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On this day in history
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Towpack
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On this day..
in 1981 the Penlee lifeboat Solomon Browne and the cargo ship Union Star were lost with all hands during a rescue attempt in a fierce Winter storm off the Cornish coast. Without hesitation the lifeboat launched in mountainous seas after a helicopter rescue proved impossible. Of the sixteen people who lost their lives, 8 were never found. Undoubtedly bravery of the highest order.
in 1981 the Penlee lifeboat Solomon Browne and the cargo ship Union Star were lost with all hands during a rescue attempt in a fierce Winter storm off the Cornish coast. Without hesitation the lifeboat launched in mountainous seas after a helicopter rescue proved impossible. Of the sixteen people who lost their lives, 8 were never found. Undoubtedly bravery of the highest order.
goodoldboy
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I remember this well , thinking that even watching the violence of the sea on TV was frightening enough.Plenty of good folks still volunteering today in lifeboats , mountain rescue and as fire fighters.Chuck a pound in when you see them collecting.
goodoldboy
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On this day, 20 December 1973, Spanish fascist prime minister who was hand-picked as general Francisco Franco's successor, Luis Carrero Blanco, was assassinated in Madrid. Basque separatists ETA had spent five months digging a tunnel under a road he went down to attend mass. They then detonated a bomb as he drove over, shooting his car 20 metres into the air and over a five-storey building, earning Blanco the nickname of "Spain's first astronaut". His successor was unable to hold together different factions of the government, and so this action was credited by some for helping accelerate the restoration of democracy after Franco's death.
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Just another day at work had the engine not shat itself , i bet they spent hours trying to fix it before swallowing their pride to call the lifeboat .
I remember a call came over the radio once "i'm gonna shut the engine down it will be underwater soon" we were 4 hours from shore! we had the net hauled emptied stowed and the hammer down hard underway so fast its a wonder we didn't sink ourselves doing it . Fortunately every other fishing boat for miles around did the same because we didn't have the power to reach him in time .
Crew and boat were saved , it was Friday anyway so just something to laugh about when we got home to the pub .
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goodoldboy
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I've been in the bay of Biscay (Golfo de Bizkaia ) on a ferry in really rough seas - it sounded like someone was whacking a giant hammer on the hull - but i can't imagine what it's like on a small boat.
When I was a young lad I was returning from France on a ferry when the weather turned bad after we left port, the ferry was pitching so bad the bows were going under and the stern was coming out of the water, you could feel the screws racing, the captain put out a call over the tannoy saying 'If we had known it would be this bad we would never had left port'. It was the only time I saw people literally green with sea-sickness, surprisingly I wasn't affected.
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goodoldboy
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On this day, 21 December 1842, one of the founders of contemporary anarchist communism, Peter Kropotkin was born .
He wrote numerous influential works, including Mutual Aid: a Factor of Evolution. In this work he criticised interpretations of the ideas of Charles Darwin which focused on competition, and highlighted instances of cooperation in the natural world. "If we ... ask Nature: 'who are the fittest: those who are continually at war with each other, or those who support one another?' we at once see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are undoubtedly the fittest. They have more chances to survive, and they attain, in their respective classes, the highest development of intelligence and bodily organization."
He wrote numerous influential works, including Mutual Aid: a Factor of Evolution. In this work he criticised interpretations of the ideas of Charles Darwin which focused on competition, and highlighted instances of cooperation in the natural world. "If we ... ask Nature: 'who are the fittest: those who are continually at war with each other, or those who support one another?' we at once see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are undoubtedly the fittest. They have more chances to survive, and they attain, in their respective classes, the highest development of intelligence and bodily organization."
goodoldboy
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On this day, 25 December 1914, 100,000 troops on the Western Front during World War I held an unofficial truce where they refused to fight one another. German troops began singing "Silent Night" in German, French and English, along with other Christmas carols. They decorated the trenches with Christmas trees, lit candles and hung multilingual banners wishing opposing armies "Merry Christmas". Across much of the front artillery fell silent, British troops joined in the carol singing and both sides began to shout Christmas greetings at one another.
On Christmas Day, soldiers began to climb out of the trenches to fraternise with the other side, bring back bodies from no man's land and exchange gifts like tobacco, chocolate and alcohol. In several areas there are first-hand accounts of often-improvised football matches being played.
The truce covered about 100,000 men, almost entirely on the Western front however there was also a small truce along part of the Eastern front between Austrian and Russian troops. Fighting continued in some areas.
Henry Williamson, a British private, wrote to his mother on December 26: "In [my] pipe is tobacco. Of course, you say. But wait. In the pipe is German tobacco. Haha, you say, from a prisoner or found in a captured trench. Oh dear, no! From a German soldier. Yes a live German soldier from his own trench. Yesterday the British & Germans met & shook hands in the Ground between the trenches, & exchanged souvenirs, & shook hands. Yes, all day Xmas day, & as I write. Marvellous, isn't it?"
British authorities were extremely angered by the mutiny, and ordered that soldiers engaged in informal truces be court-martialed.
On Christmas Day, soldiers began to climb out of the trenches to fraternise with the other side, bring back bodies from no man's land and exchange gifts like tobacco, chocolate and alcohol. In several areas there are first-hand accounts of often-improvised football matches being played.
The truce covered about 100,000 men, almost entirely on the Western front however there was also a small truce along part of the Eastern front between Austrian and Russian troops. Fighting continued in some areas.
Henry Williamson, a British private, wrote to his mother on December 26: "In [my] pipe is tobacco. Of course, you say. But wait. In the pipe is German tobacco. Haha, you say, from a prisoner or found in a captured trench. Oh dear, no! From a German soldier. Yes a live German soldier from his own trench. Yesterday the British & Germans met & shook hands in the Ground between the trenches, & exchanged souvenirs, & shook hands. Yes, all day Xmas day, & as I write. Marvellous, isn't it?"
British authorities were extremely angered by the mutiny, and ordered that soldiers engaged in informal truces be court-martialed.
goodoldboy
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On this day, 27 December 1831, the Christmas rebellion in Jamaica escalated as 60,000 of the country's 300,000 enslaved people went on strike and rose up against slavery.
It is known as the Christmas rebellion as it began with a strike on Christmas day, demanding wages and more free time. The plantation owners rejected the demands, and so on December 27, enslaved people on the Kensington estate downed tools and set their sugarcane fields on fire. The rebels organised their own military units, and travelled through other estates, burning buildings and crops and recruiting others to join them.
Lasting 11 days, it was the biggest revolt of enslaved people in the British Caribbean colonies, and cost over £50 million damages in current money. While only 14 whites were killed, over 500 Black people were killed or executed in the aftermath. But as a result slavery across the British Caribbean was largely abolished two years later.
It is known as the Christmas rebellion as it began with a strike on Christmas day, demanding wages and more free time. The plantation owners rejected the demands, and so on December 27, enslaved people on the Kensington estate downed tools and set their sugarcane fields on fire. The rebels organised their own military units, and travelled through other estates, burning buildings and crops and recruiting others to join them.
Lasting 11 days, it was the biggest revolt of enslaved people in the British Caribbean colonies, and cost over £50 million damages in current money. While only 14 whites were killed, over 500 Black people were killed or executed in the aftermath. But as a result slavery across the British Caribbean was largely abolished two years later.
Towpack
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On this day, in 1971, the tragedy that was to become the Ibrox football disaster was unfolding on stairway 13 at Ibrox Park in Glasgow. No less a tragedy was that lessons on crowd safety still hadn't been learned by 1989 with the Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield.
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On this day in 1976 A British naval frigate collides with an Icelandic gunboat in the Atlantic during the third "Cod War". Watch the archive interview with Capt John Cox about the dangers of such incidents.
goodoldboy
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On this day, 15 January 1934 the popular UK tabloid the Daily Mail published an article called “Hurrah for the Blackshirts!” in support of Oswald Mosley's fascist movement. The article was written by Viscount Rothermere, who was an avid supporter of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, as well as Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party. Rothermere declared in the paper that the election of Nazi MPs "represent[ed] the rebirth of Germany as a nation". After the Nazi seizure of power, when democracy was abolished and many socialists and communists were sent to the concentration camps, Rothermere praised how "Under Herr Hitler’s control, the youth of Germany is effectively organised against the corruption of Communism.” Rothermere corresponded personally with Hitler, and met with him several times, and wrote approvingly of how the Nazis had dealt with Jewish people: “Israelites of international attachments were insinuating themselves into key positions in the German administrative machine… It is from such abuses that Hitler has freed Germany.”
Rothermere's family still own the Mail, which today continues to advocate far right politics. For example in recent years they have attacked the National Health Service for distributing HIV medication, falsely claimed that a terrorist bomber was an LGBT+ activist, falsely claimed that most people trying to claim sickness benefits were faking it, criticised the National Trust for acknowledging the existence of gay people, falsely claimed that 10,000 people were trying to claim sickness benefits because they were "too fat", mocked gay marriage, made countless false claims about Muslim immigrants and much more. Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips was repeatedly quoted in the manifesto of Norwegian neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Brevik who murdered 93 people. Today, the Mail is the top-selling newspaper in the UK.
Rothermere's family still own the Mail, which today continues to advocate far right politics. For example in recent years they have attacked the National Health Service for distributing HIV medication, falsely claimed that a terrorist bomber was an LGBT+ activist, falsely claimed that most people trying to claim sickness benefits were faking it, criticised the National Trust for acknowledging the existence of gay people, falsely claimed that 10,000 people were trying to claim sickness benefits because they were "too fat", mocked gay marriage, made countless false claims about Muslim immigrants and much more. Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips was repeatedly quoted in the manifesto of Norwegian neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Brevik who murdered 93 people. Today, the Mail is the top-selling newspaper in the UK.
goodoldboy
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On this day, 17 January 1928, Vidal Sassoon, dubbed the "anti-fascist warrior hairdresser" by the Telegraph newspaper, was born. Aged 17 he joined the militant anti-fascist organisation the 43 Group, formed by Jewish ex-servicemen, which smashed Oswald Mosley's fascists off the streets of London after World War II. Sassoon's weapon of choice? A pair of scissors.
- On this day,
- 1775 9 old women burnt as witches for causing bad harvests in Kalisk, Poland
- 1920 First day of prohibition of alcohol comes into effect in the US as a result of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution
- 1978 After a tumultuous final tour The Sex Pistols break up as a band, which is announced the following day
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