![]() ![]() Of the first 40 Post Office pilots, three died in crashes in 1919 and nine more were killed in 1920.įor several years, the air mail operated only in daytime. They had no radios, no navigation aids, and no instruments. The first mail airplanes were mostly war surplus de Havilland DH-4s. Post Office pilots and airplanes then took over, built the air mail into a nationwide network, and serviced it for the next nine years. ![]() He expanded his father’s chocolate business and established a model village for his workers at Bourneville.ġ876: The first carpet-sweeper was patented by Melville Bissell of Grand Rapids in Michigan.ġ881: James Abram Garfield, 20th US president, died of wounds suffered when he was shot in July.ġ258: Salisbury Cathedral was consecrated.ġ854: The Battle of Alma, fought by the British against the Russians in the Crimean War, produced six winners of the Victoria Cross.ġ917: The first RSPCA animal clinic was opened in Liverpool.ġ931: Britain came off the gold standard.ġ944: Guy Gibson, British pilot and Victoria Cross winner for his “Dambusters” action against the Mohne and Eder dams, was killed when his aircraft crashed in Holland on its way back to base.ġ9BC: Virgil, the Roman poet, died and his tomb in Naples became a shrine.ġ327: Edward II was murdered in the dungeon of Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire to ensure his son Edward III could succeed to the throne.ġ745: Bonnie Prince Charlie and his Jacobite army defeated the English at the Battle of Prestonpans.ġ792: France was declared a Republic and the monarchy abolished.ġ964: Malta became independent, after 164 years of British rule.US air mail operations began with the Army Air Service, which flew a regular route between New York and Washington as a demonstration for three months in 1918. Selfridge was the world’s first military aviation fatality.ġ709: Samuel Johnson, poet and lexicographer, was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, the son of a bookseller.ġ810: Chile revolted and gained independence from Spain.ġ851: The New York Times was first published.ġ948: 7,000 tons of food supplies and petrol were airlifted into Berlin by British and American aircraft, defying a three-month Russian blockade.ġ949: The milk ration was reduced to two pints a week per person.ġ970: Rock star Jimi Hendrix died in an ambulance on the way to hospital, apparently from a drug overdose.ġ981: France abolished execution by guillotine.ġ356: The English, led by Edward, the Black Prince, defeated the French at the Battle of Poitiers in the Hundred Years’ War.ġ839: George Cadbury was born in Birmingham. Pilot Orville Wright was also seriously injured. It was the first building in Britain to be officially preserved.ġ861: The Post Office Savings Bank was instituted.ġ908: The American car firms Buick and Oldsmobile merged to form General Motors.ġ745: The Jacobites, under the Young Pretender, occupied Edinburgh.ġ827: Wides in cricket were first scored in the Sussex v Kent game at Brighton.ġ894: A Gaiety Girl opened at Day’s Theatre, New York, the first British musical on Broadway.ġ908: Lt Thomas Selfridge of the US Army Signal Corps was killed in a plane crash in Fort Meyer, Virginia. 1387: The future Henry V of England was born in Monmouth Castle in Wales.ġ620: The Pilgrim Fathers set sail from Plymouth in the Mayflower.ġ847: The United Shakespeare Company bought the house in which Shakespeare was born at Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire for £3,000. ![]()
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