25th January

[chenrezig]

1533 – Henry VIII of England secretly marries his second wife Anne Boleyn.

1554 - Sir Thomas Wyatt gathered an army of 4000 men in Kent at the start of his rebellion against Queen Mary. His fellow conspirators were timid and inept and he eventually surrendered. He was executed and his body 'quartered' on 11th April.

1627 - The birth of the Honourable Robert Boyle, one of the pioneers of modern chemistry and physics.

1759 - The birth of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet. His birthday is celebrated as ‘Burns Night’ by Scotsmen all over the world. Burns also collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them. His poem (and song) Auld Lang Syne is often sung on New Year's Eve, or Hogmanay, as it's known in Scotland.

1791 - The British Parliament passed the Constitutional Act of 1791 and split the old Province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada

1858 – The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn is played at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia, and becomes a popular wedding recessional.

1874 - The birth of William Somerset Maugham, English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s.

1899 - The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company began manufacture of the first radio sets, at Chelmsford.

1911 - The Daily Herald was launched. It was the first newspaper to sell two million copies.

1919 - The founding of The League of Nations, forerunner of the United Nations. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.

1924 – The 1924 Winter Olympics opens in Chamonix, in the French Alps, inaugurating the Winter Olympic Games.

1972 - The world's first kidney and pancreatic tissue transplant was carried out in London

1981 - ‘The Gang of Four’ (Roy Jenkins, Dr. David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers) split from the British Labour party to form the Social Democrats.

1989 - Actor John Cleese won damages for libel at the High Court over an article in the Daily Mirror, which claimed he had become like Basil Fawlty in his comedy series Fawlty Towers

1990 - The so called Burns' Day Storm occurred on this day over north-western Europe, and was one of the strongest storms on record. It started on the birthday of poet Robert Burns, lasted for two days, caused widespread damage and was responsible for 97 deaths.

2003 – 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A group of people leave London, England, for Baghdad, Iraq, to serve as human shields, intending to prevent the U.S.-led coalition troops from bombing certain locations.

Births
1874 – W. Somerset Maugham, French-English author and playwright (d. 1965)
1882 – Virginia Woolf, English author and critic (d. 1941)

Deaths
1947 – Al Capone, American mobster (b. 1899)
1980 – Queenie Watts, English actress and singer (b. 1926)
1990 – Ava Gardner, American actress (b. 1922)

[annie]

tha22222

[Rosalind]

go90