6th December

[chenrezig]

The Feast day of Nicholas, popularly known as Santa Claus. He is the patron saint of children. The name Santa Claus is a phonetic alteration from the German Sankt Niklaus and the Dutch Sinterklaas.

1421 Henry VI, youngest King of England to accede the throne (at 296 days), was born.

1732 The birth of Warren Hastings, first Governor General of Bengal who established the foundations of British administration in India. He was impeached for corruption on his return to England in 1785, but was later acquitted.

1745 Charles Edward Stewart (commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or The Young Pretender) and his army began their retreat from Derby during the second Jacobite Rising.

1768 The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published, in Edinburgh.

1888 The birth of William Thomson Hay (known as 'Will' Hay); English comedian, actor, film director and amateur astronomer. His half hour weekly Will Hay Programme began in August 1944, and was broadcast live from the Paris Cinema, which still exists in a basement just off Piccadilly Circus.

1897 The world's first fleet of motorised taxi cabs started operating in London.

1916 David Lloyd George became Prime Minister. He was born in Chorlton-on-Medlock, near Manchester, to Welsh parents, but the tiny village of Llanystumdwy was his childhood home.

1921 Irish independence was granted for the 26 southern states that became known as the Irish Free State. Six counties which formed Ulster (Northern Ireland) remained as part of the UK.

1963 English call-girl Christine Keeler, one of the models named in the scandal involving British Secretary of State for War John Profumo, was jailed for 9 months for perjury arising from the trial of an ex-boyfriend.

1975 The Balcombe Street siege in Central London was watched by millions on television. It ended when the four IRA gunmen, who had taken a couple hostage following a gun battle and chase, finally gave themselves up without a shot being fired.

1977 The birth of Andrew Flintoff, English and Lancashire cricketer. His nickname 'Freddie' or 'Fred' comes from the similarity between his surname and that of Fred Flintstone. He developed deep vein thrombosis after surgery to his knee and announced his retirement from all cricket on 16th September 2010.

1982 The 'Droppin Well' bombing: The Irish National Liberation Army detonated a bomb in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland, killing eleven British soldiers and six civilians.

1983 Surgeons successfully completed the first heart and lung transplant operation to be performed in Britain. Swedish journalist, Lars Ljungberg underwent the transplant, receiving the organs of a woman from the south of England who had died the previous day.

1994 The Queen gave the go ahead for oil drilling to take place in the grounds of Windsor Castle. The move came after studies showed there could be up to £1bn of oil lying beneath the castle.

2005 David Cameron beat David Davis to the leadership of the Conservative Party.

2012 The SA Agulhas set off from London on the start of the world’s first ever attempt to cross the Antarctic in winter. On 25th February 2013, Sir Ranulph Fiennes had to pull out of the expedition due to frostbite. On 18th June 2013, after encountering a crevasse field extending up to 60 miles, with temperatures close to -90c and operating in near permanent darkness the team officially halted its mission and decided to focus only on scientific experiments.

2013 Communities on the east coast of England began assessing the damage caused by the previous night's worst tidal surge for 60 years. Thousands had abandoned their homes, 1,400 properties were flooded and seven cliff-top homes collapsed into the sea at Hemsby - Norfolk. It was the start of a winter of severe floods and storms that affected many parts of Britain.

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