December 23rd - 29th
On 23rd December…
1732 - Richard Arkwright was born in Preston, Lancashire, England. Richard was an industrialist and inventor whose pioneering use of factory production systems made his factories more productive and profitable than his competitors. He was well known throughout the textile industry at the time.
On 24th December…
King John was born
1167 - King John of England was born in Oxford. He was the youngest son of King Henry II and younger brother to King Richard I, the Lionheart.
John was the king who was forced to sign the Magna Carta which restricted the power of the monarchy by the English barons who had rebelled against him.
1524 - Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer died. He is famed for his voyages to India around the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa.
On 25th December…
The Conqueror was crowned King of England
1066 - William the Conqueror was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey following his defeat of King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings on October 14th, 1066.
1642 - Isaac Newton was born in Lincolnshire, England. He is the scientist who developed the theory of gravity, and the laws of motion which became the basis of physics. He also developed a new type of mathematics and invented the reflecting telescope which uses mirrors to reflect light and form an image. Most major telescopes used in astronomy today are reflecting telescopes.
On 26th December…
King Stephen grabbed the English crown before his cousin, the Empress Matilda, could get her chance
1135 - King Stephen was crowned in Westminster Abbey a little over three weeks after the death of Henry I. Stephen basically stole the crown from his cousin Matilda, the daughter of Henry, to whom he had pledged allegiance along with many other barons and noblemen. His reign was blighted by The Anarchy, a civil war with Matilda over who was the rightful monarch.
1791 - Charles Babbage, the inventor of a calculating machine was born in London. He is also famous for conceiving the first automatic digital computer, but he never actually built it.
2004 - The Boxing Day Tsunami hit Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives and edges of the Indian Ocean killing over 230,000 people and damaging thousands of miles of coastland. The tsunami was created when a 9.1 magnitude earthquake occurred under the ocean floor.
On 27th December…
Darwin set off on a voyage of discovery from Portsmouth on the HMS Beagle
1831 - Charles Darwin set sail from Plymouth, England on the ship HMS Beagle to begin his voyage of discovery. The journey lasted five years, and his discoveries and experiences led him to his theory of evolution, and his book ‘The Origin of Species’.
1836 - An avalanche in Lewes, Sussex killed 8 people. It is the deadliest avalanche in British history and happened not in the mountains of Scotland or Wales where you would expect it to happen but in a town in southern England a few miles inland from the coast. On Christmas Eve of 1836 heavy snowfall and fierce winds combined to make blizzards and massive snow drifts which covered the land. By night time on Christmas Day a deep layer of snow had formed on the sheer edge of a nearby hill. Despite warnings given to the residents of nearby cottages of the danger they were in, they refused to leave their homes and on 27th December the snow fell from the hillside covering the houses below. Witnesses said the cottages were ‘physically swept into the road by a huge wave of snow leaving nothing to be seen except an enormous white heap.’ Of the 15 people in the cottages who were buried under the snow, only 7 were pulled out alive. Today a pub called the Snowdrop Inn stands on the site where the cottages once stood.
On 28th December…
Queen Mary II died of smallpox
1694 - Queen Mary II, daughter of the deposed King James II, died of smallpox. She had ruled as Queen of England alongside her husband William III for 5 years. Mary was the first, and so far only, Queen of England to have equal rule alongside the King; this was because she insisted that her husband have equal rule with her when she was invited to take the throne when her father was deposed.
1734 - Rob Roy, the Scottish folk hero and outlaw died. His real name was Robert MacGregor, but he often signed himself as Rob Roy in reference to his red hair. He was seen as a Scottish Robin Hood and is buried in Balquhidder in Perthshire, Scotland.
On 29th December…
1170 - Archbishop Thomas Becket was assassinated in Canterbury Cathedral by four of King Henry II’s knights. The knights had believed that the King wanted Thomas dead because in temper he had said something along the lines of, “who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?” At one time the king and Thomas Becket had been good friends, but after Thomas had been promoted to the rank of Archbishop his character changed and he was no longer supportive of the king. Thomas became very pious and sided with the church and the Pope in its disagreements with King Henry. His murder sent shockwaves throughout Europe and the Church and the knights were later punished for their wrongdoing.
1800 - Charles Goodyear the inventor of vulcanised rubber was born in Connecticut, U.S.A. He made his discovery by accident when he dropped some India rubber mixed with sulphur onto a hot stove. Sadly, although his invention made millions for others, he died with debts of $200,000.
1916 - Grigori Rasputin was murdered by the Russian nobility. He was a Russian monk and confidant of Tsar Nicolas II and his wife, Alexandra,; he had helped care for their son Alexei who suffered from haemophilia (a blood clotting disease). Despite being humble and a holy man in front of the royal family, outside of their company he was badly behaved, not at all religious, and had a lot of girlfriends. The Tsar refused to believe the stories of his bad behaviour and kept Rasputin as a confidant. Legend has it that it took several attempts to kill RFasputin before he actually died. First he was poisoned with tea and cakes but failed to die; then he was shot but managed to run outside where he was shot again but he still didn’t die. The conspirators (who were trying to protect the Tsar) then tied Rasputin up and threw him into a frozen lake where he was trapped under the ice. He is said to have clawed at the ice from underneath before dying. A recent autopsy on his body suggests that he was only shot to death.
1940 - Over 100,000 bombs were dropped overnight on London including the first incendiary bombs during the Blitz of World War II. The devastation caused by the firestorm created by the bombs that night was larger than the area burnt down by the Great Fire of London of 1666.