27th January

[chenrezig]

1606 The trial of Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators began. They were charged with treason for attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament in November 1605.

1757 The birth, in Richmond, of Henry Greathead, the pioneering lifeboat builder from South Shields. It took some years before his lifeboat become well known to the public. The first was purchased in 1798 by Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland, for North Shields. By 1802 Greathead's work was "deemed a fit subject for national munificence" and, over a period of years, 30 more lifeboats followed. Greathead never took out a patent on his invention, and was always willing to share his plans with others for the public good.

1832 Birth of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (‘Lewis Carroll’), the English mathematician who wrote Alice in Wonderland.

1868 E.D. Young reported to the Royal Geographical Society that Dr. Livingstone, the British explorer and missionary in Africa, was still alive.

1926 John Logie Baird gave a special public demonstration of television to members of the Royal Institution in London. Baird's invention used mechanical rotating disks to scan moving images into electronic impulses.

1969 Hard line Unionist Ian Paisley was jailed for three months along with Ronald Bunting, for organising an illegal counter-demonstration against a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association march in Armagh. He was released during a general amnesty for people convicted of political offences.

1981 Rupert Murdoch's bid to buy 'The Times' and 'Sunday Times' was given the go ahead, without the investigation usually required by the Monopolies Commission.

1989 Thomas Sopwith, British aircraft designer, died aged 101. Remembered for his Sopwith Camel and Sopwith Pup planes he also won a £4,000 prize for the longest flight from England to the Continent in a British built aeroplane, flying 169 miles in 3 hours 40 minutes. His company produced more than 18,000 British World War I aircraft for the allied forces, including 5,747 of the famous Sopwith Camel single-seat fighter. Sopwith was awarded the CBE in 1918.

1993 Mrs. Thatcher told journalist Woodrow Wilson that she thought most of the members of the House of Lords were so useless that they deserved to be reformed.

1993 Veronica Bland became the first passive smoking worker in the UK to win compensation for damage to her health at work when she agreed to a settlement of £15,000 from Stockport Council in a personal injury claim.

1995 Manchester United's Eric Cantona was fined £20,000 and a football ban over his kung fu-style attack on a fan. Cantona was nicknamed 'King Eric' by Manchester United fans, and he was voted the club's greatest ever player by the Inside United magazine.

2001The first Holocaust Memorial Day was held in Britain, on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops. The Holocaust resulted in the annihilation of 6 million European Jews and millions of others by the Nazi regime.

2003 Tony Blair and George Bush held talks at Camp David (the country retreat of the President of the United States), and vowed to hound Saddam Hussein for 'as long as it takes' to drive him from power.

[annie]

tha22222