|
1
Dec. |
1135 |
England's
King Henry I died. He had fallen ill seven days earlier after eating
too many lampreys. He was 66, and had ruled for 35 years. |
|
2 Dec. |
1697 |
Sir
Christopher Wren's St Paul's Cathedral is opened in London. |
|
3 Dec. |
1989 |
The Cold War
ended after 52 years of superpower rivalry. Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev and US President George Bush ended their shipboard
summit meeting off Malta. |
|
4 Dec. |
1872 |
Crew from
the British brigantine Die Gratia boarded a deserted ship
drifting mid Atlantic. The captain's table was set for a meal aboard
the US ship Marie Celeste but the Captain, crew and
passengers were all missing. |
|
5 Dec. |
1905 |
The roof of
Charring Cross Railway Station in London collapsed, killing five
people . |
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6 Dec. |
1921 |
Ireland's 26 southern states were granted independence from Britain,
becoming the Irish Free State. Ulster in the north remains part of
the UK. |
|
|
7 Dec.
|
1783
|
William
Pitt became British Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer
at the tender age of 24.
|
|
8 Dec.
|
1980
|
Forty-year-old ex-Beatle John
Lennon was murdered in New York.
|
|
9 Dec. |
1608 |
Birthday of John Milton, English poet whose works included Paradise
Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes.
|
|
10 Dec. |
1901 |
The first Nobel
Peace Prizes were awarded worth $30,000 each. Nobel, a Swedish
chemist, had died five years earlier leaving the fortune he had
amassed from his invention dynamite, to the awarding foundation.
|
|
11 Dec. |
1936 |
Britain's King
Edward VIII renounces the throne in a radio broadcast to the nation.
After the broadcast he boards a ship to join the twice-divorced Mrs
Wallis Simpson in France.
|
| 12
Dec.
|
1955
|
British
engineer Christopher Cockerell patented a new kind of vehicle.
Half-ship and half-aircraft, his "hovercraft" floats on an
air cushion.
|
| 13
Dec.
|
1989
|
In South Africa,
ANC leader Nelson Mandela meets President F. W. de Klerk for the
first time.
|
| 14
Dec.
|
1895
|
Birthday of
King George VI, who succeeded
to the throne when his brother, Edward VIII, abdicated.
|
|
| 15
Dec.
|
1791
|
The Bill of Rights becomes part of the
United States Constitution providing protection for the basic rights
of the individual to free expression and justice.
|
| 16
Dec.
|
1773
|
Unruly American colonists
boarded three ships in Boston harbour and emptied 342 chests of tea
into the sea.
|
| 17
Dec.
|
1778
|
Birthday of Sir
Humphrey Davy, English inventor of the safety lamp for miners, who also
discovered sodium, magnesium, calcium, barium and strontium
|
| 18
Dec. |
1946 |
Clement Atlee's
Labour government won the vote on state ownership which lead to the
nationalizing of the railways, ports, mines, etc.
|
| 19
Dec.
|
1848
|
Emily Bronte,
English author of Wuthering Heights, dies of tuberculosis at
the tender age of 30.
|
| 20
Dec.
|
1803
|
The United States
doubles in size when it acquires 88831,321 square miles of land from
France for $15 million - The Louisiana Purchase.
|
| 21
Dec.
|
1988
|
A Pan American
jumbo jet bound for New York is blown out of the sky by a terrorist
bomb and crashes onto the Scottish town of Lockerbie killing all 259
passengers and 11 people on the ground.
|
| 22
Dec.
|
1715
|
James Edward
Stuart, son of James II, the deposed Catholic King of England, lands
in north-east Scotland to lead a Jacobite rebellion.
|
|
| 23
Dec.
|
1922
|
The world's first
regular entertainment radio broadcasts are transmitted by the
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
|
| 24
Dec.
|
1508
|
London houses
receive piped water again, for the first time in over a thousand
years, since the Romans left town!
|
| 25
Dec. |
440
|
Church leaders
agree to fix the date of the birth of Christ. Previously some people
had celebrated it in May, others in January.
|
| 26
Dec.
|
1943
|
A Royal Navy
convoy including the battleship Duke of York and cruiser
Jamaica attack and sink the mighty German battlecruiser Scharnhorst.
|
| 27
Dec.
|
1831
|
The Royal Navy
vessel HMS Beagle sets sail from Devonport, the official
naturalist onboard is recent BA graduate Charles Darwin.
|
| 28
Dec. |
1918
|
The results of
the first General Election in Britain in which women have been
allowed to vote, confirmed David Lloyd George as Prime Minister.
|
| 29
Dec.
|
1170
|
Four of King Henry II's knights murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Thomas a Becket, in Canterbury Cathedral.
|
| 30
Dec.
|
1879
|
First performance
of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Pirates of Penzance, at
the Royal Bijou Theatre, Paignton, Devon.
|
|
31 Dec
|
1720
|
Birthday of Charles Edward Stuart, Scottish royal better know as
Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender, son of James, the Old
Pretender.
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