29th January

[chenrezig]

1801 The birth of the illegitimate daughter of Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton. She was christened Horatia Nelson Thompson. One of Nelson's last wishes was that Horatia should take the name Nelson.

1817 Birth of John Callcott Horsley. He designed the first commercial Christmas cards in 1843.

1820 King George III died, aged 81. At the time he was the longest reigning monarch and served for more than 59 years.

1856 Queen Victoria instituted Britain’s highest military decoration, the Victoria Cross (VC). The medal is awarded to British and Commonwealth armed forces for outstanding bravery ‘on the field of battle’. The medal was originally made from the metal of cannon captured from the Russians at Sevastopol, until the supply came to an end in 1942.

1888 The death of Edward Lear, English artist, illustrator, author and poet, renowned today primarily for his limericks and his literary nonsense poems such as The Owl and the Pussycat.

1916 British military tanks had their first trials, in Hertfordshire.

1928 The death of Field Marshal Douglas Haig, British senior officer during World War I. He was commander during the Battle of the Somme, the battle with one of the highest casualties in British military history. In the 1960s he became an object of criticism for his leadership during the First World War and has been dubbed "Butcher Haig", for the two million British casualties under his command.

1942 The first broadcast of Desert Island Discs on BBC radio, devised and presented by Roy Plomley. It is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio.

1943 The birth of Tony Blackburn, English disc jockey. He broadcast on the "pirate" stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s and was the first disc jockey to broadcast on BBC Radio 1, in 1967.

1963 A French veto stopped Britain joining the European Common Market.

1966 A bill was published by the government, permitting random breath tests.

2003 Solicitor Sally Clark was cleared by the Court of Appeal of murdering her two sons after serving more than three years of a life sentence. Sadly, she never fully recovered from the effects of the appalling miscarriage of justice and was found dead at her home on 16th March 2007.

[wendy]

The Owl and the pussycat was one of my favourite poems, thank you

[annie]

than999