What can we celebrate today?

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Richard Frost
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Re: What can we celebrate today?

Post by Richard Frost » Thu Jul 23 2020 9:45am

23rd July

NATIONAL VANILLA ICE CREAM DAY
NATIONAL REFRESHMENT DAY
GORGEOUS GRANDMA DAY

On This Day in history - 23rd July

1745 Charles Stuart, the 'Young Pretender' landed in the Outer Hebrides in his attempt to win back the throne for the Stuarts.

1886 Arthur Whitten Brown, British aviator was born. He was the navigator of the first successful non-stop transatlantic flight, (14th June 1919), with John Alcock as pilot.

1901 Tennis player Tim Henman's great-grandmother (Ellen Stawell Brown) became the first woman to serve overarm at the All England Tennis Club.

1902 William Hesketh Lever (the soap magnate with products now branded under the Unilever name) bought Hall i' th' Wood, near Bolton and opened it as a textile museum. It was here that Samuel Crompton invented his Spinning Mule

1912 The birth of the actor Michael Wilding. He appeared in numerous British films, often opposite Anna Neagle.

1913 Michael Foot, Former Labour Party leader (1980-83), was born.

1940 The Local Defence Volunteers were renamed the Home Guard by Winston Churchill.

1950 The ordination as a priest of Basil Hume. He was both a pupil and teacher at Ampleforth School and joined the Benedictine monastery at Ampleforth Abbey in North Yorkshire and was its abbot for 13 years until his appointment in 1976 as Archbishop of Westminster and cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

1955 British speed enthusiast Donald Campbell broke the world water speed record on Ullswater, in the Lake District, when his jet-propelled hydroplane - Bluebird, reached 202.32mph. (Note:- Donald Campbell died on 4th January 1967 in his attempt to break his own world water speed record on Coniston Water in the Lake District. He is buried in Coniston graveyard

1957 There were violent scenes around Britain as the strike by busmen entered its fourth day.

1980 Cliff Richard received his OBE from the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

1984 A government report into cancer levels near the controversial nuclear plant at Sellafield in Cumbria confirmed suspicions of higher than-normal levels of leukaemia in the area, but said it could not definitely link this to the nuclear plant itself.

1986 Prince Andrew, the second son, and third child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip married Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey. Their divorce in May 1996 attracted a high level of media coverage.

1995 Britain sent 1,200 troops to relieve the besieged Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

1996 The BSE scare was extended after laboratory research showed that mad cow disease could also be transmitted to sheep.

1997 Tony Blair's Government announced that students would have to pay tuition fees and that maintenance grants would be abolished.

1997 History was made when for the first time in 127 years hen harriers were raised in Derbyshire, 1500 feet above the Goyt Valley near Buxton.

2008 'Back-from-the-dead' canoeist John Darwin and his wife Anne were jailed for more than six years for fraudulently claiming £250,000. The couple had conned family, friends, police and insurance companies into believing that Mr Darwin drowned in the North Sea off Teesside in 2002.

2009 The number of new swine flu infections in England doubled, with an estimated 100,000 new cases of swine flu recorded in one week.

2014 The 20th Commonwealth Games opened in Celtic Park, Glasgow.

2014 The death, aged 91, of Dora Bryan, veteran British actress whose long career encompassed theatre, film, radio and television. She won a Bafta for her performance in the classic 1962 film A Taste of Honey.
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Re: What can we celebrate today?

Post by BeautifulSunshine » Thu Jul 23 2020 12:27pm

[2008] 'Back-from-the-dead' canoeist John Darwin and his wife Anne were jailed for more than six years for fraudulently claiming £250,000. The couple had conned family, friends, police and insurance companies into believing that Mr Darwin drowned in the North Sea off Teesside in 2002.

It was brazen.
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What can we celebrate today?

Post by Richard Frost » Fri Jul 24 2020 10:54am

24th July

NATIONAL AMELIA EARHART DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/days-2/ ... y-july-24/
NATIONAL COUSINS DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... y-july-24/
NATIONAL TEQUILA DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... y-july-24/
NATIONAL THERMAL ENGINEER DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/thermal ... y-july-24/

On this day in history - 24th July

1411 The Battle of Harlaw, took place On This Day, just north of Inverurie in Aberdeenshire. It was one of a series of battles fought during the Middle Ages between the barons of northeast Scotland against those from the west coast and was one of the bloodiest battles in Scottish history.

1567 Mary Queen of Scots, imprisoned at Lochlevan Castle, was forced to abdicate her throne to her 1 year old son, James VI of Scotland - (James I of England).

1837 Robert Cocking made a parachute jump from a hot air balloon 5,000 feet above Kennington Common. Unfortunately the cone-shaped parachute inverted and he became the first person to die in a parachute jump.

1851 The window tax in Britain was abolished.

1867 The opening of the Grand Hotel in Scarborough. At the time it was the largest hotel and the largest brick structure in Europe. The building is designed around the theme of time, with four towers to represent the seasons, 12 floors for the months of the year, 52 chimneys to symbolise the weeks, and originally there were 365 bedrooms, one for each day of the year.

1883 Captain Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the English channel (1875) drowned whilst attempting to swim the rapids at Niagara Falls. There is a memorial to him erected in Dawley - Telford, close to his birthplace which is now demolished)

1908 Fifty six runners began the London Marathon from Windsor Castle as part of the London Olympic Games.

1926The first greyhound racing track in the UK was opened, at Belle Vue, in Manchester.

1936 The GPO (General Post Office) introduced TIM - the automated speaking clock using the voice of Miss Ethel Cain - a telephonist at the GPO's Victoria telephone exchange in London. That division of the GPO is now British Telecom.

1943 World War II: The start of Operation Gomorrah saw British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, and the Americans bombing by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives had killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.

1966 After a local and national campaign, the Cavern Club in Liverpool, where the Beatles first performed, was re-opened. Prime Minister Harold Wilson performed the opening ceremony.

1980 The death of Peter Sellers, British comedian and actor. He rose to fame on the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show and was the bumbling Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series.

1986 "Live Aid' organiser Bob Geldof was made an honorary knight of the most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

1987 Former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, Jeffrey Archer, was awarded record libel damages at the High Court. The Daily Star newspaper was ordered to pay the MP £500,000 damages, along with up to £700,000 costs, for a front-page story in November 1986 alleging that Mr. Archer had paid to have sex with a prostitute. (Note:- in July 2001, Archer was found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice at the 1987 trial and was sentenced to four years in prison.)

1996 Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen's Christmas broadcast would no longer be a BBC exclusive.

2000 Loyalist paramilitary hit man Michael Stone was released from the Maze prison in Northern Ireland. He was given a 684 year sentence in 1989 for six murders and five attempted murders, but was set free as part of the Good Friday peace agreement.

2013 It was announced that the Pride and Prejudice author Jane Austen would feature on the next £10 note avoiding a long-term absence of women represented on banknotes. The author replaced Charles Darwin when the new notes went into circulation on 14th September 2017.

2019 Boris Johnson took over as Prime Minister from Theresa May. He beat Jeremy Hunt in the leadership contest and was elected, by 92,153 Conservative Party members only, representing just 0.14% of the population of the United Kingdom. Johnson pledged that if he was elected as Tory leader, the UK would leave the European Union "deal or no-deal" by 31st October 2019. Sir Alan Duncan quit as Foreign Office minister on Monday 22nd in protest and the Chancellor Philip Hammond and Justice Secretary David Gauke gave notice they would resign rather than serve Mr. Johnson.
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Re: What can we celebrate today?

Post by macliam » Fri Jul 24 2020 11:55am

2019 Parliamentary democracy ended at Westminster...... more to remember than celebrate :shifty:
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Re: What can we celebrate today?

Post by BeautifulSunshine » Fri Jul 24 2020 12:44pm

[1867] The opening of the Grand Hotel in Scarborough. At the time it was the largest hotel and the largest brick structure in Europe. The building is designed around the theme of time, with four towers to represent the seasons, 12 floors for the months of the year, 52 chimneys to symbolise the weeks, and originally there were 365 bedrooms, one for each day of the year.

Quirky.
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Re: What can we celebrate today?

Post by Richard Frost » Fri Jul 24 2020 12:54pm

macliam wrote:
Fri Jul 24 2020 11:55am
2019 Parliamentary democracy ended at Westminster...... more to remember than celebrate :shifty:
Some people will want to celebrate. I will be unbiased on the facts.
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What can we celebrate today?

Post by Richard Frost » Sat Jul 25 2020 8:54am

25th July

NATIONAL HIRE A VETERAN DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... ay-july-25
NATIONAL HOT FUDGE SUNDAE DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... y-july-25/
NATIONAL THREAD THE NEEDLE DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... y-july-25/
NATIONAL WINE AND CHEESE DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... y-july-25/
NATIONAL DAY OF THE COWBOY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... esearched/

On This Day in history - 25th July

306 The death, in York, of Constantius Chlorus (aged 56), father of Constantine the Great and the second emperor to die in York. The year before his death he crossed over into Britain, travelled to the far north of the island and launched a military expedition against the Picts, claiming a victory against them and the title Britannicus Maximus II.

1554 Queen Mary I married Philip II of Spain at Winchester Cathedral.

1603 James VI of Scotland was crowned as King James I of England, bringing the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into personal union with political union occurring in 1707.

1795 The first stone of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was laid. The aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal over the valley of the River Dee in Wrexham in north east Wales. It is a Grade I Listed Building, a World Heritage Site and is the longest and highest aqueduct in Britain.

1797 British naval commander Horatio Nelson's right arm was shattered by grapeshot during an assault on Tenerife in the battle of Santa Cruz. The injured arm was amputated later. This followed the loss of his sight in his right eye some three years earlier. Nelson's flagship, Victory is now preserved at Portsmouth.

1814 The chief engineer at the Killingworth colliery, George Stephenson, unveiled Blücher, his steam powered locomotive that could haul eight carriages loaded with 30 tons of coal at the break-neck speed of 4 mph. Stephenson was born at a house at Wylam, Northumberland which was shared with three other families.

1834 The death of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The years 1797 and 1798, during which he lived at Coleridge Cottage in Nether Stowey, Somerset, were among the most fruitful of Coleridge's life and where he wrote his notable poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan.

1843 The death of Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist and inventor. He invented waterproof clothing, hence the term macintosh or mac.

1865 The death of Dr. James (Jane) Barry, the first woman doctor (because she masqueraded as a man).

1907 Sir Robert Baden-Powell began setting up his experimental camp on Brownsea Island near Poole to test the feasibility of Scouting.

1909 Frenchman Louis Blériot won the Daily Mail prize for the first successful flight across the English Channel. He made the trip in 37 minutes, landing close to Dover Castle. His success delighted the French but worried the British, who felt that they had suddenly become vulnerable to air attack.

1944 The first jet fighter to engage an enemy in combat was a Messerschmitt 262, over Munich, when it was intercepted by a Mosquito of 544 Squadron.

1959 A hovercraft, the SR.N1, designed by Christopher Cockerell, made its first English Channel crossing from Dover to Calais. The acronym SR.N1 stood for Saunders-Roe Nautical 1.

1962 In London, the Buckingham Palace Art Gallery officially opened to the public.

1978 Louise Joy Brown, the first test-tube baby in Britain, was born at Oldham Hospital in Greater Manchester. It had taken 12 years of research by gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe and Dr Robert Edwards to make the birth possible. Louise weighed 5lb 12 oz and was delivered by caesarean section.

2002 The Queen opened the Commonwealth Games in Manchester. Around one million visitors are thought to have gone to Manchester to see the event live and the world television audience was estimated to top one billion.

2009 The last British survivor of the World War I trenches, Harry Patch, died, aged 111. He was honoured at a service at Wells Cathedral, in Somerset and was later buried in a private service at Monkton Coombe church near Bath. There is a memorial to him at Cathedral Green, close to Wells Cathedral. In 2007 he became the UK's oldest author when he collaborated with Richard van Emden to write The Last Fighting Tommy, a detailed account of his life.

2013 The retirement, aged 77, of James Alexander Gordon, voice of the classified football results for 40 years. He pioneered the much-mimicked technique of raising his tone for the winning side's score, and dropping it in sympathy for the losers. He never officially read the scoreline with which he was indelibly associated - 'East Fife 4. Forfar 5.' but in October 2011 fans across the country raised their hopes during a clash which finished, disappointingly, East Fife 4 Forfar 3. On Sunday, 22nd July 2018 that result finally happened for the first time in the fixture's history when the Scottish League Cup Group B tie between the sides went to penalties after a 1-1 draw. The final score after the penalty shootout was East Fife 4 Forfar 5!
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Re: What can we celebrate today?

Post by Chadwick » Sat Jul 25 2020 5:47pm

Well, I'll be honest, my attempts to combine celebrations of National Day of the Cowboy and National Thread the Needle Day have been extremely frustrating.

It is with some relief that I am wholeheartedly embracing National Wine and Cheese Day and National Hot Fudge Sundae Day.

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What can we celebrate today?

Post by Richard Frost » Sun Jul 26 2020 10:20am

26th July

NATIONAL ALL OR NOTHING DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/days-2/ ... y-july-26/
NATIONAL AUNT AND UNCLE’S DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... y-july-26/
NATIONAL BAGELFEST DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... y-july-26/
NATIONAL COFFEE MILKSHAKE DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... y-july-26/
NATIONAL PARENTS’ DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... y-in-july/

On This Day in history - 26th July

1469 Wars of the Roses: The Battle of Edgecote Moor (northeast of Banbury - Oxfordshire) took place. It pitted the forces of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick against those of Edward IV and was considered to be an important turning point in the course of the war.

1745 The first recorded women's cricket match was played near Guildford, Surrey, between teams from Hambledon and Bramley.

1803 The Surrey Iron Railway opened in south London. It was the world's first railway to be publicly subscribed by Act of Parliament as a railway throughout. The 9 mile track was a horse-drawn plateway of approximately standard gauge that linked the former Surrey towns of Wandsworth and Croydon via Mitcham.

1814 The opening of Ryde Pier on the Isle of Wight. It was designed by John Kent of Southampton, is Britain's oldest pier and it paved the way for others, from Dunoon on the Firth of Clyde to Falmouth in Cornwall.

1845 The SS Great Britain, (the first iron ship designed by Brunel), sailed from Liverpool on her maiden voyage. She is now restored and can be viewed at the Great Western Dockyard in Bristol.

1858 Lionel Rothschild took his seat in the House of Commons to become Britain's first Jewish member of Parliament.

1890 From the roof of the General Post Office in Aldersgate, Marconi made the first public transmission of wireless (radio) signals.

1895 The birth, at Bartley Green - Birmingham, of Jane 'Jinny' Bunford, the tallest person in English medical history, who measured 2.41m. (7ft. 11in.) at the time of her death, aged 26. She was also the tallest person in the world during her lifetime, a record that stood for the next sixty years.

1943 Mick Jagger, British rock singer with the Rolling Stones, was born.

1943 World War II: The Allies mounted one of the largest raids of the war – sending more than 1,000 aircraft to bomb the German industrial city of Hamburg. An estimated 60,000 people were killed.

1945 Winston Churchill resigned as Britain's prime minister after his Conservatives were defeated by the Labour Party in a landslide victory. Clement Attlee became Prime Minister. He said: 'Labour can deliver the goods.'

1958 In Britain, debutantes were presented at the Royal Court for the last time.

1983 A mother of 10 failed to prevent doctors prescribing contraception to under 16s without parental consent.

1989 56-year-old Leslie Merry was knocked off his feet, a rib broken and his spleen ruptured, by a turnip thrown from a passing car in east London. He finally died of respiratory failure brought on by the accident.

1990 It was announced that the Fraud Squad would investigate the National Union of Mineworkers' accounts over Soviet miners' untraced donations.

2001 Prime Minister Tony Blair was greeted by dozens of angry farmers in crisis-torn Cumbria on a visit to help boost the region's struggling tourist industry following the foot and mouth crisis.

2007 Shambo, a black Friesian bull living in the Hindu Skanda Vale Temple near Llanpumsaint in Wales, was slaughtered due to a bovine tuberculosis infection. He had been adopted by the local Hindu community as a sacred animal and the slaughtering caused widespread controversy.

2013 The former BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall's 15-month sentence for a series of indecent assaults was doubled by the Court of Appeal, increasing the term to 30 months. In June 2013, Hall, of Wilmslow, Cheshire, had admitted 14 counts against girls aged from nine to 17 between 1967 and 1985.

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What can we celebrate today?

Post by Richard Frost » Mon Jul 27 2020 10:20am

27th July

NATIONAL CREME BRULEE DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... y-july-27/
NATIONAL NEW JERSEY DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... y-july-27/
NATIONAL SCOTCH DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... y-july-27/
NATIONAL LOVE IS KIND DAY - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/nationa ... y-july-27/

On This Day in history- 27th July

1054 Siward, Earl of Northumbria invaded Scotland and defeated Macbeth, King of Scotland 'somewhere north' of the Firth of Forth.

1214 The Battle of Bouvines, which the English lost, in a field next to what is now the airport of Lille. "Bouvines is the most important battle in English history that no-one has ever heard of," said John France, medieval history professor. "Without Bouvines there is no Magna Carta, and all the British and American law that stems from that. The armies are small, but everything depends on the struggle. It's one of the climactic moments of European history."

1586 Sir Walter Raleigh brought the first tobacco to England, from Virginia.

1663 The English Parliament passed the Second Navigation Act requiring that all goods bound for the American colonies had to be sent in English ships from English ports.

1689 The ending of the Battle of Killiecrankie, a battle fought between Highland Scottish clans supporting King James VII of Scotland and troops supporting King William of Orange, during the first Jacobite uprising. It was at the spot, called Soldier's Leap where Donald MacBean, one of William II of Scotland's supporters, is said to have jumped across the River Garry. from one bank to the other, a distance of 18 ft (5.5.m)

1694 The Bank of England was founded by act of Parliament.

1866 The Great Eastern arrived at Heart's Content in Newfoundland, having successfully laid the transatlantic telegraph cable.

1877 The death of John Frost, a prominent Welsh leader of the British Chartist movement. (Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in Britain. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838).

1914 British troops invaded the streets of Dublin, Ireland, and began to disarm Irish rebels.

1928 Alfred 'Tich' Freeman, English cricketer and leg spin bowler for Kent and England, became the only bowler ever to take 200 first-class wickets before the end of July. He was the only man to take 300 wickets in an English season, and is the second most prolific wicket taker in first class cricket history, the record holder being the Yorkshire born Wilfred Rhodes.

1942 The Battle of El Alamein ended after 17 days, with the British having prevented the German and Italian advance into Egypt.

1949 The British De Havilland Comet, the first jet-propelled airliner, made its maiden flight. It was a 40-passenger airliner.

1958 The birth of Christopher Dean, British ice skater and Olympic gold and bronze medal winner.

1965 Shadow Chancellor Edward Heath beat off his rivals to become the new leader of the Conservative Party.

1969 English rower Tom McLean arrived off the Irish coast to become the first man to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean - from west to east - a distance of 2000 miles. His voyage took 72 days.

1974 At Ascot, English champion jockey Lester Piggott had 3 wins, bring his total to 3,001. By the time that he retired in 1985–86 he had 5,300 winners in the UK & abroad, including nine Epsom Derby victories.

1978 Two British balloonists battling to be the first to cross the Atlantic got into difficulties half way across the ocean. Their balloon finally collapsed into the sea, just 110 miles from land.

1985 English athlete Steve Cram set a new world record for the mile at 3 minutes 46.32 seconds in Oslo.

1988 British pole vault record holder Jeff Gutteridge was banned for life by the British Amateur Athletic Board for taking steroids.

2003 The death of Bob Hope, the English-born American comedian and actor.

2012 The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London. The official mascot for the Olympic Games was named Wenlock, as it was in the market town of Much Wenlock, Shropshire that doctor William Penny Brookes founded the Olympian Games in 1850. A plaque to William Penny Brookes is in Holy Trinity Church, Much Wenlock. The last time that the Games were held in Britain was 1948.

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