17th January

[chenrezig]

1648 Parliament broke off negotiations with King Charles I, in response to the news that Charles was entering into an engagement with the Scots, thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War.

1746 ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ and his Highlanders won the battle of Falkirk. It was to be their last victory in the 'forty-five' Jacobite uprising, as three months later they were defeated at Culloden.

1773 Captain Cook's ship and his crew, aboard 'Resolution', became the first Europeans to sail below the Antarctic Circle. Cook also surveyed, mapped and took possession for Britain of South Georgia. He almost encountered the mainland of Antarctica, but turned back north towards Tahiti to resupply his ship, then resumed his southward course in a second fruitless attempt to find the continent.

1820 The birth, in Thornton, West Yorkshire of the poet and novelist Anne Brontë. She was the youngest of six children of Patrick and Maria Brontë. The Brontës moved to Haworth, West Yorkshire on 20th April 1820. The Brontë Museum is in the former parsonage at Haworth. Anne wrote two novels. Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. She died from pulmonary tuberculosis when she was just 29 years old.

1863 The birth, in Chorlton-on-Medlock, near Manchester, of David Lloyd George, Welsh politician. In 1909 he introduced old-age pensions, followed in 1911 by health and unemployment insurance. In 1916 he became Prime Minister of a coalition government. After the First World War he was re-elected with a huge majority, and held office until 1922. The tiny village of Llanystumdwy was his childhood home.

1896 The Daimler Motor Company (Coventry) was registered as the first British car manufacturer.

1907 Alfred Wainwright, whose books for walkers did much to popularise the Lake District, was born, in Blackburn, Lancashire. In 1952, he began the task of walking every fell in Lakeland and recording his walks with pen and ink drawings. It took him 13 years to climb the 214 fells, travelling on foot or by public transport from his Kendal home, as he never learnt to drive. His ashes are scattered on Haystacks, Cumbria.

1912 Captain Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole, only to find that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him by one month.

1933 A telegram was received by the MCC at Lords Cricket Ground from the Australian Cricket Board: ‘Bodyline bowling has assumed such proportions as to menace the best interests of the game, making protection of his body by a batsman his main consideration. In our opinion it is unsportsmanlike. Unless it is stopped at once it is likely to upset the friendly relations existing between Australia and England.’ Jardine was captaining England at Adelaide and the bodyline bowler was Larwood.

1945 The Nazis began the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces closed in.

1968 The motor manufacturer British Leyland was formed; from the merger of British Motor Holdings Ltd. and Leyland Motor Corp. Ltd.

1986 The Royal yacht Britannia evacuated Britons and other foreign nationals from Aden during their civil war.

2008 British Airways Flight 38 crash landed just short of London Heathrow Airport with no fatalities. It was the first complete hull loss of a Boeing 777, the world's largest twin jet aircraft.

2014 Cambridge City Council said that apostrophes on new street signs would be abolished, a decision that was condemned by language traditionalists. The naming policy also banned street names which would be "difficult to pronounce or awkward to spell" and any that "could give offence" or would "encourage defacing of nameplates". After an intervention by cabinet minister Eric Pickles, local people in Cambridge started to edit street signs, adding apostrophes if they were necessary.