TODAY IN HISTORY

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24th February 1807 - the world's first passenger railway (the Oystermouth Railway) was opened in Britain. Its carriages were horse-drawn -

A share of the Oystermouth railway, dated 1808.

In 1804 the British Parliament approved the laying of a railway line between Swansea and Oystermouth in South Wales, and in the autumn of that year the first tracks were laid. At this stage, the railway was known as the Oystermouth Railway. It later became the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, but its popular name was the Mumbles Train.

There was no road link between Swansea and Oystermouth and the original purpose of the railway was to transport coal, iron-ore and limestone. Operations began in 1806 with horse-drawn cars.

In 1807 approval was given to carry passengers along the line and Benjamin French paid the railroad company (The Oystermouth Railway Company) the princely sum of twenty pounds for the right to do so. On March 25 1807, the first REGULAR service carrying passengers between Swansea and Mumbles began, thus giving the railway the claim of being the first passenger railway in the world.

Steam power inevitably replaced the horses and in 1893 the railway was extended to nearby Southend and in 1898 the line was further extended to the Mumbles Pier.

The line was electrified using overhead cables – so this line has seen three forms of locomotive power over the years – and on March 2, 1929 the first electrical cars were used. These cars were the largest built for use in Britain and each could seat 106 passengers.

During the late 1950s, The South Wales Transport Company (which operated a large motor bus fleet in the area) managed to purchase the railway and despite vociferous local opposition proceeded to close the line down. At 11.52 on January 5, 1960, the last train left Swansea for Mumbles driven by Frank Duncan, who had driven the train since 1907. Within a very short time of the train returning to its Rutland Street base, work began on dismantling the track.

The Mumbles Railway Preservation Society was formed in the 1970s to formally archive material and to maintain the hope that one day the line would re-open.

wikipedia.org


Also on this day -


1804 - Britain mobilises to protect against French invasion.

1807 - in England, 7 die and 15 wounded in a crush to witness the execution of Holloway, Heggerty and Elizabeth Godfrey.

1809 - Charles Darwin was born.

1838 - the British steamship The Great Western, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the largest ship in the world at the time, makes its maiden voyage.

1840 - the Penny Black, the world's first postage stamp, is introduced in Britain.

 

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25th February 1601 - the execution of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. He was the last person to be beheaded inside the Tower of London, but his execution wasn't as straightforward as he would probably have liked - it took three strokes of the axe to finally lop his head off.

He was executed because Elizabeth's refusal to renew his licence that allowed him to import sweet wines and grow rich eventually plunged the Earl into poverty and drove him to stage a popular uprising, attempting to murder the members of the Privy Council.
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Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, was one of the most charismatic and dashing figures in Elizabethan history. Yet 400 years ago, on 25th February 1601, he was beheaded within the walls of the Tower of London. Three strokes of the axe were needed to sever Essex's head.

A young and stylish courtier, Essex soon became chief favourite of the ageing 'Virgin Queen' Elizabeth I and was the last in a long line of men she kept in her inner circle of confidants. Brave, handsome and gallant, he was also ambitious and arrogant, qualities which eventually led to his downfall.

Essex held a monopoly on the duties from imported sweet wines, an income which made him a wealthy man. But Elizabeth's refusal to renew this licence plunged the Earl into poverty and drove him to stage a popular uprising which wrought his own destruction. On 19 February he was tried for high treason, condemned and six days later was executed in the Great Court of the Tower (the current Parade Ground) at the age of 35. He is buried in the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula within the walls of the Tower of London.

Essex was the last person to be beheaded within the walls of the Tower of London, a 'privilege' normally afforded to members of the royal family. He was executed there because the authorities feared a major disturbance - perhaps even a rescue attempt - if he were to have been put to death on Tower Hill.

A special scaffold three yards square was erected for Essex's execution and stood to the north of the White Tower. A bench was set three yards back from the scaffold where the officials chosen by the government were to sit to witness the execution. To be sure the beheading took place, two executioners were sent to the Tower for the event, apparently in case one found himself unable to perform the task.

Dressed in black, but with a bright red waistcoat, Essex made a speech from the scaffold in which he prayed for the welfare of Elizabeth and said that he had never waivered in his loyalty to her. Over 100 people witnessed the execution, including, according to one source, Sir Walter Raleigh who was a great rival of his for the Queen's affections.

 

[I think not]

HITLER ORGANIZES LUFTWAFFE:
February 26, 1935

On February 26, 1935, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler signs a secret decree authorizing the founding of the Reich Luftwaffe as a third German military service to join the Reich army and navy. In the same decree, Hitler appointed Hermann Goering, a German air hero from World War I and high-ranking Nazi, as commander in chief of the new German air force.

The Versailles Treaty that ended World War I prohibited military aviation in Germany, but a German civilian airline--Lufthansa--was founded in 1926 and provided flight training for the men who would later become Luftwaffe pilots. After coming to power in 1933, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler began to secretly develop a state-of-the-art military air force and appointed Goering as German air minister. (During World War I, Goering commanded the celebrated air squadron in which the great German ace Manfred von Richthofen--"The Red Baron"--served.) In February 1935, Hitler formally organized the Luftwaffe as a major step in his program of German rearmament.

The Luftwaffe was to be uncamouflaged step-by-step so as not to alarm foreign governments, and the size and composition of Luftwaffe units were to remain secret as before. However, in March 1935, Britain announced it was strengthening its Royal Air Force (RAF), and Hitler, not to be outdone, revealed his Luftwaffe, which was rapidly growing into a formidable air force.

As German rearmament moved forward at an alarming rate, Britain and France protested but failed to keep up with German war production. The German air fleet grew dramatically, and the new German fighter--the Me-109--was far more sophisticated than its counterparts in Britain, France, or Russia. The Me-109 was bloodied during the Spanish Civil War; Luftwaffe pilots received combat training as they tried out new aerial attack formations on Spanish towns such as Guernica, which suffered more than 1,000 killed during a brutal bombing by the Luftwaffe in April 1937.

The Luftwaffe was configured to serve as a crucial part of the German blitzkrieg, or "lightning war"--the deadly military strategy developed by General Heinz Guderian. As German panzer divisions burst deep into enemy territory, lethal Luftwaffe dive-bombers would decimate the enemy's supply and communication lines and cause panic. By the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the Luftwaffe had an operational force of 1,000 fighters and 1,050 bombers.

First Poland and then Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France fell to the blitzkrieg. After the surrender of France, Germany turned the Luftwaffe against Britain, hoping to destroy the RAF in preparation for a proposed German landing. However, in the epic air battle known as the Battle of Britain, the outnumbered RAF fliers successfully resisted the Luftwaffe, relying on radar technology, their new, highly maneuverable Spitfire aircraft, bravery, and luck. For every British plane shot down, two German warplanes were destroyed. In the face of British resistance, Hitler changed strategy in the Battle of Britain, abandoning his invasion plans and attempting to bomb London into submission. However, in this campaign, the Luftwaffe was hampered by its lack of strategic, long-range bombers, and in early 1941 the Battle of Britain ended in failure.

Britain had handed the Luftwaffe its first defeat. Later that year, Hitler ordered an invasion of the USSR, which after initial triumphs turned into an unqualified disaster. As Hitler stubbornly fought to overcome Russia's bitter resistance, the depleted Luftwaffe steadily lost air superiority over Europe in the face of increasing British and American air attacks. By the time of the D-Day invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the Luftwaffe air fleet was a skeleton of its former self.

 

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26th February1815: Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from exile on the Island of Elba.

Napoleon: an arrogant ponce.

Somewhat hypocritically, the defeated Napoleon wrote one last letter to Josephine, in which he said, "Never forget him who has never forgotten you and will never forget you." On April 20, 1814, the dethroned Emperor left France for the isle of Elba, where he was exiled under the terms of the Treaty of Fontainebleau.

Napoleon would be allowed to rule Elba, which had 12,000 inhabitants. Perhaps cruelly, the treaty allowed him to retain the title "Emperor." On May 4 1814, Napoleon, now 45 years old, arrived at Elba's capital, Portoferraio. Saying, "I want to live from now on like a justice of the peace," Napoleon actually worked hard to improve Elba, and to all observers, it seemed as though Napoleon was content to a life of relative retirement. All the while, however, he was plotting his return to Europe.

On Elba, Napoleon was under the constant watch of Austrian and French guards. Nonetheless, he was not isolated: he received thousands of letters from all over Europe and read major newspapers that kept him abreast of events throughout the world. It was probably via these sources that he learned of Josephine's death on May 29, 1814.

On February 26, 1815, Napoleon managed to sneak past his guards and somehow escape from Elba, slip past interception by a British ship, and return to France. Immediately, people and troops began to rally to the returned Emperor. French police forces were sent to arrest him, but upon arriving in his presence, they kneeled before him. Triumphantly, Napoleon returned to Paris on March 20, 1815. Paris welcomed him with celebration, and Louis XVIII, the new king, fled to Belgium. With Louis only just gone, Napoleon moved back into the Tuileries. The period known as the Hundred Days had begun.

Napoleon, trying to increase his support, started making minor reforms, promising a more liberal, democratic society. His major action was the hollowly worded "Additional Act to the Constitution of the Empire." However, people were quick to discern the half-hearted spirit of the reforms this act provided for, and Napoleon's support base began to decline. Meanwhile, in Western France, pro-Bourbon Royalists remained active.
At the Congress of Vienna, where the European powers were meeting to discuss how to rearrange Europe in the aftermath of Napoleon's conquests, news of Napoleon's escape from Elba delivered an intense shock to all. On March 13, 1815, the nations represented there declared Napoleon an outlaw.

Europe in 1815 -

http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/napoleon/section9.rhtml

February 26th -

1797 - Bank of England launches the first £1 note.

1936 - Hitler launches the Volkswagen Beetle.

 

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1560 - The Treaty of Berwick, which would expel the French from Scotland, is signed by England and the Congregation of Scotland.
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The Treaty of Berwick was an agreement of amity made on July 6, 1586 between Queen Elizabeth I of England and King James VI of Scotland.

Represented by Thomas Manners, Earl of Rutland (for the English) and Francis Stewart, soon to be Earl of Bothwell (for the Scots), the two countries signed a mutual defensive alliance pact to guarantee aid should an invasion of either homeland, take place. The two largely Protestant countries were threatened from abroad by the Catholic powers, Spain and France.

Some believe Elizabeth only entered into the agreement to soften the blow of her next political move - the execution of James' mother, Mary Queen of Scots. For James, his motivation was the chance of succeeding to the English throne upon Elizabeth's death. A part of the agreement ensured James would receive an annual pension of £4,000 from the English state, which led many to assume Elizabeth already considered James as an heir to her throne. James would succeed to the English throne in 1603.

wikipedia.org

27th January -

1812 - Poet Lord Byron gives his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defence of Luddite violence against Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire.

1900 - Second Boer War: In South Africa, British military leaders receive an unconditional notice of surrender from Boer General Piet Cronje at the Battle of Paardeberg.

1900 - The formation of the Labour Representation Committee in Britain by the Independent Labour Party, the Fabian Society, the Social Democratic Federation and trade unions at a conference in London. Aim: to increase the independent representation of working people in Parliament. Committee secretary was future Labour Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald.

 

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From the archive

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Captain Swing recruits a Mansfield vicar*

Monday February 28, 1831
The Guardian


The Rev Wm Bowerbank, of Mansfield, has been committed to Nottingham gaol for sending "Swing" letters to John Coke, Esq, the high sheriff of the county.

Stack-Burning in Hertfordshire.


It is with considerable regret we have to communicate to the public the total destruction, by fire, of five stacks, the property of Mr Crawley, tenant of Hill Farm. The fire burned from 11 at night until 10 on Monday morning.

Suspicion first fell upon a man named Dye, who in company with William Webb and other labouring men, had been drinking at the White Lipon public house. Dye was taken into custody and a summons issued requiring attendance by Webb as witness. Webb confessed to being one of the party who fired the ricks which, if corroborated, will lead to the conviction of another person in custody.

[From 1830-1831 in Britain, property was damaged and big landowners were sent letters signed Captain Swing in direct action against low farm wages.]

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Sentenced to 2 months' hard labour - for stealing 3 drinking glasses.*

Among the too frequent results of habits of intoxication, particularly among the weaker sex, is the commission of trifling peculations, in order to obtain a supply of ardent spirits, when no honest means are left.

The most ready temptation is offered in the drinking glass from which the unhappy creature has just swallowed the dram that has drawn her last penny from her pocket. She slips the glass under her shawl or cloak, skulks out, and soon disposes of her ill-gotten booty, for as much as will obtain her "one glass more".

On Saturday last, at the New Bailey, Emma Stubbs was charged with having stolen three drinking glasses from a public-house. A girl pursued her, and found them concealed under her shawl. The prisoner had been in custody for a similar offence; and was committed for trial at the sessions.

On Tuesday, Martha Clare was brought up on a charge of stealing a glass but, no-one appearing against her, she was discharged

The same day saw a man, George Cole. Three drinking glasses were found on his person, two in different pockets and one in his hat which had the dregs of ale remaining in it. One of the glasses was ascertained to have been been stolen from the Feathers Inn, another, only about five minutes before his apprehension, from the Red Lion, Salford. The third was identified as belonging to a publican in Gravel Lane, Salford.

The prisoner was committed to hard labour for two months.
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* Not the actual 1831 headlines for these news stories.
guardian.co.uk

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28th February -

1844 - A gun on USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing two United States Cabinet members and several others.

1900 - The Second Boer War: The 118-day "Siege of Ladysmith" is lifted. Ladysmith made world headlines at the turn of the century when it was besieged for 118 days, from 2 November 1899 to 28 February 1900, during the most crucial stage of the Anglo-Boer War. 3,000 British soldiers died during the siege. The British commander was Redvers Buller.

1922 - Egypt gets its independence from Britain.

1948 - The last British troops leave India.

1975 - 42 people are killed on the London Underground when a train crashes at Moorgate Station.

 

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1st March 1587 - English parliament leader and Puritan Peter Wentworth confined in the Tower of London.
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Peter Wentworth (1530 - November 10, 1596) was the elder brother of Paul Wentworth, and like his brother was a prominent puritan leader in parliament, which he first entered as member for Barnstaple, Devon in 1571.

He took a firm attitude in support of the liberties of parliament against encroachments of the royal prerogative, on which subject he delivered a memorable speech on February 8, 1576, for which after examination by the Star Chamber he was committed to the Tower.

In February 1587 Sir Anthony Cope (1548-1614) presented to the Speaker a bill abrogating the existing ecclesiastical law, together with a puritan revision of the Prayer Book, and Wentworth supported him by bringing forward certain articles touching the liberties of the House of Commons; Cope and Wentworth were both committed to the Tower for interference with the queen's ecclesiastical prerogative.

In 1593 Wentworth again suffered imprisonment for presenting a petition on the subject of the succession to the Crown; and it is probable that he did not regain his freedom, for he died in the Tower on the l0th of November 1596. While in the Tower he wrote A Pithie Exhortation to her Majesty for establishing her Successor to the Crown, a famous treatise preserved in the British Museum.

Peter Wentworth was twice married; his first wife, by whom he had no children, was a cousin of Catherine Parr, and his second a sister of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's secretary of state.

His third son, Thomas Wentworth (c. 1568-1623), was an ardent and sometimes a violent opponent of royal prerogative in parliament, of which he became a member in 1604, continuing to represent the city of Oxford from that year until his death. He was called to the bar in 1594 and became recorder of Oxford in 1607. Another son, Walter Wentworth, was also a member of parliament.

wikipedia.org

March 1 -

1692 - The Salem witch trials begin in Salem Village, Massachusetts.

1711 - "The Spectator" begins publishing (London)

1854 - SS City of Glasgow leaves Liverpool harbour and is never
seen again.

1864 - Rebecca Lee (US) becomes 1st black woman to receive a medical degree

 

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2nd March 1882 - Queen Victoria survives an assassination attempt. It was one of several attempts to assassinate her - and the last. Scotsman Roderick Maclean was the culprit.
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The trial of Maclean.

Roderick Maclean attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria of England in 1882 with a pistol. This was the last of six attempts over a period of forty years to kill or assault Victoria, and it was the only one in which the gun in use was actually loaded. Maclean's motive was puportedly a curt reply to poetry of his mailed to the Queen.

Tried for high treason, the jury found the Scotsman Maclean "not guilty, but insane" and he lived out his remaining days in an asylum. The verdict prompted the Queen to change English law regarding cases with similar outcomes to be considered as "guilty, but insane."

A poem was later written about Maclean's attempt on the Queen's life by William Topaz McGonagall, considered by some the "worst" poet in the English language.

McGonagall's poem -

God prosper long our noble Queen,
And long may she reign!
Maclean he tried to shoot her,
But it was all in vain.

For God He turned the ball aside
Maclean aimed at her head;
And he felt very angry
Because he didn't shoot her dead.

There's a divinity that hedges a king,
And so it does seem,
And my opinion is, it has hedged
Our most gracious Queen.

Maclean must be a madman,
Which is obvious to be seen,
Or else he wouldn't have tried to shoot
Our most beloved Queen.

Victoria is a good Queen,
Which all her subjects know,
And for that God has protected her
From all her deadly foes.

She is noble and generous,
Her subjects must confess;
There hasn't been her equal
Since the days of good Queen Bess.

Long may she be spared to roam
Among the bonnie Highland floral,
And spend many a happy day
In the palace of Balmoral.

Because she is very kind
To the old women there,
And allows them bread, tea, and sugar,
And each one get a share.

And when they know of her coming,
Their hearts feel overjoy'd,
Because, in general, she finds work
For men that's unemploy'd.

And she also gives the gipsies money
While at Balmoral, I've been told,
And, mind ye, seldom silver,
But very often gold.

I hope God will protect her
By night and by day,
At home and abroad,
When she's far away.

May He be as a hedge around her,
As he's been all along,
And let her live and die in peace
Is the end of my song.


wikipedia.org

2nd March -

1970 - Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) gets its independence from Britain.

1986 - Australia gets its legal independence from Britain.

 

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3rd March 1857 - Britain and France declare war on China to start the Second Opium War. It was also known as the Arrow War.
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Not very frightening: Chinese soldiers during the Second Opium War.

The war may be viewed as a continuation of the First Opium War (1839-1842), thus the title of the Second Opium War.

On October 8, 1856, Qing officials boarded the Arrow, a Chinese-owned ship that had been registered in Hong Kong and was suspected of piracy and smuggling. Twelve Chinese subjects were arrested and imprisoned. This has come to be known as the "Arrow Incident". The British officials in Guangzhou demanded the release of the sailors claiming that because the ship had recently been British-registered it was protected under the Unequal Treaties. Only when this was shown to be a weak argument did the British insist that the Arrow had been flying a British ensign and that the Qing soldiers had insulted the flag. Faced with fighting the Taiping Rebellion the Qing government was in no position to resist the West militarily.

Although the British were delayed by the Indian Mutiny, they responded to the "Arrow Incident" in 1857 and attacked Guangzhou from the Pearl River. Ye Mingshen, the then governor of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces ordered a non-resistance command to all of the Chinese soldiers on the forts. After taking the fort near Guangzhou with no effort, the British Army attacked Guangzhou. American warships, including Levant, bombed Guangzhou. The people in Guangzhou and soldiers launched a resistance against the invaders and forced them to retreat from Humen.

The British Parliament decided to seek redress from China based on the report about the "Arrow Incident" submitted by Harry Parkes, British Consul to Guangzhou. France, the USA, and Russia received requests from Britain to form an alliance. France joined the British action against China, prompted by the execution of a French missionary, Father August Chapdelaine ("Father Chapdelaine Incident"), by Chinese local authorities in Guangxi province. The USA and Russia sent envoys to Hong Kong to offer help to the British and French, though in the end they sent no military aid.

The British and the French joined forces under Admiral Sir Michael Seymour. The British army led by Lord Elgin, and the French army led by Gros, attacked and occupied Guangzhou in late 1857. Ye Mingshen was captured, and Bo-gui, the governor of Guangdong, surrendered. A joint committee of the Alliance was formed. Bo-gui remained at his original post to maintain order on behalf of the aggressors. The British-French Alliance maintained control of Guangzhou for nearly four years. Ye Mingshen was exiled to Calcutta in India where he starved himself to death.

The coalition then cruised north to briefly capture the Taku forts near Tientsin (Tianjin) in May 1858.

wikipedia.org

3rd March -

1845 - Florida becomes the 27th state of America.

1934 - Largest English football crowd outside of Wembley. 84,569 watched the game between Manchester United v Stoke City.

 

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4th March 1890 - The Prince of Wales opens the Forth Rail Bridge, the most marvellous piece of engineering the world had ever seen at that time. When it was being built, Britain was the world's engineering and industrial powerhouse - the "Workshop of the World."
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The bridge is, even today, regarded as an engineering marvel. It is 2.5 km (1.5 miles) in length, and the double track is elevated 46 m (approx. 150 ft) above high tide. It consists of two main spans of 1,710 ft, two side spans of 675 ft, 15 approach spans of 168 ft and five of 25 ft. The main spans comprise two 680 feet cantilever arms supporting a central 350 ft span girder bridges. The three great four-tower cantilever structures are 340 ft (104 m) tall, each 70 ft diameter foot resting on separate foundations. The southern group of foundations had to be constructed as caissons under compressed air, to a depth of 90 ft. At its peak approximately 4,600 workers were employed in its construction. Initially, it was recorded that 57 lives were lost, however after extensive research by local historians the figure has been revised upwards to 79. As well as the large number of deaths, eight more men were saved by boats positioned in the river under the working areas. Hundreds more were left crippled by serious accidents and one log book of accidents and sickness had 26,000 entries. In 2005, a project was set up by South Queensferry Historical Society to establish a memorial to those workers who died during the bridge's construction. In North Queensferry, a decision was also made to set up memorial benches to commemorate those who died during the construction of both the rail and the road bridges, and to seek support for this project from Fife Council.

More than 55,000 tons of steel were used, as well as 18,122 m3 of granite and over eight million rivets. The bridge was opened by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, who drove home the last rivet, which was gold plated and suitably inscribed. A contemporary materials analysis of the bridge, circa 2002, found that the steel in the bridge is of good quality, with little variation.

The use of a cantilever in bridge design was not a new idea, but the scale of Baker's undertaking was a real pioneering effort, afterwards extensively followed in different parts of the world. Much of the work done was without precedent, including calculations for incidence of erection stresses, provisions made for reducing future maintenance costs, calculations for wind pressures made evident by the Tay Bridge disaster, the effect of temperature stresses on the structure, and so on.

Also on this day -

1461 - Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI was deposed by his Yorkist cousin, who then became King Edward IV.

1681 - King Charles II of England granted William Penn a charter for the Pennsylvania Colony.

wikipedia.org

 

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5th March 1850 - the Britannia Bridge, connecting the North Wales mainland with the island of Anglesey, over the Menai Strait, is opened. The bridge was destroyed by a fire in 1970 and had to be re-built. The bridge was built because, when Ireland became a part of Britain in 1801, many people used the island of Anglesey to travel across the Irish Sea to Ireland whenever they needed to go there.
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The original Britannia Bridge.

There are several bridges connecting the North West Wales mainland with the isle of Anglesey over the Menai Strait.

The completion of the Menai Bridge was a boon in easing the journey to the island, particularly for travel to Ireland. However, the rapid rise of rail travel later in the 19th century meant that there was soon a need for trains to cross the Strait. When plans were first being made to build a railway to Holyhead it was proposed that the carriages be taken over the Menai Bridge; the carriages would be uncoupled from the locomotive at one end, then drawn across one by one, using horses, to a waiting locomotive at the other end.

This idea was abandoned and plans were drawn up for a new bridge by Robert Stephenson, son of the locomotive pioneer George Stephenson. He faced the challenge of building a bridge rigid and strong enough to carry a heavy train of many carriages. This was done by making the bridge out of two long iron tubes, rectangular in shape, through which the trains would travel.

When first conceived, the tubular bridge was to have been suspended from cables strung through the openings at the tops of the towers. However, after engineering calculations and tests of the finished tubes it was decided that they were strong enough by themselves to carry the trains.

Like the Menai Bridge, the stonework of the Britannia Bridge was constructed of limestone from Penmon, although sandstone from various places was used internally. The tubes themselves were constructed on the banks of the Strait.

Stephenson faced a much greater challenge in raising the 1,500 ton finished tubes than had Telford with his much lighter chains. He too would float the tube into position. However, the process didn't go as smoothly with the first tube as with the Menai Bridge chains and the giant tube came close to being swept out to sea. Fortune prevailed and it did finally end up in place. Then, very slowly, using hydraulic pumps, the tube was raised into position. Stonework was built up under the ends of the tube as it was lifted; this was to support it if the lifting equipment failed. This was fortunate because one pump did indeed fail, but the tube only fell nine inches.

With the tubes in place the final touches were added. These are the four magnificent limestone lions that guard the entrances to the bridge. They were carved by John Thomas, who had also done stone carving for the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace in London. The lions are almost 4 metres high and sit on plinths of equal height. The bridge was opened on 5 March 1850.

The present day bridge has a much different appearance than the original. This is because it has been reconstructed after a disastrous fire in 1970. A group of teenagers looking for bats in the dark tubes accidentally dropped the burning paper they were using as a torch. This eventually started a ferocious fire through the whole tubular structure that caused so much damage to the tubes that they were in danger of falling into the strait.

wikipedia.org

Also on this day -

1625 - Charles I becomes king.
1918 - Moscow becomes the new capital city of Russia
1936 - First Spitfire is flown
1946 - Winston Churchill uses the term 'Iron Curtain' in a speech

 

[I think not]

MICHELANGELO BORN:
March 6, 1475

Michelangelo Buonarroti, the greatest of the Italian Renaissance artists, is born in the small village of Caprese on March 6, 1475. The son of a government administrator, he grew up in Florence, a center of the early Renaissance movement, and became an artist's apprentice at age 13. Demonstrating obvious talent, he was taken under the wing of Lorenzo de' Medici, the ruler of the Florentine republic and a great patron of the arts. For two years beginning in 1490, he lived in the Medici palace, where he was a student of the sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni and studied the Medici art collection, which included ancient Roman statuary.

With the expulsion of the Medici family from Florence in 1494, Michelangelo traveled to Bologna and Rome, where he was commissioned to do several works. His most important early work was the Pietý (1498), a sculpture based on a traditional type of devotional image that showed the body of Christ in the lap of the Virgin Mary. Demonstrating masterful technical skill, he extracted the two perfectly balanced figures of the Pietý from a single block of marble.

With the success of the Pietý, the artist was commissioned to sculpt a monumental statue of the biblical character David for the Florence cathedral. The 17-foot statue, produced in the classical style, demonstrates the artist's exhaustive knowledge of human anatomy and form. In the work, David is shown watching the approach of his foe Goliath, with every muscle tensed and a pose suggesting impending movement. Upon the completion of David in 1504, Michelangelo's reputation was firmly established.

That year, he agreed to paint a mural for the Florence city hall to rest alongside one being painted by Leonardo da Vinci, another leading Renaissance artist and an influence on Michelangelo. These murals, which depicted military scenes, have not survived. In 1505, he began work on a planned group of 12 marble apostles for the Florence cathedral but abandoned the project when he was commissioned to design and sculpt a massive tomb for Pope Julius II in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. There were to have been 40 sculptures made for the tomb, but the pope soon ran out of funds for the project, and Michelangelo left Rome.

In 1508, he was called back to Rome to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel--the chief consecrated space in the Vatican. Michelangelo's epic ceiling frescoes, which took several years to complete, are among his most memorable works. Central in a complex system of decoration featuring numerous figures are nine panels devoted to biblical world history. The most famous of these is The Creation of Adam, a painting in which the arms of God and Adam are outstretched toward each other.

In 1512, Michelangelo completed the Sistine Chapel ceiling and returned to his work on Pope Julius II's tomb. He eventually completed a total of just three statues for the tomb, which was eventually placed in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli. The most notable of the three is Moses (1513-15), a majestic statue made from a block of marble regarded as unmalleable by other sculptors. In Moses, as in David, Michelangelo infused the stone with a powerful sense of tension and movement.

Having revolutionized European sculpture and painting, Michelangelo turned to architecture in the latter half of his life. His first major architectural achievement was the Medici chapel in the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence, built to house the tombs of the two young Medici family heirs who had recently died. The chapel, which he worked on until 1534, featured many innovative architectural forms based on classical models. The Laurentian Library, which he built as an annex to the same church, is notable for its stair-hall, known as the ricetto, which is regarded as the first instance of mannerism as an architectural style. Mannerism, a successor to the Renaissance artistic movement, subverted harmonious classical forms in favor of expressiveness.

In 1534, Michelangelo left Florence for the last time and traveled to Rome, where he would work and live for the rest of his life. That year saw his painting of the The Last Judgment on a wall above the altar in the Sistine Chapel for Pope Paul III. The massive painting depicts Christ's damnation of sinners and blessing of the virtuous, and is regarded as a masterpiece of early mannerism. During the last three decades of his life, Michelangelo lent his talents to the design of numerous monuments and buildings for Rome, which the pope and city leaders were determined to restore to the grandeur of its ancient past. The Capitoline Square and the dome of St. Peter's, designed by Michelangelo but not completed in his lifetime, remain two of Rome's most famous visual landmarks.

Michelangelo worked until his death in 1564 at the age of 88. In addition to his major artistic works, he produced numerous other sculptures, frescoes, architectural designs, and drawings, many of which are unfinished and some of which are lost. He was also an accomplished poet, and some 300 of his poems are preserved. In his lifetime, he was celebrated as Europe's greatest living artist, and today he is held up as one of the greatest artists of all time, as exalted in the visual arts as William Shakespeare is in literature or Ludwig van Beethoven is in music.

 

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This computer is annoying me.

 

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6th March 1857 - the Indian Mutiny against the British begins.

Execution by British cannon of Indian soldiers who participated in the Indian rebellion of 1857

Secundra Bagh in 1857 after the slaughter of 2,000 Rebels by the 93rd Highlanders and 4th Punjab Regiment



By the middle of the nineteenth century, the British Empire was the largest and richest empire in the world. This naturally gave rise to the belief that the British themselves were the chosen race chosen to bring the benefits of western civilization to the backward areas of the world. This white supremacy was enforced in Britain's colonies, especially India, and naturally, native opposition was frequent. But most were unsuccessful due to the superior technology and organization of the British army.

In 1857, the Indian Mutiny broke out and with it, the British colonial administration fought its greatest imperial war. Thanks to the efficiency of British media coverage, the development of the mutiny was followed avidly by the British public. The British saw the India Mutiny as a fight against "barbarians who were rejecting the benefits of civilization" but as the suppression developed, the atrocities committed by both sides became obvious. The British armies swept across northern India in an enraged and cruel rampage of rape, murder and savagery, which shocked Victorian society.

The Indian Mutiny was even called the 'epic of the Race' by historian Sir Charles Crostwaithe and though in the modern context, this sounds ridiculous but it was nothing more than an illustration of Victorian British confidence and arrogance.

The Background, 1857
British presence in India stretched all the way from the seventeenth century when the East India Company, EIC, acquired its first territory in Bombay to 1947 when India and Pakistan were granted self rule. Over the years the EIC expanded by both direct (force) and indirect (economic) means eventually, chasing the French out (after the War of Plassey, 1757) and dominating the whole of the Indian sub-continent.

British rule in India rested on its military might and as long as the British army in India was invincible, British rule was assured. This of course depended on the Indian army, which consisted of Indian troops under British officers.

British rule inevitable brought western influences into India. The spread of Christianity was to cause great unease among the Indians. Evangelical Christian missionaries had little understanding and respect for India's ancient faiths, and their efforts to convert many natives brought clashes with the local religious establishments. As the missionaries were often British citizens, the Colonial administration often had to intervene to protect them, which naturally gave an impression of official support for Christianity.

Against this backdrop of uneasiness the mutiny erupted in 1857. But the spark was interestingly not so much of religious clashes, but the grease used in the new Enfield rifle. The cartridge of the Enfield rifle was heavily greased -- with animal fat, to facilitate easier loading into the muzzle. Rumors began to circular among Sepoys that the grease was a mixture of cow (sacred to Hindus) and pig (abhorrent to Moslems) fat. As such, biting such a cartridge would break the caste of the Hindu sepoys and defile the Moslems. Their British officers realized their mistake and changed the grease to beeswax or vegetable oils, but in the atmosphere of distrust, the mutiny seemed inevitable.

Meerut
Meerut witnessed the first serious outbreak of the Indian Mutiny when angry sepoys broke open the town jail and released their comrades, who had refused to bite the new cartridges. Accompanied by a mob from the bazaar, the mutineers then poured into the European settlement and slaughtered any Europeans or Indian Christians there. Whole families, men, women, children and servants, were killed on sight. The cantonment was then burned, and the mutineers fled to Delhi and proclaimed Bahadur Shah, the last of the Moguls emperor.

This, the mutineers had hoped to create a general rising against the British, and they turned to Bahadur Shah to lead them. Forced to cooperate, Bahadur Shah accepted the allegiance of the mutineers and became the titular leader of the Indian Mutiny. Most of the Europeans living in Delhi were murdered along with Indian Christians.

The massacre at Meerut provoked a strong British respond. In mid-August, British forces, reinforced by Gurkhas from Nepal and the Queen's regiments fresh from the Crimea War began a bloody campaign to re-establish British rule in India. After a siege, Delhi fell to the British. The Emperor's three sons, Mizra Moghul, Mizra Khizr Sultan and Mizra Abu Bakr along with the mutineers were executed.

The Aftermath
By the first six months of 1858, the British managed to regain their losses in spite of heavy resistance from the rebels. With the relief of Lucknow, the possibility of British defeat became remote. The British saw themselves as dispensors of divine justice, and given the initial atrocities committed by the mutineers, their cruelties were simply repayment in kind. Every mutineer was a "black-faced, blood-crazed savage" which do not deserve mercy from the British troops. Their fellow countrymen derided some British like the Governor Lord Canning, who spoke of restraint as "weak" and "indifferent to the sufferings of British subjects". In fact, Canning became known contemptuously as 'clemency Canning'.

After the British recovery, few sepoys survived as the British soldiers bayoneted any who survived the battle. Whole villages were hanged for some real or imagined sympathy for the mutineers, and the widespread looting of Indian property, religious or secular, was common and endorsed. Later, convicted mutineers were lashed to the muzzles of cannon and had a roundshot fired through their body. It was a cruel punishment intended to blow the body to pieces, thus depriving the victim of any hope of entering paradise. Indians called this punishment "the devil's wind".

Apart from the fury of the British, another significant impact for India was the abolishment of the EIC. The British Parliament finally realized that it was inappropriate for a private company like the EIC to exercise such enormous powers and control a land the size of India. In 1858, the East India Company was dissolved, despite a valiant defense of its purported achievements by John Stuart Mill, and the administration of India became the responsibility of the Crown. Direct rule on India was exercised through the India Office, a British department of state and till 1947, India became known as the Raj, the Crown Jewel of Queen Victoria's extensive empire.

victorianweb.org

 

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8th March 1702 - Queen Anne took to the Throne of England. She ruled until 1714. Her father, James II, was the last Stuart King, and she was the last Stuart monarch, male or female.
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Anne, born in 1665, was the second daughter of James II (the last Stuart King of England who fled the country because he was a Catholic thus causing the Jacobite Uprisings) and Anne Hyde. She played no part in her father's reign, but sided with her sister and brother-in-law (Mary II and William III) during the Glorious Revolution. She married George, Prince of Denmark, but the pair failed to produce a surviving heir. She died at 49 years of age, after a lifelong battle with the blood disease porphyria.

The untimely death of William III nullified, in effect, the Settlement Act of 1701: Anne was James' daughter through his Protestant marriage, and therefore, presented no conflict with the act. Anne refrained from politically antagonizing Parliament, but was compelled to attend most Cabinet meetings to keep her half-brother, James the Old Pretender, under heel. Anne was the last sovereign to veto an act of Parliament, as well as the final Stuart monarch. The most significant constitutional act in her reign was the Act of Union in 1707, which created Great Britain by finally fully uniting England and Scotland (Ireland joined the Union in 1801).

The Stuart trait of relying on favorites was as pronounced in Anne's reign as it had been in James I's reign. Anne's closest confidant was Sarah Churchill, who exerted great influence over the king. Sarah's husband was the Duke of Marlborough, who masterly led the English to several victories in the War of Spanish Succession. Anne and Sarah were virtually inseparable: no king's mistress had ever wielded the power granted to the duchess, but Sarah became too confident in her position. She developed an overbearing demeanor towards Anne, and berated the Queen in public. In the meantime, Tory leaders had planted one Abigail Hill in the royal household to capture Anne's need for sympathy and affection. As Anne increasingly turned to Abigail, the question of succession rose again, pitting the Queen and the Marlborough against each other in a heated debate. The relationship of Anne and the Churchill's fell asunder. Marlborough, despite his war record, was dismissed from public service and Sarah was shunned in favor of Abigail.

Many of the internal conflicts in English society were simply the birth pains of the two-party system of government. The Whig and Tory Parties, fully enfranchised by the last years of Anne's reign, fought for control of Parliament and influence over the Queen. Anne was torn personally as well as politically by the succession question: her Stuart upbringing compelled her to choose as heir her half-brother, the Old Pretender and favorite of the Tories, but she had already elected to side with Whigs when supporting Mary and William over James II. In the end, Anne abided by the Act of Settlement, and the Whigs paved the way for the succession of their candidate, George of Hanover.

Anne's reign may be considered successful, but somewhat lackluster in comparison to the rest of the Stuart line. 1066 and All That, describes her with its usual tongue-in-cheek manner: "Finally the Orange... was succeeded by the memorable dead queen, Anne. Queen Anne was considered rather a remarkable woman and hence was usually referred to as Great Anna, or Annus Mirabilis. The Queen had many favourites (all women), the most memorable of whom were Sarah Jenkins and Mrs Smashems, who were the first wig and the first Tory... the Whigs being the first to realize that the Queen had been dead all the time chose George I as King."

britannia.com

Also on this day -

1790 - the French government votes to CONTINUE slave trading in her African colonies.

1801 British drive French forces from Abukir, Egypt

1813 1st concerto of Royal Philharmonic

1838 US mint in New Orleans begins operation (producing dimes)

 

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9th March 1566 - David Rizzio, secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, was murdered. He was allegedly stabbed 57 times.
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David Rizzio or David Riccio (approx. 1533 - 9 March 1566) was an Italian courtier and the private secretary of Mary I of Scotland. Mary's husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, is said to have been jealous of their friendship, and joined in a conspiracy of Protestant nobles to murder him.

Rizzio had arrived at the Scottish court in 1561, one of the staff of the ambassador from Savoy. He was handsome (see the detail of his portrait, possibly an unfinished miniature), and a good musician. Towards the end of 1564, he became the Queen's secretary for relations with France. Ambitious, seeing himself as all but a Secretary of State, a Roman Catholic, and a foreigner to boot, Rizzio had too much of the Queen's ear, it was felt. Jealousy precipitated his murder in the Queen's presence, in her supper chamber at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. He was stabbed an alleged 57 times.

Rizzio's murder was only one incident in the larger campaign by Scottish nobles to contain and control the Queen. However, the fact that he was murdered in Mary's presence, when she was heavily pregnant, aged 23, made it a particularly shocking event.

Rizzio is buried at Canongate Kirkyard, Edinburgh.

wikipedia.org


Also on this day -

1562
Kissing in public is banned in Naples, contravention being punishable by death.

1862
American Civil War: the Battle of Hampton Roads - the first battle between ironclad ships.

1932
Eamon de Valera becomes President of the Irish Free State.

1946
33 football fans are killed when a wall collapses at the Bolton Wanderers ground, Blackleaf's home town team.

1950
Timothy Evans is hanged for the murder of his wife at 10 Rillington Place in London.. Three years later John Christie admits to killing her and several other women.

1994
IRA terrorists launch a mortar attack on Heathrow Airport, in London - all the missiles failed to explode.

 

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A slum in a British street in Victorian Times. Houses in big cities were often dangerously overcrowded.

Despite being the world's richest country, life in Victorian Britain was very harsh - life even in Britain's colonies and ex-colonies, such as Canada and America, was much better. Children started work in cotton mills when they were as young as 10 or 11. Young children (and girls and women) even worked down the coal mines from early in the morning till late at night and got paid little. Only wealthy children could afford to go to school.

In Britain's towns and cities, poverty was rife, with many homeless children, their faces blackened with dirt and their clothes nothing but rags, wandering the streets. With no sewage system until late in the 19th Century, big cities such as London and Manchester STANK as raw sewage was often dumped in the streets and cholera epidemics were common. Seeing dead cats floating in rivers was an everyday sight.


This Guardian article from 10th March 1870 describes the harsh city life, and the extreme poverty, of Manchester -

Don Giovanni in the mean streets

Thursday March 10, 1870
The Guardian


How prolific of vice the Deansgate quarter is, a few facts and figures will painfully demonstrate. There are 151 common lodging-houses, affording accommodation for 3,224 persons. There are also 46 houses registered as houses of ill fame, and 73 as the known resort of thieves.

In one house, we saw no fewer than six card sharpers, all of whom had been many times in prison, and who were evidently engaged in the concoction of some new trick.

It was a picture worthy of Teniers. The closely gathered heads, of villainous expression and many shades of dirt, lit by the fire and one guttering candle, were quite worthy of the Dutch master; and we found ourselves involuntarily criticising it as a work of art, till a strong oath woke us up to the reality of our position.

But the most startling feature of Deansgate is the enormous number of its ginshops, its public-houses, and its singing saloons. Here is a place opening out of the main thoroughfare. It is a ginshop and a singing saloon.

Children of the street

It was crowded with men and women - not respectable artizans taking their wives for a little outing, but young men scarcely of age, chiefly apprentices to trades, with here and there a young man from a warehouse, who, with a short stick, short jacket, and short hat, looks quite as great a snob as he thinks himself a gentleman. The women were of Deansgate.

There is a sodden, suffocating air of would-be gaiety in the whole thing, which is most intensely depressing. Song followed song in wearisome monotony. It was only when some particularly rampant chorus could be evoked that anything like a sense of animation exhibited itself.

Not far away is another singing saloon, a saloon boasting a drop scene and proscenium. A grey, dirty, blind old man is strumming away at a cracked piano, and a tolerable voice is singing, with considerable taste, an air from Don Giovanni.

His vocal efforts were not much applauded. They ranged much too high and he was succeeded by a faded, vulgar female, who brought down the house with innuendoes.

A box served as a green-room also. How proud the young fools were of this distinction; the entree to the green-room at the opera never sent the hearts of young shells bounding with more glee. As for the singing, it was admirably criticised by a slightly-inebriated habituee: "Anything," says he, "is good enough for a drunken man, but this is a'most too bad for that."

· This is one of a series of articles from 1870 on life in slum areas

guardian.co.uk

 

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11th March 1794 - The 3rd Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is opened. The present Theatre Royal is the 4th to be built.
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The present-day Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, sketched when it was new, in 1813.


The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a theatre in the West End area of London, officially situated on Catherine Street, but backing onto Drury Lane just to the east of Covent Garden.

A cockpit in that location was converted into a theatre during the reign of James I. After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, a splendid new theatre was built to designs by Christopher Wren. Having been razed by fire on January 25, 1672, it was succeeded by a larger and still more elaborate building also designed by Wren, which housed two thousand spectators with the opening attended by Charles II on March 26, 1674.

The great English actor David Garrick managed the theatre during the mid-eighteenth century, during which time he produced many plays, including most of Shakespeare's work.

By the end of the 18th century, the building was in need of updating, and was demolished in 1791. A third theatre was designed by Henry Holland and opened on March 11, 1794, lasting for only 15 years before burning down on February 24, 1809.

The present Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, designed by Benjamin Wyatt, opened on October 10, 1812 with a production of Hamlet. The interior has been substantially redesigned and overhauled many times since then: a contemporary sketch of it when it was new is shown on the right, seen from the point of view of the beau monde in the lower gallery. It is one of the West End's largest, and has been the setting for appearances by Edmund Kean and Sarah Siddons, among others.

With a capacity of 2,205, it has been home to many large productions over the years. It is currently showing a revival of Mel Brooks' musical The Producers.

wikipedia.org

Also on this day -

1302 - Romeo & Juliet's wedding day, according to Shakespeare

1669 Volcano Etna in Italy erupts killing 15,000

1702 1st English daily newspaper, "Daily Courant", is published

 

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12th March 1984 - the start of the miners' strike in Britain, and the start of one of the biggest upheavals in recent British history. 10 people were killed during the strike, and 2 of them are believed, by some people to this day, to have been suspicious. Many "battles" were fought between the miners and the police - some people even believing that British soldiers were drafted in and dressed as policemen to man the picket lines.
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The "Battle of Orgreave", 1984

The miners' strike of 1984-5 was a major piece of industrial action affecting the British coal industry. It was a defining event in the history of industrial relations in the UK. More broadly it was a key political event in late 20th century Britain, the central contest in a dispute as to whether the UK's mixed economy should be mainly capitalist or mainly socialist. The strike ended with the defeat of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) by the Conservative government, which then proceeded to consolidate its free market programme. The political power of the NUM was broken permanently and some years later the Labour Party moved away from its traditional socialist agenda. The dispute exposed deep divisions in British society and caused considerable bitterness.

In 1983, the Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher appointed Ian MacGregor as head of the National Coal Board. He had previously been head of British Steel, where he had halved the workforce in two years. This reputation raised expectations that jobs would be cut on a similar scale in mining and confrontations between him and the Marxist leader of the miners, Arthur Scargill, seemed inevitable.

In 1984, the National Coal Board (the UK Public Body which controlled coal mining) announced that an agreement reached after the 1974 miners' strike had become obsolete, and that they intended to close 20 coal mines because they were uneconomical. 20,000 jobs would be lost, and many communities in the north of England and in Wales would lose their primary source of employment. Unbeknown to anybody outside the upper echelons of the executive, the government had been preparing for tortuous industrial action by secretly stock-piling coal for a number of months in order to enable the country to keep running throughout the winter of 1984.

Sensitive to the impact of the proposed closures in their own areas, miners in various coal fields began strike action. In the Yorkshire coal field strike action began when workers at the Manvers complex walked out over the lack of consultation. Over 6,000 miners were already on strike when a local ballot led to strike action from March 5 at Cortonwood Colliery at Brampton, South Yorkshire, and at Bulcliffe Wood colliery, near Ossett. On the next day pickets from the Yorkshire area appeared at pits in the Nottinghamshire coal field (one of those least threatened by pit closures). On March 12, 1984 Arthur Scargill, President of the NUM declared that the strikes in the various coal fields were to be a national strike and called for strike action from NUM members in all coal fields.

The Government mobilised the police in huge numbers to deal with picket lines on the grounds that they represented illegal intimidation and sometimes illegal violence against those miners who wanted to go to work. During the industrial action 11,291 people were arrested and 8,392 charged with offences such as breach of the peace and obstructing the highway. Former striking miners and others have alleged that soldiers of the British Army were dressed as policemen and used on the picket lines. While concrete evidence of this has not been produced (although film footage exists of "policemen" wearing tunics without any identifying numbers on their lapels) it remains a point of contention today, and in many former mining areas antipathy towards the police remains strong. The Government was criticised for abusing its power when it ruled that local police might be too sympathetic to the miners to take action against the strike, and instead brought in forces from distant counties. Occasions where private aeroplanes were hired to fly policemen to tackle pickets was considered by some to be a waste of public money.

At the beginning, the strike was almost universally observed in the coalfields of Yorkshire, South Wales and Kent. It was less strong in areas where there were fewer pits. In Nottinghamshire most of the pits had modern equipment and had large coal reserves; most of the Nottinghamshire miners remained at work and the Nottinghamshire NUM disagreed with the decision to launch a national strike without a ballot. The 1977 industry reforms had given Nottinghamshire miners larger salaries than workers in any of the other counties and they were unwilling to give up their daily pay. Many within the NUM condemned them as strikebreakers, and the Nottinghamshire branch, heavily aided by the Thatcher government, eventually broke away to form the core of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers. Since the end of the strike both the UDM and the NUM have been involved in numerous court cases concerning financial irregularities.

A widely reported clash during the Miners' Strike took place at Orgreave near Rotherham on June 18, 1984. This confrontation between striking miners and police, dubbed by some 'The Battle of Orgreave', was the subject of a TV re-enactment in 2001, conceived and organized by artist Jeremy Deller and recorded by Mike Figgis for Channel 4. News footage of the 'Battle of Orgreave' showing the miners initiating disturbances by charging the police has since been proven to be doctored. Violence flared after police on horse-back charged the miners with truncheons drawn and inflicted serious injuries upon several individuals.

The strike ended on March 3, 1985, nearly a year after it had begun. Some workers had returned to work of their own accord, a symbolic victory for the Government, although ministers later admitted that the figures of returnees were inflated. In order to save the union, the NUM voted, by a tiny margin, to return to work without a new agreement with management. Events that prompted the end of the strike included a loss of public support following a severe beating of a working miner in Castleford in November, the manslaughter of a taxi driver escorting a working miner to work in South Wales in December (Hancock and Shankland were originally convicted of murder but this was reduced on appeal to the House of Lords) and the distraction of attention to the famine in Ethiopia. The union's funds had also run too low to pay for pickets' transportation and many miners had been unable to pay for heating over the Winter.

In addition to the manslaughter of taxi driver David Wilkie, six pickets died during the strike and three young men - all less than 16 - died from picking coal in the Winter. The deaths of pickets David Jones and Joe Green continue to this day to be viewed with suspicion; some have claimed that their deaths were caused by the police, but reports at the time conflicted. The N.U.M. names its memorial lectures after the two.

During the strike many pits permanently lost their customers. Much of the immediate problem facing the industry was due to the economic recession in the early 1980s. However, there was also extensive competition within the world coal market as well as a concerted move towards oil and gas for energy production. The Government's own policy, known as the Ridley Plan (after its author Nicholas Ridley) was to reduce Britain's reliance on coal, they also claimed that coal could be imported from Australia, America and Colombia more cheaply than it could be extracted from beneath Britain[2]. The strike subsequently allowed the Government to accelerate the closure of many pits on economic grounds.

wikipedia.org

Also on this day -

1913
Canberra becomes the official capital of Australia.

1935
Britain imposes a 30 mph speed limit in built up urban areas.

 

[I think not]

GANDHI LEADS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE:
March 12, 1930

On March 12, 1930, Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi begins a defiant march to the sea in protest of the British monopoly on salt, his boldest act of civil disobedience yet against British rule in India.

Britain's Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple in the Indian diet. Citizens were forced to buy the vital mineral from the British, who, in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also exerted a heavy salt tax. Although India's poor suffered most under the tax, Indians required salt. Defying the Salt Acts, Gandhi reasoned, would be an ingeniously simple way for many Indians to break a British law nonviolently. He declared resistance to British salt policies to be the unifying theme for his new campaign of satyagraha, or mass civil disobedience.

On March 12, Gandhi set out from Sabarmati with 78 followers on a 241-mile march to the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea. There, Gandhi and his supporters were to defy British policy by making salt from seawater. All along the way, Gandhi addressed large crowds, and with each passing day an increasing number of people joined the salt satyagraha. By the time they reached Dandi on April 5, Gandhi was at the head of a crowd of tens of thousands. Gandhi spoke and led prayers and early the next morning walked down to the sea to make salt.

He had planned to work the salt flats on the beach, encrusted with crystallized sea salt at every high tide, but the police had forestalled him by crushing the salt deposits into the mud. Nevertheless, Gandhi reached down and picked up a small lump of natural salt out of the mud--and British law had been defied. At Dandi, thousands more followed his lead, and in the coastal cities of Bombay and Karachi, Indian nationalists led crowds of citizens in making salt. Civil disobedience broke out all across India, soon involving millions of Indians, and British authorities arrested more than 60,000 people. Gandhi himself was arrested on May 5, but the satyagraha continued without him.

On May 21, the poet Sarojini Naidu led 2,500 marchers on the Dharasana Salt Works, some 150 miles north of Bombay. Several hundred British-led Indian policemen met them and viciously beat the peaceful demonstrators. The incident, recorded by American journalist Webb Miller, prompted an international outcry against British policy in India.

In January 1931, Gandhi was released from prison. He later met with Lord Irwin, the viceroy of India, and agreed to call off the satyagraha in exchange for an equal negotiating role at a London conference on India's future. In August, Gandhi traveled to the conference as the sole representative of the nationalist Indian National Congress. The meeting was a disappointment, but British leaders had acknowledged him as a force they could not suppress or ignore.

India's independence was finally granted in August 1947. Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist less than six months later.