I do now find that this platform too has become too political. Too much about American politics. I’m out. Cheerio!

"Never perhaps was there a period more important to America than the present." Providence, Rhode Island, almanac for 1775. Fr the collections @jcblibrary.bsky.social

Today in 1848 10,000 people massed in Trafalgar Square to protest against the raising of income tax from 3% to 5%. Were that it was 5% now.

A wonder drug to cure headaches, Aspirin, was patented today in 1899. It was said to have almost magical properties. It was the first time a cheap reliable pain-killer became universally available.

When Richard the Lionheart's horse was killed beneath him during the crusades, Saladin the first Sultan of Egypt, sent him another horse rather than order his death. A chivalrous man, Saladin also sent Richard the Lionheart chilled wine, pears and grapes from Damascus to ease life in camp.

The Star-Spangled Banner was adopted as the US national anthem today in 1931 - so recent, who knew? The Star-Spangled Banner lyrics were written by Francis Scott Key in 1814, the music by John Stafford Smith in 1780.

Today in 1943, 173 people were killed in a crush while trying to enter an air-raid shelter at Bethnal Green tube station. How frightening!

Today in 1966 the BBC announced that it would begin broadcasting television programmes in colour in 1967.

Elizabeth II needed three stitches in her hand today in 1991 after intervening in a corgi fight.

🔴 UNITED24 Media analysis shows Zelenskyy has thanked the U.S. 94 times on his official Telegram since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

Today in 1986 Queen Elizabeth II signed the Australia Bill, severing Britain's formal ties with its former colony after almost two centuries.

On a different note - my latest knitting project - for a friend!

Today 1969 the dream of space-age travel began when Concorde took to the skies from Toulouse. The dream was shattered after just 34 years.

Roderick Maclean made an unsuccessful attempt to shoot Qn Victoria as she was leaving Windsor rail station today 1882 - the crowd jumped him

In early March 1564 Elizabeth I suggested that Mary Queen of Scots marry Lord Robert Darnley - both tall and well-educated. A good match? Mary Queen of Scots and Darnley married on 29 July 1565. That date rings a bell, ah yes, Prince Charles & Diana. Another doomed marriage!

If the UK’s immigration rules mean what they say, Trump shouldn’t even be allowed to enter the country, let alone for a state visit ….

setting people up to fail and then blaming them for failing is the american way

Today 1954 the US exploded the most powerful bomb ever made = 15M tons of TNT, and the Bikini Atoll island in the South Pacific died. The bomb was more powerful than expected - Japanese fishermen on boats more than 70 miles away were badly burnt by white ash.

1562 saw an outbreak of monstrous births in England e.g. a mare birthed a foal with one body, two heads with a tail growing between the heads. Another monstrous 1562 birth was a pig with four legs like a man's arms with fingers. Yet another pig had two bodies, eight feet, but just one head.

That press conference was the most disgraceful act of betrayal I’ve ever seen.

Exactly right. This was a setup.

Radar was demonstrated for the first time today in 1935 by Robert Watson-Watt at Daventry.

French novelist, dramatist and poet, Victor Hugo, who wrote Les Miserables, was born today in 1802.

Word of the Day is ‘ingordigiousness’ (18th century): extreme greed at the expense of principles.

In Canada, Mexico, India, Russia and Israel, bank notes have braille-like markings on them for the blind. We were amazed when in the US to find that all the bank notes, of whatever value, were of the same size. How on earth do blind people manage there?

What unimaginative parents were Ma & Pa Beter.

OTD 1962 The Beatles played a concert at the Birkenhead YMCA for £30. The audience didn't enjoy the show - they were booed off. WHAT!

Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar today in 1582 as a replacement for the Julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar omits 3 leap days every 400 years. Although the method closely synced the calendar with the seasons, his system is still off by 26 seconds.

Elizabeth I died OTD 1603, childless. She was succeeded by Mary Queen of Scots son, James - James I of England, VI of Scotland. Her last words were, “All my possessions for a moment of time". That puts acquisitiveness and the value of life into their correct places, doesn't it?

Viscount Bernard Montgomery of Alamein, British Field Marshall and Commander of the Eighth Army in WWII, died today in 1976.

English comedian Stan Laurel died today 1965. In 1961 he was given a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award for his pioneering work in comedy.

English poet, John Keats, died of tuberculosis today in 1821 in Rome, aged just 25. His last wish was to be placed under a tombstone bearing no name/date. Keats lover, Fanny Brawne stayed in mourning for six years after his death. Of her he said, "Love is my religion ... I could die for you."

Does Trump’s behaviour indicate that this may be true? Oh, wait, yes it does.

In a brutal Kremlin coup on the evening of 23 March 1801 (I’m a month ahead of myself - tant pis!) mentally unbalanced Tsar Paul I was strangled in his bed by a group of drunk Russian officers.

London's first tramcars began operating, along the Bayswater Road, from Notting Hill to Marble Arch today in 1861.

Elizabeth Taylor died in Los Angeles at the age of 79 today in 2011. She was wed more times than Henry VIII - eight marriages. One of the secrets of her beauty was that she had two rows of eyelashes, a bit like a camel.

Andrew Lloyd Webber was born today in 1948 - happy 77th birthday Lord Lloyd Webber.

Henry VIII's first baby boy, Henry Duke of Cornwall, died today in 1511.

NEW for @mississippifreepress.org: Russian President Vladimir Putin “is a war criminal who should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed,” says U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican. www.mississippifreepress.org/putin-should...

Good for Macron, telling the truth about one of the two evil superpowers now in the world.

Unnecessarily aggressive.

Costa prize winner @jackfairweather.bsky.social will be launching his new book at Waterstones Piccadilly in London on Monday 3rd March and you can come! More info here: www.waterstones.com/events/jack-...

Residents of Churchill, Canada, leave their cars unlocked to offer an escape for pedestrians who might encounter unfriendly (hangry) polar bears - not like these ones.

On her 60th birthday, Dame Margot Fonteyn was named 'prima ballerina assolutta' by the Imperial Russian Ballet, an award given only twice before. The epitome of a prima ballerina, Dame Margot, died in Panama today in 1991, aged 73. See her 1984 interview

After being arrested, imprisoned and tortured in 1592, English Jesuit priest, Robert Southwell was tried and convicted of high treason. At his execution OTD 1595 he prayed for Elizabeth I. As the crowd pitied him he was allowed to hang until he was dead before being disemboweled. Gut wrenching!

The Mayan calendar, dating back to at least the 5th century BC (and still in use) has five days a year that w are known as 'days with no name'.

Astatine is a very rare radioactive, unstable chemical element with the chemical symbol At and atomic number 85. It is estimated that there is less than one ounce of it on earth where it occurs naturally. It is black and solid with a metallic appearance and used in the treatment of thyroid cancer.

A new instant breakfast cereal went on sale in the US today in 1906. The Battle Creek Toasted Cornflake Co sold boxes of twice-baked wheat flakes! The company’s founder, William K. Kellogg, had helped develop the flakes 30 years earlier at a Seventh Day Adventist Sanitarium as a veggie health food.