Morning, Clunkers!
Happy Apple day! 🍎 🍏 It’s the annual celebration of apples and orchards, the day for cookery demonstrations, identification of obscure varieties, apple juice, cider and snap apple.
On this day in 1805, the Royal Navy under the command of Admiral Lord Nelson whupped the combined French and Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve at the Battle of Trafalgar.
1854, Florence Nightingale and her staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War. She was a taskmaster but she laid the foundation of nursing as an honourable profession with her establishment of a nursing school - the first non-religious one in the world - that is now part of King’s College, London. New nurses in the USA take the Nightingale Pledge, the nursing equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath.
Her social reforms included improving healthcare for all sections of British society, campaigning for better hunger relief in India, helping to abolish prostitution laws that punished women disproportionately, and opening up the workplace to more woman.
In 1945, Frenchwomen voted for the first time, 27 years after British women finally secured that long overdue right.
The Aberfan Disaster took place on this day in 1966 when heavy rain caused the tip to slide downhill as a slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School and other buildings. A terrible tragedy. I will just leave these here 💐
The Clarkston Explosion also took place on this day in 1971, killing 22 people and injuring 100 others at a shopping centre near Glasgow. A build-up of gas in underground space beneath the Clarkston Toll ships caused by a gas main link was the cause - customers and shop staff has reported the strong smell the day before - and Scottish Gas engineers were investigating but the gas ignited and exploded. Victims included the passengers on a passing bus. I will leave these here too 💐
Ever wondered what the exact definition of a metre is? Well, in 1983, it was defined as the distance that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. Oh yes. You can commit that to memory if you want. Me? I can’t even keep up with what happens in Midsomer Murders so there’s no chance.
Happy birthday, Judge Judy, 80 today.
It would have been Mandy Rice-Davies’ birthday today too but she died in 2014, aged 70. She made the famous riposte, "Well he would, wouldn't he?", when Lord Astor denied having having had an affair with her, or even having met her, during Stephen Ward’s trial following the Profumo Affair. I quite liked Mandy Rice-Davies. She was a survivor of the patriarchy and went on to become a successful businesswoman. She once described her life as "one slow descent into respectability". You and me, Mandy, you and me.
Here’s to you, Florence and Mandy (where else could they be side by side but on here?) 🥂