12th October
Posted: 12 Oct 2015, 05:251537 Edward VI, the only son of Henry VIII by his third wife Jane Seymour was born. Jane died 13 days after giving birth to him.
1823 Charles Macintosh of Scotland began selling raincoats, now better known as - Macs. He was first employed as a clerk but before he was twenty resigned his clerkship to take up the manufacture of chemicals. The essence of his patent for waterproof fabrics was the cementing together of two pieces of natural India-rubber, the rubber being made soluble by the action of naphtha, a byproduct of tar. For his various chemical discoveries he was, in 1823, elected a fellow of the Royal Society.
1845 The death of Elizabeth Fry, English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist. She was a major driving force behind new legislation to make the treatment of prisoners more humane. Since 2001, she has been depicted on the Bank of England £5 note.
1859 Robert Stephenson, English civil engineer, died. He was the only son of George Stephenson, the famed locomotive builder and railway engineer. Many of the achievements popularly credited to his father were actually the joint efforts of father and son. A replica of Robert Stephenson's Rocket is on view at the York Railway Museum.
1866 James Ramsay McDonald, Scottish statesman, was born. He became the first Labour Prime Minister in 1924. His opposition to the First World War made him unpopular, and he was defeated in 1918. However post war disillusionment quickly made his anti-war position more popular, and he returned to Parliament in 1922, the point at which Labour replaced the Liberal Party as the second-largest party.
1936 The leader of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley, led a controversial anti-Jewish march down the Mile End Road in London which was a predominantly Jewish area of the capital.
1940 World War II: Adolf Hitler postponed indefinitely 'Operation Sealion' - the planned invasion of Britain.
1948 The first Morris Minor, designed by Alec Issigonis, was produced at Cowley, Oxfordshire.
1967 Zoologist Desmond Morris stunned the world with his book The Naked Ape that compared human behaviour with animals.
1979 The publication of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide comedy science fiction series by the English writer and dramatist Douglas Adams. His memorial service on 17th September 2001 at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square was the first church service of any kind broadcast live, on the web, by the BBC.
1982 British armed forces held a victory parade in London following the defeat of Argentina in the Falklands War.
1984 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escaped an assassination attempt when an IRA bomb exploded in the Grand Hotel, Brighton which was being used by delegates to the Conservative Party Conference. Five people were killed and 30 people injured, including the Employment Secretary Norman Tebbit and his wife Margaret, who was left permanently disabled.
1986 Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to visit China.
1989 The remains of Shakespeare's original Globe Theatre were found on London's Bankside.
1823 Charles Macintosh of Scotland began selling raincoats, now better known as - Macs. He was first employed as a clerk but before he was twenty resigned his clerkship to take up the manufacture of chemicals. The essence of his patent for waterproof fabrics was the cementing together of two pieces of natural India-rubber, the rubber being made soluble by the action of naphtha, a byproduct of tar. For his various chemical discoveries he was, in 1823, elected a fellow of the Royal Society.
1845 The death of Elizabeth Fry, English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist. She was a major driving force behind new legislation to make the treatment of prisoners more humane. Since 2001, she has been depicted on the Bank of England £5 note.
1859 Robert Stephenson, English civil engineer, died. He was the only son of George Stephenson, the famed locomotive builder and railway engineer. Many of the achievements popularly credited to his father were actually the joint efforts of father and son. A replica of Robert Stephenson's Rocket is on view at the York Railway Museum.
1866 James Ramsay McDonald, Scottish statesman, was born. He became the first Labour Prime Minister in 1924. His opposition to the First World War made him unpopular, and he was defeated in 1918. However post war disillusionment quickly made his anti-war position more popular, and he returned to Parliament in 1922, the point at which Labour replaced the Liberal Party as the second-largest party.
1936 The leader of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley, led a controversial anti-Jewish march down the Mile End Road in London which was a predominantly Jewish area of the capital.
1940 World War II: Adolf Hitler postponed indefinitely 'Operation Sealion' - the planned invasion of Britain.
1948 The first Morris Minor, designed by Alec Issigonis, was produced at Cowley, Oxfordshire.
1967 Zoologist Desmond Morris stunned the world with his book The Naked Ape that compared human behaviour with animals.
1979 The publication of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide comedy science fiction series by the English writer and dramatist Douglas Adams. His memorial service on 17th September 2001 at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square was the first church service of any kind broadcast live, on the web, by the BBC.
1982 British armed forces held a victory parade in London following the defeat of Argentina in the Falklands War.
1984 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escaped an assassination attempt when an IRA bomb exploded in the Grand Hotel, Brighton which was being used by delegates to the Conservative Party Conference. Five people were killed and 30 people injured, including the Employment Secretary Norman Tebbit and his wife Margaret, who was left permanently disabled.
1986 Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to visit China.
1989 The remains of Shakespeare's original Globe Theatre were found on London's Bankside.