On this day

1536 - Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII of England and mother of Mary I, died, at Kimbolton Castle in Cambridgeshire.

1610 – Galileo Galilei makes his first observation of the four Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa, although he is not able distinguish the last two until the following day.

1785 - Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries traveled from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.

1904 - The CQD distress signal was introduced. CQ stood for ‘seek you’, and the D for ‘danger’. It lasted just two years before being replaced with SOS.

1927 - A telephone service began operating between London and New York. A three-minute call cost £15.

1931 – Guy Menzies flies the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight (from Australia to New Zealand) in 11 hours and 45 minutes, crash-landing on New Zealand's west coast.

1960 – The Polaris missile is test launched.

1965 - Identical twin brothers Ronald and Reginald Kray were taken in custody, charged in connection with running a protection racket.

1975 - OPEC decided to raise crude oil prices by 10%, which began a tidal wave of world economic inflation.

1985 – Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches Sakigake, Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States or the Soviet Union.

1990 – The interior of the Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public because of safety concerns.

1999 – The Senate trial in the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton begins.

871 - Alfred the Great led a West Saxon army to repel an invasion by the Vikings.

1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlie occupied Stirling, but failed to take the castle and subsequently retreated northwards.

1815 – War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans – Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.

1877 – Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle against the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory.

1889 - American inventor Herman Hollerith patented his tabulator, the first device for data processing; his firm would later become one of IBM's founding companies.

1940 - World War II: Britain introduced food rationing.

1942 - The birth of Stephen Hawking, possibly the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Albert Einstein. He wrote A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks, the book sold at least 25,000,000 copies.

1963 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

1981 – A farmer reports a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France, claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".

1994 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 leaves for Mir. He would stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space.

2004 - The liner RMS Queen Mary 2, was named by Queen Elizabeth II. At the time of her construction in 2003 she was the longest, widest and tallest passenger ship ever built, and at 151,400 gross tons, she was also the largest.

1799 - Income tax was introduced into Britain by William Pitt the Younger, to raise funds for the Napoleonic War. The rate was two shillings in the pound.

1806 - Lord Nelson, naval commander and hero of the Battle of Trafalgar, was buried beneath the dome of St Paul's cathedral, in London, after a grand and solemn procession along the river to Whitehall and thence to the City.

1854 - The first free lending Library opened, on Marylebone Road, London.

1909 – Ernest Shackleton, leading the Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, plants the British flag 97 nautical miles (180 km; 112 mi) from the South Pole, the furthest anyone had ever reached at that time.

1960 – President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser opens construction on the Aswan Dam by detonating ten tons of dynamite to demolish twenty tons of granite on the east bank of the Nile.

1972 - The Queen Elizabeth, the liner that had been turned into a sailing university, caught fire and sank in Hong Kong harbour. She had been the world’s largest passenger liner for over thirty years.

1996 – First Chechen War: Chechen separatists launch a raid against the helicopter airfield and later a civilian hospital in the city of Kizlyar in the neighbouring Republic of Dagestan, which turns into a massive hostage crisis involving thousands of civilians.

1810 – Napoleon divorces his first wife Joséphine.

1839 - Indian tea was auctioned in Britain for the first time. Previously, only China tea had been available, at great expense. After the introduction of Indian tea, prices fell and tea became so affordable that it was soon the national drink.

1840 - Sir Rowland Hill introduced the Penny Post to Britain. Mail was delivered at a standard charge rather than being paid by the recipient. On its first day, 112,000 letters were posted in London alone.

1863 - The first section of the London Underground railway was opened by Prime Minister Gladstone. It ran from Paddington to Farringdon Street stopping at seven stations. The trains ran every fifteen minutes.

1918 - The House of Lords gave its approval to the Representation of the People Bill, which gave woman over the age of 30 the right to vote, as recognition of the contribution made by women defence workers during the First World War.

1920 – The Treaty of Versailles takes effect, officially ending World War I.

1922 - Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin and one of the architects of the 1921 peace treaty with Britain, was elected president of the newly established Irish Free State.

1949 - Vinyl records were launched by RCA (45 rpm) and Columbia (33.3 rpm).

1962 – Apollo Project: NASA announces plans to build the C-5 rocket launch vehicle. It became better known as the Saturn V Moon rocket, which launched every Apollo Moon mission.

1984 – The United States and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations after 117 years.

1985 - The C5 electric car with a top speed of 15 mph (the fastest allowed in the UK without a driving licence) was demonstrated by its inventor, Sir Clive Sinclair. It retailed for £399 but only 17,000 were ever sold and Sinclair Vehicles was put into receivership on 12th October 1985.

1990 – Time Warner is formed from the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc.

2000 - America Online agreed to buy Time-Warner for $162 billion, making it the largest corporate merger to date.

49 B.C.E. - Julius Caesar led his army across the Rubicon River, plunging Rome into civil war.

630 – Muhammad leads an army of 10,000 to conquer Mecca.

1787 – William Herschel discovers Titania and Oberon, two moons of Uranus.

1908 – The Grand Canyon National Monument is created.

1928 - Thomas Hardy, the English playwright and poet, died aged 87, having dictated his final poem to his wife on his deathbed. He regarded himself primarily as a poet but came to be known for his novels, such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd.

1935 - Aviator Amelia Earhart began a trip from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California, making her the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.

1943 – World War II: The United States and United Kingdom give up territorial rights in China.

1949 – First recorded case of snowfall in Los Angeles, California.

1964 – United States Surgeon General Dr. Luther Leonidas Terry, M.D., publishes a landmark report saying that smoking may be hazardous to health, sparking worldwide anti-smoking efforts.

1973 - The first 867 graduates from the Open University were awarded their degrees after two years studying from home.

1980 - Nigel Short, age 14, from Bolton, Lancashire, became the youngest International Master in the history of chess.

1993 - British Airways was forced into an embarrassing climb-down in relation to a campaign of 'dirty tricks' it had launched against rival airline Virgin Atlantic. BA was forced to pay damages to both Virgin Atlantic and its boss Richard Branson.

1866 - The Aeronautical Society of Great Britain was formed in London, thirty-seven years before the Wright Brothers achieved the first successful powered flight.

1895 – The National Trust is founded in the United Kingdom.

1954 - The Queen opened New Zealand’s parliament, the first time in that country’s history that a reigning monarch had done so.

1967 – Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation.

1970 - The Boeing 747 completed its first transatlantic flight, from New York to Heathrow. The 747 was the first wide-body ever produced.

1976 - Crime writer Dame Agatha Christie died, leaving a final book waiting to be published. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly four billion copies, and her estate claims that her works rank third, after those of William Shakespeare and the Bible, as the most widely published books.

1998 – Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning.

2001 – Downtown Disney opens to the public as part of the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California.

2004 – The world's largest ocean liner, RMS Queen Mary 2, makes its maiden voyage.

2010 – The 2010 Haiti earthquake occurs killing an estimated 316,000 and destroying the majority of the capital Port-au-Prince.

(12-01-2012 13:48 )skully Wrote:  1967 – Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation.

In June 1965, Ev Cooper’s Life Extension Society (LES) offered to preserve one person free of charge, stating that "the Life Extension Society now has primitive facilities for emergency short term freezing and storing our friend the large homeotherm (man). LES offers to freeze free of charge the first person desirous and in need of cryogenic suspension” and Bedford offered and was accepted as this candidate. Bedford, a retired Professor of Psychology at the University of California, had kidney cancer that had metastasized to his lungs and was untreatable at that time. Bedford also left $100,000 to cryonics research in his will, but more than this amount was spent by Bedford's wife and son defending his will and cryonics suspension wishes in court from claims by other relatives.

Bedford's body was frozen a few hours after he died of natural causes related to his cancer. His body was frozen by Robert Prehoda (author of the 1969 book Suspended Animation), Dr. Dante Brunol (physician and biophysicist) and Robert Nelson (President of the Cryonics Society of California). Nelson then wrote a book about the subject titled We Froze the First Man. Modern cryonics organizations perfuse cryonics patients with an anti-freeze (cryoprotectant) to prevent ice formation (vitrification), but the use of cryoprotectants in Bedford's case was primitive. He was injected with DMSO, so it is unlikely that his brain was protected. At first, his body was stored at Edward Hope's Cryo-Care facility in Phoenix, Arizona, for two years, then in 1969 moved to the Galiso facility in California. Bedford was moved from Galiso in 1973 to Trans Time near Berkeley, California, until 1977, before being stored by Bedford's son for many years.

Bedford's body was maintained in liquid nitrogen by his family in southern California until 1982, when it was then moved to Alcor Life Extension Foundation, and has remained in Alcor's care to the present day. In May 1991, his body's condition was evaluated when he was moved to a new storage dewar. The examiners concluded that "it seems likely that his external temperature has remained at relatively low subzero temperatures throughout the storage interval."

Among those in the cryonics community, the anniversary of his cryonic preservation is celebrated as "Bedford Day".

1842 – Dr. William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British East India Company Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for being the sole survivor of an army of 4,500 men and 12,000 camp followers when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad.

1910 – The first public radio broadcast takes place; a live performance of the opera Cavalleria rusticana is sent out over the airwaves from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.

1931 - The bridge connecting New York and New Jersey was named the George Washington Memorial Bridge.

1939 – The Black Friday bush fires burn 20,000 square kilometres of land in Australia, claiming the lives of 71 people.

1942 – World War II: First use of aircraft ejection seat by a German test pilot in a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter.

1958 - In Scotland, the serial killer Peter Manuel was arrested after a series of attacks over a two year period that left nine people dead, although he is suspected of having killed as many as eighteen.

1964 - Capital Records grudgingly released the first Beatles record (I Wanna Hold Your Hand) in the US. It became their fastest selling single ever and sold a million copies within 3 weeks.

1968 – Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom Prison.

1985 – A passenger train plunges into a ravine in Ethiopia, killing 428 in the worst railroad disaster in Africa.

1992 - Japan apologized for forcing tens of thousands of Korean women to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II.

1993 - American, British and French planes bombed a series of targets over southern Iraq. The action was taken in response to repeated Iraqi breaches of the 'no fly zone' implemented after the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

2004 - Harold Shipman, who is believed to have killed more than 200 patients, was found hanged in his prison cell.

1129 – Formal approval of the Order of the Templar at the Council of Troyes.

1794 - Dr. Jesse Bennett of Virginia performed the first successful Caesarean section; the patient was his wife.

1878 - Queen Victoria watched a demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, by W.H. Preece at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

1896 - The first public screening of a film in Britain. It was at the London headquarters of the Royal Photographic society.

1943 - World War II: Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt met in Casablanca, Morocco, to discuss their strategy for the next phase of the war.

1950 – The first prototype of the MiG-17 makes its maiden flight.

1954 - Baseball hero Joe DiMaggio married film star Marilyn Monroe.

1973 – Elvis Presley's concert Aloha from Hawaii is broadcast live via satellite, and sets a record as the most watched broadcast by an individual entertainer in television history.

1980 - Gold reached a new record price of more than $800 an ounce.

2002 - After three months of no cases being reported, the United Kingdom was finally declared free from the 'Foot and Mouth' infection, after a crisis that started in 2001 in which millions of cows and sheep were destroyed.

(14-01-2012 14:19 )skully Wrote:  1954 - Baseball hero Joe DiMaggio married film star Marilyn Monroe.

As Baseball is not particularly followed by most Brits, DiMaggio's name means relatively little outside of the Simon & Garfunkel song "Mrs Robinson" ("where did you go, Joe DiMaggio?") and his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, which was tempestuous, reportedly violent, and lasted just 274 days.

His was a center fielder who played his entire 13-year major league career for the New York Yankees. He is perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak (May 15–July 16, 1941), a record that still stands. DiMaggio was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955.

DiMaggio was a three-time MVP winner and 13-time All-Star (the only player to be selected for the All-Star Game in every season he played). In his thirteen year career the Yankees won ten American League pennants and nine World Series championships.

At the time of his retirement, he had the fifth-most career home runs (361) and sixth-highest slugging percentage (.579) in history. A 1969 poll conducted to coincide with the centennial of professional baseball voted him the sport's greatest living player.

One of the strangest statistics was his apparant lack of success in home as opposed to away games (only 41% of his home runs came at the Yankee Stadium) but it was later realised that the stadium had been deliberately designed to favour the hitting style of Babe Ruth, their left-handed star player of a generation before. Many of the right-handed DiMaggio's hits into left field would have gone for a home run elsewhere but even hits in excess of 400 feet resulted in him being caught out.

DiMaggio was 12 years older than Monroe, and had been retired from playing Baseball for three years when they married. As well as Monroe, he was romantically linked to a string of actresses and beauty queens. Despite their stormy relationship, they stayed friendly after their divorce and DiMaggio re-entered Monroe's life as her marriage to Arthur Miller was ending. On February 10, 1961, he secured her release from Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic. She joined him in Florida where he was a batting coach for the Yankees. Their "just friends" claim did not stop remarriage rumors from flying. Reporters staked out her apartment building. Bob Hope "dedicated" Best Song nominee "The Second Time Around" to them at the 33rd Academy Awards.

According to Maury Allen, DiMaggio was so alarmed at how Monroe had fallen in with people he felt detrimental to her well-being, he quit his job with a military post-exchange supplier on August 1, 1962, to ask her to remarry him; she was found dead on August 5. DiMaggio's son, Joe Jr., had spoken to Monroe on the phone the night of her death and had claimed she seemed fine. Her death was deemed a probable suicide but has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories. Devastated, he claimed her body and arranged her funeral, barring Hollywood's elite. He had a half-dozen red roses delivered three times a week to her vault for 20 years. Unlike her other two husbands or others who knew her (or claimed to), he refused to talk about her publicly or otherwise exploit their relationship. He never married again, and died in 1999 aged 84.