December 9th – Birthdays and Events
2012 - The death of the British astronomer and broadcaster Sir Patrick Moore, aged 89. He was the presenter of the BBC’s Sky At Night for over 50 years, from its first airing on 24th April 1957.
December 8th – Birthdays and Events
1864 - The Clifton Suspension Bridge spanning the Avon Gorge and the River Avon was finally opened. It was from this bridge that the first modern bungee jumps were taken.
December 7th – Birthdays and Events
1941 - Pearl Harbor was attacked. The Imperial Japanese Navy used 353 planes to attack the US fleet at Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor Naval Base. The attack killed 2,403 people.
December 6th – Birthdays and Events
2017 - Scientists discovered the most distant supermassive black hole. It’s estimated to be 13 billion light-years away and 800 million times the mass of our Sun.
December 5th – Birthdays and Events
1958 - Prime Minister Harold Macmillan opened the Preston bypass in Lancashire. It was the first stretch of motorway in Britain and is now part of the M6 and M55 motorways.
December 4th – Birthdays and Events
1952 - A lethal fog began to cover London, lasting for five days, causing the term “smog” to be termed – a combination of smoke and fog.
December 3rd – Birthdays and Events
1926 - Agatha Christie disappeared from her Surrey home and was discovered on the 14th December staying under an assumed name at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate. She said she had no recollection of how she came to be in Yorkshire.
December 2nd – Birthdays and Events
1697 - The rebuilt St Paul’s Cathedral, the work of Sir Christopher Wren, was opened. The previous cathedral had been destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.
December 1st – Birthdays and Events
2010 - Large parts of the UK were brought to a standstill by the early freeze. Temperatures plunged again overnight to -16C (3F) in the Scottish Highland after one of the coldest starts to December in more than 20 years.