21st April

[chenrezig]

1509 Henry VIII became King of England following the death of his father, Henry VII.

1671 The birth of John Law, Scottish economist who believed that money was only a means of exchange that did not constitute wealth in itself. He was a gambler and a brilliant mental calculator who was known to win card games by mentally calculating the odds.

1689 William III and Mary II were crowned joint king and queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.

1816 Charlotte Bronte, eldest of the three literary sisters, was born. Her publisher rejected her first novel, 'The Professor,' but she went on to write her masterpiece, 'Jane Eyre'.

1828 Lexicographer Noah Webster compiled a two volume work entitled 'The American dictionary of the English language'. It was the first attempt to standardize the the American language and distinguish it from the English of the British.

1838 The birth, in Dunbar of John Muir, naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. One of the most well know hiking trails in the United States, the 211 mile John Muir Trail, was named in his honour.

1907 Political clubs in Ireland merged to form the Sinn Fein League.

1913 Richard Beeching, former British Rail chairman was born.

1916 Roger Casement, the Irish-born British consular official, landed in Ireland from a German submarine prepared to lead the Sinn Fein rebellion, but was arrested as the ‘Easter Uprising’ took place. The rebellion against the British in Dublin reached its worst level as Irish republicans took over sections of the city, while a Royal Navy gunboat bombarded them from the River Liffey.

1918 Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the legendary German ace pilot who had destroyed 80 Allied aircraft, was shot down by an RAF fighter and died from the crash behind British lines. He was known as the ‘Red Baron’ because of his distinctive red Fokker tri-plane.

1926 Queen Elizabeth II was born.

1934 The 'Surgeon's Photograph', the most famous photo allegedly showing the Loch Ness Monster, was published in the Daily Mail. In 1999, it was revealed to be a hoax.

1955 National newspapers were published for the first time in nearly a month following the end of the maintenance workers' strike.

1959 English ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn was jailed for a day in Panama while the police looked for her Panamanian husband, accused of plotting a coup.

1964 BBC television launched Playschool as the opening programme of their second channel. BBC2 actually opened a day late due to a major power failure the previous day.

1983 One pound coins replaced notes in England and Wales.

If you follow this link it should take you to the Gutenberg online book site - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1028 where you can read Charlotte Bronte's "The Professor"

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