18 JANUARY 1485: Marriage of Henry VII to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV. The marriage united the Houses of Lancaster and York. 1778: Captain Cook discovered Hawaii. He named them the Sandwich Islands, after Lord Sandwich, who was then first Lord of the Admiralty. 1779: Birth of Peter Mark Roget, English doctor and lexicographer, who produced his Thesaurus in 1852 after 47 years’ work. 1742: Birth of Daniel Webster, American statesman who in 1842 negotiated the Ashburton Treaty, setting the boundary between the US and Canada. 1818: Birth of George Palmer, of Huntley and Palmer biscuit manufacturers, who introduced the first biscuit tins. 1825: Liverpool opened an Institute for the Deaf and Dumb. 1848: Birth of Matthew Webb (‘Captain Webb’), the first person to swim the English Channel. 1849: Birth of Sir Edmund Barton, first prime minister of the Australian Commonwealth. 1871: Wilhelm of Prussia was proclaimed the first German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles. 1879: First England-v-Wales soccer match, England won 2-1 at Kennington Oval. 1882: Birth of Alan Alexander Milne, creator of ‘Winnie the Pooh’. 1884: Birth of Arthur Ransome, English children’s writer. 1888: Birth of Sir Thomas Sopwith, British aviation pioneer and the first pilot to land in the grounds of Windsor Castle. It was a Sopwith Camel which shot down Von Richthofen, the Red Baron. On Sopwith’s 100th birthday, a Sopwith Pup built after World War I, led a fly-past over his home in Hampshire. Blind by then, he could only hear the engines. 1879: England beat Wales 2-1 in their first international football match, played at the Oval, Kennington, London. 1879: The first edition of Boy’s Own Paper was published. During its 88-year history it published stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, G A Henty, and R M Ballantyne. The editor was S O Beeton, the husband of Mrs Beeton, the cookery book writer. 1911: Eugene Ely landed his Curtis pusher-bi-plane on a special, 120-ft platform on the US cruiser Pennsylvania, in San Francisco Bay. In so doing, he became the first pilot to land his aircraft on a ship. 1919: The Versailles Peace Conference opened, with Georges Clemenceau of France as chairman. 1934: The first arrest was made in Britain as a result of issuing pocket radios to police. A Brighton shoplifter was arrested just 15 minutes after stealing three coats. 1934: Birth of Raymond Briggs, English children’s writer who also illustrates his books. 1936: Rudyard Kipling, author and poet died aged 70. 1943: After a 16-month siege by the Germans, the Soviet army broke through and relieved the city of Leningrad. 1961: Peter Beardsley, Liverpool and Everton FC, born in Newcastle. 1972: Former Prime Minister Garfield Todd, and his daughter Judith, were placed under house arrest in Rhodesia by Ian Smith’s government, because of their campaign against legal independence for that country. 1982: In South Africa, Colonel ‘Mad’ Mike Hoare and four mercenaries were charged with hijacking an aircraft during an attempted coup in the Seychelles; the coup had South African backing. 1988: A Hindu used his own skin to make a pair of sandals and travelled across India to offer them to his family deity. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 11/01/02