4th December

[chenrezig]

1154 The only Englishman to become a pope, Nicholas Breakspear, became Adrian IV.

1586 Queen Elizabeth I conferred the death sentence on Mary Queen of Scots after discovering a plot to assassinate her and bring about a Roman Catholic uprising.

1791 The Observer, Britain’s oldest Sunday newspaper, was first published.

1798 British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger announced the introduction of Income Tax to help finance the war against France.

1865 Birth of Edith Cavell at Swardeston ( 4 miles south of Norwich). An English nurse in Brussels 1914-15, she was accused of helping Allied soldiers escape occupied Belgium over the Dutch border and was executed by the Germans. There is a statue of her outside Norwich Cathedral.

1872 Crew from the British brigantine Die Gratia boarded a deserted ship drifting in 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.

1930 Ronnie Corbett, comedian partnered with Ronnie Barker, was born.

1937 The first issue of the Dandy comic. With a fan club of over 350,000, Desperate Dan proved a durable character. A copy of this first edition is worth between £850 and £1,000. The closure, on 4th December 2012, coincided with its 75th anniversary and the final print edition included a pullout reprint of the very first edition of the comic.

1948 George Orwell completed the final draft of the book Nineteen Eighty Four which was published on 8th June 1949.

1952 At least 4,000 people died in a week, from breathing difficulties, during a severe London smog.

1961 Birth control pills became available on the NHS.

1976 Benjamin Britten, considered to be Britain's leading composer, died aged 63. He had been fighting ill health after a heart operation in 1973. His Memorial Window is in Aldeburgh Parish Church, Suffolk.

1980 English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbanded, following the death of drummer John Bonham on 25th September.

1997 Europe's health ministers voted to ban tobacco advertising throughout the European Union although they agreed that motor-racing, which relied heavily on sponsorship and advertising by tobacco companies, should be exempt for another 8 years.

2008 The Bank of England cut interest rates by one percentage point, from 3% to 2% - the lowest level since 1951. The move followed a dramatic cut in November in an attempt to help the slowing economy.

2008 Karen Matthews, the mother of nine-year-old Shannon, was convicted of kidnapping her own daughter. Matthews, 33, and her co-accused Michael Donovan, 40, were found guilty of kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice. The trial at Leeds Crown Court heard that the pair kept Shannon 'drugged, subdued and hidden from the public' so that they could claim £50,000 in reward money.

2012 The highest lottery prize ever to remain unclaimed (£63.8m) eventually went to good causes as the winer did not come forward by the deadline of 23:00 GMT.

[annie]

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