Elly
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July
Jul 15, 2005 5:26:56 GMT 10
Post by Elly on Jul 15, 2005 5:26:56 GMT 10
July 8
July 8, 1249 The death of King Alexander II, son of William the Lion and Ermengarde de Beaumont, and succession by his seven year old son, Alexander III, who reigned until his untimely death in 1286. For many reasons, the reign of Alexander III is generally considered a 'Golden Age' in Scottish history. The Viking threat was finally ended by the destruction of their fleet near Largs in 1263 with the resulting addition of the Hebrides Islands to the kingdom. The unwarlike Henry III, who become Alexander's father in law with the 1251 marriage to Princess Margaret, was King of England and relative peace existed between the two kingdoms. Above all, Scotland's ports, especially Berwick on Tweed, were engaged in profitable trading with the Baltic, Germany, and the Low Countries. It was, however, the calm before the storm as Scotland would become enmeshed in four centuries of war and destruction after Alexander's death without a male heir. Many rivals, both serious and frivolous, for the throne appeared, most notably the powerful Bruce and Comyn families, but none more sinister than the English king, Edward I, otherwise known as Longshanks, son of Henry III and brother in law to Alexander, whose intent, in the end, was to reduce Scotland to a mere appendage of her more powerful southern neighbor.
July 8, 1296 King John Balliol abdicated at Montrose.
July 8, 1647 Frances Stuart, Scottish aristocrat and mistress of Charles II, was born. A favourite of King Charles II, she became known as "la belle Stuart". She survived a scandal engineered by the king's number-one mistress, the duchess of Cleveland, who was worried she might be supplanted in the king's affections. She was briefly banished from court, but returned to favour when the king nursed her back to health after catching smallpox. Stuart earned an enduring place in history when she was chosen by the King to sit as the model for Britannia, her profile appearing on British coins into the modern day.
July 8, 1790 Forth and Clyde Canal between the rivers Forth and Clyde, 22 years in the making, opened.
July 8, 1822 Sir Henry Raeburn, portrait painter, died.
July 8, 1823 On this day the renowned artist, Sir Henry Raeburn, died. Raeburn was known as the "Scottish Reynolds", and became famous for his portraits of Scottish notables. Aside from his portrait of "Rev Robert Walker skating", his other well-known works include "Colonel Alasdair Mcdonnell of Glengarry" and "Portrait of Neil Gow."
July 8, 1930 First run of the Bennie Railplane at Milngavie near Glasgow on a test track. Despite initial enthusiasm for the concept, it was never developed.
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Elly
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July
Jul 15, 2005 5:28:02 GMT 10
Post by Elly on Jul 15, 2005 5:28:02 GMT 10
July 9
July 9, 1867 Queens Park Football Club was formed, the first senior club in Scotland. The club dominated the early days of Scottish football, supplying all 11 players to the first ever Scottish international side. With the advent of professionalism, the club determined to retain its amateur status and as a result slid down the leagues. Nicknamed the Spiders, Queen's Park are still the only amateur team in the Scottish senior football set-up, and still play their games at Hampden Park, Glasgow, the home of the Scottish national side.
July 9, 1857 Madeleine Smith acquitted of murder and "not proven" on another charge of attempted poisoning after a notorious trial.
July 9, 1938 Gas masks issued to the civilian population in anticipation of the Second World War.
July 9, 1845 Gilbert, Lord Minto, the Scottish colonial politician, was born. Minto served as Governor-General of Canada between 1898 and 1905, and as Viceroy of India, 1905-1910. His reform of the electoral laws in India, by providing for separate Hindu and Muslim electorates, was seen as enlightened policy at the time, but has since been criticised for hastening the partition of the sub-continent into two states.
July 9, 1947 Glasgow Zoological Society opened a zoo at Calderpark. Glasgow Zoo eventually closed in 2003.
July 9, 1911 Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, the Chief of Clan Fraser, Scottish aristocrat and soldier was born. Fraser, a Second World War hero, played a key role in the development of the commandos and was actively involved in both the Dieppe Raid, 1942, and D-Day landings, 1944.
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Elly
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July
Jul 15, 2005 5:29:17 GMT 10
Post by Elly on Jul 15, 2005 5:29:17 GMT 10
July 10
July 10, 1451 King James III born at Stirling.
July 10, 1559 King Henri of France died. Mary Queen of Scots' husband, Francis, becomes King of France.
July 10, 1576 First Bible (New Testament) printed in Scotland by Bassandyne.
July 10, 1633 Sailing ship "Blessing of Burntisland" carrying gold, jewellery and silver plate belonging to King Charles I, sank in the Firth of Forth
July 10, 1802 Robert Chambers, the Scottish naturalist and publisher, was born. Author of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation', a pioneering work on the theory of evolution, he was also co-founder, with his brother William, of 'Chambers Encyclopaedia.
July 10, 1989 Glasgow Rangers signed Maurice Johnston. One of the last bastions of Scottish Protestant sectarianism, Rangers shocked many of its supporters when the club, under manager Graeme Souness, signed Maurice Johnston from the French club, Nantes, for £1.5m. Johnston had not only played for arch-rivals Celtic, but was the first well-known Roman Catholic player to sign for Rangers in modern times.
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Elly
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July
Jul 15, 2005 5:30:42 GMT 10
Post by Elly on Jul 15, 2005 5:30:42 GMT 10
July 11
July 11, 1274 Robert the Bruce was born in Turnberry Castle, Ayrshire. The heir of the Earl of Carrick, Bruce's father was one of Scotland's leading nobles and his grandfather was one of the leading contenders to the throne left empty by the death of Margaret of Norway. After the death of William Wallace, Bruce led the campaign to regain Scottish independence, culminating in his stunning victory at the Battle of Bannockburn in June 1314.
July 11, 1370 Marjory Stewart, the daughter of King Robert II, married John Dunbar, the first Earl of Moray, against her father's consent. Dunbar died after injuring himself at a tournament in London in 1391, but their son Thomas succeeded the title.
July 11, 1924 Eric Liddell (later famous as a result of the film "Chariots of Fire") won Olympic 400 metres sprint in Paris.
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Elly
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July
Jul 15, 2005 5:32:35 GMT 10
Post by Elly on Jul 15, 2005 5:32:35 GMT 10
July 12
July 12, 1570 Earl of Lennox appointed Regent of Scotland.
July 12, 1690 William III defeated James VII in the Battle of the Boyne, Ireland.
July 12, 1698 A small fleet of five ships set out for the Isthmus of Darien in Panama carrying Scotland's hopes of founding a new empire on board. The driving force behind the expedition was William Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England. The expedition arrived on 30th October 1698 and the first act of the pioneers was to bury those among them who had died en route. Within seven months of their arrival a third of the 1200 who had travelled were dead and the consensus among those left was to abandon the venture.
July 12, 1803 Rev Thomas Guthrie, founder of the Ragged Schools, was born. After founding a savings bank at his first parish in Angus, Guthrie, shocked by the poverty surrounding his new charge in Edinburgh's old town, founded a "Ragged School", a privately funded school intended to give the poor a good education on Protestant lines. This model was succesfully copied across the country and provided the basis for the state industrial schools. Guthrie was also active during the Disruption, becoming a leading light in the new Free Church and serving as its moderator in 1862.
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Elly
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July
Jul 15, 2005 5:34:12 GMT 10
Post by Elly on Jul 15, 2005 5:34:12 GMT 10
July 13
July 13, 1174 King William surprised and captured by the English at Alnwick.
July 13, 1249 Alexander III, King of Scots, was crowned at Scone. Crowned at the age of eight, Alexander ruled Scotland for 35 years. His reign became known as "The Golden Age" as it was a largely peaceful and prosperous time for the Scots, with only a minor conflict with Norway over the Inner Hebrides to mar it. The end to his reign was a disaster for the nation, however, as he died without issue, and the subsequent infighting amongst the nobility led to English overlordship.
July 13, 1680 The last clan battle fought between the Campbells and the Sinclairs at Altimarlach near Wick in northeast Scotland. In contention was ownership of the Sinclair estates in Caithness as George Sinclair, Sixth Earl of Caithness, had died in 1676 without a male heir and greatly in debt to John Campbell, Earl of Glenorchy. A Sinclair kinsman, George of Keiss, resisted Glenorchy’s claim and seized the disputed territory in 1679. The following year, backed by King Charles II and the Scottish legal establishment, Glenorchy marched on Caithness with a force of over a 1,000 Campbell clansmen, plus a detachment of royal troops, commanded by his kinsman Robert Campbell of Glen Lyon, later to become infamous as the perpetrator of the massacre at Glencoe. On 12 July, Keiss mustered hundreds of his supporters on the banks of the River Wick. They were heartened when the Campbell force apparently withdrew and subsequently distracted by a ship laden with whiskey that ran aground. The unsuspecting Sinclairs celebrated their good fortune with excessive drink and the next morning were thus attacked and brutally slaughtered with so many dead it is said that the Campbells could cross the river on the bodies without getting wet. Keiss, however, was not among these and escaped to wage an effective guerrilla war against the Campbells. He also had friends in high places, most specifically James, Duke of York, brother and heir of Charles II. After closer investigation to Glenorchy’s highly irregular claim, the king granted him the Earldom of Breadalbane as compensation and restored the Earldom of Caithness to the Sinclair family.
July 13, 1820 Today in July 1820 saw the commencement of the trial, in Stirling, of the Radicals captured at the Battle of Bonnymuir. All those accused faced the charge of High Treason and two of the accused, John Baird and Andrew Hardie, were subsequently executed on 8 September 1820.
July 13, 1834 Botanist and explorer David Douglas died in Hawaii.
July 13, 1868 Scottish Reform Act passed
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Elly
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July
Jul 15, 2005 20:06:01 GMT 10
Post by Elly on Jul 15, 2005 20:06:01 GMT 10
July 14
July 14, 1648 Cavalry units from the Scottish Engager army clashed with Lambert's Parliamentarian cavalry at Penrith. The Engager forces were commanded by the Duke of Hamilton, who made several mistakes in planning and executing his advance south, and quickly made themselves unpopular with the local population for their plundering and excesses.
July 14,1794 The birth of John Gibson Lockhart, writer, editor, critic, and son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott at Cambusnethan in Lanarkshire . The son of a Presbyterian minister, he grew up in Glasgow and was educated at the University of Glasgow, 1805-1808, and Balliol College, Oxford, 1808-1813, and began to practice law in Edinburgh in 1816. He was, however, more interested in literary pursuits and became a contributing editor of Blackwood’s Magazine in 1817 in which he established a reputation for both wit and sarcasm. He became close friends with Sir Walter Scott in 1818 and married his daughter Sophia in 1820. In 1819 he published a clever sketch of Edinburgh titled Peter’s Letters To His Kinfolk, followed by a successful series of novels. From 1825 until 1853 he was in London as editor of the Quarterly Review and wrote a series of biographies: Life of Burns in 1828, Life of Napoleon in 1829, and his magnum opus Memoirs of the Life of Scott in 1837-1838. Like Sir Walter, he died at Abbotsford, on 25 November 1854, and was buried near Scott at Dryburgh Abbey.
July 14, 1798 United States' Consulate first opened in Edinburgh.
July 14, 1820 John Gibson Lockhart, the Scottish biographer, was born. Lockhart's first venture into the world of literature was as co-editor of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine which he transformed into one of the leading periodicals of its day. Son-in-law of the novelist, Sir Walter Scott, he himself was also a noted novelist, writing, among other works, a depiction of the temptation of a rural minister, Adam Blair. However, he is best known as a biographer, particularly of his father-in-law, Walter Scott, although he also wrote noted biographies of Burns and Napoleon.
July 14, 1927 Scottish National War Memorial opened.
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Elly
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July
Jul 17, 2005 0:59:24 GMT 10
Post by Elly on Jul 17, 2005 0:59:24 GMT 10
July 15
July 15, 1889 National Portrait Gallery for Scotland opened in Edinburgh
July 15, 1909 William Gemmell Cochran, Scottish mathematician, was born in Rutherglen. Cochran is highly regarded in the field of statistics, having carried out fundamental work on the design of agricultural experiments, forecasting the effects of weather on crop yields and sample survey design. During the Second World War he worked in America, examining probabilities of hits in naval warfare, and by 1945 he was working on bombing raid strategies.
July 15, 1914 Gavin Maxwell, the Scottish novelist and naturalist, was born. Maxwell was born into a family of minor aristocracy and grew up in rural Wigtownshire, where he acquired a lifelong love of nature. During the war, Maxwell served as a Commando instructor on Arisaig, which fired a love for the Highlands. Following the war he turned to writing, after the failure of a basking shark fishery. He is best known as the author of 'Ring of Bright Water', a touching tale of his attempts to establish an otter sanctuary in Sandaig.
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Elly
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July
Jul 19, 2005 7:53:11 GMT 10
Post by Elly on Jul 19, 2005 7:53:11 GMT 10
July 16
July 16, 1309 James Stewart, High Steward of Scotland, died.
July 16, 1328 David II, son of Robert I (the Bruce) married Joan, sister of Edward III (he was 4, she was 7).
July 16, 1832 On 16 July 1832 31 Shetland "sixerns" and a total of 105 crewmen were lost in a storm. The event is still remembered as "The Bad Day". A London Distress Fund was set up and raised the sum of £3000. The money was raised for the dependants of the crofter-fishermen lost. The crew of one boat did manage a lucky escape from the storm as they were picked up by a passing American sloop. However, the Captain of the American vessel refused to alter his course to Philadelphia and so, despite passing close to Orkney, the survivors had to cross the Atlantic and endure a further six months away from home before returning.
July 16, 1970 13th Commonwealth Games opened in Edinburgh.
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Elly
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July
Jul 19, 2005 7:56:25 GMT 10
Post by Elly on Jul 19, 2005 7:56:25 GMT 10
July 17
July 17, 1652 Great Fire of Glasgow, destroying nearly one third of the city.
July 17, 1695 The Bank of Scotland was established under an Act of the Scottish Parliament. Fittingly, it was a Scot, William Paterson, who founded the Bank of England, since it was an Englishman, John Holland, who was largely responsible for the foundation of the Bank of Scotland. Holland was a successful merchant in the City of London, and was responsible for drawing up the Constitution of the bank and the Act which was passed into the Statute Book. He also served as the Bank's first Governor.
July 17, 1790 Economist, Adam Smith, died in Edinburgh. Regarded as the father of the science of Economics and author of the pioneering work, 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations', Smith was a leading exponenent of free-market economics, arguing that the "invisible hand" of self-interest guides the most efficient use of resources in an economy, and that unbridled market forces would bring about a balanced society.
July 17, 1895 The east coast express train from London to Aberdeen set a record time of 10 hours and 21 minutes for the 540 miles.
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Elly
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July
Jul 19, 2005 7:58:08 GMT 10
Post by Elly on Jul 19, 2005 7:58:08 GMT 10
July 18
July 18, 1290 Treaty of Birgham whereby Edward I guaranteed survival of Scotland "separate, apart and free without subjection to the English nation".
July 18, 1593 King James VI was taken prisoner by the Earl of Bothwell at Holyrood. The king remained as Bothwell's prisoner throughout July and August, as Bothwell enjoyed the support of Elizabeth of England. However, once James had managed to extricate himself from Bothwell's clutches, he determined to exact revenge, issuing a strong rebuke to Elizabeth for supporting his rival and crushing Bothwell's forces on the field of battle.
July 18, 1792 John Paul Jones, naval hero of the American Revolution, died; he was born in Kircudbrightshire in 1747.
July 18, 1872 Voting by secret ballot was introduced for the first time.
July 18, 1948 Jim Watt, Scottish boxer was born. After a successful amateur career, Watt turned professional in 1968 and quickly rose to the top of the lightweight division before adding British and European titles to his collection during the 1970s. The pinnacle of his career came when he became world lightweight champion between 1979 and 1981. On his retiral Watt had won 38 of his 48 professional bouts.
July 18, 1999 Paul Lawrie won the Open Golf Championship at Carnoustie after a three-way play-off against Jean van de Veldt of France and Justin Leonard of the US.
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July
Jul 19, 2005 21:12:11 GMT 10
Post by krystal on Jul 19, 2005 21:12:11 GMT 10
Very interesting reading Elly!
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