On This Day 18th March in British History

On This Day 18th March in British History

~978 Edward the Martyr, King of England and the eldest son of King Edgar, was murdered at Corfe Castle. The murder is thought to have been ordered by his stepmother Aelfryth, mother of Ethelred the Unready who was eager to see her son crowned.

~1496 The birth of Mary Tudor, Queen of France
(d. 1533).

~1745 Robert Walpole, Britain's first Prime Minister, died.

~1766 American Revolution: The British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act. It was a direct tax imposed by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America and required many printed materials in the colonies to be produced on stamped paper produced in London. The purpose of the tax was to help pay for troops stationed in North America after the British victory in the Seven Years' War.

~1834 Six farm labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset were sentenced to be transported to Australia for seven years for forming the first trade union and introducing collective bargaining for better wages. There was such an outcry that they were pardoned two years after sentencing and allowed to return to England. The annual Tolpuddle Martyrs' festival is held in the village of Tolpuddle in the third weekend of July. Each year a wreath is laid at the grave of James Hammett, one of the martyrs.

~1869 Neville Chamberlain, British prime minister was born. In 1938 he returned from Munich with the claim - 'peace in our time' but in less than a year Britain was at war with Germany. His appeasement policy towards Hitler led to his downfall in 1940, when he handed over to Churchill.

~1891 The London to Paris telephone link came into operation.

~1922 The leader Mahatma Gandhi was jailed for six years by the British authorities for encouraging public disorder. He was released in February 1924 for an appendicitis operation, having served only 2 years of his sentence.

~1925 Two floors of the Madame Tussaud’s waxworks in London were destroyed by fire.

~1947 The Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, (born in Corfu - Greece on 10th June 1921), became a naturalized Briton On This Day.

~1949 NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was proposed. The aim was to 'safeguard the freedom and security of its 26 member countries by political and military means.'

~1967 The Torrey Canyon oil tanker, with a cargo of 100,000 gallons of crude oil, ran aground on rocks between Land's End and the Scilly Isles and its cargo discharged into the sea. The RAF and the Royal Navy were called in to napalm bomb the slick in an attempt to reduce the risk of pollution. In the weeks that followed the accident, oil escaped and spread along the shores of the south coast of England and the Normandy coast of France. Worst hit were the Cornish beaches of Marazion and Prah Sands, where sludge was up to a foot deep.

~1982 Moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse brought a charge of gross indecency against a National Theatre director under the Sexual Offences Act 1956. The play, Romans in Britain featured male rape scenes. The trial was halted after intervention by the Attorney-General.

~1992 White South Africans backed a motion to end apartheid and create a multi-racial government.

~1988 The death of Percy Thrower, English gardener and radio and TV broadcaster. He was Parks Superintendent at Shrewsburyfrom 1946 to 1974, becoming the youngest parks superintendent, aged 32.