On this day

1587 - An expedition led by Sir Walter Raleigh landed at what is now Roanoke Island, North Carolina. Seven days later, Virginia Dare, granddaughter of governor John White, became the first child of English parentage to be born in America.

1783 – A huge fireball meteor is seen across Great Britain as it passes over the east coast.

1868 – French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovers helium.

1903 – German engineer Karl Jatho allegedly flies his self-made, motored gliding airplane four months before the first flight of the Wright brothers.

1941 - Britain's National Fire Service was established.

1958 – Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States.

1962 - Ringo Starr joined The Beatles, and made his debut with them at the horticultural society dance in Birkenhead.

1966 - The Tay road bridge was opened by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

1274 - The coronation of Edward I, known as 'Longshanks', as he was 6 feet 2 inches tall.

1561 – An 18-year-old Mary (Queen of Scots), returns to Scotland after spending 13 years in France.

1612 – The Samlesbury witches, three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury, England, are put on trial, accused for practicing witchcraft, one of the most famous witch trials in English history.

1839 – The French government announces that Louis Daguerre's photographic process is a gift "free to the world".

1909 – First automobile race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway takes place.

1919 - Afghanistan gained full independence from Britain.

1940 – First flight of the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber.

1942 - British and Canadian troops launched a disastrous attack on German-held Dieppe. Of the 6,000 troops involved, only about 2,500 returned. The rest were killed or captured.

1944 – World War II: Liberation of Paris - Paris, France rises against German occupation with the help of Allied troops.

1960 - Penguin Books received a summons in response to their plans to publish Lady Chatterley's Lover.

1987 – Hungerford massacre: in the United Kingdom, Michael Ryan kills sixteen people with an assault rifle and then commits suicide.

2005 – The first-ever joint military exercise between Russia and China, called Peace Mission 2005 begins.

1308 – Pope Clement V pardons Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, absolving him of charges of heresy.

1667 - John Milton published Paradise Lost, an epic poem about the fall of Adam and Eve.

1858 –Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.

1940 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line Never was so much owed by so many to so few.

1944 - World War II: American and British forces destroyed the German Seventh Army at Falaise-Argentan Gap, west of Paris, capturing 50,000 German troops.

1975 – Viking Program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.

1977 – Voyager Program: NASA launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.

1989: Marchioness river crash 'kills 30'
At least 30 people died when a pleasure cruiser, packed with young party-goers, and a barge collided on the River Thames.
The captain and second mate of the barge, the dredger Bowbelle, are now under arrest.

Among those still missing are the captain of the cruiser, the Marchioness, and a city banker who chartered the boat to celebrate his birthday.

There are fears the final death toll could be as high as 60.

Divers are still searching below deck where more bodies are expected to be found.

Most of those on board were young people in their 20s.

Both vessels were moving down river towards Southwark Bridge in the early hours of Sunday morning when they collided.

The Marchioness's owners said the 90-ton boat was struck a blow from the 2,000-ton dredger which forced it directly into the larger vessel's path.

They said the Bowbelle then ran over the cruiser forcing it underwater "like a bicycle being run over by a lorry".

Search

So far the owners of the Bowbelle have made no public comment.

Police commandeered other boats to search for survivors who had been tipped into the river after the collision.

Party-goers on other cruisers witnessed the events and some tried to help.

"We were all shouting at the driver to back up to try and rescue some of the people which he did.

"We got back and some of the guys jumped into the water and pulled some of the people onto our boat," said one witness, Rob Elliott.

So far 89 people are known to have survived the crash.

Earlier today some of them left the hospitals where they had been taken after being pulled from the river.


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The Marchioness had been hired for a birthday party


The Marchioness bow was breached within minutes




In Context
A total of 51 people died in the collision.
The Bowbelle's skipper, Douglas Henderson, was acquitted after a trial in 1991.

In April 1995 a jury returned verdicts of unlawful killings in inquests held for those who drowned.

The families of victims campaigned more than 10 years for a public inquiry which began in 2000.

The report published in 2001 criticised Douglas Henderson for failing to set up a proper lookout.

Later that year the Maritime and Coastguard agency ruled Mr Henderson could keep his master's certificate.

In 2002 the first River Thames lifeboat rescue service was started in response to one of the report's recommendations.


Stories From 20 Aug
1989: Marchioness river crash 'kills 30'
1992: Duchess of York in photos row
1978: Two dead after El Al crew ambushed
1970: Bobby Moore cleared of stealing
1992: Iraq jails 'lost' Briton

(20-08-2012 12:43 )bombshell Wrote:  1992: Duchess of York in photos row

It's astonishing to think that it's 20 years since Sarah Ferguson was caught topless on a sun-lounger having her toes sucked by her "financial manager", John Bryan (who was clearly paying her too much interest). The Daily Mirror sold out within minutes that morning and Fergie suffered many years of ridicule in the media over her exploits and her extravagant spending (it is rumoured that she still has debts of between £2 million and £5 million).

However, her galavanting around the world stopped at the start of this year, not due to a change of lifestyle but because Turkey issued an International Arrest Warrant against her! She had travelled to Turkey in 2008 and covertly filmed a Turkish State Orphanage. The Turkish authorities alleged that the Duchess made a false declaration when entering the country (in relation to her motives for visiting Turkey), trespassed into a Turkish Government institution and also invaded the privacy of children. If convicted, she faces 22 years imprisonment. The Home Office have said that the warrant is unactionable in the UK, even though we have an extradition treaty with Turkey, because the alleged offence is not a crime in this country.

However, Fergie has already cancelled two trips to America as the US have a broader extradition treaty and it is reported that she has cancelled all plans to go abroad whilst her lawyers try and negotiate a plea bargain for fear of arrest and extradition. She is safe in the UK at the moment but should Turkey ever join the EU the UK would have no option but to put her on the first plane to Ankara!

(20-08-2012 12:43 )bombshell Wrote:  1970: Bobby Moore cleared of stealing

The incident involving the "Bogota Bracelet" was one of many attempts by outside parties to disrupt the England football team's preperations before and during the 1970 World Cup in Mexico.

Before the tournament had begun, England had travelled to Bogota, Colombia for a series of warm up games and training sessions in a bid to acclimatise to the searing heat and high altitude. Moore and Bobby Charlton had gone to the jewellers to look for a gift for Charlton's wife, Norma. The shop assistant accused Moore of removing a bracelet from the shop without paying. There was no question that Moore was in the shop, but despite there being no hard proof that the accusations were true, the England captain was arrested and released again the same day.

England then went to Quito to play the Ecuador national team. A warm up game that worked out very well for England, they ran out 2-0 winners thanks to goals from Franny Lee and Brian Kidd. Moore won his 80th cap for England during the game. Afterwards, when the team arrived back in Bogota en route back to Mexico, Moore was placed under house arrest. It took a lot of diplomatic pressure from the UK government along with the obvious falsehood of the accusations to see Moore cleared of all wrongdoing. He was then allowed to rejoin the squad in Mexico on the eve of the tournament.

Despite the disruption, Bobby Moore went on to play a leading role in helping England successfully progress through their group. The highlight came during the second game against favourites Brazil, when Moore made the perfect tackle against Jairzinho. It is still today frequently shown on video footage and highlight reels of World Cup tournaments. An iconic photo was taken showing Moore swapping shirts with Pele after the game. It perfectly depicts a meeting between two giants of the game in their generation.

Moore was named runner up behind West Germany's Gerd Muller in the European Footballer of the Year awards at the end of the year.

The photo and Wikipedia link are below.



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

1689 – The Battle of Dunkeld in Scotland.

1770 - James Cook formally claimed eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.

1858 - Victoria Cross winner Sir Sam Browne invented the Sam Browne belt to hold his sword and pistol after he had lost an arm in action. It soon became standard military kit.

1911 – The Mona Lisa is stolen by a Louvre employee.

1918 - World War I: The beginning of the Second Battle of the Somme. The battle formed the central part of the Allies' advance to the Armistice of 11th November, which went into effect at 11 a.m. 1918. It marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany.

1945 – Physicist Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. is fatally irradiated in a criticality accident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

1961 – Motown releases what would be its first number 1 hit, Please Mr. Postman by The Marvelettes.

1986 – Carbon dioxide gas erupts from volcanic Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing up to 1,800 people within a 20-kilometer range.

1993 – NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.

565 - St Columba reported seeing a monster in Loch Ness. It was the first reported sighting of the monster.

1642 - The English Civil War began, between the supporters of Charles I (Cavaliers) and of Parliament (Roundheads), when the king called the English Parliament traitors and raised his standard at Nottingham.

1780 – James Cook's ship HMS Resolution returns to England (Cook having been killed on Hawaii during the voyage).

1831 – Nat Turner's slave rebellion commences just after midnight in Southampton County, Virginia, leading to the deaths of more than 50 whites and several hundred African Americans who are killed in retaliation for the uprising.

1864 – 12 nations sign the First Geneva Convention.

1902 – Cadillac Motor Company is founded.

1950 – Althea Gibson becomes the first black competitor in international tennis.

1963 – American Joe Walker in an X-15 test plane reaches an altitude of 106 km (66 mi).

1985 – Manchester Air Disaster sees 55 people killed when a fire breaks out on a commercial aircraft at Manchester Airport.

1996 – Bill Clinton signs welfare reform into law, representing major shift in US welfare policy

2004 – A version of The Scream and Madonna, two paintings by Edvard Munch, are stolen at gunpoint from a museum in Oslo, Norway.

1305 - Scottish patriot William Wallace was hanged, beheaded, and quartered in London, his body parts were later displayed in different cities.

1839 – The United Kingdom captures Hong Kong as a base as it prepares for war with Qing China. The ensuing 3-year conflict will later be known as the First Opium War.

1873 – Albert Bridge in Chelsea, London opened.

1914 - World War I: The Battle of Mons - the first major battle of World War I.

1921 – British airship R-38 experiences structural failure over Hull in England and crashes in the Humber estuary. Of her 49 British and American training crew, only 4 survive.

1944 – World War II: King Michael of Romania dismisses the pro-Nazi government of Marshal Antonescu, who is arrested. Romania switches sides from the Axis to the Allies.

1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.

1973 – A bank robbery gone wrong in Stockholm, Sweden, turns into a hostage crisis; over the next five days the hostages begin to sympathise with their captors, leading to the term Stockholm syndrome.

1989 – Singing Revolution: two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stand on the Vilnius-Tallinn road, holding hands (Baltic Way).

2007 – The skeletal remains of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia, and his sister Anastasia are found near Yekaterinburg, Russia.

(23-08-2012 12:57 )skully Wrote:  1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.

By today's standards the Lunar Orbiter missions were primitive but they stretched the technology of the day to its limits. Many of the early unmanned moon probes, both Russian and American, either failed to get out of earth orbit or missed the moon altogether. Putting something into a stable lunar orbit and keeping it there for several months was quite a feat. Over an 11 day period it took 42 photos and transmitted them back to earth, although some were unusable. It continued transmitting data for another two months before crashing into the far side of the moon on October 29th.

The craft took its own "Earthrise" photo, but as it was of poor quality and definition and in black and white it didn't have the same impact as the famous colour photo taken by astronaut Bill Anders on Apollo 8 two years later:



Earthrise from Lunar Orbiter 1 (left) and Apollo 8 (right)