4th March

[chenrezig]

March fourth ( i.e. March forth!) is the only date in the calendar year that constitutes a sentence.

1681 King Charles II granted a Royal Charter to William Penn, entitling him to establish a colony in North America called Pennsylvania.

1790 The death of Flora Macdonald, the Scottish Jacobite heroine who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie (the Stuart claimant to the British throne) escape after the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

1824 The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI was formed) by Sir William Hillary. Initially known as the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, Hillary was inspired to form the charitable organization when he saw a fishing fleet destroyed by a storm off the Isle of Man. Pictures of St. Justinian's Lifeboat Station and the Scarborough lifeboat.

1882 The first electric trams in Britain ran; from Leytonstone in East London.

1890 The Forth Railway Bridge in Scotland was opened by the Prince of Wales, who later becomes King Edward VII. The bridge is more than one and a half miles long and took six years to build.

1912 Suffragettes, demanding votes for women, smashed every window they passed in Knightsbridge as a protest at government inaction.

1923 The birth of Sir Patrick Moore, prominent astronomer, radio and television presenter, self taught musician and composer. His Sky at Night - BBC TV programme was the world's longest-running television series with the same original presenter. It ran from 24th April 1957 until 7th January 2013.

1951 The birth of Scottish footballer and manager Kenny Dalgleish.

1966 Beatle, John Lennon, caused outrage amongst Christians by stating "We're more popular than Jesus Christ right now'"

1967 The first gas from the North Sea was piped ashore near Durham.

1969 The Kray twins, Ronald and Reginald, were found guilty of murder.

1972 Kenneth Grimes, from Hampshire became the first individual to win more than £500,000 on the football pools.

1974 Following the election, Edward Heath failed to persuade the Liberals to join a coalition and resigned. Harold Wilson would become Prime Minister for a third time, but with a narrow majority.

1975 Charlie Chaplin was knighted after a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

1976 An Irish born mother-of-four and six others (known collectively as the Maguire Seven) were jailed for possessing explosives. Their convictions were later quashed.

1997 In London, the match-fixing trial of footballers Bruce Grobbelar, John Fashanu and Hans Segers ended in deadlock, with the jury failing to reach verdicts.

[annie]

tha22222

[wendy]