31st December

Well, that's it - the Year of Blogging Dangerously is over. For everyone who has stuck by me through thick and thin for the past year, thank you. If you feel you will miss our little chats, there are several things planned for 2013. Firstly, there will be an edited version of the whole year available in a month or so as a free PDF download (which my old mate M J Trow assures me is not just a nonsense phrase but actually means something) on www.mjtrow.co.uk and also at the same address there will be 'history lessons' from time to time. If there is anything you would like my history teacher slant on, you can request it at the same address. I don't write essays, by the way, all of you Ten Pea Zeds out there - but I can do a quick potted version of anything that puzzles you. That is free as well but beware what you ask for - your question and my answer will be there for all to see on the website (although you can rest assured you will only be identified by initials!).

So it just remains for me to say thank you for your company in 2012 and in 2013 may you have all the good things you could wish for - with love from the Maxwell-Carpenters and all at Leighford High. Perhaps we will meet again in the New Year - you'll know me when you see me, I'm sure.

30th December

Rasputin was murdered today in 1916 by Prince Felix Yusopov at the nobleman's house in St Petersburg. 'Rasputin' means the debauched one and he certainly enjoyed the company of titled ladies (even, it was rumoured, the Tsarina), drank like a fish and exposed himself in various restaurants. The stories of his death were much exaggerated. Allegedly, he was poisoned (in his wine and cakes), shot, bashed with chains, tied up and thrown into the frozen river Neva. When they pulled him out two days later, it was said that he still had had the strength to snap the rope.

Wow.

In other news ...
Anita Loos got it right today in the Observer in 1973 when she wrote 'I'm furious about the Women's Liberationists. They keep ... proclaiming that women are brighter than men. That's true, but it should be kept very quiet or it ruins the whole racket.'

29th December

Today in 1170, four knights led by Reginald FitzUrse (the name means, literally, bastard bear) crashed into the cathedral at Canterbury and sliced off the top of the head of the Archbishop, Thomas Becket. They almost certainly operated on the orders of the king, Henry II, who was rather miffed that his old friend Thomas had gone all religious on him (even though he'd given him the Archbishop's gig in the first place).

It is a reflection on the times, perhaps, that today, saying that Rowan Williams isn't very good as the A of C is about as vicious as it gets.

In other news ...
William Gladstone was born today in 1809. Despite spending most of his life in England, he retained an irritating Lowland Scots accent to the end (much to the annoyance of Queen Victoria, he didn't die until 1898). We actually have him taped (they all did!) on phonograph.

28th December

On this day in 1904 the first weather reports were published in London by wireless telegraphy. This was a great opportunity for the Meteorological Office to get it totally wrong using a different medium.

In other news ...
TW3 (That Was The Week That Was) was closed down today in 1963 because it was an election year (no Big Brother pressure there then). Like its successor, Spitting Image, it caricatured politicians and celebrities and introduced naughty themes on our television sets. we have nothing like this now, except a procession of tawdry, foul-mouthed blokes who are referred to (for only partially obvious reasons) as stand-up comedians.

27th December

Three greats of the cinema were born today but not in the same year. Sydney Greenstreet (1879) was a marvellous heavy (literally!) in noir films like The Maltese Falcon. Marlene Dietrich (1901) was a fine-boned German actress who smouldered magnificently in The Blue Angel and Destry Rides Again. And then there was Gerard Depardieu ...

In other news ...
The world was changed forever today in 1831 when HMS Beagle set sail from Devonport on a five year scientific expedition. On board was young Charles Darwin who would take one look at the wrinkly old critters on the Galapagos Islands and know at once that the Old Testament was just a story about Jewish folk. He immediately went into print (28 years later) with his book Origin of Species.

26th December

The Feast of Stephen. One of the greatest artists of all time died today in 1909. He was Frederic Remington and he specialized in scenes of the Wild West. His horses, cattle, cowboys and Indians are simply superb and he could sculpt his designs with equal skill. What a talent! Unfortunately he was only forty when he died - a great loss to the world of art.

In other news ...
American film star Richard Widmark was born today in 1914. I never saw him put in a bad performance and he was notoriously fast on the draw. Legend has it that that was why he had a damaged hand in Warlock, so that Henry Fonda could outdraw him.

Fed up with the turkey yet? I am looking forward to supper tonight with M J Trow and family, as Boxing Day supper is when they unleash Auntie Sheila's Pickled Onions on the world. Yum.

25th December

All right, let's get this over with. Christians will tell you that Jesus is the reason for the season (i.e. the celebration of the birth of Christ on this day 2012 years ago). Actually, of course, they are almost certainly wrong. Until the 5th century, some people celebrated the man's birthday in January, others in May, others with the Feast of the Epiphany. In 440 a synod of the Church pinched the old Roman midwinter festival (already an excuse for a holiday) and claimed it was 25 December. There is no historical justification for this and so those who bemoan the fact that the whole nativity thing is disappearing from Christmas and we all just use it as an excuse to eat and drink too much and watch excruciatingly awful TV, is not surprising, really.

In other news ...
The Florentine monk Giralomo Savonarola got a bit shirty today in 1497. While everybody else was watching the Queen's Speech or yet another chance to see all 438 ghastly episodes of Downton on the tele, he accused the Pope of corruption and Leonardo da Vinci of sodomy.

Come off the fence, now, Savvy and tell it like it is.

Despite this somewhat unseasonal post, I would nevertheless like to wish my follower the very warmest compliments of the season. Nolan, Metternich and Mrs Carpenter-Maxwell all join me in hoping you are having a splendid Christmas, with as many presents as you wanted and more turkey than you could possibly eat in a long day's march. Taking a leaf out of my old mate M J Trow's family book, we have bought Nolan his first guitar, which is sounding not too bad at all from the sitting room. By all accounts if he takes to it it will lead to a life of penury for us as more and more sophisticated instruments become necessary, but if music helps him grow up into half the man Tali Trow has, then it will be money well spent.

God Bless Us, Every One!

24th December

'Twas the night before Christmas and in 1828 William Burke went on trial in Edinburgh for the murder of Daft Jamie and grave robbery. Note to the legal profession and every other organization (except teaching, of course) that closes for two-three weeks around Christmas time - IN OLDEN TIMES PEOPLE ACTUALLY WORKED FOR A LIVING!

In case you're interested, Burke and his accomplice Hare (who got off by stitching up his mate) were robbing graves and murdering people to see the bodies to anatomists who needed freshish corpses for dissection. Burke was found guilty and hanged and - how neat is this? - dissected.

In other news ...
They thought they'd found Lord Lucan today in 1974. He was the chappie, you'll remember, who did a runner after allegedly murdering his children's nanny. In fact, 'Lucan' turned out to be John Stonehouse, a rather dodgy MP who was believed to have drowned off Miami but had in fact faked his own death.

You really couldn't make it up!

23rd December

Joseph Hansom patented his famous 'safety cab' today in 1834. Not only did he create the best known image of the 19th century street scene, but he paved the way for that immortal line in Kenneth Horne's Beyond Our Ken on the radio (circa 1964) - 'My name is immaterial. Sir James Immaterial. And I am talking of a time when England was full of Hansom cabs and ugly furniture.'

They don't write them like that any more.

In other news ...
Vincent van Gogh cut off his earlobe today. The usual explanation for this is that

1. he was mad
2. he'd had a row with Paul Gaugin.

In fact, it all happened because he saw Gaugin's work and said, 'Paul, me ol' mucker, I'd give my right ear to be able to paint as good as like what you do.'

And of course, he was mad.

22nd December

James Edward Stuart, son of the deposed James II, landed at Peterhead in Scotland today in 1715. Rightfully king of England, his aim was to overthrow the usurper, George I, who was the son of the usurper Electress Sophie, who was a cousin of the usurper Anne, who was the sister and sister-in-law respectively of Mary and William who had taken the throne from James's dad in the first place. (Do keep up, Seven Bee Four; it really couldn't be simpler).

So, despite a promising start, why did James not succeed in getting his throne back? He was only Pretending.

In other news...
Mary Ann Evans died today in 1880. She is better known as George Eliot and used the male nom de plume to get her novels published in a male-dominated, sexist world. That got me thinking of other writers whose real names should be exposed e.g. Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter); Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte) and Andy McNab (Priscilla-May Blenkinsop).

21st December

This was the day in 1978 when Denis Healey famously described Geoffrey Howe's attack on his budget proposals as 'like being savaged by a dead sheep'.

Howe had the last laugh, however. When he was made a member of the House of Lords, his crest was a vicious-looking wolf in sheep's clothing.

Nice one.

In other news ...
Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves appeared on American cinema screens today in 1935 ushering in a brilliant new era of cartooning. Today's techniques have eclipsed it but it's still a marvellous film and the old crone with her poisonous apple is still every child's nightmare, even today.

The porn version - Snow White and the Seven Perverts - failed to make much of an impact.

And, of course, the End of the World is no longer nigh - again. I was out shopping in Leighford High Street this morning at 11.11 and it was eerie .... everything went on exactly as normal. So, all you girls of Ten Pea Zed, come out from under your duvets and stop sobbing and texting each other - it was only a story. Perhaps you'll listen to me next time ... now that would be the end of the world!

I suppose I should write tomorrow's blog, now we are still here!

20th December

The Gallipoli campaign ended in disaster today in 1915. The idea was to hit 'the soft underbelly of Europe' by attacking the Turks via Constantinople (that's Istanbul to you, Eleven Eff Eight) but it all went horribly pear-shaped. First the Royal Navy chickened out believing there were hundreds of mines across the Straits called the Dardenelles (there were only four left when they came to this decision). So the army had to go in alone and landed from rowing boats while being machine-gunned from the dunes. The Turks were stiffened by crack German troops and the Allies never had enough men, guns or ammunition (especially high explosives) because these things were need at the Western Front in France.

Ironically the best thing about Gallipoli was the withdrawal, accomplished in one night, in total secrecy. The enemy had no idea we'd gone. Those responsible? Winston Churchill - ridiculous, ambitious ideas, ill thought-out; Lord Kitchener - too mean with the hardware; General Sir Ian Hamilton, local commander - no clue.

In other news ...
Boris Yeltsin (see yesterday's blog) announced today in 1991 that Russia wanted to join NATO. He also wanted flying pigs, three pink elephants and life membership of the Bullingdon Club.

19th December

It was a bad day for Russia today in 1991 when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned. The architect of perestroika and glasnost, he handled the collapse of the USSR with flair and skill. He was replaced by a drunk, Boris Yeltsin.

In other news ...
Ralph Richardson was born today in 1902. One of the best known classical actors of his generation, he excelled in Shakespearean roles but also took to films like a duck to water. I stand to be corrected, but I think he was the only actor to play William Gladstone in the history of the cinema. He could also be seen roaring around the Home Counties on a powerful motorbike when in his seventies. To our minds (the collective known as the Carpenter-Maxwells, that is) his best cinema moment was as the Supreme Being in Time Bandits. But that's us for you.

18th December

When David, Prince of Wales (he who later became a Nazi and married a bloke called Mrs Simpson if you believe various theories) asked the Commander in Chief of the army, Lord Kitchener, if he could go to the Front in the First World War (this was 1914, by the way) the Field Marshal replied, 'I don't mind your being killed but I object to your being taken prisoner'.

Thanks, Kitch. Right back atchya!

In other news ...

Joseph Grimaldi was born today in 1779. When he developed the white face clown make-up, he thought he was adding to the laughs and lustre of the circus. Unfortunately, he was only prefiguring all those creepy killer-clown movies of the Seventies onwards and condemning generations of people to a life lived under the weight of their coulrophobia.

Incidentally, Mrs B., cleaner of this parish, is a renowned coulrophobe. She once knocked Mr B unconscious because he jumped out at her suddenly wearing a glace cherry on his nose and precious little else. Or at least, that's her story and she's sticking to it.

17th December

Orville Wright said today in 1903 (after making four flights of less than a minute each at Kitty Hawk Beach, Carolina) 'The airplane stays up because it doesn't have the time to fall.'

Er ... needs work, Orv.

In other news ...
Sir Humphrey Davy was born today in 1778. He wasn't Sir Humphrey then, of course; that accolade came later, after he'd invented the safety lamp for miners and discovered sodium, calcium, barium, potassium, magnesium and strontium by passing electricity through molten metal compounds.

Nobody likes a smartarse, Humphrey!

16th December

Anna Steenkamp, a Boer farmer's wife, wrote in her diary today in 1836 - 'It was not the non-whites' freedom that drove us to such lengths [travelling north in the Great Trek] as their being placed on an equal footing with Christians, contrary to the laws of God.'

You can't get a more Christian sentiment than that, now, can you?

In other news ...
The world went mad today in 1991, when the name of the new leader of MI5 - 'M' - was printed in the British Press. She was Stella Rimmington, the first woman to hold the job. This marked the end of the spying game as far as Britain was concerned - not that a woman was in charge (he added hastily) but that the whole thing was so public. This explains why James Bond had to undergo so many plastic surgery operations. The name was the same, but in a feeble attempt to pretend the Secret Services were still secret, the face had to change.

Spooky.

15th December

Two great Americans died today, 76 years apart. The first was Sitting Bull, spiritual leader of the Lakota whose victory over Custer's 7th Cavalry has passed into legend. He spent some years in prison and travelled with Bill Cody's Wild West Show, spoofing the Indian Wars. By the year of his death (1890) however he had joined the Ghost Shirt movement dedicated to the restoration of the Plains Indians' way of life. He was shot and killed in a skirmish with troops sent to suppress the cult.

The other was Walt Disney.

In other news ...
The body of Napoleon Bonaparte was reburied in Les Invalides in Paris today in 1840. He had died in 1821 on St Helena, poisoned either by the British or the wallpaper, whichever version you choose to believe and it took nearly twenty years for the body to be transferred.
You would think the French could have built a more fitting tomb for their greatest son (yes, I know, he wasn't exactly French, but you can't have everything). The tomb is a huge, ugly slab of marble - yeuch!

And finally ...

A very happy birthday to Penny Collins, daughter and granddaughter in a squillion - three years old today and getting more gorgeous with every minute.

14th December

Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, reached the South Pole today in 1911, the first man to do so. He left the Norwegian flag there and a note for Robert Falcon Scott leading a British team trying to beat him there. It simply said 'Bobby - Nah-Nah-di-Nah-Nah. Love, Ro.'

In other news ...
Max [no relation] Planck came out with the quantum leap notion in Physics today in 1900. Not everybody was impressed. Isaac Newton turned in his grave and Alfred Nobel coined the expression 'thick as a Planck'.

13th December

Leighford General Hospital.

No, no. I's nothing, really. They say I'll be out by Christmas.

Jacob Fussell made history today in Baltimore in 1903 when he invented a cone for eating ice cream. No spoon was required and there was no mess. But somewhere along the line it all went pear shaped. I can remember in the 1980s we were all given a special phone number to report the number of cones on Motorways.

Where did it all go wrong?

In other news ...
Lord Alfred Douglas, known as 'Bosie', the friend of Oscar Wilde, was sentenced to six months in gaol today in 1923 for libelling Winston Churchill. Now, I loathe Alfred Douglas and I loathe Winston Churchill, so it's a bit of a win/lose situation for me.

12th December

'I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old' said George Canning, the British foreign minister today in 1826. He was referring to the fact that Britain had given cash, recognition and above all the guns of the Royal Navy to the new South American republics trying to break away from Portugal and Spain.

And how did they repay us? They hid escaping Nazis after 1945 and invaded the Falklands in 1982.

Thanks, guys.

In other news ...
In New York today in 1907, a statute was passed insisting that girls about to be married should sign affidavits declaring their age and good conduct. This is clearly a good idea. My good lady wife has just read this blog over my shoulder and 

11th December

Herbert Asquith, the politician, said today in 1920 - 'Things are being done in Ireland which would disgrace the blackest annals of the lowest despotism in Europe.'

That's a bit of a harsh description of the setting up of Boyzone, if you ask me.

In other news ...
Charlie Chaplin's bowler and cane were sold today in 1987 at Christie's auction house for £82,500. His boots went for £38,500. Sadly, his underpants failed to reach their reserve.

10th December

It may surprise you - it certainly surprised me - to discover that the first territory in America to give women the vote was Wyoming, 143 years ago today. Then I realized that there were 428,000 men in Wyoming in 1869, 3.2 million cattle and two women.

Heigh ho.

In other news ....
Alfred Nobel won the world's prize for biggest idiot today in 1892 when he said that his dynamite invention would put an end to war. On the contrary, it increased battlefield casualties a hundredfold.

Nice one, Alfred - back to the drawing board, old son!

9th December

Anthony van Dyck died today in 1641. He was court painter to Charles I and his portraits are to die for, especially his use of light on silks and satins. As we've noted before in these pages, he was the only one of the van Dyck family not to appear in Diagnosis Murder.

In other news ...
Clarence Birdseye was born today in 1886. I am going to resist any unpleasant jokes about cryogenics and just say how much I love Clarence Fish Fingers.

8th December

Sammy David Jnr was born today in 1925. Billing himself as a 'one-eyed Jewish black man', his stand-up was legendary. He used 25 pounds of brylcreem on his hair everyday and was the fastest man with a six-shooter never to appear in a Western.

In other news ...
Thomas de Quincey died today in 1859. He suffered from facial neuralgia, gave up school and Oxford University, lived as a beggar in London, was constantly broke and smoked opium. Despite all this he lived to be seventy four. What an advert for declassifying drugs!

7th December

'A date which will live on in infamy' as F D Roosevelt called this day in 1941. Without warning, the Japanese Pacific fleet attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. There was no formal declaration of war before 200 aircraft were destroyed and 2400 men killed. The whole story was brilliantly told in the film Tora! Tora! Tora! and crappily told in Pearl Harbor.

In other news ...
Marshal Michel Ney, 'the bravest of the brave' was executed by firing squad today in 1815. He had been sent to arrest Napoleon who had escaped from Elba and was back on French soil. He promised to bring 'la bete noire' back to Paris in a cage. In the event, he rejoined his old master and told the newly-restored Bourbon dynasty (they of biscuits) where to stick it. Miffed, they had him shot.

6th December

'The Soviet Union has disintegrated,' said Leonid Kravachuk of the Ukraine today in 1991. This was far too late for thousands of innocent people who went to their deaths under Lenin, Trotsky and above all, Stalin in the name of a political system that cannot possibly work in a free society.

In other news ...

The French tennis team won the Davis Cup today in 1991 and their captain, Yannick Noah, spoke for them all when he said, 'Guy was happy, I was happy, the team was happy, the crowd was happy, everybody was happy. There is just one word to describe it all - happiness.'

Had a way with words, didn't he, old Yannick?

5th December

One of the coolest sentences was passed today in 1991 by Judge Edwin Torres in the United States. He said, 'Your parole officer has not yet been born.'

In other news ...

The Bermuda Triangle nonsense began today in 1945 when five planes out of Fort Lauderdale in Florida vanished somewhere beyond the Keys. The flight leader reported that they were lost, their instruments were going haywire and 'even the sea looks different'. A rescue plane sent up to find them disappeared too, paving the way for Atlantis theories, black holes, white dwarfs and Erich von Daniken et al. No amount of sensible theories - such as typhoons, hurricanes, contrary winds, engine/radio defects or plain old pilot error - will ever replace this. It will vanish and vanish.

4th December

Nicholas Breakspear became the only Englishman to be elected to the Papacy today in 1154. After that, it was mostly Italians, with a few Frenchmen. And for all you feminists out there, 'Pope Joan' was only fictional - soz.

In other news ...

President Rutherford B Hayes told Congress today in 1877 -

'Many, if not most, of our Indian wars have had their origins in broken promises and injustice on our part.'

He got that absolutely right, but most of white America wasn't listening and the massacre at Wounded Knee was still to come.

3rd December

Dom Gregory Dix, a British monk, said today in 1977, 'It is no accident that the symbol of a bishop is a crook and the sign of an archbishop is a double cross.'

Whose side was this guy on?

In other news ...

Agatha Christie vanished today in 1925 and was missing for several days. Sadly, they found her again.

For comments by an alter ego of mine, see  www.untangledweb.blogspot.co.uk and look for the blog entitled - It hasn't been a good week ...

2nd December

'As I write,' said Henry Longfellow today in 1859, 'they are leading old John Brown to execution ... This is sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind, which will soon come.'

It did. Instead of realizing that (however loony) Brown was right and setting free the slaves there and then, the Civil War broke out leading to more American deaths than in all other wars put together.

In other news ...

Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquistador, died today in 1547. Thousands of Incas cheered. He died from drinking, according to a poem, too much stout, although his pet peke may have been involved.

1st December

If you're a fan, like me, of Sellar and Yeatman's masterly 1066 And All That, you'll know that Henry I of England died of a surfeit of lampreys. A what? I hear you cry, dear reader. Well, a lamprey is an eel and a surfeit is too many. All this happened today in 1135 which is long before they had sell-by dates etc. I can't help thinking that as the bloke was 66 (which was ancient in the 12th century) it was probably time he shuffled off this mortal coil anyway.

What did he leave behind? A squabble between potential rulers Matilda and Stephen and a series of excellent novels by Ellis Peters.

In other news ...

The Cross Channel diggers met in the middle today in 1990, nearly completing a multi-million pound project linking Britain to France. There was a great deal more earth movement when everybody from Harold Godwinson (d 1066) on turned in their graves.

30th November

An era came to an end today in 1936 when Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace burnt down. Built in 1851 for the Great Exhibition, the astonishing building, of glass and wrought iron, was moved to Sydenham Park where it continued to be an attraction. The flames could be seen as far away as Brighton and even to the last, the Palace drew crowds - special trains were laid on to watch it burn.

They had a chance to rebuild the Palace in 2000 for the Millennium but did they? Oh, no. They built the O2 instead ....

In other news ...

Oscar Wilde died today in 1900 in Paris. Dazzling wit, playwright, raconteur, he fell foul of the bigotry of Britain (especially the rabid anti-homosexuality Act of Henry Labouchere MP) and died in poverty. He is buried in the great cemetery of Pere Lachaise. Pay your respects next time you're there.

29th November

Today was the day, in 1831, when the Duke of Wellington famously described his soldiers as 'the scum of the earth, enlisted for drink'. He went on to say (and this is hardly ever added to the quotation) 'but we have made men of them.'

Good old Nosey!

In other news ...

The first English newspaper went on sale today in 1641. It offered a dream fortified manor house; you could send for a CD of Thomas Tallis's Greatest Hits and the Sports Pages were full of the latest Real Tennis scandals in which the game's audience shouted racist insults at the players.

The start of a great tradition.

P.S. Sir Peregrine Leveson agreed and said he saw a great future for the Press and what a fine job King Charles was doing running the country.

28th November

The German physicist Max [no relation] Planck said it all today in 1934 when he wrote, 'A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light but rather because its opponents eventually die out and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.'

So, in reality, every word of the Bible is true; the earth is about 6,000 years old (and flat); Phlogiston occurs in every chemical experiment; Frank Sinatra had a good singing voice and babies are delivered by storks.

I knew it!

In other news ...
Horse racing was banned today in 1967 because of an epidemic of Foot and Mouth disease. Whenever such disasters occur, the government of the day leaps in with ludicrous, over-the-top measures. Foot and Mouth? Destroy all cattle. Salmonella in eggs? Destroy all chickens. Oil tanker spillages? Destroy all tankers. Global warming? Stop spraying your armpits.

Actually nature has been coping with all these issues for centuries, without the help of the British government or its biased, obsessive scientific think tanks.

And on a personal level, it would be not humanly possible to be in a room with up to twenty teenage boys without the addition of many gallons of Lynx. You may mock that most sledgehammer of deodorants, but without it ... I don't want you to even have to imagine it!

27th November

Women Policemen appeared on Britain's streets today in 1914 (I have been obliged to insert this piece on account of my good lady wife - Inspector Carpenter-Maxwell - having me in a half Nelson). The uniform was awful and it had three little buttons at the side of the mid-calf length skirt so that they could unbutton them to chase baddies. What could they do once they caught them? Nothing. This was only an experiment and they weren't given powers of arrest until 1922. Presumably they had to ask Chummy to stay put while they went in search of a real policeperson. Ouch - the Mem's half Nelson has now turned into a Full Nelson and I've lost the use of one arm and am blind in one eye.

In other news ...
A Bible printed in the 15th century was sold at Christie's auction house today in 1991. The Good Book? It had better be - it cost £1.1 million!

26th November

New York had its first streetcar (horsedrawn of course) today in 1832. It ran between 14th and Spring Street and was called Desire.

Of course.

In other news ...

One of the most spectacular finds in archaeology took place today in 1922 when Howard Carter and his backer, the Earl of Caernarvon, broke through to the uninvaded tomb chambers of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings.

Just think - without that we would never have had the Indiana Jones series ...

25th November

Yesterday I mentioned Charles Darwin. He was never quite able to include Man in his natural selection argument, but others did, especially Thomas Huxley who wiped the floor spectacularly with Bishop 'Soapy Sam' Wilberforce of the Church of England in Oxford in 1860. The question of the authority of the Bible was much talked about and today in 1864, the Conservative Party's 'hatchet man', Benjamin Disraeli, famously said, 'Is man an ape or an angel? I, my lord, am on the side of the angels.'

Except that William Gladstone, the Liberal Party and an awful lot of Conservatives, disagreed with that.

In other news ...
The KKK got back together again today in 1915 in Georgia. The original Klan targeted the newly-freed slaves after the Civil War but this one targeted:-

• Blacks
• Jews
• Catholics
• Immigrants
• Communists
• Pacifists
• Darwinians.

The Klan is in decline today because there is almost nobody who is considered fit to join.

24th November

The deeply unpleasant misogynist, John Knox, died today in 1572. Scottish Protestants think he was the best thing since sliced bread but then there were those who thought Adolf Hitler was a pretty good egg too.

In other news ...
Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species today in 1859. Two things to note about this -

1. Of three famous books published in the same year (Darwin's, Samuel Smiles's Self Help and Mrs Beeton's Household Management) only Mrs Beeton went on to make any money.
2. Some people today still regard Darwin's natural selection as a theory only. Didn't they watch Inherit the Wind? 

23rd November

You know my views on Crippen. Even before we realized that the body in the basement of his house at 63 Hilldrop Crescent couldn't have been Mrs Crippen (Belle Elmore) because it was make, I thought they should have given him a medal because she was so horrible. Everybody disagreed of course and they hanged him at Pentonville today in 1910.

The Tufnell Park One is innocent.

In other news ...
Bill Pratt was born today in 1887. Who he, I hear you ask. He became Boris Karloff in later life, legend of Frankenstein, The Mummy and The Body Snatcher. Other film stars who weren't going to make it with their own monikers include:-

• Laruska Skikne (Laurence Harvey)
• Issur Danielovitch (Kirk Douglas)
• Diana Fluck (Diana Dors)
• Frances Gumm (Judy Garland)
• George Crane (Randolph Scott)
• Bacteria Cuniculus (Bugs Bunny).

22nd November

We all remember where we were today in 1963. There was a nightmare on Elm Street, Dallas as somebody gunned down John F Kennedy, riding through the city in an open-topped Lincoln convertible with his wife, Jackie and the governor of Texas, John Connolly and his wife. Millions of words, umpteen documentaries, a handful of movies, official and unofficial enquiries and nearly half a century - and still we don't know who did it.

In other news ...
Richard Strauss unveiled his new opera today in Dresden. The year was 1901 and the opera was about a team of dedicated scientists beavering away to cure the common cold. It was called Feuersnot.

21st November

Father Frances Xavier came back from two years in Japan today in 1551. He was the first Westerner to live among the Japanese and said of them '... no finer people will be found.'

That's because he wasn't building the Burma-Thailand Railway.

In other news ...
Today in 1906 a man died in Glasgow when 300,000 gallons of whisky burst out of vats. He had to get out three times to go to the loo.

What do you mean, you've heard it before? It was pretty new in 1906.

20th November

Sir Anthony Blunt, Surveyor of the Queen's paintings, was stripped of his knighthood today in 1979 when it emerged that he was the 'fourth man' spying for the Russians along with Philby, Burgess and Maclean. And I was reminded of other notables whose titles had been removed over the years: -

• Screaming Lord Sutch
• all of Lord Rockingham's Eleven
• Duke John Wayne
• Sirhan Sirhan

In other news ...
Casimir Funk died today in 1967. Never heard of him? He was apparently the chappie who coined the word 'vitamin'. What a waste. With a fantastic name like his we could have had phrases like 'The disease is caused by a casimir deficiency' and 'Funk B12'. It's too late now.

19th November

President Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most brilliant speeches in History today in 1863. It was also one of the shortest and has come to be known as the Gettysburg Address. It's so brilliant it is worth quoting in full.

'Ladies and Gentlemen, my address is 339B John Wilkes Booth Road, Gettysburg.'

Absolutely brilliant.

In other news ...
Today in 1908 a court in St Petersburg had to be adjourned because the prosecuting counsel refused to proceed against Russia's first female barrister. Tcha! I am forced to cry. They'll be demanding women bishops in the Church of England next ...

Wait a minute ...

18th November

In honour of National Doo Dah Day there is no blog for this Sunday.

We have been out to the Christmas shop, Heaven help us, and I have a strange time warp thing going on which is making History hard to fathom. Surely, Christmas 2011 was only last week? I know I keep finding bits of tinsel all over the house every time I move anything. So, either Christmas 2011 was last week or Metternich is moonlighting as one of Santa's elves.

17th November

Richard Nixon said today in 1973, 'I am not a crook' and that sent me in search of other serial deniers in History, e.g. -

• 'I am not, therefore I am' - Jean Paul Satre
• 'I am not for turning' - Margaret Thatcher
• 'I am not going to invade Poland' - Adolf Hitler (1938)
• 'Oh, yes I am' - Adolf Hitler (1939)
• I am a knot garden' - Capability Brown

In other news ...
The first successful British submarine voyage took place today in 1904 from Southampton to the Isle of Wight. The two principal ferry companies that serve the Island were both interested in acquiring the passenger franchise. But then they couldn't be arsed.

Further to this, Wightlink, or so my old mate M J Trow tells me, have axed umpteen sailings from their schedule, meaning that getting home after even the most modest evening out on the mainland is, for Islanders, darned near impossible. As a ferry is the only option they have, the uptake of theatre tickets and other treats will be markedly reduced in all the towns along the South Coast will see a knock-on effect as they hunker down and watch paint dry at home instead of sallying forth to enjoy a night out. Well done, Wightlink, for trying to return a whole county to the Dark Ages. And come along, ferry entrepreneurs - you must be out there somewhere.

16th November

A crowd of 200,000 watched today in 1724 as Jack Sheppard, safebreaker and highwayman was 'turned off' at Tyburn. Remember that odd little film Where's Jack? with Tommy Steele in the title role? Well, the real Jack was nearly that cute, apparently, with large, Johnny Depp style eyes and a slight stammer. He escaped twice from the condemned cell at Newgate and nobody knows quite how he did it. They just don't make rogues like him any more.

In other news ...
'It is beginning to be hinted that we are a nation of amateurs,' said Lord Rosebery today in 1900. The only annoying thing is that it took him so long to realize that.

15th November

The Deutschmark was introduced in Weimar Germany today in 1923. Inflation was so galloping that a loaf of bread cost 200,000,000 marks. Anybody having a coffee in the Alexanderplatz in Berlin paid for it before they sat down. By the time they got up, it might cost ten time the starting price.

In other news ...
William Pitt the Elder, the Earl of Chatham, was born today in 1708. Because of his relatively humble birth, he was sometimes called the Great Commoner. There were those who believed they didn't come any greater. And there were those who believed you couldn't be any commoner. Well done to his parents though, for their foresight in actually calling him William Pitt The Elder Earl Of Chatham. A bit of a mouthful at the font, perhaps, but it no doubt helped him in his early parliamentary days.

14th November

Today in 1952 the first 'Top Ten' of what the young people called the Hit Parade was published in NME (Not Musically Exciting). Vera Lynn was No 1 with 'Homing Waltz'. Jo Stafford was at No 2 with 'You Belong to my Heart' and Nat King Cole was third with 'Somewhere Along the Way'. All too soon, it was all going to get much, much worse.

In other news ...
The worst bombing raid to hit Coventry was mounted tonight in 1940. The Cathedral was left a smoking shell, there were 554 deaths and 865 injured. 449 bombers dropped 503 tons of bombs. The phrase 'to coventrate' became part of the English language.

13th November

Mary Phelps Jacob did womankind a great service today in 1914 by patenting the 'backless brassiere', originally made out of two handkerchiefs and a piece of ribbon. The Germans used the far more expressive name Bustenhalter for the new gizmo which has caused generations of fumbling teenagers a great deal of trouble.

In other news ...
An institution met for the first time today in 1920 which holds the record for the most feeble decisions in History. It met in Geneva and was called the League of Nations.

12th November

John Bunyan, the Baptist preached, was gaoled today in 1660 for preaching without a licence. In fact he spent years in gaol from time to time, clashing with the Quakers and the Church of England. His son, Paul - a big lad - emigrated to the States and became a lumberjack where he clashed with Sequoias and Scots Pines.

In other news ...

King Cnut died today in 1035. He was a brilliant ruler, warrior, statesman, law giver and all-round good egg. Yet despite the rather excellent biography written by M J Trow,  Cnut: Emperor of the North people still spell his name Canute and trot out that stupid rubbish about the tide.

11th November

At eleven o'clock this morning in 1918 the War to End Wars ended. The conflict that everybody said would be over by Christmas 1914 had lasted four years and 97 days. The stats are terrifying - 9 million dead, 27 million wounded. The Allies' bill was £68.5 billion; the Central Powers £32.6 billion.

And the world would never be the same again.

In other news ...
I've never really understood Ned Kelly. He was an Australian outlaw hanged today in 1880 after a bank robbing career of just two years. He wore body armour - a breastplate and helmet made of iron. Perhaps he expected a role in The Man in the Iron Mask, then playing in the Melbourne Lyceum. Whatever the reason, the gear must have slowed him up a bit which probably enabled the Oz police to catch him in the first place.

10th November

The Berlin Wall was smashed through in two places today in 1989, an iconic moment which effectively marked the beginning of the end of the 'evil empire' of the Communist Soviet Union. Pieces of the Wall became the new true cross, relics which changed hands for large sums of money. There were so many pieces of the Wall on the market that there was clearly some confusion with the Wall of China. 'All in all,' as Pink Floyd once said, 'We're just another chink in the Wall.'

In other news ...
Dick Jenkins was born today in 1925. Who he? I hear you cry. Well, he was a fine Shakespearean actor and famous drunk who married Liz Taylor sixteen times or thereabouts. Does that give you a clue?

9th November

The Stealth bomber was unveiled today in 1988, a sneaky beast that can't be detected by radar, but can - as we now know - be shot down. I was idling my time during the First Gulf War in a London antique market and I heard a customer ask the stall owner if he had any bits of Stealth aircraft for sale. In those long-gone naive days we all assumed he was a hopeful collector rather than a terrorist. Of course, the stall holder said, 'No, sorry, I'm afraid you're asking for the impossible.' He looked at the customer, winked and said, 'Come back tomorrow and I'll see what I can do.' I've often wondered whose side he was on.

In other news ...

Charles de Gaulle died today in 1970. He was the one, according to Allo! Allo! with the big 'ooter. This man was leader of the Free French army during World War Two and a complete pain in the backside to everybody he met. When they made the remake of Day of the Jackal I hoped the sniper would get him this time.

8th November

Lord Lucan vanished today in 1974. He in all probability killed his children's nanny, Sandra Rivett, in mistake for his wife and drove off into the night, leaving his car abandoned at Newhaven. Did he drown himself in the Channel? Hide out with Dr Josef Mengele in Paraguay? Become Banksy? For a quick read and run-through of the facts if you are unfamiliar with this classic true crime whodunnit and you have what I believe you young people call a Kindle, then have a look at  this.

If you're reading this, my lord, time to come home, I think. You've 'lain doggo' for long enough.

In other news ...
Edward Halley was born today in 1656. He was a Renaissance man years after the actual Renaissance and had a comet (Edward's Comet) named after him and went on to form an orchestra. He is the father of Halley Berry.

7th November

Benito Mussolini became leader of the National Fascist Party in Italy today in 1921. You've got to hand it to dictators - they have a great line in titles. Mussolini became Il Duce; Hitler was Der Fuhrer, Franco was El Caudillo. Even our own home grown Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector. And what have we got now? Minister for Sport, for the Environment and Without Portfolio.

In other news ...
Helen Suzman, the anti-apartheid campaigner was born today in 1917. I just loved her in Nicholas and Alexandra.

For anyone fortunate enough to live in the Isle of Wight, pop your wellies on tonight and get on down to the Riverside Centre in Newport, where my old mate M J Trow is giving a talk on crime. It is somewhat of a sideline of his - the plan is he gives the talks and then his accomplice, Joe 'the Horse' Bomparini nips round everyone's houses and cleans out their jewellery. Well, it beats working for a living.

6th November

I always felt a bit sorry for the Hawker Hurricane. It flew for the first time today in 1935, had 4 machine guns in each wing and a top speed of 325 mph at 20,000 feet. It was eclipsed by the Spitfire almost entirely because of the name. A Hurricane is a natural disaster; spitting fire is all about being unpleasant and deadly all in one.

In other news ...
Adolphe Sax was born today in 1814 in Belgium (oh, what a shame!) and of course invented the Saxophone. It was not until the birth of John Philip Sousa, exactly forty years later, that anybody wrote music which involved the playing of one.

5th November

All right, of course I'm bound to mention it. Today in 1605, the Gunpowder Plot was rumbled. Actually it had been rumbled weeks before because the government, in the person of Robert Cecil, knew every move the plotters made. Just for the record, the original figure on the bonfire was not Guy Fawkes, but King James I. So if you're out cadging money from old ladies, you'll impress them more if you grab them by the lapels and snarl in their faces 'Penny for the James! Penny for the James!'

In other news ...
My dear old uncle Robert, the Press Baron, mysteriously vanished today in 1991. He fell (or was he pushed?) off his yacht off the Canary Islands. We miss him deeply, of course, but it's not many Heads of Sixth Form at Comprehensive Schools who own a luxury yacht worth several million, so every cloud ...

Sadly, today finds me back at the chalk face after a nice half term break. With the nights dark and the mornings gloomy, I am just waiting now until the shortest day, when things begin to look up again. Chez Maxwell, Dec 21 is one of our favourite days, when the world starts spinning back towards spring. My mother in law, not a lady with a very merry disposition, prefers the longest day as everything from there is down hill to darkness and gloom. She doesn't even have a glass, never mind how full it might be.

4th November

Native Americans were kicking ass today in 1791. Little Turtle, chief of the Miami tribe, beat the Americans under General Arthur St Clair. He'd already beaten General Harmer on the Wabash. Where was this guy in the 1890s?

In other news ...
Anthony Eden said today in 1956, 'We are not at war with Egypt. We are in an armed conflict.' So that, children, is why a) we loused up the Suez crisis and b) why nobody remembers who Anthony Eden was.

Just a note to Ten Bee Aitch - the above will not be accepted as reasons in your GCSE mocks coming up shortly. You have been warned.

3rd November

Laika became the first dog in space today in 1957. She became the prototype for Pigs In Space if you're a Muppet fan. Come to think of it, she became the prototype for Pigs In Space if you're not a Muppet Fan. The Russians sent her into orbit on board Sputnik 2 and she reached Sirius (the Dog Star, get it?) last month. The Sputnik deniers of course don't believe a word of this.

What can you do with people like that?

In other news ...

Remember when American Presidents had cool names, usually of a classical or Biblical bent? There was Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant. What have we got today? Barack Obama. And tomorrow, if we're very unlucky? Mitten Romney!

2nd November

Officially, the day of the dead in Catholic Mediterranean tradition - hmmm.
Happy.

In other news ...
Today in 1903, the Daily Mirror was launched, specifically as a newspaper for women. great, I hear my good lady wife say, especially as that was the year the Women's Suffrage Union was set up. But wait, say I. The Daily Mirror's readership had a reading age of 8, so there appears to be a teensy bit of condescension somewhere.
Or is it just me?

1st November

L S Lowry was born today in 1887. He was one of those artists - Picasso, Klee, Mondrian, Klimt, Pollock and many, many more - who could draw and paint perfectly well, but just couldn't be arsed.

In other news ...
'A lie,' said Jim Callaghan, Britain's Prime Minister today in 1976, 'can be half way round the world before the truth has got its boots on.' That was 1976. Thanks to technology, Facebook, Twitter and Buboe, the speed of lying is much faster today.

31st October

Jan Vermeer, the Dutch interior designer, was born today in 1632. He spent his entire artistic career painting kitchens, tiles and other rooms. One critic said his work was as 'dull as Dutchwater'. How true.

In other news ...

'Gentlemen,' said the Turkish leader Kemal Attaturk today in 1927, 'it was necessary to abolish the fez, which sat on the heads of our nation as an emblem of ignorance, negligence, fanaticism and hatred of progress ...' Which is pretty true, really. In the great days of the Ottoman Empire (14th-17th century) everybody wore turbans.

Mind you, the fez didn't do Tommy Cooper any harm.

30th October

Orson Welles frightened everybody today in 1938 when he produced and starred in a radio play based on H G Wells' The War of the Worlds. Even though the item was given plenty of publicity as fiction in advance, thousands of New Yorkers panicked and jammed roads and subways trying to leave the cities before the Martians arrived.

The knock-on effect was that when the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, announced that we were at war with Germany ten months later, everybody assumed it was a hoax and did nothing.

In other news ...
The first television personality appeared on the screen today at the workshop of John Logie Baird in 1925. His name was William Taynton and the show was called Britain's Got Taynton.

29th October

An anonymous Belfast citizen got it absolutely right today in 1991 in the midst of appalling sectarian violence there -

'It's not the bullet with my name on it that worries me. It's the one that says "To whom it may concern".'

In other news ...

One of the great guys of Elizabethan England, Walter Ralegh, was executed today in 1618. The reason, those incomparable historians Sellar and Yeatman once said, was because he was left over from the previous reign. The real reason of course is that men as popular and larger than life as Ralegh had no place in the narrow world of that vicious paranoid freak, King James I.

28th October

Sir Richard Doll was born today in 1912. You probably haven't heard of him but he is responsible for the greatest act of victimization of the 21st century. In establishing a link between lung cancer and smoking, he undoubtedly saved millions of lives but he also caused the sad clusters of determined smokers, dying of frostbite and pneumonia outside pubs and nightclubs and for those mysterious, locked cabinets behind counters in supermarkets. You may have wondered why those poor, lost souls are sticking pins into a waz effigy - that is a likeness of Sir Richard, known as a Voodoo Doll.

In other news ...
A Puritan college in Cambridge, Massachusetts got an injection of cash today from John Harvard who died of tuberculosis in 1638. The aim was that Harvard would one rival Oxford or Cambridge.

Perhaps one day ...

27th October

Today in 1913, President Woodrow Wilson said, 'I want to take this occasion to say that the United States will never again seek one additional foot of territory by conquest.'

Er ...

In other news ...
Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet, was born today in 1914. The midwife described him as a milk-sopping, bed-wetting sort of kid, Cartland-purple where he wasn't puce-pink, puking over the porcelain in the parlour while Captain Jack went out for a doubler and a pint.

26th October

Gilles de Rais was executed in Nantes today in 1440. Nobleman, Satanist, child molester and passing acquaintance of Joan of Arc, he was charged by the Catholic Church with Satanism and Heresy. Recently, a Catholic Court of Enquiry dismissed the charges against him. So, that just leaves the 140 or so children he is alleged to have murdered ...

In other news ...
The Beatles got their MBEs today in 1965 much to the disgust of other MBE holders who sent theirs back. The inhabitants of a wild life park in Chipping Sodbury also returned their Ancient Order of Buffalo medals.

25th October

All right, this is the one you've all been waiting for. Balaclava Day, 1854. When 678 men of Lord Cardigan's Light Brigade (most of whom are sitting in 54mm replica in my attic) rode into the Valley of Death and into legend after a confused order took them the wrong way.

'It was a mad-brained trick, men,' Cardigan said to the survivors afterwards, 'but it was no fault of mine.'

'Go again, sir?' an anonymous soldier asked him. Makes you proud to be British, doesn't it?

In other news ...
It was a good day for a battle today - Agincourt was fought in 1415 in the mud of Northern France. The French nobility were all but wiped out by a much smaller force, largely of archers, under Henry V. A while ago there was a move to have October 21 (Trafalgar Day) or October 25 (Agincourt Day) declared a public holiday in Britain, but that was shelved in case it upset our French colleagues in the EU. Actually, on the basis of that there ought to be no public holidays because I can't think of a day when we didn't knock seven bells out of them.

24th October

Mrs Ann Taylor went over the Niagara Falls in a barrel today in 1901 to help pay the mortgage. Whoever thought it was a good idea to put up a Building Society at the foot of the Falls should have been certified. Incidentally, Mrs Taylor remained unhurt so at least she wasn't any broker.

In other news ...
Today in 1861 the electric telegraph joined up across the States and that spelt the end for the Pony Express Company of Majors, Russell and Weddell. I think this was a shame. Just think how exciting it would be if, every time you sent an email or a message from your iPhone/iPad/Eyewash, a great hairy bloke in buckskins came galloping past and took it off you.

23rd October

Today marks the 370th anniversary of the battle Edge Hill in Warwickshire. It was the first battle of the English Civil War (I stress English here to remind our American cousins that we had one over two centuries before they did). The result was; Cavaliers 1, Roundheads 0. Did the Roundheads give up, realizing they were totally outclassed? No, they got God on their side and as for as the Cavaliers it was all Down Hill after that.

In other news ...
Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party today in 1926. He'd only heard about the bash on Facebook and turned up uninvited, insisting everybody needed the bottle of vodka he'd brought, not to mention the ice and the pick to go with it.

Uncle Joe Stalin didn't like Leon's status and is officially No Longer His Friend. So there!

22 October

'Pretty Boy' Floyd was killed today in 1934 in a gunfight with FBI agents. They were actually trying to find 'Gorgeous Features' Mulwinnie after a tip-off from 'Impossibly Handsome' Bomperini.

In other news ...

Dr Crippen was found guilty of murdering his wife, Belle Elmore, today in 1910. I have blogged this once before because his execution was a gross miscarriage of justice. The body in the cellar was that of a man, we now know, not a woman so even if HH killed that individual, the corpse was not that of his wife so the case should have been dismissed. Why the error? A basic mistake by the pathologist Bernard Spilsbury who, even that early in his career, was revered by all and sundry as a God. And Belle Elmore? She later changed her name to Ann Widdecombe and the rest is History.

21st October

Truly great events spawn truly great quotations. Here are three from October 21st 1805, the day the British fleet under Horatio Nelson trounced the Franco-Spanish ships of Admiral Villeneuve at Trafalgar and saved England from invasion.

'England expects that every man shall do his duty.'
This was the coded message sent by a flag signalling system to the entire fleet by Nelson. He wanted to send 'England confides [trusts]' but they hadn't got that in the code book. It was the only cock-up the fleet made that day.

'Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter.'
Admiral Collingwood who led a column that smashed the enemy line (Nelson led the other).

'I do not say the French will not come; I only say they will not come by sea.'
Sorry, I can't remember whose this is, but it was a speech to the House of Commons, soon after Trafalgar.

In other news ...
Katsushika Hokusai was born today in 1760. Nobody, nobody does waves better (except Teasy-Weasey - and if you remember him, it's time for your cocoa).

20th October

Richard Burton died in Trieste today at the age of 69. It was 1890 and the explorer was one of the giants of Victorian England, never fully recognized (despite a knighthood) because of his penchant for translating the Kama Sutra, naughty bits and all. He was the first Englishman to visit Mecca during the Hajj (then punishable by death) and discovered hitherto unknown parts of Africa, some of which belonged to native girls.

In other news ...
Dame Annan Eagle was born today in 1904. I can't really tell you any more than that.

19th October

George Cornwallis surrendered to the American Forces at Yorktown today in 1781. They re-enact the moment for tourists every year, except that there are a few things missing ... like the colonists' German allies, the troops of the Marquis de Lafayette, a lot of Dutch and Spanish cash to by weapons and mercenaries. Oh, and half the French navy.

Apart from that, of course, Yorktown was a fair fight.

In other news ...
Auguste Lumiere, inventor of the cinematograph, was born today in 1862. His eldest boy was know as Son of Lumiere.

18th October

I must just interrupt my daily trip down Memory Lane to register the winning of the Man Booker Prize - for the second time - by Hilary Mantel. Now, Ms Mantel won it the first time by writing a novel about Thomas Cromwell. She won it the second time by writing a novel about ... Thomas Cromwell. Is it only me who sees a pattern here? Next year, if we all write a novel about Thomas Cromwell, we're all bound to win. Incidentally, old TC was a thoroughgoing b.....d, but in that sense no worse than anybody else in the Tudor period. And of course, he's now waiting in the Other Place for the arrival of Ms Mantel, with whom I'm sure he'll have a few words ...

Back to the blog -

Canaletto was born today in 1697. With a name like that of course he couldn't paint anything but canals. So Michelangelo called himself Bibletto; Stubbs was professionally known as Horsetto and Geronimo Monteverdi the master forger was Falsetto.

In other news ...
Lord Palmerston died today in 1865 with the famous words 'Die, my dear doctor? That's the last thing I shall do.'

And do you know, it was! Spooky, huh?

17th October

John Wilkes was born today in 1727. This man took on the corrupt government of George III single-handedly and almost toppled it. Womanizer, gambler, member of the notorious Hellfire Club and all round pain in the Arras, you couldn't help but love him.

And no, Ten Aitch Why, he did not kill Abraham Lincoln!! How many more times do I have to say it?

In other news ...
Charles II was defeated by Oliver Cromwell's Ironsides at Worcester today in 1651. About 20,000 people claimed later it was their oak tree Charles hid in before nipping across to France. The king had the last laugh however. When he got his throne back nine years later, Cromwell was already dead. Undeterred (get it?!) they dug him up and dragged his body around the streets of London. Where was Health and Safety?!

16th October

It was a great day for executions today. In 1555 Bishops Latimer and Ridley went to the stake in Oxford for their religious beliefs. And in 1793 'the Austrian woman', Marie Antoinette, went to the guillotine in Paris. somebody drew her in a tumbril on her way to the Place de Guerre. She was 38 and looks a hundred. How are the mighty fallen?

In other news ...

Angela Lansbury was born today in 1925. Check out (as her countrymen would say) this amazing lady - she was brilliant in The Court Jester, gorgeous in The Three Musketeers, a national treasure in Murder She Wrote. She is about to tour Australia with the great James Earl Jones in Driving Miss Daisy. And she's related to a British Labour Leader, George Lansbury.

They don't make them like her any more.

In a personal note, I would like to wish a very happy birthday to my very good friend M J Trow. I am reluctant to give his year of birth - like Cliff Richard, I suspect him of having a portrait in the attic - but he is an all round nice chap and altogether much too modest, so, Happy Birthday, M J Trow, from your staunchest fan. I have been chortling over his latest offering on the crime novel front, written with his good lady, Witch Hammer - I haven't finished it yet, having only started it yesterday but I have no idea whodunnit; always a good sign!

15th October

Yesterday I told you the world came to an end in 1969 but there are those who argue it happened today in 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII changed the calendar, thereby losing nearly eleven days. Millions of people therefore died before their time. Has the Vatican apologised for this, the greatest mass slaughter in history? Has it Heaven!

In other news ...
Virgil was born today in 70 BC, which is astonishing really. How old must he have been at the OK Corral when he faced the Clantons and McLowerys with brothers Wyatt and Morgan and Doc Holliday?!

14th October

Cliff Richard was born on this day in 1940. If you've seen recent photos of the man, you'll know this has to be a typo. He was clearly born in 1990.
Or does he have a painting of himself in the attic ...?

In other news ...

The world came to an end today - although Mother Shipton never noticed it - in 1969. The ten bob note was replaced by a nasty-foreign-looking coin called a 50p. I'd have been happier had it been called a 120p, but you can't have everything.

13th October

The Turin Shroud, allegedly the cloth wrapped around Jesus' crucified body, was finally exposed as a hoax today in 1988. This shouldn't have surprised anybody. For centuries, the Catholic Church had been making money out of exhibiting the chains of St Peter, the finger of St Anthony and the foreskin of Sister Ursula (oh no, that can't be right!) and all of those where fakes, so why not the shroud?

The real miracle is how did a brilliant 14th century artist fake the thing in the first place?

In other news ...
The Queen, God Bless Her, made her first broadcast to the nation today in 1940. She was only 14 and said, on Children's Hour 'We know, every one of us, that in the end all will be well.'

And the old girl's been calming us all down ever since.

12th October

The first non-religious piece of music was published today in 1609. It was Three Blind Mice and isn't it an off thing to kick of Showbiz with? Burt Bacharach, who wrote it, dined out on the royalties for the rest of his life.

In other news ...
Aleister Crowley was born today and spent the rest of his life telling everybody what a beast he was. His phone number was 666 (as opposed to the Pope's which is VAT 69); his favourite dish was devilled kidneys and he liked children, but couldn't eat a whole one.

11th October

Jean Cocteau, poet, artist, film-maker and all round brilliant wit died today in 1963. Of all the cool things he ever said, my favourite must be 'Tact consists in knowing how far we may go too far.'

Ain't it the truth?

In other news ...
And talking of wits and great lines, how about this today in 1991 from Auberon Waugh (whom I actually met once) - 'Politicians can forgive almost anything in the way of abuse; they can forgive subversion, revolution, being contradicted, exposed as liars, even ridiculed but they can never forgive being ignored.'

Takes one to know one, Aub!

10th October

Charles Darwin published what he considered to be his major opus today in 1881. It was called Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms with Notes on Their Habits. Just a reminder about other immortal works penned by the greats: Harriet Beecher Stowe's The Outbuilding belonging to a family Relative Whose Name was Thomas: Karl Marx's A List of the Principles and Beliefs of People Who Believe in Complete Equality: Robert Graves's Myself, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus and finally Peter Benchley's The Mandibles of a Large, Pale Predator Fish and Its Homicidal Habits.

Darwin's book was later filmed as Tremors and Its Many Sequels.

In other news ...
Thelonius Monk was born today in 1920. For years I thought his name was Felonius and that he was probably a defrocked priest. His crime? He virtually invented bebop.

'Nuff said.

9th October

'Che' Guevara was shot dead by the Bolivian army today in 1967. Let's forget how ludicrous it was that a self-centred, rather useless asthmatic medical student could become the icon of a generation (mine) appearing on posters and t-shirts without number. Let's have a closer look instead at the Bolivian Army. They shot Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid too. Is nobody doing anything about this?

In other news ...
Today in 1897, Henry Sturmey drove away from Land's End in a 4.5 hp Daimler with the intention of being the first person to drive to John O'Groats - 929 miles. Today, because of roadworks, contraflow, traffic cones and utterly unnecessary 50 mph speed limits on open roads, that journey would take five days.

Turn around when it is safe to do so.

8th October

Count Metternich (no, not the furry version, the real one) was appointed Foreign Minister in Vienna today in 1809. He stayed in office until 1848 as 'the coachman of Europe' directing and manipulating everybody with his craftiness and army of secret police. That's why I gave that cute little bundle of fur the name all those years ago - I can recognize a serial killer when I see one.

In other news ...
Chicago almost burned to the ground today in 1871 when Mrs O'Leary's cow knocked over a lantern in a barn in Dekoven Street. Under interrogation, using the good cow, bad cow (and incidentally giving the name to an otherwise anonymous disease) system we've all seen so many times, the animal confessed to being a serial arsonist, admitting to similar fires in London (1666), Warwick (1694) and London again in 1861.

7th October

Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop of Cape Town, was born today in 1931. He's a brilliant guy, loved and respected throughout the world. I must share with you, though, the unexpected thing for which he will always be remembered. If you are of average university ability, you will acquire a 2.2 (or Lower Second) degree; now affectionately known as a Desmond.

In other news ...
It was today in 1905 that one critic, viewing the works of Matisse in Paris, said, 'A paint pot has been flung in the face of the public.' He should have stuck around. Since then, 'art' has got much, much worse.

6th October

Two men died today in the electric chair in Florida in 1941. Their names were Frizzel and Willburn.

In other news ...
You don't mess with Basil II, Holy Roman Emperor. Today in 1014 he trounced the Bulgarian Army of Tsar Samuel and ordered that the prisoners should be blinded. Every hundredth man was to have one eye spared so that they could find their way back to the Tsar. Ah, the good old days.

5th October

'Gangin' doon, Geordie, gangin' doon, to the toon where the power lies.'

The unemployed men of the Tyneside shipyards marched to London today in 1936. Jarrow had a 66% unemployment rate and, wearing flat caps and blankets, 200 men set off to a rousing cheer. Everybody en route gave them tea and sandwiches, even the odd pint of beer. The hunger march didn't achieve much but it was a far cry from a similar march in 1817 when the Blanketeers set off from Manchester to protest about poverty. They were met by the army at Stockport and dispersed.

In other news ...
Monty Python's Flying Circus first appeared on the BBC today in 1969.

Why?

4th October

Karl Baedecker, the German publisher, died today in 1859. This is quite remarkable and an astonishing piece of research on my part (eat your heart out, Eric Hobsbawm RIP). Because during WW2 the Baedecker raids hit the very cities in Britain listed by Baedecker nearly a century earlier. Coincidence? I think not! Clearly, Karl Baedecker was an early member of the Nazi Party. Has nobody else noticed this?

In other news ...
As a kid I could never understand how the gadget developed by Paul Zoll at the Harvard Medical School actually worked. It was designed to control heartbeat and, as far as I knew, was called a peacemaker. I couldn't understand how a six-shot revolver carried by cowboys could be any help at all in that respect. That's why I became an historian rather than a cardiac surgeon and probably just as well.

3rd October

Elias Howe died today in 1867. Who he? i hear you cry. He was the chappie who invented the sewing machine and (unusually for pioneers in any field in the past) made a mint out of it (not literally, Seven Eff Em - he wasn't that clever). They even wrote a song about the sewing machine - 'A sewing machine, a sewing machine, a girl's best friend. If I didn't have my sewing machine, I'd go round the [expletive supplied by Seven Eff Em] bend.'

They don't make them - or write them - that way any more.

In other news ...
Postcodes were introduced in Britain today in 1959. Yes, I was surprised by that too. It was the start of the End of Civilization, of course and another step on the road to 1984 (naturally!). What happened to those glorious postal triumphs of the past when General Wilson of the First World War fame addressed an envelope to himself as 'The Ugliest Man in the British Army' (that was all he wrote) and it actually reached him.

2nd October

Can we get this straight once and for all, please? Today was the day in 1780 when John Andre  was executed by the American colonists as a spy and working with the traitor Benedict Arnold. Andre knew the risks he was taking and was unlucky; that's Africa. But Benedict Arnold was not a traitor. Today, thinking Americans equate him with Adolf Hitler, Vlad Dracula and Attila the Hun, but he was actually doing his duty as a British subject, which all American colonists were. it was all the rest who were the traitors, whatever gloss the slave-owning, line-pinching Thomas Jefferson tried to put on it in the Declaration of Independence.

In other news ...
'There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - they need the money.'

(With sincere apologies to John Fowles, who said something totally different today in 1977).

1st October

Kaiser Wilhelm II (he of the silly moustache and pickelhaube) gave orders to his generals today in 1914 - 'It is my royal and imperial command that you ... exterminate first the treacherous English and ... walk over General French's contemptible little army.'

He was obviously a tad confused. General French was an Englishman, despite his contrary surname and the German generals clearly weren't listening carefully enough. They didn't exterminate the British because the 'contemptibles' stopped them at Mons. I know I don't have to remind you of the score: Britain 1, Germany 0.

In other news ...
Louis Leakey died today in 1972. He was the brilliant, self-taught anthropologist who discovered 'Lucy', a partial skeleton in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. His findings put him at odds with almost every other anthropologist over the issue of who was descended from whom. You and I, for example, dear reader, are descended from homo sapiens by way of homo habilis and all points south. Year Ten at Leighford High School are descended from homo deeply-stupidicus and, according to his mother at least, the testicles of Henry Guttersnipe (not his real name) haven't descended at all. Although why that should excuse the late delivery of his most recent essay, I am at a loss to explain.

30th September

The Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, flew into Croydon airport today in 1938 with a scrap of paper. It contained Adolf Hitler's promise to invade no more countries after Czechoslovakia. He called it, optimistically, 'peace with honour', echoing Benjamin Disraeli's phrase after the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Unfortunately, Hitler was not of the calibre of the statesmen Disraeli sparred with and the scrap of paper was worthless.
Was Chamberlain aware of that? Almost certainly, but years of Appeasement had made Britain unwilling to face up to Europe's bully-boys.

In other news ...
Today in 1630, John Billington was executed for murder in New Plymouth, beginning a fine tradition that Americans still continue to this day.

29th September

The first automatic telephone answering machine was tested today in 1950 by the Bell Company. The recorded message went like this:-

'Hello Caller, You have reached the Bell Company. I'm afraid no one is here to take your call at the moment so if you'd like to leave a message after the Bell stops ringing, someone will get back to you. If you have a query about other Bell Company services, Press Button A. If you have a query about your bill, Press Button B. If you need to talk to a person ... er ... oh, dear, I'm afraid all our buttons are busy right now. Please try later (about 1985).

In other news ...
George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, raconteur and general smartarse, turned down a peerage today in 1930; not on any socialist principles, but because he realized how silly the title Lord Shaw of Ayot St Lawrence would sound.

The Maxwells are not known for their socialising and giddy gadding about, but we did manage to get down to Kent last weekend to stay with some friends and whilst there, went to see a band I had heard of but never seen, the fabulous Coal Porters. Their new CD - apparently known as an 'album' by you youngsters out there, called Find the One is newly out and I have to say that my foot was tapping throughout. Buy it - you'll love it, I promise, especially Hush You, Babe.

28th September

The First International met today in London in 1864. Its leader was the indefatigable Karl Marx (whose brother, Harpo, by coincidence died on this day in 1964). Among Marx's best known lines -

• Religion is the opium of the people.
• You have nothing to lose but your chains; you have a world to win.
• Friedrich, can you lend me ten bob 'til week Thursday.

In other news ...
Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick died today in 1891. The story, about a man's obsession to get revenge on a great, white whale, is an allegory on any number of levels and is quite brilliant. It would be unpublishable today because:

1. Greenpeace would object to whaling.
2. Captain Ahab has only one leg - health and safety implications.
3. The book has too many silly names for modern readers - Queequeg, Nantucket, Pequod.
4. The title is obscene and would have to be changed to Moby Male Member - mind you, the alliteration works!

27th September

One of the most famous letters in history landed on the desk of the Central News Agency today in 1888. It began 'Dear Boss' and ended 'Yours truly, Jack the Ripper'. It sparked the greatest and longest-running murder industry in the world.

In other news ...
Some books will tell you that Engelbert Humperdinck died on this day in 1921. Please go to your local library TODAY and alter this in any relevant book. Engelbert Humperdinck sang Britain's entry in this year's Eurovision Song Contest. Mind you, he didn't look well ....

26th September

Dan'l Boone, the famous American frontiersman, died today in 1820. He was buried with his favourite span'l.

In other news...
The Holy Alliance was formed today in 1815 between the powers that had defeated Napoleon. Russia, Austria and Prussia all put pen to paper and agreed to come to each other's aid even if it meant putting down democratic risings. Britain, who had done more than anybody else to beat the French, refused, our man at the Congress of Vienna, Lord Castlereagh, calling the whole thing a 'piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense'.

What would he made of the EU?

25th September

In a scene reminiscent of dear old Leighford High any day of the week, 1000 men of the 101st Airborne Division with fixed bayonets marched into Little Rock High School today in 1957 so that nine black children could take their rightful places in class. Outside the school, a mini-riot ensued. Where did all this happen?

That would be America, the land of the free.

In other news ...
The first blood transfusion took place today in 1818 at Guy's Hospital in London, but everybody was rather ... oh, negative about it.

24th September

Today in 1877 a rebellion of Japan's samurai was put down by the government. You've probably seen the story filmed as The Last samurai with Tom Cruise. It's not bad historically, except that the country offering military advice to the Japanese government was Germany, not America. The idea was that the samurai were an armour-wearing anachronism, whose code of Bushido ( the way of the warrior) was hopelessly out of date. Why was it then that Bushido was still there in the 1940s which explains the appalling brutality meted out by the Japanese to British, Australian and Dutch prisoners of war? And why has Japan's 'enlightened' government never apologized for that?

In other news ...
Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian Chancellor, came out with one of his great bon mots today in 1862. 'The great questions of the age,' he said, 'are not settled by speeches and majority votes, but by iron and blood.'

Right on, Otto. The result? Germany 0; Rest of the world 2.

23rd September

There was a furore today in 1987 when ex-Intelligence officer Peter Wright's book Spycatcher was published in Australia. The man was a whistle blower, spilling info he should not have done under the Official Secrets Act. MI5 went into a tail spin, the Sunday Times was held in contempt of court and the government went ape-faeces.

How different it all is today. We all know the name and address of MI5's M (it's Judy Dench, by the way - cunningly doubling as an actress); it no longer matters about your sexual orientation if you want to be a spy (as long as it's more or less Not'Nor'west) and they advertise in the paper - 'Top Spies Wanted. No Experience or Qualifications Necessary'. What bothered me about the Spycatcher Case was the fact that a man we trusted the security of the country yo could be photographed wearing such a silly hat.

In other news ...
The blue-print for all modern police forces was seen for the first time today in 1912 when Mack Sennet's Keystone Cops hurtled at high speed across the screen, wearing summer regulation straw helmets and huge moustaches. It is still going on today, minus the straw helmets and huge moustaches in every constabulary in the country.

Oops; I think I'd better delete this because the Mem (who some of you will know is a Detective Inspector of some repute) has threatened to take away my computer for forensic analysis.

Also, I should apologise for the lateness of this blog. Today's downpours have finally been too much for the roof of Casa Maxwell and water is pouring merrily into the bathroom and heading down the stairs. The builder is on his way, but I hope he comes soon because my finger is getting tired plugging the leak.

22nd September

Robert Walpole, the Whig leader whose career was a byword for corruption, moved into the new house for Prime Ministers, Number 10, Downing Street, today in 1735. Next door was one of his cronies, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (oh, no, wait a minute - that was Walpole too). Everybody else in the street was so appalled by their new neighbour that they not only left, they had their houses demolished.

In other news ...
It was today in 1980 that Idi (The Last King of Scotland) Amin told Uganda's 80,000 Asians they had 48 hours to leave the country.

The whites were given six minutes.

21st September

Bonnie Prince Charlie (the young chandelier - see yesterday's post) won a battle at Prestonpans today in 1745. I mention this for three reasons:

1. It was the only battle Charlie ever won - finally losing the one with booze in 1788.
2. It inspired a brilliant folk song about the English commander General Sir John Cope - 'Hey, Johnnie Cope, are you waulking [awake] yet?'
3. Isn't it great that our wonderful country has a place in it called Prestonpans?

In other news ...
John Loudon MacAdam was born today in 1756. He went on to become one of the great road engineers of the Industrial Revolution using gravel held together by tar. it has since come to be known as TarAdam and you see it everywhere.
P.S. It usually melts in the summer, to the unaccountable amazement of local councils everywhere.

20th September

Today in 1959, Nikita Khrushchev was denied access to Disneyland for security reasons. The actual reason was that none of the Mickey Mouse actors (Mickey Mice actors ...???) wanted to hug him.

And who can blame them?

In other news ...

It's a perfect day for sailors today. In 1519, Ferdy ('I tell you the world is round') Magellan set sail from Seville with a little fleet of five ships. And in 1580, Frankie ('Yes, it is and it all belongs to England') Drake came back with five ships having circumcized the globe.

All teachers reading this will know that the above is not a typo - in this specific case it is a quote from an exam paper from Leavon Clutterbuck (not his real name) of 7 Eff Pee, c. 1983.

19th September

'Try stubbing out a cigarette with both feet while rubbing your back with a towel.'
This action describes -

1. Discovering a fire in Pudding Lane, London, in 1666 and attempting to prevent its spread
2. Being Lord Mayor of London 2012
3. Doing the Twist 1960
4. Auditioning for the part of James Bond 1960-2012?

Answer please to: Mr C Checker (oh, damn; I've given it away!)

In other news ...
Lesley Hornby was born today in 1949. She's better known as Twiggy and was the face of the Sixties modelling scene. Amazingly, she's still going strong today and still looks great. Unlike the other Sixties models, Stringy, Skinny and Skeletal who, frankly, are beginning to show their age.

18th September

'What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.' So wrote Jane Austen to a friend today in 1796. This quotation is for my old enemies in the English and Geography Departments really. Geographers please note - global warming as far back as 1796, so stop whingeing and spreading tales of doom and panic. Englishers - why is your darling writing such tosh (see Persuasion, Northanger Abbey etc etc) when she should have been writing about the extraordinary French Revolution happening only a few miles away at the time.

In other news ...
Another one for the English Department. Samuel Johnson was born today in 1709, in Lichfield (shame!). He is heralded today as one of the first lexicographers in the world. In fact he was a neurotic bossy-boots with a nervous tic who is famous only because an equally neurotic bossy-boots - James Boswell - wrote down every word the great man uttered. To see Johnson put firmly in his place, see Robbie Coltrane's performance of him in Blackadder III; perfect!

17th September

Hector Berlioz triumphed on this day back in 1837. His Requiem performed in Paris had a choir of 200, 110 violins and 16 tympani (and the Brass section couldn't sit down). His music is great (although he couldn't play a single instrument properly) but his hair! Look at portraits of him. Even allowing for the exaggeration of contemporary cartoonists, Berlioz had the silliest hair in Classical Music.

In other news ...
HMS Resolution, Britain's first nuclear submarine was launched today by the Queen Mother in 1966. It was the first time that a Royal had used the well-known family Scuba-diving skills and the old girl hardly suffered the Bends at all.
Jolly good show, Your ex-Maj.

16th September

Alexander Korda was born today in 1893. Though Hungarian, he emigrated to Britain and made a host of rattling good yarns films like The Drum and The Four Feathers extolling the virtues of the British Empire and the Raj. Winston Churchill got him a k; they don't make directors like that any more. My good lady, the DI, tells of many a Sunday afternoon when she was a child when she and her mother were taken hostage by her father to watch The Four Feathers just one more time. When stressed, she still can lapse unconsciously into a rendition of several minutes of the dialogue, absolutely word perfect, even after all this time.

In other news ...
Tomas de Torquemada died on this day in 1498. Posterity has been pretty kind to this man, whose name is largely unknown today. He was the architect of the Holy Inquisition which saw the torture and execution of thousands of innocent people all over Europe. He deserves to be up there with Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot etc. Spread the word. He wasn't Mr Nice Guy.

15th September

The first British robot appeared today at the Model Engineering Exhibition in London in 1928. It immediately downed tools and refused to work until suitable arbitration had taken place vis-a-vis the workplace, an afternoon tea break and a tanner extra in the docket.

In other news ...
Titus Oates was born today in 1649. In case you're wondering who he is, he is the bloke who invented breakfast cereal and just popped out for a little while from Robert Falcon Scott's snowbound tent in the Antarctic.

So now you know.

14th September

Two extraordinary women died today in car crashes, fifty five years apart. The first was the dancer Isadora Duncan whose neck was broken as her trailing scarf got caught in the rear wheel of her Bugatti in 1927. The second was the gorgeous Princess Grace of Monaco (aka the actress Grace Kelly) whose sports car went off a road and plunged 120 feet over the edge. Both accidents happened near Nice and both women were already legends before Fate intervened.

In other news ...
Jack Hawkins was born today in 1910. The gravel-voiced actor always played officer or authority figures, from Gideon of the Yard to General Allenby. One of his last films was as General Picton in Waterloo by which time throat cancer had robbed him of his marvellous voice. What a loss.

13th September

An indelible stain was left on American prison authorities today in 1971 when 1500 New York State militiamen opened fire on protesting prisoners in Attica Jail near Buffalo. Ten guards and 29 convicts were killed.

In other news ...
'Black Jack' Pershing was born today in 1860. He was a gung-ho general of the Great War and a famous cavalry officer before that. He also introduced military music to the American army having seen the British Guards Division in action.
What a shame he couldn't teach them to march as well.

12th September

And so it begins, dear reader. Yesterday, for me, was what I call All Hell Day in which I enrolled the new Year 12, all of them convinced their GCSEs have been wrongly marked. I told them all to go and see that nice Mr Gove and gave them a few tips on urban terrorism to jolly things along.
Today is the start of the Michaelmas Term, as we used to call it when all members of staff in schools had Oxbridge degrees (that ended in about 1733).


William Boyd died today in 1972. Who he? I hear you ask. He was the hero of my childhood, better known as Hopalong Cassidy. He didn't hop very much but he sorted out the bad guys with his fists and his six-gun and rode on a white horse called Topper. He also wore a black hat (Hoppy, that is, not Toppy) which caused confusion because the good guys always wore white hats. What was the world coming to?

In other news ...
Maurice Chevalier was born today in 1888. He was an actor, acrobat and all round thoroughly twinkly old charmer. What a pity his Thank Heaven for Little Girls would be totally misconstrued today.

11th September

'People of the same trade seldom meet together but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or in some diversion to raise prices.'

Adam Smith wrote this in The Wealth of Nations, published today in 1776. The Mother Shipton of his day, Smith was of course talking about bankers in the 21st century.

In other news ...
Oliver Cromwell ordered the slaughter of 1500 rebels at Drogheda on this day in 1649. Among them were women and children. The irony is that Cromwell today is regarded as one of the more tolerant of Puritans. It's just that Papists (i.e. the Irish) didn't come within the remit of his compassion. So next time you read something extolling the virtues of the Lord Protector, just bear Drogheda in mind. Oh, and Wexford too, because he did the same thing there.

10th September

Sevastopol fell to the British and French armies today in 1855 after an 11-month siege. It should never have taken that long but the Crimean War holds the record for the biggest number of military cock-ups in history (Ten Zed Oh - I will be needing more detail in your holiday projects, which I assume most of you busy writing today ahead of our first lesson together since July which is Period 3 the day after tomorrow, if I recall my timetable accurately). If you're ever in the Ukraine, go to the Panorama, a huge circular building lit by natural light which shows a single day during the siege in a 360 degree montage of paint and 3D models. It is an astonishing work of art. Imagine how much better it would have been if the Russians had won!

In other news ...
Today in 1962, Martin Luther King said, 'I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.' Think about that. It's really clever.

9th September

King James IV of Scotland was killed at Flodden today in 1513. The sneaky little non-Sassenach took the opportunity to invade England while Henry VIII was away fighting the Battle of the Spurs in France.

The moral of this story? Don't be a sneaky little non-Sassenach.

In other news ...
Chaim Topol was born today in 1935. I think he's a first rate actor and no doubt a lovely man, but oh dear, Fiddler on the Roof? It's just awful, nearly as bad in the film stakes as Gone With The wind and, the greatest turkey of all, The Sound of Music.

8th September

This review appeared in the Field and Stream magazine in 1961 -

'This pictorial account of the day-to-day life of a gamekeeper is full of considerable interest to outdoor inclined readers ... In this reviewer's opinion, the book cannot take the place of J R Miller's Practical Gamekeeping.'

This was of course a review of D H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover and we must assume that Field and Stream was being tongue in cheek about the whole thing. Bums and Tits Weekly was rather more forthright, of course -

'What a load of $%^&*!!! The ^&%$£^* is pretty good but we also had all this %"**& about gamekeeping thrown in.'

In other news ...
Today in 1916 President Woodrow Wilson promised American women the vote.. He later withdrew the offer on the grounds that the First Lady, Mrs Woodrow Wilson, had him in a side head mare at the time and he wasn't thinking straight.

7th September

'Grandma' Moses was born today in 1860. Her real name was Anna Robertson and she began painting at the age of 78. In her 90s she took up break-dancing and won three gold medals in the 1952 Geriolympics, most notable leading the over Eighties Nudist Trampolining team to victory.

Go 'Grandma'!

In other news ...
The battle of Lepanto stopped the Ottoman advance into Europe today in 1571 when a Christian fleet led by Don John of Austria destroyed the galleys of Ali Pasha, releasing thousands of galley slaves in the process. Ali Pasha was killed and his head presented to Don John as a souvenir.

For a brilliant poetic account of the action, see  Battle of Lepanto by G K Chesterton. See, I've made it easy for you by adding a link (possibly ...)

Assuming this link works (which let's face it is unlikely) you will be transferred to a page from Untermeyer's splendid Modern British Poetry, from an edition when the wonderful Gilbert Keith was still among us - don't be confused by the lack of date of death, he is not still alive at almost 140, more's the pity. He actually died in 1936. He was, as they say, no age. If you are unfamiliar with his poetry, which is a little neglected these days, I really urge you to read some. You'll love it, I promise.

6th September

The Marquis de la Fayette was born today in 1757. Dashing, brave, romantic and with the obligatory white horse, he fought for the Americans during the War of Independence. The really smooth move came from Colonel C E Stanton when his troops arrived in Paris in 1917. He visited the great man's tomb and said, 'Lafayette, we are here!'

Just brilliant!

In other news ...
There was a glitch in the computer network in Paris today in 1989 when 41,000 people guilty of traffic violations like illegal parking and speeding, received letters charging them with extortion, prostitution and murder.
The Ministry of Justice at once apologized and sent all 41,000 to the guillotine on the grounds that there's no smoke without fire.

5th September

The longest-running comedy in the world - No Sex Please - We're British - closed in the West End today in 1987 after a 16 year run and 6671 performances. That's the one where the policeman did it - in the nude.

In other news ...

'I have not ruled out the possibility of one day coming to power.'
Who said this today in 1991? Was it:

1. Richard M Nixon
2. Tony Blair
3. Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovitch
4. Simon Cowell?

4th September

As cool things go (I understand from my students that this is archaic young-person speak meaning 'impressive', 'to be admired') West German Mathias Rust has to take the biscuit (which is late Medieval speak for 'win the race' 'achieve the utmost') when he flew through Russian airspace on this day in 1987 and landed his light aircraft in Red Square. Just think what he could have done if he'd had the Luftwaffe with him!

In other news ...
'How can you bear to go further?' asked Lin Ze-Xu, the Chinese Imperial Commissioner in a letter to Queen Victoria today in 1839. 'Selling products injurious to others in order to fulfill your insatiable desire?'

It's not generally known that 'Vic the Kraut' as the Underworld knew her was a hopelessly depraved junkie and ran a Prostitute and Bootleg racket that made Al Capone look like Mother Theresa.

3rd September

This was the day in 1939 when Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany. An apprehensive Britain crowded around their wireless sets to listen to the Prime Minister's announcement. They needn't have worried, though. As Alan Bennett pointed out in 40 Years On, 3 September was also the date of Cromwell's great victory over the Scots [Battle of Dunbar 1651, but you knew that already I am sure] but Hitler didn't know that. But then there were a lot of things Hitler didn't know (have you read Mein Kampf?).

In other news ...
Richard Plantagenet became Richard I of England today after years of fighting with his father, Henry II and brothers Geoffrey and John over the succession. Bearing in mind that this rather unpleasant psychopath spent only 6 months of a 10 year reign in this country, one wonders why.

2nd September

Sorry I missed yesterday, dear reader (I have done it now, so scroll backwards to read it) but as the new term looms I had to pop in to see Mr Gove to put him straight on a few matters. And don't worry - he won't be bothering any of us again.

Now, to more important matters ...

Ho Chi Minh (he of the city and the trail) made a nuisance of himself in Hanoi today in 1945 by proclaiming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. As Commie as apple pie, he upset the Japanese, the French, the British and finally the Americans, leading to the deaths of thousands.

Why can't people realize that foreign powers lording it over them know best? (See Owain Glyndwr, William Wallace, Toussaint L'Overture, the Founding Fathers, Geronimo, Jomo Kenyatta etc etc etc).

In other news ...
Louis Napoleon surrendered to Kaiser Wilhelm of Prussia today in 1870 after being thoroughly trounced in the Franco-Prussian War which would see the new state of Germany emerge the following year. Masters of efficient and organized warfare, the Prussians had 26 railway lines to transport their troops to the killing fields. The French had one.

Go, as both the French and the Germans say today, figure.