Anyone with even a passing interest in the relationship between politician and newspaper publishers has knows for many months that it was only a matter of time before the inept cover up of the illegal practices carried on by, or on behalf of, the News of the World would unravel. So it has proven this [...]
There is nothing on Earth quite like the Isle of Man TT Races. They capture the imagination in a way no other race can and the sheer spectacle and uniqueness ensure that every May and June many thousands of fans flock to the Island – many with their own bikes – to revel in the [...]
On 30th July 1930 Uruguay won the inaugural soccer World Cup by beating Argentina 4-2 in the final, which was held, like all the matches, in Montevideo. On 30th July 1966 England beat West Germany in that year’s World Cup Final held at Wembley Stadium in London. In 1928 FIFA (the football world governing body) [...]
The streets of London were packed with some 600,000 people eager to catch a glimpse of Prince Charles, heir to the throne of the United Kingdom, and Lady Diana Spencer daughter of one of England’s premier Peers, Earl Spencer, on their wedding day. The couple were married by the Archbishop of Canterbury at St Paul’s [...]
History was made on this day when the London Stock Exchange (LSE) finally, after 200 years, allowed women to enter its premises as employees. One of the ten women in this first intake commented that the Exchange was the “last bastion of misogyny” and that business at the Exchange seemed to be carried out “at [...]
A new website has just gone online which will be of great help to anyone starting up a new business. One of the most common complaints on a whole load of business forums is that of someone who has an established business and finds that someone else has set up another business with the same [...]
Some 100,000 employees of the state owned British Steel Corporation (BSC) caused the shut down of the company’s furnaces in protest at what they called a “derisory offer” of 6% pay increase from their management. The strike quickly spread to privately owned steelworks. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher condemned the strike – called by the Iron [...]
One of the world’s longest running cases was settle out of court 67 years after it started in 1941. The case, known as Re Jahre, concerned a dispute over the recovery of assets alleged to belong to the shipping magnate Anders Jahre. Jahre died aged 90 before the main trial started in 1983. Although the [...]
In the early hours of what was a sunny Sunday morning (how unlike today) I drove from Shropshire to London to appear on a London Weekend Television programme debating the forthcoming referendum on giving Scotland and Wales devolved governments. It was the morning after the funeral of Princess Diana and all along the route into [...]
Barbie has been an important part of the toy fashion doll market for nearly fifty years, and has been the subject of numerous controversies and lawsuits, often involving parody of the doll and her lifestyle. In recent years, Barbie has faced increasing competition from the Bratz range of dolls. The doll was the brain child [...]
In these days of instant mobile communication it may surprise readers to know that fifty years ago you couldn’t even make a telephone call without the help of an operator. For a number of years after the telephone service was first introduced if you wanted to make a call, even a local one, you lifted [...]
At the time the bridge was Europe’s longest suspension bridge and it linked Edinburgh to Perth across the River Forth cutting more than an hour off the journey and opening up Fife to business in the central belt and England. On the 4th September 1964 day tens of thousands of spectators of whom I was [...]
The online auction Web site was founded in San Jose, California, by French-born Iranian computer programmer Pierre Omidyar on 3rd September 1995. Originally the site was called AuctionWeb and was registered to Omidyar’s consulting business, Echo Bay Technology Group. In 1997 Benchmark Capital offered $5 million in funding to develop the online auction idea and [...]
The first automatic teller machine (ATM) made its public debut, dispensing cash to customers at Chemical Bank in Rockville, New York. That first machine was only able to give out cash, but in 1971, an ATM that could handle multiple functions, including providing customers’ account balances, was introduced ATMs went on to revolutionize the banking [...]
I’m not going to say too much about this sad anniversary. I met her twice, once when she came to open a new ward at a hospital on the Isle of Skye, and the other time when she attended a concert in Edinburgh. I found her an interesting and interested person. Unlike her husband, Prince [...]
Seeing an opportunity to work for himself 19-year-old, James E. (“Jim”) Casey, borrowed $100 from a friend and established the American Messenger Company in Seattle, Washington. According to accounts given by Jim there were quite a few messenger services already in the Seattle area, some of which he had worked for in the past and [...]
All four defendants in the marathon Guinness trial were facing jail after the jury returned “guilty” verdicts following five days of deliberations. On the 112th day of their trial, which was the most expensive court action ever brought at that time; Ernest Saunders, Gerald Ronson, Sir Jack Lyons and Anthony Parnes were convicted on all [...]
During development it was referred to as Windows 4.0 or by the internal codename Chicago and It was a significant progression from the company’s previous Windows products. Windows 95 was intended to integrate Microsoft’s formerly separate MS-DOS and Windows products and includes an enhanced version of DOS, often referred to as MS-DOS 7.0. It featured [...]
The first mail-order catalogue was published by Chicago based Montgomery Ward & Co. and though the first edition was only a single sheet of paper it began what became a massive global industry. Ward started the company in 1872 with $2,400 capital and the aim of buying large quantities of merchandise wholesale and then selling [...]
The concept of a canal goes back almost to the day that European explorers first landed on the narrow land bridge that links North and South America. They realised that the abundant natural lakes and waterways offered a unique opportunity to create a water passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans but it wasn’t until [...]
