Today in History

[Gemini]

1893
The birth of a new political party in Britain when James Keir Hardie and others formed the Independent Labour Party. It was an action that worried the Liberals, who were afraid that the new party might, at some point in the future, win the working-class votes that they traditionally received. The last Independent Labour Party MP joined the Labour Party itself in 1948.

[Gemini]

1559
Elizabeth I was crowned Queen of England at the age of 26. She was the daughter of Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn and the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty

[Gemini]

1950
Listen With Mother began on radio with the words "Hello children. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin". When the series ended in 1982 there was a national outcry

[Gemini]

1976
The first Concorde jets carrying commercial passengers simultaneously took off, at 11:40 a.m. from Heathrow Airport and Orly Airport outside Paris. The London flight was to Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, and the Paris flight was to Rio de Janeiro. Nearly 3 hours was knocked off the normal flying time to Bahrain by the British Concorde but the Air France Concorde arrived 38 minutes late.

[Gemini]

1901
Queen Victoria died, aged 81, at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. At the time, her reign was the longest in British history, spanned 63 years and saw the growth of 'an empire on which the sun never set'.

[Gemini]

1931
The official opening of Whipsnade Zoo near Dunstable.

[Gemini]

1928
The birth of Desmond Morris, British anthropologist. He first came to the public's attention in the 1950s as a presenter of the ITV television programme Zoo Time, but he achieved worldwide fame in 1967 with his book The Naked Ape.

(I learned an awful lot from that book!)

[Daisy]

This is something that has always fascinated me, even though I don't own much jewellery:


1905 World’s largest diamond found

On January 25, 1905, at the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, a 3,106-carat diamond is discovered during a routine inspection by the mine’s superintendent. Weighing 1.33 pounds, and christened the “Cullinan,” it was the largest diamond ever found.
Frederick Wells was 18 feet below the earth’s surface when he spotted a flash of starlight embedded in the wall just above him. His discovery was presented that same afternoon to Sir Thomas Cullinan, who owned the mine. Cullinan then sold the diamond to the Transvaal provincial government, which presented the stone to Britain’s King Edward VII as a birthday gift. Worried that the diamond might be stolen in transit from Africa to London, Edward arranged to send a phony diamond aboard a steamer ship loaded with detectives as a diversionary tactic. While the decoy slowly made its way from Africa on the ship, the Cullinan was sent to England in a plain box.
Edward entrusted the cutting of the Cullinan to Joseph Asscher, head of the Asscher Diamond Company of Amsterdam. Asscher, who had cut the famous Excelsior Diamond, a 971-carat diamond found in 1893, studied the stone for six months before attempting the cut. On his first attempt, the steel blade broke, with no effect on the diamond. On the second attempt, the diamond shattered exactly as planned; Asscher then fainted from nervous exhaustion.
The Cullinan was later cut into nine large stones and about 100 smaller ones, valued at millions of dollars all told. The largest stone is called the “Star of Africa I,” or “Cullinan I,” and at 530 carats, it is the largest-cut fine-quality colorless diamond in the world. The second largest stone, the “Star of Africa II” or “Cullinan II,” is 317 carats. Both of these stones, as well as the “Cullinan III,” are on display in the Tower of London with Britain’s other crown jewels; the Cullinan I is mounted in the British Sovereign’s Royal Scepter, while the Cullinan II sits in the Imperial State Crown.

[Clover]

That's really interesting. Thanks.

[Daisy]

When you see them on display in the Tower of London they look almost too good to be true!

[Nanto2girls]

1926

First demonstration of television by John Logie Baird.


That was interesting about the diamond Daisy. Thanks for sharing.

[Gemini]

1945
The Nazis' biggest concentration camp at Auschwitz in south-western Poland was liberated. The millions killed during the Holocaust are remembered each year in services across the UK, as part of Holocaust Memorial Day.

[Clover]

Really important to remember.

[Daisy]

1986 - Challenger explodes

This was the first space shuttle flight with an ordinary US civilian on board. The shuttle exploded 73 seconds after take off.

[Gemini]

Oh dear