March 26th in History

March 26th

631 Suintila, King of the Visigoths is overthrown after a reign of ten years, by Sisenand, a noble from Septimania

1484William Caxton printed his translation of Aesop's Fables. As far as is known, Caxton was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England. He was also the first English retailer of printed books.

1885'A lady well-known in literary and scientific circles' was the only clue The Times gave to the identity of the woman who was cremated by the Cremation Society in Woking, Surrey. She was the first person to be officially cremated in Britain and was a Mrs. Pickersgill, the first of three cremations that year.

The Pinnacle Club, the UK's only national rock-climbing club for women, was officially inaugurated at a meeting in the Pen y Gwryd Inn, at the foot of Snowdon on 26th March 1921.
The idea for the club was first conceived of by one of its founder members, Emily Kelly (known as Pat), a climbing enthusiast from Manchester. Pat tragically died the following year from head injuries she sustained from climbing Tryfan, in the Ogwen Valley, Snowdonia.
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1923BBC Radio started regular weather forecasts.

Fifty years ago today, the Queen sent the first-ever royal email.On March 26, 1976, the Queen visited the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, a telecommunications research centre in Malvern, England, and using ARPANET — the computer network that eventually morphed into the current internet — making her the first royal to send an email.

Peter Kirstein, who organized the event, including setting up her personal email account of "HME2," said at the time: "All she had to do was press a couple of buttons," he remembers, "and her message was sent."

A photo of the historic moment shows the Queen tapping the keys on a retro-looking computer.
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The email itself was to announce the arrival of a new programming language that had been developed and was headed "A Message from Her Majesty the Queen" and signed off with an informal "Elizabeth R" — the same sign off the Queen used for all her digital communication afterwards.

1964: After being fitted out as a radio ship the ex-Danish ferry Frederica (as Caroline) sails from Greenore in Ireland destined for an anchorage off Felixstow, Essex.
Later it went to off to The Isle of Man and became Caroline North.

1965: An electric shock from a faulty microphone knocks bass player Bill Wyman unconscious for several minutes during a sound-check for a Rolling Stones concert in Odense, Denmark. Mick Jagger and Brian Jones receive less severe shocks.