It would be wrong to mention anniversaries and not refer to the assassination by car-bomb of Airey Neave MP on March 30 1979. Tory Historian well remembers the shock of hearing that his car blew up as he was driving it out of the Westminster Palace yard.Neave was a wholly admirable man, a war hero, the first to make "a home run" from Colditz, who then served in Military Intelligence and took part in the Nuremeberg Trials, flawed though...
The biggest of all: on March 30, 1981 there was an attempt to assassinate President Reagan, which very nearly succeeded. The two pictures of the security services in action and Reagan being hustled off into a car, thence to a hospital, do not give the full story - he was far more seriously wounded than anyone, including him, realized at first.There was a moment of high comedy when Secretary of State Alexander Haig announced that he was...
The death of Queen Elizabeth I on March 24, 1603 meant that James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English throne as James I of England. This brought about the de facto union of the two countries under the Cro...
Of course, the death of a lady who is 105, has lived a good life and died peacefully is not a tragic matter but this news saddened Tory Historian a little. Andree Peel, Agent Rose in the Resistance, who saved 100 or more Allied servicemen, survived Nazi concentration camps and escaped the firing squad, died earlier this month and is being buried today.Tory Historian cannot help feeling that the manager of the care home where Mrs Peel had...
One of the four patron saints of this country, St Patrick is, as far as anyone can establish, an interesting character. It did not surprise Tory Historian to find out that much of the mythology associated with St Paddy was either invented later or has more to do with other characters of the period.It is, interestingly, enough his death that is celebrated on March 17, other dates being somewhat uncertain. The year, as that great history...
Tory Historian is immensely grateful to a sadly anonymous commenter on a previous posting on a clerical detective, who has pointed out that the excellent website, Clerical Detectives has moved. Here is the link. Very well worth browsing and following up on suggestio...
... to Thomas Arne, composer of many things, but especially of Rule Britannia, and one of the first people to fight over copyright: In 1741 Arne filed a complaint in Chancery pertaining to a breach of musical copyright and claimed that some of his theatrical songs had been printed and sold by Henry Roberts and John Johnson, the London booksellers and music distributors. The matter was settled out of court. Arne was certainly one of the...
Two pictures from the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule that broke out on March 10, 1959 and was suppressed swiftly and brutally. These two show a Chinese officer addressing Tibetans after the uprising had been put down and refugees leaving in large numbers. The Guardian has a whole selection of photograp...
Not a round date but Tory Historian likes to celebrate this one. March 5, 1953 was the day when the death of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, one of the greatest mass murderers of all times (probably Mao Tse-Tung was worse but who is counting) was announced. There is some mystery, according to various accounts, not least by his daughter Svetlana, as to whether he did die on that day or the day before. Had he simply had a stroke and his entourage...
