Today in History

[Gemini]

1986

The world’s youngest heart transplant patient, a two-and-a-half-month-old baby from north west London, was given the heart of a five-day-old Belgian boy by Professor Magdi Yacoub at Harefield Hospital, Middlesex.

[Clover]

It's incredible how things have progressed in our lifetime.

[Gemini]

1537

Henry VIII's 3rd wife, Jane Seymour, died following the birth of future king, Edward VI.

[Gemini]

1962
The opening of Britain's first urban motorway - the M62 (now M60) around Manchester.

[Daisy]

It's amazing to think of life without motorways now!

[Gemini]

2013
The Lonely Planet Guide named Yorkshire as one of the top places in the world to visit. It put the area third in the top 10 world regions, behind destinations in India and Australia.

[Gemini]

1971

A terrorist bomb exploded at the top of the Post Office Tower in London. The building has been closed to the public ever since.

[Gemini]

1942
The Church of England relaxed its rule that women must wear hats in church.

What a silly rule that was!

[Gemini]

1847
In Edinburgh, Dr James Young Simpson delivered Wilhelmina Carstairs while chloroform was administered to her mother, the first child to be born with the aid of anaesthetics.

How women must have suffered before this, especially considering how many babies most had.

[Daisy]

Gemini - and most of them were at home with the local 'midwife' with little or no medical knowledge or understanding of bacteria etc. And sadly, so many babies and mothers didn't survive. We are very lucky to have had our children in this day and age.

[Gemini]

1960
Bookshops all over England sold out of Penguin's first run of 200,000 copies of the controversial novel Lady Chatterley's Lover

[Clover]

Never read it but I understand it is a bit "tame" for these days

[Daisy]

I was in the 3rd or 4th form at school and can remember us all huddling round as one girl read the 'interesting' bits out to us. but that would have been before 1960. Were there copies in circulation before then?

[Gemini]

1918
At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ended; a war that had lasted for 4 years and 97 days. Germany, bereft of manpower, supplies and food, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies. The war left 9 million soldiers dead and more than 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria Hungary, France, and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives. In addition, some 6 million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure.

1919
Britain introduced a two minute silence at 11:00 a.m. to remember those who died in World War I.

[Gemini]

1944
World War II: The end of the 'blackout' in London. After five years in the dark, the lights were switched back on in Piccadilly Circus, the Strand and in Fleet Street.

How wonderful that must have been!