Today in History

[Gemini]

1940
The BBC’s Music While You Work programme was first broadcast on radio to brighten up the lives of munitions workers doing boring factory jobs

[Daisy]

I can still remember the theme music to that - my first job was in the local town hall, and the caretaker always had the radio on!

[Nanto2girls]

The Battle of the Somme

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme

[Gemini]

1776

The American Congress voted for independence from Britain.

[Clover]

Bit of deja vue there!

[Nanto2girls]

It is isn't it Clover.

[Gemini]

1984
A massive fire, caused by a lightning strike, devastated large parts of York Minster causing an estimated £1m damage.

A very sad day for York

[Daisy]

Gem - I remember that. It was very dramatic and somehow being 1984 seemed even worse.

[Nanto2girls]

1962 - The Telstar Communications satellite was launched. The satellite relayed TV and telephone signals between Europe and the U.S.

[Gemini]

Gem - I remember that. It was very dramatic and somehow being 1984 seemed even worse.

Awful Daisy. For me it was overshadowed by a little girl I knew dying in a car crash the same week. Seatbelts weren't compulsory and she went through the windscreen of the family car

[Daisy]

Gem - how awful! You can't imagine what hell her family have gone through. Seatbelts have saved so many lives.

[Gemini]

971
According to the legend of St. Swithin, if it rains today, it will be the start of forty days of rain. St Swithin was bishop of Winchester Cathedral and asked to be buried outside it so that he would be exposed to ‘the feet of passers-by and the drops falling from above’.

Don't let it rain today then!!

[Daisy]

Fortunately the forecast is for dry weather - in Winchester anyway!

[Gemini]

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

[Clover]

Gosh I didn't realise it was so long ago. Seems like about ten years to me.