On this day

1818 – The Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the Canada – United States border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.

1822 - The Sunday Times was first published.

1915 - Prime Minister David Lloyd George granted women their 'Right to Serve', thus opening up many new areas of employment for women.

1960 - D.H Lawrence's controversial novel 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' put Penguin Books in the dock at the Old Bailey, London. They were accused of publishing obscene material but were eventually found not guilty.

1961 – The Soviet Union performs the first armed test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, launching an R-13 from a Golf class submarine.

1968 – Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.

1973 - After fifteen years of construction, the Sydney Opera House, designed by Danish architect John Utzon, was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II.

1977 – A plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes in Mississippi, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines along with backup singer Cassie Gaines, the road manager, pilot, and co-pilot.

1988 - The British Government announced plans to change the law so that remaining silent could incriminate rather than protect a suspect.

children in Aberfan
More than 130 people, mainly children, have been buried by a coal slag heap at Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales.
At least 85 children have been confirmed dead after the tip engulfed a school, some terraced cottages and a farm in just five minutes. Many more are missing or injured.


A generation of children has been wiped out

Minister of State for Wales

At first the rescue was held up by fog, the same fog that delayed 50 children travelling to the Aberfan school by bus from the neighbouring village of Mount Pleasant.

About 2,000 rescuers are now working under floodlights in the hunt for survivors, despite the danger caused by the still shifting slag tip.

The tragedy happened at 0915, just as the pupils of Pantglas Junior School were about to embark on their first lessons.

Some children were still in the playground, others were filing in to classrooms ready for register.

Dilys Pope, aged 10, said, "We heard a noise and we saw stuff flying about. The desks were falling over and the children were shouting and screaming."

In one classroom 14 bodies were found and outside mothers struggled deep in mud, clamouring to find their children. Many were led away weeping.

The deputy head teacher, Mr Beynon, was found dead. "He was clutching five children in his arms as if he had been protecting them," said a rescuer.

Three people died in the farm hit by the disaster and a pregnant woman whose son was killed in the tragedy went into labour when she heard the tragic news.

Trapped

As people arrived at the scene, they could hear the cries of those still trapped on the fringe of the coal waste.

One of the biggest problems facing the rescue operation was getting vehicles to the site which is located in a cul-de sac.

Many local miners shovelled to get the debris clear and worked non-stop for 10 hours, including one whose young daughter was thought to be dead.

George Thomas, Minister of State for Wales, said: "A generation of children has been wiped out. There is an abundance of tips of this sort in Wales, and we shall be looking for the possibilities that it could happen again."


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Local miners joined in the rescue effort in a desperate bid to find survivors



In Context
In total, 144 people were killed - 116 of them children. The last body was recovered nearly a week after the disaster happened.
The National Coal Board said abnormal rainfall had caused the coal waste to move.

The Inquiry of Tribunal later found that the NCB was wholly to blame and should pay compensation for loss and personal injuries.

The NCB and Treasury refused to accept full financial responsibility for the tragedy so the Aberfan Disaster Fund had to contribute £150,000 towards removing the remaining tip that overlooked the village.

This was finally repaid in 1997 on the instigation of Ron Davies, the then Secretary of State for Wales.


Stories From 21 Oct
1966: Coal tip buries children in Aberfan
1952: Kenyatta arrested in security raid
2001: Anthrax claims third victim in US
1982: Sinn Fein triumph in elections
1975: Herrema kidnappers under siege

1805 - Battle of Trafalgar: The British won this important battle against Napoleon’s combined French and Spanish fleets off Cape Trafalgar, south-west of Spain, but Nelson was one of the day’s casualties.

1824 - Portland cement, the modern building material, was first patented by Joseph Aspdin of Wakefield in Yorkshire.

1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses are sent to the Crimean War.

1944 – The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200 kilograms (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.

1959 – In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens to the public.

1960 - Britain launched its first nuclear submarine, HMS Dreadnaught, at Barrow.

1978 – Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.

1994 – North Korea and the United States sign an agreement that requires North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program and agree to inspections.

2003 – Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in documenting its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.

1966: Double-agent breaks out of jail
One of Britain's most notorious double-agents, George Blake, has escaped from prison in London after a daring break-out believed to have been masterminded by the Soviet Union.
Wardens at Wormwood Scrubs prison last saw him at the evening roll call, at 1730 GMT.

An hour-and-a-half later, his cell was discovered to be empty.

After a short search, the escape route was found. Bars in a window at the end of a landing had been sawn away and a rope ladder hung down inside the prison wall.

False sense of security

Blake is believed to have taken advantage of the free association allowed between prisoners on Saturday afternoons in the long-term wing, where he had his cell.

He had served a little over five years of his 42-year sentence.

He was not under high security at the prison, and the privileges he enjoyed have been heavily criticised in the wake of his escape.

He was removed from the list of likely escapers after only a year, and wardens were said to have been lulled into a false sense of security by his seeming acceptance of his exceptionally long sentence.

Blake was charged under the Official Secrets Act in May 1961. During his trial, part of which was held in camera, he pleaded guilty to five counts of passing on secrets to the Soviet authorities.

He was sentenced to the maximum of 14 years on each of three counts, to run consecutively - a total of 42 years. It was the longest jail term any British court had handed down to an individual to date.

Nine years of betrayal

He spent nine years as a double-agent after being converted to Communism while a prisoner of war in Seoul, during the Korean War.

During this time, he is believed to have betrayed the names of more than 40 British agents to the Soviets. Many disappeared, and were thought to have been executed.

His actions devastated British secret service operations in the Middle East. He is believed to have passed on the names of almost every British agent working in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut.

Lord Parker, Lord Chief Justice, the judge sentencing him, likened his actions to treason, and said, "It is one of the worst that can be envisaged other than in a time of war."


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George Blake's Soviet spymasters are thought to be behind the breakout






In Context
After escaping from Wormwood Scrubs, George Blake made his way to Moscow, where he has lived ever since in a state-owned flat.
He left his three children behind, divorcing his wife and starting a new family in Russia. Once in the USSR, he was treated as a national hero.

He published his autobiography, No Other Choice, in 1990. He received about £60,000 from the book's British publisher before the government stepped in to freeze the remaining £90,000 he had been promised.

In May 2003, he accused the British government of breaching his human rights by confiscating the money. He was awarded £5,000 compensation in September 2006.

In a television interview broadcast by the state television channel in 2002 to celebrate his 80th birthday, he described the years he has spent in Russia as "the happiest of my life".

He has always insisted that none of the spies he betrayed was executed.


Stories From 22 Oct
1966: Double-agent breaks out of jail
1990: Aral Sea is 'world's worst disaster'
1974: Bomb blast in London club
1983: CND march attracts biggest ever crowd
2001: UK braced for more flooding

1790 – Warriors of the Miami tribe under Chief Little Turtle defeat United States troops under General Josiah Harmar at the site of present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the Northwest Indian War.

1797 - French balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute jump. It was made from a hot air balloon 2,300 feet above Paris.

1910 - American born Doctor Hawley Crippen was convicted at the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court in London of poisoning his wife Cora. Crippen was hanged on November 23rd at Pentonville prison.

1918 - The Great Influenza Epidemic began; it was a worldwide epidemic that would eventually claim 18 million lives.

1927 – Nikola Tesla exposed his six (6) new inventions including motor with onephase electricity.

1930 - The BBC Symphony Orchestra played their first concert, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult at the Queen’s Hall, London.

1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the Communist nation.

1966 – The Supremes become the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album.

1975 – The Soviet unmanned space mission Venera 9 lands on Venus.

1983 - The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) held its biggest ever protest against nuclear missiles in London, with an estimated one million people taking part.

2006 – A Panama Canal expansion proposal is approved by 77.8% of voters in a National referendum held in Panama.

2008 – India launches its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.

4004 B.C.E. - According to 17th century divine James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, and Dr. John Lightfoot of Cambridge, the world was created on this day, a Sunday, at 9 a.m. Okay then...no dinosaurs...hmmm!

1642 - Battle of Edgehill, the first major conflict of the English Civil War, took place.

1843 - Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square was finally completed. It commemorates Admiral Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

1911 – First use of aircraft in war: An Italian pilot takes off from Libya to observe Turkish army lines during the Turco-Italian War.

1944 - The biggest naval engagement of World War II began, between the United States and Japan, at the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

1951 - Conservative leader, Winston Churchill, wound up his election campaign by denying that he was a warmonger: "If I remain in public life at this juncture it is because I believe I may be able to make an important contribution to the prevention of a 3rd World War."

1954 - Britain, the US, France and the USSR agreed to end the occupation of Germany. On the same day, the Western nations agreed to allow West Germany to enter NATO.

1956 - Hungarian students and workers demonstrated in Budapest against 10 years of Soviet Union domination and Communist rule.

1958 – The Smurfs, a fictional race of blue dwarves, later popularized in a Hanna-Barbera animated cartoon series, appear for the first time in the story La flute à six schtroumpfs, a Johan and Peewit adventure by Peyo which is serialized in the weekly comics magazine Spirou.

1972 - Access credit cards came into use in Britain.

1978 - China and Japan exchanged treaty ratification documents in Tokyo, formally ending 40 years of hostility.

1983 – Lebanon Civil War: The U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut is hit by a truck bomb, killing 241 U.S. military personnel. A French army barracks in Lebanon is also hit that same morning, killing 58 troops.

1989 – The Hungarian Republic is officially declared by president Matyas Szuros, replacing the communist Hungarian People's Republic.

1991 - The House of Lords ruled that husbands could legally be convicted of raping their wives.

2001 – Apple announces the iPod.

2004 – A powerful earthquake and its aftershocks hit Niigata prefecture, northern Japan, killing 35 people, injuring 2,200, and leaving 85,000 homeless or evacuated.

I used to work out of Heathrow and watched this aviation marvel take off and land many times,it was always a magnificent sight and sound.

2003: End of an era for Concorde
The legendary supersonic aircraft, Concorde, has landed at the end of its last commercial passenger flight, amid emotional scenes at Heathrow airport.
The final transatlantic flight, ending 27 years of supersonic history, carried 100 celebrities from New York and touched down at 1605 BST.

As it did so, a huge cheer went up from the thousands of people gathered by the runway on a specially-built grandstand.

Two other Concorde flights had already landed a few minutes earlier, one carrying competition winners on a flight from Edinburgh, and the other completing a trip for invited guests around the Bay of Biscay.

Union Jacks

All three aircraft taxied to the BA engineering base, the crews hanging out of the cockpit windows and waving Union Jacks to the crowds.

Actress Joan Collins, who has flown Concorde about 10 times and was on board the flight from New York, said the end of the era was "tragic".

"The first time I ever flew Concorde was a bit of a white knuckle ride.

"I am more used to it now, it's so wonderful to make the journey in three and a half hours," she said.

British Airways has decided to retire the famous aircraft because it is no longer profitable.

'Sadness and celebration'

Concorde's running costs have been spiralling at a time when ticket sales were dwindling in the wake of a catastrophic crash near Paris Charles de Gaulle airport three years ago in which 113 people died.

British Airways chief executive officer Rod Eddington said there was a "mixture of sadness and celebration" about the retirement.

"It is a wonderful plane, an icon, but its time has come," he said. "It's an old plane - it doesn't look it - but it was designed in the 50s and built in the 60s."

The plane, which cost passengers £9,000 a ticket, reached 1,350mph (2,172 kph) and 60,000 feet (18,288 metres) over the Atlantic Ocean during its final flight.

BA and Air France, who worked jointly on developing the aircraft, made an announcement on the retirement in April. The French Concorde's final flight was in May.


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Watch/Listen

In the 34 years since its maiden flight Concorde has become an aviation icon


Emotional farewells at Concorde's last passenger flight




In Context
Concorde was seen in the sky on other occasions over the next few months as the seven aircraft owned by British Airways flew to new homes around the world.
One flew to the Grantley Adams Airport in Barbados; another went to a museum in Seattle, while a third is at a floating exhibition in New York.

Others can be seen at Heathrow Airport, Manchester Airport, and Bristol's Filton Airport.

The last Concorde left by road, shipped to Scotland in April 2004 and put on display at the Museum of Flight near Edinburgh.

The French Concordes have also gone to museums, in France, the US and Germany.

A massive auction of Concorde memorabilia was held in Paris in November 2003.

Lots included one of the trademark nose cones, which sold to an anonymous French bidder for nearly $500,000.


Stories From 24 Oct
1945: United Nations Organisation is born
2001: Swiss tunnel ablaze after head-on crash
1983: Nilsen 'strangled and mutilated' victims
2003: End of an era for Concorde
1986: UK cuts links with Syria over bomb plot

(24-10-2011 09:11 )bombshell Wrote:  I used to work out of Heathrow and watched this aviation marvel take off and land many times,it was always a magnificent sight and sound.

Indeed, Concorde was built at Filton Airport in Bristol, and I also used to see them in the skies around here. One of the planes has been be put on display at Filton and for its final flight it flew around the Bristol area as a farewell, and even passed over my house. As at Heathrow, several thousand people gathered to see the final flight.

I can't help thinking that if Concorde had been an American invention it wouldn't have had half the problems it faced and the scheme would not have been allowed to just fade away.

Scrapping supersonic commercial flights must be the most backway step in transport history - could you imagine a government closing motorways or re-introducing steam trains????

1537 - Henry VIII's 3rd wife, Jane Seymour, died following the birth of future king, Edward VI.

1861 - The first transcontinental telegraph message was sent by Justice Stephen J. Field of California to President Abraham Lincoln. This put the Pony Express out of business.

1901 - Annie Edson Taylor, a 43-year-old daredevil widow, became the first person to survive going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

1926 – Harry Houdini's last performance, it was at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit, Michigan.

1945 - The United Nations was formed with the aim to 'save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.'

1969 - British actor Richard Burton bought his wife, American actress Elizabeth Taylor, a 69.42 carat diamond costing more than half a million pounds.

1987 - Heavyweight boxing champion Frank Bruno knocked out Joe Bugner in Britain's most hyped boxing match.

2002 – Police arrest spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, DC.

2005 – Hurricane Wilma makes landfall in Florida resulting in 35 direct 26 indirect fatalities and causing $20.6B USD in damage.

And if October 24th is your birthday you share it with:

William George Perks is 75 today (better known as Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones)

Wayne Rooney is 26

and legendary BBC commentator Barry Davies is 74 (some sources give his age as 71 but he knocked three years off his age some time ago and the Beeb hadn't even realised he'd passed the retirement age until he was nearly 67.....mind you, knocking three years off your age is becoming quite a popular pastime....isn't it, Adele?)