This day in history

[macliam]

1971 London Bridge, built in 1831 and dismantled in 1967, reopens in Lake Havusu City, Arizona, after being sold to Robert P. McCulloch and moved to the United States.

Not sure how true it is by I have heard numerous times they thought they were buying Tower Bridge. Maybe the truth is the buyer knew but the USA media did not know the difference

it's a complete myth, created to support the "stupid yank" mindset. McCulloch knew what he was buying and designed an artificial waterway in the desert for it to span. The installation of the bridge increased the population of Lake Havasu from just a few hundred in the early 1960s, to over 10,000 residents by 1974. In 1975, its chamber of commerce reported that the bridge had drawn nearly two million visitors in the previous year alone.

[Richard Frost]

1649 The Sack of Wexford took place from 2 to 11 October 1649, during the campaign known as the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. It was part of the wider 1641 to 1653 Irish Confederate Wars, and an associated conflict of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

A Parliamentarian force under Oliver Cromwell stormed the town after negotiations broke down, killing most of the garrison. Many civilians also died, either during the sack, or drowned attempting to escape across the River Slaney. Along with Drogheda, Wexford is still remembered as an infamous atrocity.

[macliam]

1649 The Sack of Wexford took place from 2 to 11 October 1649, during the campaign known as the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. It was part of the wider 1641 to 1653 Irish Confederate Wars, and an associated conflict of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

A Parliamentarian force under Oliver Cromwell stormed the town after negotiations broke down, killing most of the garrison. Many civilians also died, either during the sack, or drowned attempting to escape across the River Slaney. Along with Drogheda, Wexford is still remembered as an infamous atrocity.

Yep, Cromwell and William are REALLY popular over there!

Other significant anniversaries

1921 - Negotiations to end the Anglo-Irish war open in London, with Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins leading the Irish delegation and David Lloyd George, lord Birkenhead, Winston Churchill and Austen Chamberlain leading the British.

1922 - The Irish Free State Constitution is adopted, this stands until replaced in 1937 byy the current Constitution of Ireland following a referendum. So, Ireland managed to create a workable constitution within a year of becoming independent.

[Richard Frost]

On October 12, 1492, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus made landfall in what is now the Bahamas. Columbus and his ships landed on an island that the native Lucayan people called Guanahani. Columbus renamed it San Salvador.

The modern identity of Guanahani remains a subject of historical debate, and over the years, multiple Bahamian islands have been suggested as candidates for “Guanahani”, including Sanama Cay, Rum Cay, Grand Turk Island, and the Plana Cays. However, the most popular theory is that Guanahani is the island today known as San Salvador (which was known as Watling Island until its name was officially changed to San Salvador in 1925 to recognize it as the site of Columbus’ first landing).

The confusion over Guanahani’s modern identity stems primarily from Columbus’ description of the island in his Diario, where he describes Guanahani as having “very green trees and many ponds and fruits of various kinds.” What Columbus couldn’t have known is that this can be said of a great number of the islands in the region.

Further complicating the issue is a map made by Juan de la Cosa. De la Cosa was a cartographer sailing with Columbus, and also the owner of Columbus’ largest vessel, the Santa Maria. Years after their historic voyage, in 1500, de la Cosa made a map of where they’d travelled. While he was fairly accurate of the position and shape of the islands we know as Cuba and Hispaniola, his inaccurate depictions of the Bahamas leave the exact location of Guanahani undetermined.

https://education.nationalgeographic.or ... -caribbean

1915 Edith Cavell executed

A saver of lives loses her own in front of a firing squad

Having saved many lives both by providing medical aid and by cunningly smuggling Allied soldiers out of German-occupied Belgium, British nurse Edith Cavell is now executed by German authorities. Her death by firing squad shocked and angered a world only a year into World War One.

[macliam]

Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo) himself is still a mystery, largely because he seemed overly keen to reinvent himself and obscure his past. He appears to have been Genoese (although some still dispute this) and fairly undistinguished as a mariner, although he supposedly visited Britain and Ghana....

However, he married Filipa, the daughter of the governor of Porto Santo (Madeira) Bartolomeu Perestrello, who had himself been a navigator and explorer (he discovered Porto Santo in 1419). Just to complicate matters further, Perestrello himself was the son of an Italian (Lombard) knight. Columbus then lived in Lisbon with Filipa, who bore him a son, Diego, later 2nd Admiral of the Indies, 2nd Viceroy of the Indies and 4th Governor of the Indies as a vassal to the Kings of Castile and Aragón. Filipa's own fate is a mystery....

When I first went to Portugal in the late 80s, there were still claims that Columbus was actually Portuguese.... as it was disputed that the son of an Italian wool-weaver would be able to marry the daughter of a Portuguese knight and governor. It was also claimed that he had taken possession of all his late father-in-law's charts..... which might explain how he "obtained" such a knowledge of exploration.

Columbus' brother, Bartolomeu (who he?) was a cartographer in Lisbon (again a doubt about his Genoese background) and was therefore well placed to use Perestrello's charts and between them they came up with the idea for the "Enterprise of the Indies". He went to the King of Portugal in the 1480s, seeking funding for this speculative voyage westwards across the Atlantic to "the Indies", but was refused because the way eastwards was known and was being undertaken. Bartolomeu Dias had already rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, Pêro da Covilhã had already reached India via Egypt and Yemen (and Vasco da Gama would reach India via the Cape in 1498). So "the way to the Indies" was known and there was no need to invest in "fantasies".

Therefore the Columbus brothers went to find other sponsors, Bartolomeu went to England and France and Cristoforo went to the "rivals" of Portugal, the Christian monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, whose marriage had united the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon (NB, there was no "Spain" at that time). They were still battling the Moors in southern Spain but were desperate to get in on the lucrative trade with the Indies, so they sponsored him..... and the rest is history.

Clear as mud, eh?

PS.... oddly, the Americas owe a lot to "Italian" explorers, even the name. Amerigo Vespucci (hence "America") was a Florentine mariner who worked for both Portugal and Spain, John and Sebastian Cabot who sailed for England were actually Caboto, from Venice, Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine, sailed for France, etc., etc.

[Richard Frost]

13 October 1884

Greenwich in London is established as the universal time meridian of longitude.

[Richard Frost]

14 October 1066
Harold II is killed at the Battle of Hastings, from which William of Normandy emerges victorious. His conquest of England results in a dramatic cultural and political reshaping of the country.

1322 Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland's independence

[macliam]

14 October 1693 - A strange one in the lead-up to All-Hallows. The Earl of Tyrone dies, but appears to Lady Nicola Hamilton. He makes a number of predictions that turn out to be correct; one of them being that she would die on her 47th birthday..........

1702 - Irish Brigade of the French army defeats forces of the Holy Roman Empire at Friedlingen

1791 - Theobald Wolfe Tone visits Belfast for the first time and founds the "Society of United Irishmen" with Henry Joy McCracken, Thomas Russell and Samuel Neilson

1882 - Eamon de Valera, Irish nationalist, and Taoiseach and President of Ireland, is born in Brooklyn, New York to a Spanish father and an Irish mother

1920 - Sean Treacy, a hero of the Anglo-Irish war, is killed in a gun battle with free state forces in Dublin

2001 - The first multiple State funeral in Ireland is held in honour of 10 IRA Volunteers from the Anglo-Irish war, more than 80 years after their execution and burial in Mountjoy Prison. They were reinterred in a new national plot at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. The ten men were Kevin Barry, Thomas Bryan, Patrick Doyle, Frank Flood, Patrick Moran, Thomas Whelan, Bernard Ryan, Thomas Traynor, Edmond Foley and Patrick Maher.

[Richard Frost]

1997 Andy Green of the UK becomes the first person to break the sound barrier in the Earth’s atmosphere, driving the ThrustSSC supersonic car to a record 763 mph (1,228 km/h).

1990 Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the USSR, receives Nobel Peace Prize for his work in making his country more open and reducing Cold War tensions.

[macliam]

15 October, 1690 - After taking Cork on 28 September, Marlbourough takes Kinsale for the Williamites, who now control Munster

1999 - The music world mourns the death in Co. Kildare of Derry-born tenor Josef Locke

2001 - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat asks Ireland to use its influence on the UN Security Council to help resume peace talks in the Middle East