General Chat

For those who are interested these are just some of the events that occurred on this day in our countries history :-)

Some events that occurred in the past on the 3rd of March in these years:-

1284 The Statute of Rhuddlan (also known as the Statutes of Wales) was enacted 'On This Day'. It introduced the English common law system to Wales, allowing the King to appoint royal officials such as sheriffs, coroners, and bailiffs to collect taxes and administer justice.

1847 The birth, in Edinburgh, of Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell. He was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone.

1857 The Second Opium War: Britain and France declared war on China, using the killing of a missionary as the pretext.

1869 Sir Henry Wood, English conductor, was born. He is best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms.

1894 Gladstone resigned as Prime Minister, aged 84, but continued to sit as an MP until the General Election.

1934 The largest ever English football crowd outside Wembley watched the match between Manchester United and Stoke City. Spectators numbered 84,569.

1943 World War II: 173 people were killed in a crush while trying to enter an air-raid shelter at Bethnal Green tube station, in London.

1955 A statement was made that London would become a smokeless zone at the beginning of October.

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

1974 A Turkish airliner en route to London crashed near Paris, killing all 345 people on board. Among the victims were 200 passengers, many of them British, who had been transferred from British Airways flights cancelled because of a strike by engineers at London airport.

1982 The Queen opened the new £153m Barbican Arts Centre

1985 NUM members (National Union of Mineworkers) returned to work after their costly year long strike, without a peace deal being won by their leader Arthur Scargill.

1991 The Queen needed three stitches in her hand after intervening in a corgi fight.

1995 Camilla Parker Bowles and her husband Andrew divorced. She married Prince Charles on 9th April 2005.

1995 A bill which would ban hunting with hounds in England and Wales became the first such proposal to get a second reading in parliament.

1995 It was announced that British police were to be issued stab proof vests in dangerous operations.

2000 Tens of thousands of football fans paid their last respects to Sir Stanley Matthews, regarded as one of the greatest players of the English game, who died on 23rd February.

Remember most of that.

Wales had a superior legal system before Rhuddlan - laws of Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good). Can't remember back to 1284, but it still upsets some of us.

No speeding points, no letting people off lightly for horrible crimes. Bring back laws of Hywel Dda :-D

Stanley Matthews - King of the Dribble.

Went a few times to watch him play against Wolves in 1950's. And he was always removed from their line-up at last minute - but only after the ground was full. :-( :-(

Probably wanted to play, but was scared of what Bill Shorthouse and Ron Flowers would do to him. :-) Wolves had real teeth in those days. Now all they seem to do is dribble. :-(

UK Number 1 Singles on March 3rd

March 3rd 2006 "Sorry" by Madonna
March 3rd 2005 "Over and Over" by Nelly featuring Tim McGraw
March 3rd 2004 "Mysterious Girl" by Peter Andre
March 3rd 2003 "Beautiful" by Christina Aguilera
March 3rd 2002 "Anything Is Possible / Evergreen" by Will Young
March 3rd 2001 "Whole Again" by Atomic Kitten
March 3rd 2000 "Pure Shores" by All Saints
March 3rd 1999 "...Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears
March 3rd 1998 "Frozen" by Madonna
March 3rd 1997 "Don't Speak" by No Doubt
March 3rd 1996 "How Deep Is Your Love" by Take That
March 3rd 1995 "Think Twice" by Céline Dion
March 3rd 1994 "Without You" by Mariah Carey
March 3rd 1993 "No Limit" by 2 Unlimited
March 3rd 1992 "Stay" by Shakespear's Sister
March 3rd 1991 "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash
March 3rd 1990 "Dub Be Good To Me" by Beats International featuring Lindy Layton
March 3rd 1989 "Belfast Child" by Simple Minds
March 3rd 1988 "I Should Be So Lucky" by Kylie Minogue
March 3rd 1987 "Stand By Me" by Ben E. King
March 3rd 1986 "Chain Reaction" by Diana Ross
March 3rd 1985 "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" by Dead Or Alive
March 3rd 1984 "99 Red Balloons" by Nena
March 3rd 1983 "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson
March 3rd 1982 "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by Tight Fit
March 3rd 1981 "Shaddap You Face" by Joe Dolce Music Theatre
March 3rd 1980 "Atomic" by Blondie
March 3rd 1979 "Tragedy" by The Bee Gees
March 3rd 1978 "Take A Chance On Me" by ABBA
March 3rd 1977 "When I Need You" by Leo Sayer
March 3rd 1976 "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" by The Four Seasons
March 3rd 1975 "Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)" by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
March 3rd 1974 "Devil Gate Drive" by Suzi Quatro
March 3rd 1973 "Cum on Feel the Noize" by Slade
March 3rd 1972 "Son of my Father" by Chicory Tip
March 3rd 1971 "Baby Jump" by Mungo Jerry
March 3rd 1970 "Wand'rin' Star" by Lee Marvin
March 3rd 1969 "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?" by Peter Sarstedt
March 3rd 1968 "Cinderella Rockefella" by Esther & Abi Ofarim
March 3rd 1967 "Release Me (And Let Me Love Again)" by Engelbert Humperdinck
March 3rd 1966 "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" by Nancy Sinatra
March 3rd 1965 "I'll Never Find Another You" by The Seekers
March 3rd 1964 "Anyone Who Had A Heart" by Cilla Black
March 3rd 1963 "The Wayward Wind" by Frank Ifield
March 3rd 1962 "Rock-A-Hula Baby/Can't Help Falling In Love" by Elvis Presley
March 3rd 1961 "Walk Right Back/Ebony Eyes" by Everly Brothers
March 3rd 1960 "Why" by Anthony Newley
March 3rd 1959 "As I Love You" by Shirley Bassey
March 3rd 1958 "Magic Moments" by Perry Como
March 3rd 1957 "Young Love" by Tab Hunter
March 3rd 1956 "Memories are Made Of This" by Dean Martin
March 3rd 1955 "Softly Softly" by Ruby Murray
March 3rd 1954 "Oh Mein Papa" by Eddie Calvert
March 3rd 1953 "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes" by Perry Como

Just sung Wand'rin Star (1970). In pain now as have swallowed my Adam's Apple.
Now will have a go at singing 99 red balloons ;-)

Eeyore could you please tell me what song was number one in 1907 ....3rd March was my grand dads birthday and I,m sure it would be something to suit an miserable old git!!!!

Eeyore13, lots of memories there ;-)

Kemp...I can't find anything :-(

Well Thank you for looking !! ;-) :-S

Pomp & Circumstances seems to have arrived about then- :-D

My dad and mil - K-k-k-k-k Katy (1917)

1907 - I Do Like to Be Beside The Seaside :-D

March 3rd 1991 The Queen needed three stitches in her hand after intervening in a corgi fight.

Was she planning to visit Rome that week perhaps?

Some events that occurred in the past on the 4th March in these years:-

1681 King Charles II granted a Royal Charter to William Penn, entitling him to establish a colony in North America called Pennsylvania.

1790 The death of Flora MacDonald, the Scottish Jacobite heroine who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie (the Stuart claimant to the British throne) escape after the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

1824 The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) was formed) by Sir William Hillary.

1882 The first electric trams in Britain ran; from Leytonstone in East London.

1890 The Forth Railway Bridge in Scotland was opened by the Prince of Wales. The bridge is more than one and a half miles long and took six years to build.

1912 Suffragettes, demanding votes for women, they smashed every window they passed in Knightsbridge as a protest at government inaction.

1967 The first gas from the North Sea was piped ashore near Durham.

1969 The Kray twins, Ronald and Reginald, were found guilty of murder.

1972 Kenneth Grimes, from Hampshire became the first individual to win more than £500,000 on the football pools.

1974 Edward Heath resigned and Harold Wilson becomes Prime Minister for a third time.

1975 Charlie Chaplin was knighted after a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

Some events that occurred in the past on the 5th March in these years:-

1133 The birth of King Henry II, who was to become the first Plantagenet king of England.

1461 Wars of the Roses: Lancastrian King Henry VI was deposed by his Yorkist cousin, who then became King Edward IV.

1770 Five people were killed when British troops fired into a crowd of demonstrators in Boston. It became known as the Boston Massacre.

1824 The First Anglo-Burmese War: The British officially declared war on Burma.

1850 Robert Stephenson's Britannia bridge, linking Bangor, Wales to the Isle of Anglesey, was opened. The bridge was destroyed by fire on 23rd May 1970. The reconstructed bridge opened in 1980.

1900 The British Government was offered peace proposals to end the Boer War, but rejected them.

1936 The British fighter plane the Spitfire made its first test flight from Eastleigh, Southampton, powered by a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. The Spitfire was first put into service with the Royal Air Force in 1938 and they remained in active service (as photo reconnaissance planes) with the Royal Air Force until 1954.

1943 The first flight of the Gloster Meteor jet aircraft. It was the first British jet fighter and the Allies first operational jet. The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turbojet engines, developed by Sir Frank Whittle.

1946 Prime Minister Winston Churchill made his "Sinews of Peace" speech in which he said "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."

1966 BOAC Flight 911 (Speedbird 911), a round-the-world flight operated by British Overseas Airways Corporation disintegrated and crashed on Mount Fuji, Japan, killing all 113 passengers and 11 crew members. It was the third fatal passenger airline accident in Tokyo in a month.

2001 PC Alison Armitage (aged 29) became the first female officer in the Greater Manchester Police force to be killed in the line of duty since it was formed in 1974.

2002 Prime Minister Tony Blair was urged by 39 MP's not to back military action in Iraq.

Happy 77th Spitfire.

What a shame they didn't find any buried Spitfires in Burma.

I live not far from Biggin Hill Airport and at the entrance gate to St George's Royal Air Force Chapel of Remembrance, there is a full scale replica of a Hurricane on one side of the gate and a full scale replica of a Spitfire on the other side. The gate is on the main road so you get a clear view of them :-)

I remember when they had a real Hurricane and Spitfire at the chapel gate. The Hurricane is now at the RAF Museum at Cosford and the wings of the Spitfire were used to refurbish one of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Spitfires. The rest of the Spitfire is in store.