On this day in History...

1877 U.S.A. Molly Maguires : Ten members of the Irish Miners Group The "Molly Maguires" were hanged for murder, the hangings bought about an end to the group as members now feared for their lives and loved ones lives. "Molly Maguires" were a group of Irish anthracite miners who were fighting for better working and living conditions in the coal fields of Pennsylvania, and were considered militant union activists but to understand the whole story my advice is look up "Molly Maguires" on your favorite search engine to gain a better perspective of the whole story. 
 
1916 Mexico Pancho Villa : A U.S. military expedition against Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa brings the United States and Mexico closer to war when Mexican government troops attack U.S. Brigadier General John J. Pershing's force at Carrizal, Mexico. 
 
1942 Libya General Erwin Rommel takes control of British Allied garrison at Tobruk, Libya, taking more than 30,000 prisoners, 

1945 Okinawa US troops take Okinawa : Following a long and bloody battle which started on April 1st and lasting nearly 3 months US troops take control of the Japanese island of Okinawa. 
 
1963 France NATO Withdraw : The French navy is withdrawn from the North Atlantic fleet of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). 

1963 Vatican Pope Paul VI : crowned the 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church 
 
1964 U.S.A. Ku Klux Klan : Three civil rights field workers disappear after investigating the burning of an African American church by the Ku Klux Klan. Their bodies were found buried six weeks later and seven members of the Ku Klux Klan were found guilty on federal conspiracy charges. Eight others including Edgar Ray Killen were found not guilty

1977 Israel Menachem Begin a center-right politician for the Likud party became Israel's sixth prime minister. This is the first time the left had lost power in Israel. The center right politics ( Likud party ) in Israel believe in the creation and control of the "Greater Israel" which includes parts of the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Gaza Strip and the whole of Jerusalem. They also do not believe in Palestinian statehood . 
 
1978 Northern Ireland Running Gun Battle : A running gun fight between British security forces and Provisional IRA at the Ballysillan post office depot in Belfast has left 4 dead including an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire. 
 
1982 U.S.A. President Ronald Reagan : John W. Hinckley, Jr., who on March 30th , 1981, shot President Ronald Reagan and three others outside a Washington, D.C., hotel, was found not guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity. 
 
1982 UK Future King Of England Born : Diana, Princess of Wales, has given birth to a boy William ( second in line to the throne after his father The Prince of Wales). 

1989 U.S.A. Flag Burning : The United States Supreme Court ruled that flag burning as a form of political protest is an act of protected speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution. 
 
1990 Iran Earthquake : A major earthquake measuring 7.7 magnitude near the Caspian Sea in Iran kills more than 50,000 and injures another 135,000 people . 

2001 Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf Takes Power : Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, takes on the role of president and chief executive. Following his announcement the constitution and parliament were suspended two days after the announcement. This follows earlier decisions to ban opposition parties holding planned pro-democracy rallies. 
 
2002 Spain ETA Steps Up It's Bombing Campaign : The Basque terrorist organisation ETA steps up its campaign of violence to support its aim of self-determination for the Basque country when it explodes two car bombs to coincide with the Seville summit meeting of EU Ministers. 
 
2003 Worldwide "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" : JK Rowling's fifth Harry Potter book "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is released and becomes the fastest selling book ever.

2005 U.S.A. Edgar Ray Killen : Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman organizer was found guilty of three counts of manslaughter in the deaths of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss., in 1964 41 years to the day earlier. He is sentenced to 60 years in prison. 
 
2005 New Zealand Rat Causes Telecom Problems : A communications problem occurred in New Zealand after a rat chewed through an important fiber optics cable shutting down the country's internet and mobile phone services for about five hours. The problems were exacerbated when a workman in another part of the country damaged another main cable by accident at the same time as the rat incident. 

2006 Iraq Saddam Hussein's Lawyer Assassinated : One of Saddam Hussein's main defense attorneys, Khamis al-Obeidi, was found dead after being abducted and shot. Hussein was being tried in what many had described as an unfair trial process, especially for defense attorneys who had believed that they were not given the proper protection during the controversial affair. 
 
2009 Greenland More Autonomy : Greenland the least densely populated country in the world ( 836,109 sq miles ) population less than 60,000 an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, gains control over its law enforcement, judicial affairs, and natural resources 


2011 United States New US Defense Secretary Approved Leon Panetta, head of the CIA, was confirmed by the US Senate to replace Robert Gates as the United States Defense Secretary. Gates announced his retirement earlier in the year and Panetta is set to replace him by July 31st . Panetta had previously been chief of staff to the Clinton administration in 1994 until 1997, and became head of the CIA in early 2009. 


2012 United States Actor Richard Lynch Dies Horror movie actor Richard Lynch, known for his scarred face, died at the age of seventy-six in Palm Springs, California. Lynch starred in movies like Scarecrow and Little Nikita and had guest roles on television shows like Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek: The Next Generation. 
2013 Brazil Masses Join in Protest Over one million people were reported to have joined protests in over one-hundred cities across Brazil. Protests had began over a week earlier over high transportation costs, the cost of the World Cup, and overall corruption. The demonstrations became violent in many of the locations.

1933 Hitler bans all other parties making Germany a one political party country.
 
1934  The work on first prototypes of The Peoples Car what became the ( Volkswagen Beetle ) was started by Ferdinand Porsche but it would take until 1936 before the first prototype was completed
 
1937 Joe Louis wins the world heavyweight boxing title when he defeats American Jim Braddock in an eighth-round knockout. 
 
1938 In front of 80,000 people at Yankee Stadium Joe Louis knocked out the great German White Hope Max Schmeling in two minutes and four seconds. 


1941 Germany launches Operation Barbarossa the invasion of Russia, in the first 2 months Over 500,000 square miles of Russian territory were taken. 
 
1944 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the GI bill of Rights Bill to provide financial aid to veterans returning from World War II.


1945 The U.S. 10th Army overcomes the last major pockets of Japanese resistance on Okinawa Island, ending one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. 


1969 Actress Judy Garland is found dead in her London home possibly due to an accidental drug overdose . 
 
1970 President Nixon signed a bill to lower the voting age to 18 for all federal, state and local elections, In addition to lowering the voting age, the bill placed a five-year extension on the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which gave more than one million African Americans in the South the right to vote. 


1976 Parliament votes to abolish capital punishment in Canada 


1981 Mark Chapman changes his plea to admit responsibility for the murder of John Lennon. He received a sentence of 20 years in prison
 
2004  The convicted paedophile and child killer Marc Dutroux is sentenced to life in prison in Belgium for the kidnap and rape of six young girls, and murder of four young girls. He and his accomplices had abducted and kept young girls in a purpose-built dungeon in Dutroux's basement. 
 
2004 The class-action sex-discrimination lawsuit representing 1.6 million female workers against Wal-Mart is approved by a federal judge.


2005 Ten Germans who were former Nazi officers during World War II were sentenced to life in prison by a military tribunal in La Spezia, Italy. The men were implicated in what was known as one of the worst war crimes to be committed in Italy, a massacre of 560 civilians in a small Italian village. Despite the conviction and sentence, the men would probably not end up serving the time because of their ages. 
 
2006 Xanana Gusmao, the president of East Timor, called for the prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, to step down or else Gusmao would resign. Prime Minister Alkatiri's popularity had been fading as he had been blamed for neglecting to stop recent bouts of violence.


2008 Over seven hundred people were missing after a ferry capsized off of the coast of the Philippines after encountering harsh seas caused by Typhoon Fengshen. Rescue ships had found only four survivors. 
 
2011 Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, a leader of the Mexican drug cartel "La Familia", was captured in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Mendez Vargas, also known as "The Monkey", was accused of leading the gang and coordinating drug trafficking and sales in Mexico and the United States as well as planning kidnappings and murders of rivals. 
 
2013 Mount Fuji Becomes World Heritage Site because of its cultural value in Japanese society. The volcano is an iconic image in Japanese arts and literature and is located just outside of Tokyo. 

on this day 1986

1923  Ku Klax Klan : The growing membership of the Ku Klax Klan across the US is predicted to make them a political force to be recognized with 1000's of new members joining every week in ceremonies across the US 
 
1931 Round The World Record : Wiley Post and his navigator, Harold Gatty, took off for a round the world flight in the single-engine airplane, the "Winnie Mae." from Roosevelt Field, New York. they arrived back completing the trip with a record time of eight days, 15 hours and 51 minutes. 
 
1940  Hitler Tour Paris : After the German occupation of Paris Adolf Hitler takes a tour of the major notable sites in the French capital. 
 
1941  "St. Louis Blues" : Lena Horne recorded "St. Louis Blues." Her career spans several decades.


1944 Tornadoes : A series of tornadoes across West Virginia and Pennsylvania kill more than 150 people most of the twisters were classified as F3, but the most deadly one was an F4 on the Fujita scale. 


1956 Nasser : Following the army coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser that deposed the regime of King Farouk, Gamal Abdel Nasser is elected president of Egypt when he stands as the sole candidate. 
 
1956 Rebel Attacks : A series of rebel attacks in Algeria are targeting Europeans with French members of the community targeted mostly, in the last 7 days 23 have been killed and over 150 injured mostly in shooting attacks by small commando groups. 
 
1961 The Antarctic Treaty System : comes into force to regulate international relations with respect to Antarctica, "all land and ice shelves south of 60°S latitude parallel". Antarctica is the Earth's only continent without a native human population. 
 
1985 Air India Plane Crash : An Air India Boeing 747 disintegrates in mid-air off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people on board. It is believed it is the work of a terrorist plot to blow up the plane. 


1992 John Gotti "Teflon Don" : The head of the New York Gambino Mafia family, crime boss John Gotti is sentenced to life imprisonment for racketeering and five counts of murder with no chance of parole. 
 
1998 Long-Term Credit Bank (LTCB) : As the financial institutions in Japan continue to report record losses due to the "property price bubble burst". The Long-Term Credit Bank (LTCB) is the latest casualty as share value drops 45% in one days. The Japanese Government promised to support the bank "if necessary" and protect depositors "at any cost." 


2000 Childers Palace Backpackers Hostel fire : A fire at the Childers Palace Backpackers Hostel in the town of Childers, in Queensland, Australia has left 15 backpackers dead after the fire completely destroyed the hostel. Investigations are continuing to find the cause but it is believed to be arson. Robert Paul Young was later charged with murder and sentenced to a life sentence. 


2001 Slobodan Milosevic : With increasing calls by the international community that the former president of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic should face international war crimes tribunal in the Hague and the withholding of much needed foreign aid from the country. The Yugoslav cabinet is preparing the way for the former president for extradition. 


2006 TV Producer Spelling Dies : Prolific television writer and producer Aaron Spelling died at the age of eighty-three after suffering from a stroke five days earlier.


2008 Man Charged for Drunk-Driving in Wheelchair : A man was charged with drunken driving in a motorized wheelchair after being found asleep off of a highway by police in Cairns, Australia.


2009 TV Star McMahon Dies : Ed McMahon, an iconic American television personality, died at the age of eighty-six after suffering from multiple health problems.
 
2012 United States Sandusky Found Guilty in Sex Abuse Trial : Former assistant football coach at Penn State Jerry Sandusky was found guilty of forty-five out of forty-eight counts of child sex abuse after his trial concluded. Sandusky was immediately taken into custody and would likely face a life sentence. 


2013 Elections End in Albania : Elections for Prime Minister ended with both parties claiming victory. This election was being looked at as a key test of whether or not Albania was ready to join the European Union. During the election both sides accused the other of vote-rigging and the country had struggled with free elections for twenty years, since the fall of the Soviet Union. 

Gypsy did a fine job while you were sunning yourself, well done M

Yeah, thanks Meryl, I had an inkling it might be too much for Dermo...

It was, Dont know why we use him

Thought it was something to do with the EU open border thing, we can feck him off now...

2014, sun tan lotion...

Oh FFS! I don't know whether to laugh or cry

were you able to see the eclipse of the sun from Leeds Reg??

Sun Where when

In 1927

No missed it

It was great honest 

1620. Blimey.