On this day

1498 – Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to visit what is now Venezuela.

1740 - Rule Britannia was sung for the first time, for the then Prince of Wales's daughter's third birthday.

1774 – British scientist Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen gas, corroborating the prior discovery of this element by German-Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele.

1798 - The English (under Nelson), destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile, in Aboukir Bay, stopping Napoleon Bonaparte's plans to invade the Middle East.

1800 - The Act of Union 1800 was passed which merged the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1831 - New London Bridge was opened by King William IV. It lasted for 140 years and was sold and rebuilt in Arizona.

1834 - Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire as the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 came into force.

1914 – Germany declares war on Russia at the opening of World War I.

1957 – The United States and Canada form the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

1980 – Vigdís Finnbogadóttir is elected President of Iceland and becomes the world's first democratically elected female head of state

1981 – MTV begins broadcasting in the United States and airs its first video, Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles.

1984 - Commercial peat-cutters discovered the preserved body of a man they called Lindow Man, at Lindow Moss in Cheshire. It is thought that he was deposited some time between 2 BC and 119 AD.

(01-08-2012 12:32 )skully Wrote:  1980 – Vigdís Finnbogadóttir is elected President of Iceland and becomes the world's first democratically elected female head of state

It should, of course, be noted that Head of State is not necessarily the same as Head of Government, as in some countries the role of President is little more than ceremonial and power lies with the equivalent of the Prime Minister.

There had been five previous female Heads of State before Finnbogadottir, but they had either been appointed through a Soviet type regime or through a military junta, including Isabal Peron in Argentina, who was herself toppled by a military coup which eventually led to the reign of General Galtieri.

Coincidentally, Argentina currently has a female Head of State in the shape of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is also Head of Government, as do the citizens of Liberia, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Malawi. Switzerland, Lithuania, Kosovo and Mauritius have titular female Heads.

The first female Head of Government was Sirimavo Bandaranaike in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) in 1960, followed by Indira Gandhi in India (1966) and Golda Meir in Israel (1969). As well as those named above, Jamaica, Denmark, Thailand, Australia, Trinidad & Tobago, Iceland, Bangladesh and Germany currently have female political rulers.

1100 - King William II of England, son of William the Conqueror, was killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest after allegedly being mistaken for a deer.

1776 - The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence took place. On 4th July earlier that year the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire.

1858 - The rule of the East India Company was transferred to the British government.

1865 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was published but was soon withdrawn because of bad printing. Only 21 copies of the first edition survived, making it one of the rarest 19th century books.

1870 – Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway, opens in London, England, United Kingdom.

1934 - With the death of German President Paul von Hindenburg, Chancellor Adolf Hitler became absolute dictator of Germany under the title of Führer.

1939 – Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon.

1947 – A British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian airliner crashes into a mountain during a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago, Chile. The wreckage would not be found for over 50 years.

1973 – A flash fire kills 51 at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.

1990 – Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War.

1460 - James II, King of Scotland, died after being injured by an exploding cannon at Kelso, in the Scottish Borders.

1858 - Lake Victoria, the source of the Nile, was discovered by the explorer John Speke.

1958 - The nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus became the first vessel to cross the North Pole underwater.

1960 – Niger gains independence from France.

2004 – The pedestal of the Statue of Liberty reopens after being closed since the September 11 attacks.

1870 - The British Red Cross Society was founded, by Lord Wantage.

1914 – World War I: Germany invades Belgium. In response, the United Kingdom declares war on Germany. The United States declare their neutrality.

1944 – The Holocaust: a tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse where they find and arrest Jewish diarist Anne Frank, her family, and four others.

1954 - Britain's first supersonic fighter plane, the English Electric Lightning P-1, made its maiden flight.

1965 – The Constitution of Cook Islands comes into force, giving the Cook Islands self-governing status within New Zealand.

1966 - In a US radio interview, John Lennon claimed that the Beatles were probably more popular than Jesus Christ. Beatles' records were consequently banned in many US states and in South Africa.

2000 - Celebrations took place all over the United Kingdom to mark the 100th birthday of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. She was the first ever member of the Royal Family to reach her centenary.

2002 – Soham murders: 10 year old school girls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells go missing from the town of Soham, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom.

2010 – California's Proposition 8, the ballot initiative prohibiting same-sex marriage passed by the state's voters in 2008, is overturned by Judge Vaughn Walker in the case Perry v. Schwarzenegger.

1888 - Bertha Benz makes the first long distance automobile trip, travelling 106 km (66 miles) from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany. The vehicle was a Benz-Patent Motorwagen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Benz

1916 - First World War - The last day of the Battle of Romani signals the beginning of the Sinai & Palestine campaign.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Romani

1962 - The world was rocked when the news broke of Marilyn Monroe's death at the age of just 36. Her death has become one of the most debated conspiracy theories of modern times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe

1296 - The Stone of Scone (on which Scottish kings had been crowned for centuries), was seized by King Edward I of England.

1503 - King James IV of Scotland married Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh.

1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.

1918 - World War I -The start of the Battle of Amiens - Allied troops advanced against 20 German divisions and took 16,000 prisoners within 2 hours.

1963 - The 'Great Train Robbery', in which over £2.5 million was stolen, took place near Bletchley, Buckinghamshire.

1969 – At a zebra crossing in London, photographer Iain Macmillan takes the photo that becomes the cover of the Beatles album Abbey Road, one of the most famous album covers in recording history.

586 BC – Solomon's first temple is totally destroyed by the Babylonians led by King Nebuchadnezzar.

1173 – Construction of the campanile of the cathedral of Pisa (now known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa) begins; it will take two centuries to complete.

1902 - Edward VII was crowned in Westminster Abbey following the death of his mother Queen Victoria. Edward was the first British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which was renamed the House of Windsor by his son, George V.

1942 – Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement.

1945 – World War II: Nagasaki is devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat Man, is dropped by the United States B-29 Bockscar. 39,000 people are killed outright.

1945 – World War II: The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and begins the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation.

1965 – Singapore is expelled from Malaysia and becomes the first and only country to date to gain independence unwillingly.

1969 – Followers led by Charles Manson murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate (wife of Roman Polanski), coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Polish actor Wojciech Frykowski, men's hairstylist Jay Sebring and recent high-school graduate Steven Parent.

1974 – As a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, becomes president.

1979 - Brighton established the first nudist beach in Britain, despite protests from those fearing depravity.

1984 - Daley Thompson won the Olympic decathlon at the Summer Games in Los Angeles.

2006 – At least 21 suspected terrorists were arrested in the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot that happened in the United Kingdom. The arrests were made in London, Birmingham, and High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, in an overnight operation.

(09-08-2012 12:43 )skully Wrote:  1974 – As a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, becomes president.

The affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. The FBI connected cash found on the burglars to a slush fund used by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, a fundraising group for the Nixon campaign. In July 1973, as evidence mounted against the president's staff, including testimony provided by former staff members in an investigation conducted by the Senate Watergate Committee, it was revealed that President Nixon had a tape-recording system in his offices and he had recorded many conversations. Recordings from these tapes implicated the president, revealing he had attempted to cover up the break-in. After a protracted series of bitter court battles, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the president had to hand over the tapes to government investigators; he ultimately complied.

The role of the Washington Post journalists Woodward and Bernstein in exposing the case has been well documented but the often forgotten unsung hero was District Judge John Sirica. When the five burglars appeared before him, he refused to believe that they had acted alone and that others higher up the chain weren't involved. Sirica made it clear that he intended to get at the truth of what had happened, and said that in doing so, he did not intend to be bound by traditional ideas of courtroom procedures. He often questioned witnesses himself, and he instructed jurors that it was their duty to consider not just what had happened, but why. When he suspected that what was unfolding in his courtroom was less than the whole truth, he made his feelings known.

Critics contended that Sirica had overstepped his bounds. But his conduct was sanctioned enthusiastically by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in upholding the conspiracy, burglary, wiretapping and eavesdropping convictions of G. Gordon Liddy (Counsel to Nixon's re-election campaign), and ultimately the Supreme Court upheld Sirica's order that Nixon hand over the tapes.

Ironically, Sirica was a lifelong Republican who had only got his position as a District Court Judge in 1957 as a reward for his services to the party. Until then he had been regarded as nothing more than average by his contemporaries, but this was his finest hour, because as the events of Watergate unfolded, Sirica's original suspicions that there was more to the case than a simple burglary were more than amply borne out.

"Simply stated, I had no intention of sitting on the bench like a nincompoop and watching the parade go by," Sirica recalled in a book several years after the trials.

In all, 19 officials of the Nixon administration and reelection campaign, including the president's two closest aides and his attorney general, went to jail. The president, facing impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives, resigned on Aug. 9, 1974.

Sirica had become a household name in the country by the time the last of the appeals was exhausted in 1977 and Time magazine made him its Man of the Year for 1973. He was promoted to Senior Judge, and continued to sit on the bench until he was nearly 82, when ill-health forced him to step down. He died in 1992 at the age of 88.

Nixon escaped punishment as he was granted a full pardon by his successor Gerald Ford, who thought long and hard before concluding that a long drawn out trial would do far more damage to an already fractured country.

Nixon died two years after Sirica at the age of 81. To some extent he has been "rehabilitated" over the years, and many historians agree that had it not been for Watergate his achievements would have made him one of the better presidents, but the scar it left and the damage it caused will forever tarnish his legacy.

991 - At the Battle of Maldon (Essex) the English were defeated by a band of inland-raiding Vikings. After the battle, Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury and aldermen advised King Aethelred to buy off the Vikings rather than continue the armed struggle. The result was a payment of 10,000 Roman pounds (3,300 kg) of silver.

1519 – Ferdinand Magellan's five ships set sail from Seville to circumnavigate the globe. The Basque second in command Sebastian Elcano will complete the expedition after Magellan's death in the Philippines.

1675 - King Charles II laid the foundation stone of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London. The observatory was built to provide English navigators with accurate tables of the positions of the moon and stars.

1793 – The Musée du Louvre is officially opened in Paris, France.

1842 - Britain passed the Mines Act, forbidding women and children from working underground.

1846 – The Smithsonian Institution is chartered by the United States Congress after James Smithson donates $500,000.

1913 – Second Balkan War: delegates from Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece sign the Treaty of Bucharest, ending the war.

1961 – First use in Vietnam War of the Agent Orange by the U.S. Army.

1969 – A day after murdering Sharon Tate and four others, members of Charles Manson's cult kill Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

1977 – In Yonkers, New York, 24-year-old postal employee David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) is arrested for a series of killings in the New York City area over the period of one year.

1988 – Japanese American internment: U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, providing $20,000 payments to Japanese Americans who were either interned in or relocated by the United States during World War II.

1990 – The Magellan space probe reaches Venus.

2003 – The highest temperature ever recorded in the United Kingdom – 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in Kent. It is the first time the United Kingdom has recorded a temperature over 100 °F (38 °C).