20th February

[chenrezig]

1437 James I, King of Scotland, was assassinated by a group of dissident nobles led by the earl of Atholl. The crown went to his son, James II.

1472 Orkney and Shetland were pawned by Norway to Scotland in lieu of a dowry for Princess Margaret, daughter of Christian I, the King of Norway and Denmark. As the wife of King James III of Scotland she was the Queen Consort and the mother of the future King James IV of Scotland.

1547 Edward VI, aged 9 years old, was crowned at Westminster Abbey. Edward, the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant.

1757 The birth of John Fuller, better known as 'Mad Jack' Fuller, although he himself preferred to be called 'Honest John' Fuller. As Squire of the hamlet of Brightling, in Sussex he was well known as a builder of follies, but was also a philanthropist and a patron of the arts and sciences. He was eventually elected as a Member of Parliament but was a noted drunk, which led to a number of 'incidents' in the Houses of Parliament. His parliamentary career is probably most noted for his staunch support of slavery and in one such debate he claimed that West Indian slaves lived in better conditions than many people in England. In 1811, a pyramid-shaped building was erected in the churchyard in Brightling, as a future mausoleum for John Fuller. And there he was buried, in 1834.

1938 Anthony Eden resigned as British foreign secretary after the prime minister Neville Chamberlain decided to negotiate with Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.

1940 The birth of Jimmy Greaves, England's third highest international goalscorer and the highest goalscorer in the history of Tottenham Hotspur football club. He was famed for his trademark catchphrase "It's a funny old game."

1947 Lord Louis Mountbatten, cousin of King George VI and a hero of World War II, was appointed the last Viceroy of India, on the same day that London announced that the British would leave India by June 1948.

1952 Jeannette Altwegg won Britain’s first Olympic Gold Medal for figure-skating at the Winter Olympics in Oslo.

1958 The government announced the closure of Sheerness docks, one of the oldest naval dockyards in the UK.

1979 11 members of a loyalist gang known as the 'Shankill butchers' were sentenced for 19 sectarian murders in Belfast following a sensational trial.

1982 US entrepreneur John de Lorean’s luxury sports car project in Belfast, set up with over £17 million of British taxpayers’ money, went into receivership. On his return to the US he was asked bluntly, ‘Are you a con man?’

1989 Police hunted two IRA bombers who attacked an army barracks at Tern Hill in Shropshire. Fifty members of the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment escaped injury when two men were seen acting suspiciously in the early hours of the morning.

1990 Environmentalists attacked the Government of Margaret Thatcher for proposing to spend £12.4 billion on new roads.

[annie]

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[Misspears]

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[wendy]