21st December

[chenrezig]

1118 The birth, in London's Cheapside, of Thomas à Becket, Lord Chancellor of England, Archbishop of Canterbury and martyr.

1620 The Pilgrim Fathers arrived at Plymouth Rock , Massachusetts aboard The Mayflower. Passengers & crew increased to 103 after 2 births on the voyage from Plymouth, England.

1804 The birth of Benjamin Disraeli, first Earl of Beaconsfield and British Prime Minister. He became the first Conservative Prime Minister in 1868, but was defeated at the next election. He was Prime Minister again in 1874 with a substantial majority.

1842 Pentonville Prison, Islington, was opened. Pentonville became the model for British prisons. A further 54 were built to the same design over six years, and hundreds more were built throughout the British Empire.

1844 The Rochdale Pioneers commenced business at their cooperative (now a museum), on Toad Lane, Rochdale, thus starting the Cooperative movement, often referred to simply as the Co-op.

1846 Robert Liston, Scottish surgeon, used anaesthetic (ether) for the first time in a British operation, at University College Hospital, London, to perform an amputation of a leg. Liston was known as 'the fastest knife in the West End' at a time when speed was essential to reduce pain and improve the odds of survival of a patient.

1872 The Challenger expedition, when HMS Challenger, commanded by Captain George Nares, sailed from Portsmouth. The scientific exercise covered almost 70,000 nautical miles, laid the foundation of oceanography and more than 4,000 previously unknown species were discovered. The expedition was hailed as 'the greatest advance in the knowledge of our planet since the celebrated discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.'

1880 An act passed by the House of Keys on the Isle of Man granted women the vote, provided they were widows or spinsters with a property rated annually at £4 or over. The first opportunity to vote was in April, the following year. In 1901, Norwegian women were allowed to vote, but in local elections only.

1962 President Kennedy and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan agreed that the UK would buy nuclear missiles from the US to form a multilateral NATO nuclear force.

1963 Under soil heating was used for the first time, at the Leeds Rugby League ground for their match against Dewsbury.

1963 Sir Jack Hobbs, English cricketer, died. He is widely regarded as cricket's greatest-ever opening batsman.

1977 The Trades Union Congress General Council narrowly voted to reject firemen's demands for a public campaign against a 10% limit on wage increases. The union decided by 20 votes to 17 not to support the firemen who were in their sixth week of strike action.

1988 A Pan American jumbo jet bound for New York was blown out of the sky by a terrorist bomb and crashed onto the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 passengers and 11 people on the ground.

1990 In a German television interview, Saddam Hussein declared that he would not withdraw from Kuwait by the UN deadline.

2012 The youngest female drivers faced 'significant increases in their insurance costs' after a ban on different car insurance prices for men and women. A European court ruling the previous year found that gender discrimination in insurance was against the law.

[annie]

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