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787 King Pepin of France (Pepin the Hunchback) introduced an organ into the Church of St Corneille at Compiegne.

1599 Death of Gabrielle d'Estrée (b. 1571), mistress of King Henry IV of France.

1633 Bananas went on sale in British shops for the first time.

1790 The US Congress inaugurated the first American patent system.

1802 Death of Erasmus Darwin (b. 1731), English physician, poet, early theorist of evolution, and grandfather of Charles Darwin.

"His skepticism was strongly pronounced. He believed in God, but not in Christianity. Even the Unitarians were too orthodox for him; indeed, he called Unitarianism a feather-bed to catch a falling Christian. His death was singularly peaceful. 'At about seven o'clock,' said his grandson, 'he was seized with a violent shivering fit, and went into the kitchen to warm himself; he retired to his study, lay on the sofa, became faint and cold, and was moved into an armchair, where, without pain or emotion of any kind, he expired a little before nine o'clock.' ['Charles Darwin,' Life of Erasmus Darwin, p. 126] A few years before, writing to a friend, he said, 'When I think of dying it is always without pain or fear.'"  Source

1809 Austria declared war on France and invaded Bavaria.

1810 'The Dragon Lady', Zheng Yi Sao, a Chinese pirate, surrendered herself and her 1,800 junks to the Chinese authorities.

1811 The Sydney to Parramatta road was officially opened. Twenty-one male convicts, without machinery, had built it in less than one year.

1815 The Mount Tambora eruption covered several islands with ash in Indonesia.

1816 The US government approved the creation of a Second Bank of the United States.

1820 The first British settlers to South Africa arrived, at Algoa Bay near Port Elizabeth in Cape Province.

1837 Australia: Governor Sir Richard Bourke proclaimed the site of Melbourne.

1841 Date of the publication of the first edition of The New York Tribune, launched by legendary newspaper man Horace Greeley.

1843 Eight labourers clearing land at Tufnell Park, in London, England, found four hundred gold sovereigns. After they divided the spoils, Mr Tufnell, lord of the manor, claimed the money as a treasure trove. Soon a man came forward, a brass-founder from Clerkenwell, who was able to prove that nine months before, in a state of mental delusion, he had buried the money. The courts allowed him to keep the fortune.

1848 Led by activist Feargus O'Connor, MP, many thousands of Chartists (mainly working class radicals) met on Kennington Common, London, to begin a procession to Parliament to present a rights petition.

The number of demonstrators varies depending on the source. O'Connor estimated 300,000; the government, 15,000; The Sunday Observer suggested 50,000 was more accurate; the unsympathetic Illustrated London News wrote, "A careful estimate formed by military persons of experience in such computations, represents the number present, both as spectators and members of the procession, at from 23,000 to 25,000".

Banners read:

Universal Liberty 
Universal Justice 
No Tax-hunting Parsons 
May our actions be guided by peace, truth, justice and love. 
These are the weapons we use to gain our rights Peace on earth; good will towards men Glory to God in the highest 
No Statecraft. No Priestcraft 
Liberty or Death 
United we stand; divided we fall 
By Union we conquer. 
Divided we perish 
Reform in Church and State 
We die to live 
No New Poor Law. No separation of man from wife, nor mother from children 
No tax upon bread 
Support our labour; not tax our industry   (Source)

The government put on a huge show of military and police force (8,000 soldiers and 150,000 special constables) to meet the apprehended danger, but the petition was presented without incident. Although only a minor incident, this event was for a long time commemorated as 'The Tenth of April'.  

The petition O'Connor presented to Parliament was claimed to have only 1,957,496 signatures – far short of the 5,706,000 O'Connor had stated and many of which were discovered to be forgeries. (The count was done by 13 clerks in 17 hours; O'Connor protested that such a count was not possible.) O'Connor has been accused of destroying the credibility of Chartism, but the movement continued strongly for some months afterwards before it petered out.

"The Chartism movement gained its name from its charter of six points as follows:-

• A Vote for every man twenty-one years of age, of sound mind and not undergoing punishment for crime. 

• The Ballot – to protect the elector in the exercise of his vote. 

• No Property Qualification for Members of Parliament - thus enabling the constituencies to return the man of their choice, be he rich or poor. 

• Payment of Members, thus enabling an honest tradesman, working man, or other person to serve a constituency, when taken from his business to attend to the interests of the country. 

• Equal Constituencies, securing the same amount of representation for the same number of electors, instead of allowing small constituencies to swamp the votes of larger ones. 

• Annual Parliament, thus presenting the most effectual check to bribery and intimidation, since though a constituency might be bought once in seven years (even with the ballot), no purse could buy a constituency (under a system of universal suffrage) in each ensuing twelve months; and since members, when elected for a year only, would not be able to defy and betray their constituencies as now. 

"The petition was presented to Parliament in 1839, 1842 and 1848, and each time it was rejected. Eventually it did become law with the exception of annual Parliaments."   Source

See also Peterloo Massacre, August 16, 1819 in the Book of Days

Account of the Events of April 10th, 1848 in London    Contemporary cartoons

Photo (one of the earliest taken)    How Punch changed sides

1849 Walter Hunt (1796 - 1859) of New York patented the safety pin. He gave the rights to a friend to pay off a $15 gambling debt.

Big Ben

1858 Big Ben, the bell in the world's most famous clock, was cast in London at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, which also cast America's Liberty Bell. The origin of the name is disputed, but it has been claimed that the huge bell was named after Sir Benjamin Hall (1802 - '67), the Commissioner of Works. This, however, is unlikely (see quote below).

It was designed by the lawyer and amateur horologist Edmund Beckett Denison, later Lord Grimthorpe, described by one writer as: "zealous but unpopular, self-accredited expert on clocks, locks, bells, buildings, as well as many branches of law, Denison was one of those people who are almost impossible as colleagues, being perfectly convinced that they know more than anybody about everything – as unhappily they often do."

Big Ben is actually the name of the bell hanging in the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster, the home of the Houses of Parliament in the UK, but vernacular has it otherwise (ie, that it is the clock itself). The bell weighs 13.762 tonnes (13 long tons 10 cwt 99 lb or 30,339 lb), with a striking hammer weighing 203 kg (4 cwt), and was originally tuned to E.

Whitechapel's famous bells also include the original Liberty Bell (1752), a bell of great cultural significance to Americans. A report dated March, 1753 states that after hanging, it became cracked at the first stroke; it was recast and once again became cracked in circumstances unknown.

"The bells of the Great Clock of Westminster rang across London for the first time on 31st May 1859, and Parliament had a special sitting to decide on a suitable name for the great hour bell. During the course of the debate, and amid the many suggestions that were made, Chief Lord of the Woods and Forests, Sir Benjamin Hall, a large and ponderous man known affectionately in the House as 'Big Ben', rose and gave an impressively long speech on the subject. When, at the end of this oratorical marathon, Sir Benjamin sank back into his seat, a wag in the chamber shouted out: 'Why not call him Big Ben and have done with it?' The house erupted in laughter; Big Ben had been named. This, at least, is the most commonly accepted story. However, according to the booklet written for the old Ministry of Works by Alan Phillips:

'Like other nice stories, this has no documentary support; Hansard failed to record the interjection. The Times had been alluding to "Big Ben of Westminster" since 1856. Probably, the derivation must be sought more remotely. The current champion of the prize ring was Benjamin Caunt, who had fought terrific battles with Bendigo, and who in 1857 lasted sixty rounds of a drawn contest in his final appearance at the age of 42. As Caunt at one period scaled 17 stone (238 lbs, or 108 kilogrammes), his nickname was Big Ben, and that was readily bestowed by the populace on any object the heaviest of its class. So the anonymous MP may have snatched at what was already a catchphrase.'

"In September, a mere two months after it officially went into service, Big Ben cracked. Once again Denison's belief that he knew more about bells than the experts was to blame for he had used a hammer more than twice the maximum weight specified by George Mears. Big Ben was taken out of service and for the next three years the hours were struck on the largest of the quarter-bells. Eventually, a lighter hammer was fitted, a square piece of metal chipped out of the soundbow, and the bell given an eighth of a turn to present an undamaged section to the hammer. This is the bell as we hear it today, the crack giving it its distinctive but less-than-perfect tone.
Not prepared to admit any error on his part, Denison befriended one of the Foundry's moulders, plied him with drink, and got him to bear false witness that it was poor casting, disguised with filler, that had caused the cracking."
Source: Whitechapel Bell Foundry

1864 Archduke Maximilian of Austria became Emperor of Mexico.

1865 American Civil War: A day after his surrender to Union forces, Confederate General Robert E Lee addressed his troops for the last time.

1872 The first Arbor Day was commemorated, USA.

1880 Sir William Cleaver Robinson became the 11^th governor of Western Australia.

1882 Death of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (b. 1828), English poet, painter and translator.

The son of an émigré Italian scholar, Rossetti was born in London, England. He was the brother of historian William Michael Rossetti  and poet Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894) and a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt. 

Their father, Gabriele Rossetti, was a political asylum seeker from Naples, and their mother, Frances Polidori, was the sister of Lord Byron's friend and physician, John William Polidori.

Rossetti's later years were darkened by drug addiction, and increasing mental instability. He died at Birchington-on-Sea, Kent, England.

1890 USA: 'Clubfoot', an 1,800-pound grizzly bear that killed many domesticated animals in Siskyou County, California, was finally shot.

1899 Baron Tennyson became South Australia's 14^th governor.

1909 Death of Algernon Charles Swinburne (b. 1909), English poet.

1917 During the World War I Battle of Arras, Vimy Ridge was taken by Canadian troops, with heavy casualties.

1919 Mexican Revolution: Mexican anarchist revolutionist Emiliano Zapata (b. 1879) was ambushed and assassinated by Mexican troops, age 29, at Morelos, Mexico. Zapata was one of the main – and best known – participants in the peasant uprisings against the central government's authority from 1910 until his death.

Born into a poor peasant family in 1883, Zapata united Mexican peasants behind agrarian reform with the motto 'land, liberty, and death to the hacendados'. From his base in the southern state of Morelos, Zapata organized guerrilla bands and led devastating attacks on haciendas and sugar refineries, joining forces with Francisco Madero in 1911 to oust Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz. But once Madero became president and ignored the landless peasants, Zapata united with Pancho Villa to advance the revolution. However, a string of military defeats forced Zapata to confine his struggle to an area south of Mexico City.

Source: The Daily Bleed

1921 Sun Yat-sen was elected president of China.

1926 According to the Superman comic, on this day Martha and Jonathan Kent adopted Kal-El, renaming him Clark.

1931 Death, due to pneumonia and cirrhosis of the liver, of Khalil Gibran (b. 1883), Lebanese poet and painter.

1932 Paul von Hindenburg was elected president of Germany, with nineteen million votes to Adolf Hitler's thirteen million.

1938 Édouard Daladier became Prime Minister of France

1939 American radio quiz show Dr. I.Q., the Mental Banker debuted.

1939 Glenn Miller and his band recorded 'Little Brown Jug'.

1944 Henry Ford II (b. 1917) was named executive vice president of Ford Motor Company.

1944 Brigadier General Charles de Gaulle became commander-in-chief of the Free French forces, ousting General Henri Giraud.

1957 The Suez Canal was reopened for all shipping after having been closed for three months.

1959 Akihito, future Emperor of Japan, married Michiko (née Michiko Shoda), a commoner.

1959 A work stoppage against nuclear weapons was held in Britain.

1960 The US Senate passed the Civil Rights Bill.

1962 Stuart Sutcliffe, bass player with the (Silver) Beatles, died of a brain haemorrhage, in Hamburg.

1966 British writer, Evelyn Waugh, died, aged 62, at Combe Florey House, near Taunton, Somerset. Photographer Cecil Beaton surmised that the English author "died of snobbery".

1970 Vietnam War: 48 per cent of the Americans polled in a Gallup Poll approved of US President Richard M Nixon's Vietnam policy, while 41 per cent disapproved.

1971 Cold War: In an attempt to thaw relations with the United States, the People's Republic of China hosted the US table tennis team for a weeklong visit. The strategy was termed 'Ping Pong Diplomacy' by the media at the time, and attention was ironically given to photographs of refugees in the China Sea, fleeing China by means of flotation devices made of ping pong balls.

1972 Twenty days after having been kidnapped in Buenos Aires, Oberdan Sallustro was executed by communist guerrillas.

1972 Vietnam War: For the first time since November 1967, American B-52 bombers reportedly began bombing North Vietnam.

1974 Golda Meir resigned as Prime Minister of Israel.

1974 The American Boccaccio Society was founded, for the study of Giovanni Boccaccio, Italian author of the Decameron.

1979 Idi Amin fled Kampala, Uganda.

1987 A record (at the time) award of $2.2 million was made to 20-year-old paraplegic Steven Watson of Sydney, Australia, for injuries he received in 1982 while playing school Rugby League.

1989 Clashes broke out between police and rioters in Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR.

1991 Two years to the day after bloody clashes between nationalist rioters and police in the capital Tbilisi, the parliament of Georgia voted to secede from the Soviet Union.

1997 Kiama, New South Wales, Australia: The bodies of Sydney cousins, Afghan refugees Masuda Khushbakht, 16, and Khatera Nawabi, 20, both relatives of four of the seven people who died in the Kiama Blowhole tragedy of July 11, 1992, were found floating in the ocean off Kiama. The young women had been dead for just a few hours.

1998 The Belfast Agreement was signed.

2006 Hundreds of thousands protested HR 4437 (aka the 'Sensenbrenner Bill') in 102 cities across the United States of America.

2006 United States immigration reform protests

Tomorrow: The Elephant Man

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