Today in History

[Gemini]

1987

With a view to encouraging 'safe sex', or AIDS prevention, the BBC screened its first condom 'commercial' (without a brand name).

[Gemini]

1991

Church envoy Terry Waite was freed by the Islamic extremists who kidnapped him in Beirut in 1987.

[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.

[Gemini]

November 22, 1963

When he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He became the youngest President to die.

[Daisy]

This was one of those events where you always remember where and how you heard the news.

I was on my way home from work, upstairs on a double decker bus. A man came up the stairs and stood at the top and said President Kennedy has been shot and they think he's dead. All chatter on the bus stopped instantly and there was complete silence. The man said it again, and we all just sat there staring at him in disbelief. It was just about a year after the Bay of Pigs standoff with Khrushchev, and the world felt it was hovering on the brink of all out war.

[Gemini]

I was only 9 but I still remember it well.

I was really aware who the US president was, but that my mum was crying and something truly awful had happened.

[Gemini]

1987

Free eye tests were abolished by the Conservative government.

[Oma]

Say no more🫤

[Gemini]

1932

British Equity, the actors' union, voted for a 'closed shop' to begin operating in 1933.


The Equity card is a bit of an actor's Catch 22! To work you need this, but to obtain it you need to have worked in the profession and earned a certain amount.
No two members can have the same name, hence actors like Jack P Shepherd (Coronation St) There was another Jack Shepherd when he joined Equity, hence the use of the middle initial.

[Daisy]

Gem, I've often wondered how you can get an Equity card if you can't work in the profession without one! There must be a way round or our tv screens would be mostly blank and cinemas and theatres would be empty!

[Gemini]

Yes, there is a way!
It used to be working as an ASM (assistant stage manager) and doing the odd small acting part. That sort of bypassed the rules as you were employed in stage management not acting!
There are probably other ways now.

[Daisy]

You'd have thought it could be made more logical - like a temporary/junior Equity card (or trainee card) to build up some experience.

[Gemini]

1987


Drawings of English bank notes by US artist James Boggs were declared works of art and not illegal replicas of UK currency by an Old Bailey jury.

[Gemini]

2014

A new treatment for bladder cancer was shown to completely cure some people, in the first significant breakthrough in the disease for 30 years. Scientists from Queen Mary University of London discovered that an antibody allowed cancer cells to be picked up by the immune system and eradicated before they could spread.

[Daisy]

Gem, it's such good news when there is a genuine break through treatment for cancer.