Today in History

[Plantaholic]

Goodness, gracious me. whatever next.

[Gemini]

1882

A draper’s shop called Coxon & Company, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, became the first shop in the world to be lit by incandescent electric light. It used Swan lamps.

[Oma]

The Shop front is still there Gem although the shop itself isnt , they kept the Facade .

[Gemini]

I wondered if you would know about this Oma.

[Daisy]

How good that the shop's facade is still there. I find the history of things like that fascinating, and how some businesses survive from one generation to another.

[Oma]

Only know Gem as there was a news clip about it a while ago , I don't go into Newcastle often

[Gemini]

1963

At 7.30 pm in Beirut, the American Eleanor Philby was waiting for her husband Kim, a Middle East correspondent for two London journals, to collect her. Instead, he was on his way to Moscow - ‘the most damaging double agent in British history’.

[Daisy]

That was a huge news story and the saga of agents and double agents seemed to go for ever. No wonder it was called the Cold War, it was all quite scary.

[Gemini]

1989

Actor John Cleese won damages for libel at the High Court over an article in the Daily Mirror, which claimed he had become like Basil Fawlty in his comedy series Fawlty Towers

[Gemini]

1910

Police rescued the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, from a crowd of angry Suffragettes.

[Daisy]

I bet the suffragettes didn’t get treated very gently either.

[Gemini]

1995

Manchester United's Eric Cantona was fined £20,000 and a football ban over his kung fu-style attack on a fan. Cantona was nicknamed 'King Eric' by Manchester United fans, and he was voted the club's greatest ever player by the Inside United magazine.

[Gemini]

1989

The artificial leg that had belonged to Sir Douglas Bader was catalogued for sale. His widow was selling memorabilia to raise money to buy her own house, instead of renting.

[Gemini]

1965

P.J. Proby, the US rock singer, was banned by ABC Theatres and the BBC after he had deliberately split his trousers during his act. The mainly female audience and the tabloids, who claimed Proby’s act was obscene, went wild. It was the beginning of the end for the flamboyant performer.
(Note - the author went to a concert that year, but Proby had been banned and was replaced with a then unknown singer called Tom Jones!)

[Daisy]

And of course, Tom Jones was a model of modesty and certainly not sexy!!!