence, the design of the bridge was transferred to Benjamin Baker and Sir John Fowler.

A Court of Inquiry was set up to try and ascertain the reason for the collapse of the bridge. The Court of Inquiry report concluded that, "The fall of the bridge was occasioned by the insufficiency of the cross bracing and its fastenings to sustain the force of the gale." The Court of Inquiry indicated that if the piers, and in particular the wind bracing, had been properly constructed and maintained, the bridge could have withstood the storm that night, albeit with a low factor of safety - 4 to 5 was the norm at the time.

Sir Thomas Bouch was held chiefly to blame for the collapse in not making adequate allowance for wind loading. He used a wind pressure of 10 lbsf/sq ft for the design of the Tay bridge. It is interesting to note that when working on the design of a proposed Forth bridge (1866) he used 30lbsf/sq ft. To this day, however, there is still speculation as to the fundamental cause and as to whether or not the designer, Thomas Bouch, was to blame. A very readable account of the transcripts of the public enquiry is by Gren

Apart from the results of the original Court of Inquiry, various theories have been put proposed to explain the collapse. The picture shows the present Tay Rail bridge alongside the pier remains of Bouch's bridge. It is a very emotive site and provides a grim reminder of the disaster. The wrought iron girders which remained standing after the disaster were transferred onto the present bridge where they are still in use today.

29 th December 1170


Murder of Thomas Becket:
1170 – Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church.

A sword's crushing blow extinguished the life of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, on a cold December evening as he struggled on the steps of his altar. The brutal event sent a tremor through Medieval Europe. Public opinion of the time and subsequent history have laid the blame for the murder at the feet of Becket's former close personal friend, King Henry II.

Becket was born in 1118, in Normandy the son of an English merchant. His family was well off, his father a former Sheriff of London. Becket benefited from his family's status first by being sent to Paris for his education and from there to England where he joined the household of Theobold, the then Archbishop of Canterbury. Becket's administrative skills, his charm, intelligence and diplomacy propelled him forward. The archbishop sent him to Paris to study law and upon his return to England made him Archdeacon of Canterbury.


A Medieval Mass
Becket's big break came in 1154, when Theobold introduced him to the newly crowned King, Henry II. The two hit it off immediately, their similar personal chemistries forming a strong bond between them. Henry named Becket his Chancellor. Archbishop Theobold died in 1161, and Henry immediately saw the opportunity to increase his influence over the Church by naming his loyal advisor to the highest ecclesiastical post in the land. Henry petitioned the Pope who agreed. There was only one slight hindrance. Becket, busy at court, had never been ordained. No problem, Becket was first invested as a priest. The next day he was ordained a Bishop, and that afternoon, June 2, 1162, made Archbishop of Canterbury.

If King Henry believed that by having "his man" in the top post of the Church, he could easily impose his will upon this powerful religious institution, he was sadly mistaken. Becket's allegiance shifted from the court to the Church inspiring him to take a stand against his king. In those days, the Church reserved the right to try felonious clerics in their own religious courts of justice and not those of the crown. Henry was determined to increase control of his realm by eliminating this custom. In 1163, a Canon accused of murder was acquitted by a church court. The public outcry demanded justice and the Canon was brought before a court of the king. Becket's protest halted this attempt but the action spurred King Henry to change the laws to extend his courts' jurisdiction over the clergy. Becket vacillated in his support of the king, finally refusing to agree to changes in the law. His stand prompted a royal summons to Henry's court at Northampton and the king's demand to know what Becket had done with the large sums of money that had passed through his hands as Chancellor.

"Who will rid
me of this
meddlesome
priest?"
Seeing the writing on the wall, Becket fled to France where he remained in exile for six years. The two former friends appeared to resolve their dispute in 1170 when King Henry and Becket met in Normandy. On November 30, Becket crossed the Channel returning to his post at Canterbury. Earlier, while in France, Becket had excomunicated the Bishops of London and Salisbury for their support of the king. Now, Becket remained steadfast in his refusal to absolve the bishops. This news threw King Henry (still in France) into a rage in which he was purported to shout: "What sluggards, what cowards have I brought up in my court, who care nothing for their allegiance to their lord. Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest."

The king's exact words have been lost to history but his outrage inspired four knights to sail to England to rid the realm of this annoying prelate. They arrived at Canterbury during the afternoon of December 29 and immediately searched for the Archbishop. Becket fled to the Cathedral where a service was in progress. The knights found him at the altar, drew their swords and began hacking at their victim finally splitting his skull.

The death of Becket unnerved the king. The knights who did the deed to curry the king's favor, fell into disgrace. Several miracles were said to occur at the tomb of the martyr and he was soon canonized. Hordes of pilgrims transformed Canterbury Cathedral into a shrine. Four years later, in an act of penance, the king donned a sack-cloth walking barefoot through the streets of Canterbury while eighty monks flogged him with branches. Henry capped his atonement by spending the night in the martyr's crypt. St. Thomas continued as a popular cultist figure for the remainder of the Middle Ages.

Observations of a Monk

Edward Grim, a monk, observed the attack from the safety of a hiding place near the altar. He wrote his account some time after the event. Acceptance of his description must be qualified by the influence that Becket's sainthood had on Grim's perspective. However, the fundamentals of his narrative are no doubt true. We pick up the story after the knights have stormed into the cathedral.

"The murderers followed him; 'Absolve', they cried, 'and restore to communion those whom you have excommunicated, and restore their powers to those whom you have suspended.'

"He answered, 'There has been no satisfaction, and I will not absolve them.'

'Then you shall die,' they cried, 'and receive what you deserve.'

'I am ready,' he replied, 'to die for my Lord, that in my blood the Church may obtain liberty and peace. But in the name of Almighty God, I forbid you to hurt my people whether clerk or lay.'

"Then they lay sacrilegious hands on him, pulling and dragging him that they may kill him outside the church, or carry him away a prisoner, as they afterwards confessed. But when he could not be forced away from the pillar, one of them pressed on him and clung to him more closely. Him he pushed off calling him 'pander', and saying, 'Touch me not, Reginald; you owe me fealty and subjection; you and your accomplices act like madmen.'

"The knight, fired with a terrible rage at this severe repulse, waved his sword over the sacred head. 'No faith', he cried, 'nor subjection do I owe you against my fealty to my lord the King.'


The murder of
Thomas Beckett
from a contemporary
manuscript
"Then the unconquered martyr seeing the hour at hand which should put an end to this miserable life and give him straightway the crown of immortality promised by the Lord, inclined his neck as one who prays and joining his hands he lifted them up, and commended his cause and that of the Church to God, to St. Mary, and to the blessed martry Denys. Scarce had he said the words than the wicked knight, fearing lest he should be rescued by the people and escape alive, leapt upon him suddenly and wounded this lamb who was sacrificed to God on the head, cutting off the top of the crown which the sacred unction of the chrism had dedicated to God; and by the same blow he wounded the arm of him who tells this. For he, when the others, both monks and clerks, fled, stuck close to the sainted Archbishop and held him in his arms till the one he interposed was almost severed.

"Then he received a second blow on the head but still stood firm. At the third blow he fell on his knees and elbows, offering himself a living victim, and saying in a low voice, 'For the Name of Jesus and the protection of the Church I am ready to embrace death.'

"Then the third knight inflicted a terrible wound as he lay, by which the sword was broken against the pavement, and the crown which was large was separated from the head. The fourth knight prevented any from interfering so that the others might freely perpetrate the murder.

"Let us away
knights:
He will rise
no more."
"As to the fifth, no knight but that clerk who had entered with the knights, that a fifth blow might not be wanting to the martyr who was in other things like to Christ, he put his foot on the neck of the holy priest and precious martyr, and, horrible to say, scattered his brain and blood over the pavement, calling out to the others, 'Let us away, knights; he will rise no more.

30 th December 1460

The battle of Wakfield:
Wars of the Roses: Lancastrians kill the 3rd Duke of York and win the Battle of Wakefield.

The Battle of Wakefield: 1460

It was the culmination of ten years of increasingly violent unrest between supporters of King Henry VI and his cousin Richard, Duke of York. Helen Cox takes us on a battlefield tour of Wakefield.


In October 1460, the exasperated Duke finally pressed his own claim to the throne and was recognised as heir-apparent – whereupon Henry’s resolute Queen, Margaret of Anjou, immediately called on Lancastrian loyalists to restore the succession to their son Edward, Prince of Wales. Her supporters duly harassed the Duke’s northern estates to draw him away from his power-base in London, and around 21 December, an opening skirmish was fought at Worksop between outriders of the armies converging on Yorkshire.

The Yorkists spent Christmas 1460 at Sandal Castle near Wakefield with an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 men, and the Lancastrians, with perhaps twice that number, nine miles away at Pontefract Castle. During a brief festive truce, the Duke granted a commission of array to one of his in-laws, John, Lord Neville, to recruit on his behalf; he may also have received a pledge of support from an erstwhile Yorkist ally Sir Andrew Trollope, a veteran commander in Calais.

Battle Commences

On Tuesday, 30 December 1460, the Lancastrians marched to Wakefield and deployed on a low hill just south of the city, separated from Sandal Castle by a mile of arable fields and rough common. York’s army, swelled by a substantial muster newly arrived with Lord Neville, sallied forth to meet them – but their confident expectations of victory were soon to prove misplaced.

Contemporary details of troop deployments and the course of battle are scarce, but the armies would typically have been arranged in three ‘wards’: the main (centre), van (right) and rear (left). The Yorkist wards may have been led by their three senior peers, the Duke himself, his second son Edmund, Earl of Rutland, and their ally Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury. Facing them were Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset; James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire; John, Lord Clifford of Craven; and numerous other magnates including Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter (York’s embittered son-in-law).

Hostilities may have begun when, on a pre-arranged signal, several hundred of Trollope’s men launched a surprise attack on their supposed allies. With panic and disorder sown in the Yorkist ranks, battle proper was joined. Then, with York’s army fully engaged, their enemies’ carefully-laid battle-plan was revealed: John Neville’s contingent entered the fray – on the Lancastrian side.


The Outcome

Within the moment of an hour (according to the Tudor historian’s account Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History, Sir H Ellis [ed.] Camden Society) it was over. Hopelessly outnumbered, Richard of York attempted a fighting retreat but was overcome and killed not far from Sandal Castle. Other desperate troops broke north for the shelter of the city, only to be cut down in the bottle-neck killing field enclosed by a loop of the River Calder, now known as Fall Ings. Among them was Edmund of Rutland, who was overtaken and slain by Lord Clifford near Wakefield Bridge. Up to 2,000 Yorkists died on the field for the loss of only 200 Lancastrians, while some prominent figures, including the Earl of Salisbury, were captured and beheaded at Pontefract the following day.

Dicky's Field

31 st December 1759

Arthur and the 9000 year lease:
Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.

Arthur Guinness signed a 9000-year lease for an abandoned brewery in Dublin: Guinness is still brewed at St. James Gate.


Arthur Guinness was born on September 28, 1725, to a family of brewers on the estate of Arthur Price, the Protestant Church of Ireland archbishop of Cashel. His father Richard, who was land steward to the archbishop of Cashel, Dr. Arthur Price, brewed beer for workers on the estate taught Arthur the craft of brewing.

As time passed young Arthur became a very good friend with Price and when the archbishop died in 1752 he left 100 pounds each to “his servant” Arthur and his father. This event marked the beginning of Guinness brewing company’s story. At that time 100 pounds was a large sum of money and it was the equivalent of four years wages.

He managed to perfect his skills as the brewer for an inn owned by his stepmother in the next few years and three years after archbishop’s death he managed to rent a small brewery in Leixlip, a town in north-east County Kildare, Ireland.

Business was going well for Arthur and when he was 34-years-old he moved from Leixlip to the capital city of Ireland in order to open a brewery there hoping to expand his business. He found an old dilapidated brewery, named St. James’s Gate Brewery, in the southwest of Dublin. The brewery covered four acres and consisted of a copper, a kieve, a mill, two malthouses, stabling for 12 horses and a loft to hold 200 tons of hay.

The owner of St. James’s Gate Brewery required 100 pounds as a down payment and 45 pounds per month for rent. On the last day of December 1759, Arthur somehow managed to get the owner to agree to a lease for up to 9,000 years on these terms. Guinness is still brewed at St. James Gate, and the company still pays 45 pounds in rent each month.

At that time whiskey, gin, and poteen were the alcoholic drinks most readily available in Ireland but Arthur Guinness was a visionary and brewed a beer relatively new to Ireland that contained roasted barley which gave it a characteristically dark color.


Arthur Guinness believed that liquor, especially gin, was destroying the lower classes in Ireland in the 1750s and he also believed that everyone should have access to a high-quality quality beer and a healthier form of alcohol. This is why he brewed the high-quality black porter, his legendary Guinness Stout.

Soon Arthur Guinness revolutionized the brewing industry and ousted all imports from the Irish market and Guinness’s porter was in demand not only in Dublin but increasingly in England as well.

It was 1761 when Arthur Guinness married Olivia Whitmore in St. Mary’s Church, Dublin. The couple had 21 children and 10 of them lived to adulthood.

He handed over control to his three sons and spent his last years at Beaumont, his country home in Drumcondra. Arthur Guinness died on 23 January 1803 at the age of 78.

But his story does not end there. As years passed by Guinness grew to be one of the largest and most respected breweries in the world. By 1838, Guinness’ St. James’s Gate Brewery was the largest in Ireland and by 1914, St. James’s Gate was the world’s largest brewery.



The 9000 year lease on display.

1 st January 1985

U.Ks first mobile phone call:
The first British mobile phone call is made by Michael Harrison to his father Sir Ernest Harrison, chairman of Vodafone.


Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" was at number one, Colin Baker was Doctor Who, and "Beverly Hills Cop" was in cinemas. But as 1984 ticked into 1985, 1 January ushered in more than just a new year: it was the start of a new era, as the first mobile-phone call in the UK was made that very day 30 years ago.

Britain's first official call on a mobile (following a beta test in London) was made on 1 January 1985 by 24-year-old Michael Harrison, son of Vodafone chairman Sir Ernest Harrison. Michael slipped out of the family New Year's Eve party in Surrey and drove to Parliament Square in Westminster with a Vodafone Transportable VT1 phone, also known as Nokia's Mobira Talkman. After Big Ben had struck 12 to ring in the new year, Harrison junior dialed home and greeted his father, "Hi Dad, it's Mike. Happy New Year. This is the first ever call on a UK mobile network."

Dawn of a new era
Vodafone was first to go mobile with the New Year's Eve call, but the head start was brief: BT Cellnet -- the forerunner of today's O2 -- launched its service just days later on 10 January 1985. Entertainer Ernie Wise, best known for his double act with Eric Morecambe, promoted the network a couple of weeks later with a photo-call at London's St Katharine Docks during which he also dialed chairman Harrison, giving rise to the popular belief it was Little Ern who made the first mobile call.

It was another eight years before anyone else got involved, when digital networks Mercury One2One and Orange launched in 1993 and 1994. One2One became T-Mobile in 2002, and the two networks merged under the banner of EE in 2009. Mobile carrier Three joined in the fun in 2002 when the country switched to Internet-friendly 3G. Smartphones took the mobile phone to new popularity, and in 2011 the volume of calls made from mobile overtook landlines for the first time.

The first mobiles had gone on sale in the US in 1983, a decade after the first mobile-telephone call in the world was made on 3 April 1973 by Motorola's Martin Cooper. Standing outside the New York Hilton, Cooper used a Motorola DynaTAC to call the head of

January 2, 1982 — Described by the BBC as “perhaps the most famous of all streaks,” 24-year-old Erika Roe stripped to the waist on this day and bounced onto the pitch at London’s Twickenham Stadium during a rugby international between England and Australia.

Her dash onto the pitch with a friend (Sarah Bennett) – partly caused, she said later, by alcohol – came at half time.

“I still can’t really explain what happened,” she said in an interview. “It was very unlike me.

“But on that day, it was a case of just being swept up in the atmosphere, which was electric. At half time, someone said, ‘Isn’t this where someone is supposed to streak on the pitch?’ and that was it — I just went. I ripped my top off, then my bra.

“When I heard a roar I thought that the game had restarted and I thought I must get off the pitch. But then I realised that the crowd was yelling in appreciation of me.

“The next thing, I was shrouded in a Union Jack flag carried by an England supporter and marched off by policemen.

“It’s still a bit of a blur. I don’t even know where I left my clothes.”

Ms Roe, a boarding school girl whose father ran a tea estate in Africa, was working at that time in a book shop. Now married, she moved later in life with her husband and three children to Portugal where she became an organic farmer of sweet potatoes.

For the record, England beat Australia by 15 points to 11.

Lolly wrote:January 2, 1982 — Described by the BBC as “perhaps the most famous of all streaks,” 24-year-old Erika Roe stripped to the waist on this day and bounced onto the pitch at London’s Twickenham Stadium during a rugby international between England and Australia.

Remember it well.
I was watching the game on the TV in the officers' social club at Holloway Prison!

Jan 3rd two for the price of one

NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars, 2004:

On 3 January 2004, Spirit and Opportunity, NASA’s two mechanical geologists, touched down on two opposite sides of the red planet – Mars. These robotic explorers travelled miles across the Martian surface, studying field geology and observing the atmosphere. They had much better mobility than the 1997 Mars Pathfinder rover. Both rovers had discovered evidence of ancient Martian landscapes with intermittently moist and habitable circumstances thanks to their identical, high-tech science instruments.

Hillary Clinton became US senator from New York, 2008:

On 3 January 2008, Hillary Clinton was elected the US Senator from New York and became the first lady in history to win elective office. Senator Clinton engaged in advocating for children and campaigning for health care reform. She participated in a number of senatorial committees, such as the Committee on Armed Services. Living History, Hillary’s highly anticipated biography about her time in the White House, was released in 2003 and broke sales records. She was easily re-elected to the Senate in 2006.

Hillary leads New Zealand party to South Pole
4 January 1958

Sir Edmund Hillary’s New Zealand team became the first to reach the South Pole overland since Robert Falcon Scott in 1912, and the first to do so in motor vehicles.

The New Zealand contingent was part of a larger Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (TAE) led by British adventurer Vivian Fuchs, which planned to undertake the first crossing from one side of Antarctica to the other.

After helping establish Scott Base on Ross Island during the summer of 1957–58 , and laying food and fuel depots for Fuchs’ party, Hillary and his four-man team set out for the Pole on modified Massey Ferguson tractors. It was an arduous slog through snow ridges, soft snow and dangerous crevasses, but Hillary reached the Pole 16 days ahead of Fuchs.

Hillary’s so-called ‘dash to the pole’ caused controversy as it took place without the express permission of the TAE, and against the instructions of the committee co-ordinating New Zealand’s contribution. While his devil-may-care approach appealed to many, some viewed it as an arrogant attempt to outplay Fuchs. The success of the venture ultimately overshadowed any ill-feeling.

5th Jan 1981

Peter Sutcliffe, also known as the Yorkshire Ripper, was charged with the murder of 13 women and attempted murder of seven others on 5 January 1981. At his trial, he pleaded not guilty to murder on grounds of diminished responsibility, but he was convicted of murder on a majority verdict. He was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010

Peter Sutcliffe passed away on 13 November 2020 while serving his sentence in prison 2.

On January 6, 1838, Samuel Morse’s telegraph system is demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. The telegraph, a device which used electric impulses to transmit encoded messages over a wire, would eventually revolutionize long-distance communication, reaching the height of its popularity in the 1920s and 1930s.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born April 27, 1791, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He attended Yale University, where he was interested in art, as well as electricity, still in its infancy at the time. After college, Morse became a painter. In 1832, while sailing home from Europe, he heard about the newly discovered electromagnet and came up with an idea for an electric telegraph. He had no idea that other inventors were already at work on the concept.

Morse spent the next several years developing a prototype and took on two partners, Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail, to help him. In 1838, he demonstrated his invention using Morse code, in which dots and dashes represented letters and numbers. In 1843, Morse finally convinced a skeptical Congress to fund the construction of the first telegraph line in the United States, from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. In May 1844, Morse sent the first official telegram over the line, with the message: “What hath God wrought!”

Over the next few years, private companies, using Morse’s patent, set up telegraph lines around the Northeast. In 1851, the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company was founded; it would later change its name to Western Union. In 1861, Western Union finished the first transcontinental line across the United States. Five years later, the first successful permanent line across the Atlantic Ocean was constructed and by the end of the century telegraph systems were in place in Africa, Asia and Australia.

Because telegraph companies typically charged by the word, telegrams became known for their succinct prose–whether they contained happy or sad news. The word “stop,” which was free, was used in place of a period, for which there was a charge. In 1933, Western Union introduced singing telegrams. During World War II, Americans came to dread the sight of Western Union couriers because the military used telegrams to inform families about soldiers’ deaths.

Over the course of the 20th century, telegraph messages were largely replaced by cheap long-distance phone service, faxes and email. Western Union delivered its final telegram in January 2006.

Samuel Morse died wealthy and famous in New York City on April 2, 1872, at age 80.

_________________

The First Aerial Crossing of the English Channel – 7 January 1785

The first aerial crossing of the English Channel is a tale of humour, but also of courage. In 1785, ballooning as a method of human flight had begun to gain acceptance and popularity, although the first ever balloon flight had only been completed two years earlier in 1783. Two men at the forefront of the technological advance determined that they would be the first to cross the English Channel by balloon, and on 7 January 1785, they did just that.

The first was a Frenchman named Jean-Pierre Blanchard. Blanchard had a reputation for being egotistical and quite mean-spirited. After ballooning first began in 1783, Blanchard was seized with intrigue by the new method of flight. He dedicated much of his time to balloon flight in various locations around France and as ballooning gained popularity, so did Blanchard. Unfortunately, it is believed that the public soon became disinterested in his exploits, due both to his many ballooning mishaps and his abrasive personality. In 1784 Blanchard traveled to England hoping to find wealthy patrons who would finance his ballooning habit.


Enter John Jeffries. In England Blanchard connected with John Jeffries, a wealthy gentleman from Boston who had come to England during the Revolutionary War. Jeffries hoped to become involved in the new fad of ballooning, and he would not be disappointed. The two men connected quickly, and made their first balloon flight together as a demonstration for the Prince of Wales, among other dignitaries. Before long the two began planning their ambitious attempt to cross the English Channel by balloon.

Because Jeffries had the money, he covered the £700 of flight expenses in exchange for being allowed to ride along in the balloon during the crossing. Blanchard, however, was reluctant to split the glory of being the first to cross the Channel. Blanchard reportedly attempted a ruse to force Jeffries from the balloon. Several days before the flight he employed a tailor to make a vest with weights hidden inside. Blanchard planned to declare the balloon overweight during a practice flight and force Jeffries to remain behind. The ruse failed.

Despite Blanchard’s devious plan, on 7 January 1785 Blanchard and Jeffries departed from Dover, England in their hydrogen balloon. Ever the showman, Blanchard had printed pamphlets about himself that he began dropping across the English countryside. The flight went smoothly while they remained over land, but once they crossed into the airspace above the Channel, the flight became nerve-wracking. The balloon fell ever closer to the surface of the water. No matter how much ballast the two aeronauts ejected from the basket, they continued to descend. Stories of the day claim that the men dumped everything in the balloon including the sack of mail they were to deliver, and even their clothes.


While the harrowing flight came dangerously close to the water several times, Blanchard and Jeffries landed in France after two and a half hours, albeit in their underwear and cork life jackets. Somehow Jeffries had managed to keep one letter while the rest were dumped into the Channel, so the two men also became the first to carry an airmail letter.

In the end, Blanchard received a substantial pension from King Louis XVI. He used the money to continue his ballooning career and he toured Europe demonstrating balloons. Blanchard holds the record for the first balloon flights in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland. He eventually traveled to America where he also became the first man to conduct a balloon flight. Blanchard’s life would end during a balloon flight, as well. In 1808 he had a heart attack while flying in his balloon at the Hague, a condition that caused him to fall from the balloon and suffer severe injuries from which he never recovered.

Elvis Aaron Presley[a] (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), also known mononymously as Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Known as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Presley's energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations, brought both great success and initial controversy.

Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi; his family relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, when he was 13. His music career began there in 1954, at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African-American music to a wider audience. Presley, on guitar and accompanied by lead guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, was a pioneer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country music and rhythm and blues. In 1955, drummer D. J. Fontana joined to complete the lineup of Presley's classic quartet and RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage him for more than two decades. Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. Within a year, RCA would sell ten million Presley singles. With a series of successful television appearances and chart-topping records, Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular rock and roll; though his performative style and promotion of the then-marginalized sound of African Americans led to him being widely considered a threat to the moral well-being of white American youth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley#Artistry

Its also David Bowie and Shirley Bassey's birthday today

Nelson's funeral. 9th jan 1806
Nelson was shot at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). His body was brought back to England on board HMS Victory and he was buried at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Lord Nelson’s funeral was the grandest state occasion of the era and lasted over five days. As he had requested, his body was placed in a coffin made from the mast of the French ship, L'Orient, destroyed during his famous victory at the Battle of the Nile. Nelson’s undress coat, which he had been wearing when he was shot, was returned to his lover Emma Hamilton in accordance with his wishes.
Funeral at St Paul’s
Arriving at Greenwich on 23 December 1805, his body lay in state in the Painted Hall from 5 to 7 January 1806. More than 15,000 people came to pay their respects and many more were turned away. Nelson's body was then taken from Greenwich up the Thames to Whitehall on 8 January, spending the night before the funeral at the Admiralty. The next day it was placed in a funeral car modelled on the Victory and taken through the streets to St Paul's Cathedral. Sir Peter Parker, Admiral of the Fleet, led the mourners, and members of the Victory’s crew were in the procession.

The service at St Paul's was charged with emotion, marking the passing of the man who had delivered his country from a foreign threat. Thousands watched as Nelson's coffin was lowered down and finally laid to rest in an ornate tomb in the crypt of St Paul’s. The tomb is now surrounded by the graves of many other naval officers. These include the grave of his close friend and second in command at Trafalgar, Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood.

Every year St Paul’s Cathedral holds a special ‘Sea Service’ on the Sunday closest to Trafalgar Day when wreaths are laid at Nelson’s tomb.

January 10, 1840 — “Of all the wild and visionary schemes which I have ever heard of, or read of, it is the most extravagant.” So said Lord Lichfield when the world’s first “Uniform Penny Post” was established in the UK on this day, offering the safe, speedy and cheap conveyance of letters and parcels.

Lichfield was the Postmaster General at the time and like all other Members of Parliament he was entitled to the free receipt and delivery of letters and parcels.

For everyone else mail was a minefield. The recipient of a letter or package had to pay the delivery costs which were calculated on the doorstep using a complicated formula involving distance, weight, and in the case of letters the number of pages used.

On top of that, postage rates were extremely expensive, making the system almost exclusively the preserve of the rich. Sending a letter could cost as much as a day's pay for working-class people.

An enterprising teacher, inventor and social reformer named Rowland Hill despaired of the system and in 1835 set out his ideas for a better scheme in a pamphlet entitled “Post Office Reform’.

Hill – later knighted – thought it would be much better if the costs were standardised and the whole operation functioning on a prepaid basis.

He also believed that if it were cheaper to send letters, more people would do so, including the poorer classes. He thought this would bolster communication and trade.

Rowland Hill was born in the rural heart of England and became a student teacher at the tender age of 12.

In later life he held widespread interests. In 1832, he wrote a paper on the colonisation of South Australia titled Home Colonies: A Plan For The Gradual Extinction (By Education) of Pauperism And The Diminution of Crime. Three years later, Hill was appointed Secretary of the South Australian Colonisation Commission.

Back home, he was in his forties when he became interested in postal reform, noting that the postal system was chaotic and expensive.

Parliament was persuaded by his ideas and despite some opposition Hill was awarded a contract to set up and run the operation. Now the first thing he needed was a well designed postage stamp.

He announced a competition, received 2,600 entries – and rejected them all. Instead, he chose a design that presented a profile of Queen Victoria when she was a teenage princess. It would feature on the soon to be launched Penny Black postage stamp – which would go on to become one of the world’s most famous and valuable icons of philately.

The Penny Black was the first adhesive postage stamp in the world. It established a flat rate of one penny for any parcel or letter weighing up to half an ounce (14 grams). Mileage was no longer calculated into the cost. The first stamps went on sale on May 1, 1840, although they were not valid until May 6.

Though much sought after by collectors, an 1840 Penny Black put up for sale by Sotheby’s in 2021 failed to sell. The auction house had estimated its value at between £4-6 million ($5-7.5 million).

The rarest and most valuable stamp in the world is the British Guiana 1c Magenta, which was discovered in 1873 by a Scottish schoolboy among his uncle’s letters. It was sold at auction in 2014 for $9.5 million.

11th Jan 2000: Seven missing in Irish Sea
Seven young fishermen are feared drowned off the Scottish coast after the disappearance of their scallop dredger in force nine gales.
The Solway Harvester's last contact was with its sister boat, Tobrach-n, at 1750 local time. The crew said they were heading for shelter at Ramsay in the Isle of Man.

Coastguards described the weather as changing from rough with force five or six westerly winds to "horrendous".

The missing fishermen are: Skipper Craig Mills, 29, his brother Robin, 33, and their cousin David, David Lions, 17, John Murphy, 22, Wesley Jolly, 17 and Martin Milligan, 26.

Conditions deteriorating

Six of them are from the close-knit fishing village of Whithorn. Martin Milligan is from a neighbouring village in the Wigtown Bay area of the Solway Firth.

When coastguards at Clyde received the boat's last signal, 11 miles south east of the Isle of Man, they alerted their colleagues in Liverpool and a rescue operation began.

A mayday relay alerted lifeboats from Workington, Cumbria and Douglas, Ramsay and Port St Mary on the Isle of Man. Efforts are being co-ordinated by coastguards at Crosby.

Rescue helicopters have flown over from RNAS Prestwick, in Ayrshire and RAF Valley in north Wales.

They are being assisted by the Irish Air Corps helicopter, with its heat-seeking capabilities, and a fixed wing plane from the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

As conditions continue to deteriorate larger vessels have joined the search.

The Royal Fleet auxiliary vessel, Bayleaf, has been joined by The Ben Mychree Isle of Man ferry with 98 passengers and 38 crew.

Immediate causes seem to be the weather and debris, but people are already asking how such a modern, well-equipped boat could disappear so quickly.

Only one of the regular crew was not on board owing to illness.

Rescue operations will continue into the night.