chapter includes a selection of both. the twentieth … 4.pdfplanes dropped several thousand tonnes...

2016-2017 YEARBOOK CHAPTER 4 ANNIVERSARIES IN 2017

LINTON & DISTRICT HISTORY SOCIETY PAGE 1 OF 22

Chapter 4

Anniversaries in 2016 Edited by Richard Hoare with contributions from Lee Hines, Fiona Morison and Dorian Osborne

Presented following the AGM on Wednesday 15th March 2017.

All of us will be reminded of anniversaries this year especially those of the two World Wars. But there are some other important historical events and lives, perhaps less well known or less well remembered, that helped to shape the world we now live in. This chapter includes a selection of both.

The Twentieth Century

1992 - 25 Years Ago.

Creation of the European Union

Maastricht Treaty signed on 7th February creating the European Community

1992 1967 1957 1947 1942 1927 1917



General Election in United Kingdom 9th April

9th April - John Major wins General Election, although Rupert Murdoch believed otherwise

Presidential Election in the USA 3rd November

Bill Clinton beats George Bush in the US Presidential Election on 3rd November

Windsor Castle Fire 20th November



1987 - 30 Years Ago

Coldest Spell of weather in Southern England since 1740- 12th to 14th January

Snow blocks roads and railways across Britain but all gone by the end of the month

St Judes Day Storm 15th-16th Oct

-.

15 million trees felled

18 people killed

Roads and railways blocked again.



Channel Tunnel Act was granted Royal Assent on 23rd July

Work commenced almost immediately

The tunnel would open for traffic in 1994

Fire at Kings Cross Tube Station 18th November



1967 - 50 Years Ago

First North Sea gas pumped ashore

Gas flowed first from West Sole Field close to the Humber Estuary in the southern North Sea

West Sole had been discovered in 1965 by the drilling rig “Sea Gem”

On 4th January, Donald Campbell probably broke his own water speed record but did not complete the return run



On 18th March Torrey Canyon ran aground off Lands End

Carrying 120,000 tonnes of

Kuwait crude oil, Torrey

Canyon was an American built and American owned tanker on its final voyage (before being scrapped). It was carrying BP oil from Kuwait to Milford Haven and should have been at least forty miles west of the coast and the rocks. The steering was defective and the navigation of the ship incompetent

.

30 million gallons of crude oil were spilled. There were no competent procedures in place for dealing with an oil spill of this size. The Royal Navy and RAF tried to blow up the ship and burn off the oil. Planes dropped several thousand tonnes of bombs and even Napalm. There were no oil containment booms available that could withstand the heavy seas and more than ten thousand tonnes of dispersants were poured onto the slick. The dispersants were industrial cleaning fluids and highly toxic and probably caused as much damage to marine life as the oil. The California based openers evaded liability and the US authorities were no help. Some compensation was only achieved when the British Government had the sister ship arrested in Singapore. Still the worst oil disaster in UK waters.



UK and Ireland jointly apply for membership of the European Economic Community (EEC)

President De Gaulle says “NON”! It would be 6 years before Britain and Ireland joined in 1973

Sir Francis Chichester completes the first single handed voyage around the world

Sir Francis Chichester arrives in Plymouth on 28th May after sailing single handed around the world

Francis Chichester sailed from Plymouth on 27 August 1966. He was the first man to complete a

circumnavigation of the globe from west to east, with one stop in Sydney in 226 days -faster than the clipper

ships.

Concorde 001 unveiled at Toulouse on 11 December

The French plane would fly first in 1968.

The first British test flight from Filton would not be until 1969 with the first

commercial flight in 1976

In 1967 wind tunnel testing and computer modelling were insufficient to predict all the problems of supersonic flight of such a large

plane and test flying was vital to sort out many design issues.



1947 - 70 Years Ago

The big freeze and coal shortage

Low coal output from collieries

Power shortages and loss of industrial and food production

The National Coal Board came into being on 1st January 1947

Poor production rates at collieries leads to domestic coal shortages, power shortages and need to import coal from Germany

Royal Assent given for:- Transport Act -nationalising railways and road haulage from 1st January 1948 Electricity Act -nationalising more than 500 separate generation and supply companies from 1st April 1948 Town and Country Planning Act to be implemented from 1st January 1948



Princess Elizabeth married Phillip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh on 20th November.

University of Cambridge voted to allow women to become full time students

The post-war baby boom reached its peak

New Zealand, India and Pakistan gained independence.

In November, The Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin convened the London Conference to try (unsuccessfully) to get four power agreement to his plan for European economic and defence co-operation. Bevin had spent most of 1946 and 1947 trying to get an agreement with the Russians, Americans and French on the future of Germany and Austria. After the London Conference, Bevin spent Christmas writing new proposals that led to agreement among western European nations at the Brussels Conference in February 1948 on proposals for the European Coal and Steel Community, the Western European Union and NATO.



1942 -75 Years Ago

Fall of Singapore and Burma retreat

General Percival surrendered Singapore unconditionally on 15th February after seven days of fighting to defend the island and six weeks of resistance on the Malay peninsular. 50,000 troops were taken prisoner in Malaya and 80,000 in Singapore The British heavily outnumbered the attacking Japanese.

There were very few British “fighting” troops in Burma. There were Pioneer Corps and Garrison troops capable of keeping the peace among the Hill tribes but no reinforcements of troops trained in battle were received until February 1942..

7th

Armoured Corp arrived in Rangoon from the Middle East on the same day as the Japanese began their attack on the port. 7

th Armoured Corp with battle experience in the Middle East were

able to provide some protection of the retreat as an effective rearguard and probably saved thousands of lives.

The Turning Point in the European War?

Malta George Cross - 15th April

Fall of Tobruk - 20th Jun. 1st Battle of El Alamein - 1-27th Jul. Stalingrad 23rd Aug.- 2 Feb. 1943 2nd Battle of El Alamein - 23rd Oct - 1st Nov.

Recapture of Tobruk -13th Nov



1937 -80 Years Ago

The Bombing of Guernica 26th April 1937

The bombing of this city was to be of great importance because of its military role in the defeat of the Republicans by Franco and his far right, anti-communist allies in the Spanish Civil War. The aerial bombing was carried out at the invitation of the Spanish Nationalist Government by the Nazi German Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria, thus giving them practice for what later became World War II. Many civilians died although the number is disputed.

Evacuation In 1939 the British government believed that nearly 2000 civilians had been killed in the air raids and the resulting fires of Guernica. Consequently a plan was made to evacuate women and children from British cities into the countryside in the event of a declaration of war. This action probably went on the save many lives.



The Picasso Painting The tragic events of Guernica gave rise to one of the greatest anti-war paintings ever made. It went on to influence the world of art in many ways. Picasso first exhibited his work at the Paris Exhibition in 1937.It then was taken on an international tour to raise funds for the Spanish Republican forces and refugees. It was subsequently housed in the Modern Art Museum in New York. Picasso only allowed it back into Spain in 1981 after the end of Fascism.

The Tapestry A vast copy of Picasso’s painting is displayed on the wall of the United Nations building in New York. It was placed there as a reminder of the horrors of war.



1917 -100 Years Ago

The Russian Revolution

15th Mar. - Abdication of the Tsar 16th Apr. - First Congress of Soviets and Lenin’s return to Russia with German help 16th Jul. - St Petersburg Rising 7th Nov. - Bolshevik Revolution

22nd Nov. - Brest Litovsk negotiations for peace with Germany begin 17 July 1918 - Execution of the Tsar and his family

America enters the War

24th Feb - Cunard ship Laconia is torpedoed 24th Feb - Zimmerman Telegram passed to US The telegram had been intercepted by the British and was a request to Mexico to declare war on the USA to regain all the territories that the US has taken from Mexico in 1848. 6th Apr - US declares war on Germany



The Western Front

13th Apr. - Vimy Ridge captured by Canadians

7th Jun - Messines and 10,000 German troops destroyed by 19 mines totalling 455 tonnes of explosives. The noise is heard in London

31st Jul - The battle for Passchendaele begins, 32,000 allied troops killed on the first day

12th Oct 1st Battle of Passchendaele

❖20th Oct - 2nd Battle of Passchendaele

20th Nov Tanks at Cambrai

The Village of Messines

< Before the mine explosion

< and after



The Nineteenth Century

1892 -125 Years Ago

End of Broad Gauge on the Great Western Railway - 20th May

Gloucester Station and the need to change from Broad Gauge to ‘Standard’ gauge for every journey from Bristol to Birmingham had become notorious and the subject of cartoons.

Trucial States become British protectorates

The independent Sheikdoms

Of the Arabian peninsular requested British protection from the Ottoman Empire and the Saudi Kingdom. The Ottomans would be driven out by 1917 and the northern border of Yemen would move further north while the remaining Ottoman territories would be absorbed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Britain would continue to provide security for the Gulf States of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai until the 1970s (The Trucial Scouts). The British leave Yemen after very bloody fighting in the late 1960s.

Some of the borders are still disputed by Iran and Saudi Arabia



1867 -150 Years Ago

Alfred Nobel demonstrates dynamite

Thomas Barnardo opens his first shelter for homeless children in Stepney James Lister publishes first article describing antiseptic surgery

Canada achieves Nationhood

Sir John Alexander Macdonald Canada’s first Prime Minister

<



1842 -175 Years Ago

Unrest at home

First General Strike

Riots in Lancashire against the Corn Laws

The Chartists

Beechams Pills first marketed in St Helens

Beecham was a high street Chemist shop which started manufacturing a cure-all medicine in 1842.

The famous “worth a guinea a box” advertising slogan lasted a century.

This was the first manufacturing chemist in Britain and the foundation of the Glaxo Smith Kline pharmaceutical company

1842

>

❖

1939

>



First Anglo Afghan War

“Remnants of an Army” Dr William Brydon reaches Jalalabad on 13th January 1842

after the annihilation of the British Indian Army

The Treaty was signed in the main cabin of HMS Cornwallis on 29th

August. Built in Bombay in 1813, Cornwallis had fought the US navy in 1815 and fought in the First Opium War. In 1855 she was fitted with screw propulsion before taking part in the Crimean War and was still in service during the First World War. Finally broken up at Sheerness in 1957 (only 60 years ago) after a useful life of 144 years



1817 -200 Years Ago

Luddites to Chartists

On 10th March 5,000 Blanketeers meet at St Peters Field Manchester and attempt to march to London

On 9th June the Pentrich Revolution leads to another attempted march in Derbyshire

Lord Liverpool brings in the Seditious Meetings Act banning meetings of more than 50

Death of Jane Austin

❖Northanger Abbey and Persuasion published after Jane Austin’s death. The first published under the author’s name



More than 200 years ago

1767 250 years ago

Spode Pottery established,

Neville Maskelyne and Measurement of Longitude

1717 300 years ago

Triple Alliance UK, France and Dutch.

The Old Pretender

1667 350 years ago

Dutch attack Medway, France and Britain at war with Dutch

1617 400 years ago

Henry Briggs invents logarithms

1567 450 years ago

Foundation of Rugby School,

Mary Queen of Scots abdicates succeeded by James VI.

Ming Dynasty reinstates foreign trade except with Japan.



1517 500 years ago

Martin Luther posts his 95 theses on the Church door at Wittenberg Castle

1417 600 years ago

Henry V starts writing official documents in English for the first time since 1066

1317

700 years ago

Great Famine 1315 to 1317 comes to end.

1217 800 years ago

First Baron’s War. Battle of Lincoln finally expels French royal forces

William Marshall

Regent of England

Castilian of Chepstow

1117 900 years ago

Iceland abolishes slavery

1017 1000 years ago

Canute divides England into four Earldoms: Wessex, Mercia, Anglia and Northumbria

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