On this day

The BBC are reporting that it's exactly 50 years since the Beatles released their 1st single 'Love Me Do'.

The 1st James Bond film 'Dr No' was released 50 years ago.

1864 – The Indian city of Calcutta is almost totally destroyed by a cyclone; 60,000 die.

1895 – The first individual time trial for racing cyclists is held on a 50-mile course north of London.

1905 – Wilbur Wright pilots Wright Flyer III in a flight of 24 miles in 39 minutes, a world record that stood until 1908.

1930 – British Airship R101 crashes in France en-route to India on its maiden voyage.

1945 – Hollywood Black Friday: A six-month strike by Hollywood set decorators turns into a bloody riot at the gates of Warner Brothers' studios.

1962 – Dr. No, the first in the James Bond film series, is released.

1969 – The first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus airs on BBC One.

1984 - Police and Customs in Essex seized Britain's biggest ever haul of cannabis made in a single raid, (4.3 tons), with an estimated street value of almost £11 million.

2011 – In the Mekong River massacre, two Chinese cargo boats are hijacked and 13 crew members murdered in the lawless Golden Triangle region of Southeast Asia.

1762 – Seven Years' War: conclusion of the Battle of Manila between Britain and Spain, which resulted in the British occupation of Manila for the rest of the war.

1847 - Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre was published in London. The book's author used the pseudonym Currer Bell.

1849 – The execution of the 13 Martyrs of Arad after the Hungarian war of independence.

1854 – England: The Great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead starts shortly after midnight, leading to 53 deaths and hundreds injured.

1927 – Opening of The Jazz Singer, the first prominent talking movie.

1939 – World War II: Germany's invasion of Poland ends with the surrender of Polesia army after the Battle of Kock.

1939 - Adolf Hitler denied any intention to wage war against Britain and France in an address to Reichstag.

1973 – Egypt launches a coordinated attack with Syria against Israel leading to the [url=Yom Kippur War[/url].

1977 – The first prototype of the MiG-29, designated 9-01, makes its maiden flight.

1985 – PC Keith Blakelock is murdered as riots erupt in the Broadwater Farm suburb of London.

1995 – 51 Pegasi is discovered to be the second major star apart from the Sun to have a planet (and extrasolar planet) orbiting around it.

1997 - Britain's first astronaut, Michael Foale, returned safely to earth aboard the space shuttle 'Atlantis' after four and a half months on 'MIR', the Russian space station.

2007 – Jason Lewis completes the first human-powered circumnavigation of the globe.

1571 - The Battle of Lepanto was fought between Christian allied naval forces and the Ottoman Turks attempting to capture Cyprus from the Venetians. It was the last great clash of galley ships.

1763 – George III of Great Britain issues British Royal Proclamation of 1763, closing aboriginal lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlements.

1806 - The first carbon paper was patented by its English inventor, Ralph Wedgwood.

1826 - The first gravity-powered railroad went into operation, the Granite Railway from Quincy to Milton, Massachusetts.

1912 – The Helsinki Stock Exchange sees its first transaction.

1919 - The Dutch airline KLM, the oldest existing airline, was established.

1933 – Air France is inaugurated, after being formed by a merger of 5 French airlines.

1959 – U.S.S.R. probe Luna 3 transmits the first ever photographs of the far side of the Moon.

1985 – The Achille Lauro is hijacked by Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

2001 - The United States and Britain launched air strikes against Taliban positions and Osama bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan.

2006 – Russian journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya is shot and killed outside her home in Moscow.

(07-10-2012 13:41 )skully Wrote:  1919 - The Dutch airline KLM, the oldest existing airline, was established.

The airline's first flight was from Croydon Airport, London to Amsterdam, carrying only two journalists and many newspapers, on 17th May 1920. This first flight was flown by an Aircraft Transport and Travel Airco DH.16, callsign G-EALU, piloted by Jerry Shaw.

Later that year, the airline scheduled a full flight of 440 passengers and 22 tons of freight. It wasn't until the year afterwards that regular flights were scheduled and by 1926 fights to such locations as Amsterdam, Bremen, Malmo, Rotterdam, Copenhagen and Brussels. Most of the early planes were Fokker F2 and Fokker F III.

Service of the airline was largely suspended during the Second World War, limited just for operational use in the Dutch Antilles in the Caribbean. During WW2, KLM planes were attacked 3 times by the Luftwaffe. One of the most notorious incidents was Flight BOAC 777, a British Overseas Airways Corporation civilian fight, owned by KLM. It was en route from Pontela Airport, Lisbon to Whitchurch Airport, Bristol on 1st June 1943 when eight German Junkers Ju 88s brought it down. The flight crashed in the Bay of Biscay, killing all 17 people on board, including the actor Leslie Howard. Here's a link to the BOAC 777 incident:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOAC_Flight_777

Today KLM remains the longest serving airline in the world still operating under it's original name. Its quite satisfying that in a world where mergers and industrial growth are common place, that an original brand can still flourish. Last year when I had a two week holiday in New York City, I had a KLM flight from Birmingham to Amsterdam to then change to a Delta Airlines flight to JFK Airport in New York. By far the longest plane journey I've ever taken - quite an experience going over all those different time zones, first an hour forwards then six hours backwards to New York!

1806 - Napoleonic Wars: British forces laid siege to the port of Boulogne by using Congreve rockets, invented by Sir William Congreve. His effective rockets were made up of an iron case containing black powder for propulsion and a conical warhead.

1871 – Four major fires break out on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago, Peshtigo, Wisconsin, Holland, Michigan, and Manistee, Michigan including the Great Chicago Fire, and the much deadlier Peshtigo Fire.

1895 – Queen Min of Joseon, the last empress of Korea, is assassinated and her corpse burnt by the Japanese in Gyeongbok Palace.

1908 - The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame's classic children's book, was published. It has never been out of print in its entire history.

1915 - The Battle of Loos, one of the fiercest of World War I, ended with virtually no gains for either side. Almost 430,000 French, British and Germans were killed. The British used poison gas for the first time in the battle.

1932 – The Indian Air Force is established.

1967 – Guerrilla leader Che Guevara and his men are captured in Bolivia.

1980 - British Leyland launched the Mini Metro.

1982 – Cats opens on Broadway and runs for nearly 18 years before closing on September 10, 2000.

1991 – Croatia votes to sever constitutional relations with Yugoslavia, making the country fully independent

Harrow & Wealdstone Rail Crash

At 8.19 am on 8th October 1952, a multiple collision occurred at Harrow & Wealdstone station in London. Three trains were involved, each carrying multiple carriages. 112 people died and 340 others were hospitalized through injury in the worst rail crash the United Kingdom had seen outside of wartime.

Collisions

The 7.51 am train from Tring to Euston, a steam locomotive with 9 carriages carrying 800 passengers, stopped at Harrow & Wealdstone approximately seven minutes late, due to heavy fog. Due to the service following this one being cancelled, the early train was far busier than normal.

Just before the station guard reached the brake van after checking the doors on the last carriage, the train was struck from behind by the 8.15 pm night train from Perth, Scotland, a locomotive hauling 11 carriages carrying 85 passengers. The night express train was about 80 minutes late, roaring along the line at 50-60 miles per hour and had already passed through one light signal showing caution and two semaphore signals showing extreme danger.

A few seconds after the collision, the 8 am express train from Euston to Liverpool & Manchester, consisting of two locomotives hauling 15 carriages carrying 200 passengers, came in to the station at 60 miles per hour on the adjacent fast line. The lead locomotive struck the Perth and derailed. In all, 16 carriages were destroyed, at least 13 of which compressed in to a space under the footbridge. 112 people died, including the drivers of the Perth and leading locomotive of the Liverpool / Manchester trains.

Aftermath / Legacy

The first emergency response arrived at the station at 8.22 am. Fire, ambulance and police rescue teams were assisted by doctors and a medical unit deployed by the U.S. Air Force, with additional help coming from volunteers of the Salvation Army and Women's Voluntary Service. The first ambulance left at 8.27 am, with rescue operations continuing until 12.15 pm. Searches for survivors then went on until 1.30 am the following morning.

The Ministry of Transport published a report in to the incident in June 1953. It found that the signalman had failed to change the route after the Perth train had passed through the caution warning and that the driver of the Perth failed to recognise the three warnings before colliding with the Tring train. The report also praised the manufacturing of British trains, as the new standard steel made coaches survived much better than wooden / steel hybrid coaches.

The accident quickened the process of the Automatic Warning System being put in to place by British Rail. By 1977, a third of all British Rail services had been fitted with the AWS. After the accident there was criticism about the track layout, with the Tring train having been forced to wait on the fast line because the junction between slow and fast lines was situated to the North side of the station. The junction was changed at the station in 1962.

In 2002, a memorial plaque was unveiled to mark the 50th anniversary of the accident. Children from local schools painted a mural featuring events in Wealdstone's history - this was displayed at the side of the bordering road and dedicated to the memory of the victims.

Wikipedia links for further reading below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrow_and_...rail_crash
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Warning_System

1708 – Peter the Great defeats the Swedes at the Battle of Lesnaya.

1888 – The Washington Monument officially opens to the general public.

1897 - Henry Sturmey set off in his 4.5hp Daimler from Land's End, and became the first person to drive to John o' Groats. His 929 mile journey took him 10 days.

1913 - The Glasgow built steamship SS Volturno caught fire in mid-Atlantic. Eleven ships came to her aid and rescued 520 passengers and crewmen but 130, most of them women and children, died in the incident, in unsuccessfully launched lifeboats.

1940 – World War II: Battle of Britain – During a night-time air raid by the German Luftwaffe, St. Paul's Cathedral in the City of London, England is hit by a bomb.

1962 - Uganda proclaimed its independence from Britain.

1963 – In northeast Italy, over 2,000 people are killed when a large landslide behind the Vajont Dam causes a giant wave of water to overtop it.

1967 – A day after being captured, Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara is executed for attempting to incite a revolution in Bolivia.

1986 - The musical The Phantom of the Opera had its first performance at Her Majesty's Theatre in London.

1991 - The first Sumo wrestling tournament ever held off Japanese soil in the sport's 1500 year history began at the Royal Albert Hall.

1999 – The last flight of the SR-71 Blackbird.

1580 – After a three-day siege, the English Army beheads over 600 Irish and Papal soldiers and civilians at Dún an Óir, Ireland.

1881 - The Savoy Theatre, the first public building to be lit by electricity, opened with a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Patience'.

1928 - George V opened the Tyne Bridge. It contained Britain's largest steel arch.

1943 – Double Tenth Incident in Japanese-controlled Singapore

1944 – Holocaust: 800 Gypsy children are murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp.

1957 – The Windscale fire in Cumbria, U.K. is the world's first major nuclear accident.

1961 - Following a volcanic eruption, the entire population of the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha was evacuated to Britain.

1967 – The Outer Space Treaty, signed on January 27 by more than sixty nations, comes into force.

1975 – Papua New Guinea joins the United Nations.

1996 - A Scottish fisherman found a message in a bottle. It had been thrown in the North Sea in 1914 to chart the currents.