1st January

[chenrezig]

1651 Charles II was crowned King of Scotland at Scone, a village in Perth and Kinross.

1660 Samuel Pepys began writing the Diary which he kept for nine years, writing in an early form of shorthand.

1766 The death in Rome of ‘the Old Pretender’, James Stuart, father of Bonnie Prince Charlie. He is buried in the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican.

1772 The London Credit Exchange Company issued the first traveller’s cheques, accepted in 90 cities and guaranteed against theft.

1773 The hymn that became known as "Amazing Grace", was first used to accompany a sermon, led by John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire.

1781 The first all-iron bridge in the world, Iron Bridge in Shropshire, was opened to traffic. The bridge was built by Abraham Darby III, from a design by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard.

1785 John Walter published the first issue of the Daily Universal Register. In 1788 it was renamed The Times.

1812 The Bishop of Durham, Shute Barrington, ordered troops from Durham Castle to break up a miners' strike in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, at collieries owned by the Dean & Chapter of Durham Cathedral.

1833 Britain claimed sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.

1876 Bass Ale’s ‘Red Triangle’ became the first registered trade mark in Britain.

1877 The British Prime Minister, Disraeli, had Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India.

1894 The opening of the Manchester Ship Canal linking Manchester to the River Mersey. Queen Victoria later formally opened the canal, on 21st May 1894.

1951 The first episode of the BBC’s radio serial The Archers - farming folk of Ambridge. It is the world's longest running radio 'soap'. By 18th December 2011 it had reached 16,600 episodes.

1962 The Beatles had an audition for Decca Records, who turned them down and signed Brian Poole and the Tremeloes instead.

1965 Stanley Matthews was knighted, the first professional footballer to receive this honour.

1973 The UK became a fully-fledged member of the European Economic Community.

1985 Michael Harrison, the son of former Vodafone chairman Sir Ernest Harrison, made the first ever mobile phone call in Britain. He called his father from London's Parliament Square on the newly-launched Vodafone network using an 11lb (5kg) Transportable Vodafone VT1, which boasted around 30 minutes of talk time. A few days later, a crowd gathered at St Katherine's Dock in London to watch comedian Ernie Wise make the first public mobile phone call using the same device. All were far from portable and cost around £2,000 - equivalent to roughly £5,000 today.

1995 Fred West, the 53 year old Gloucestershire builder charged with 12 murders, was found dead in his prison cell.

2014 Right wing newspapers gathered at airports to interrogate an expected influx of millions of unemployed Romanians and BUlgarians after transitional controls were lifted. They were greeted by two new entrants, both of whom already had jobs.

[annie]

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[Rosalind]

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