1698 Russian Tsar Peter the Great imposes a tax on beards.
1717 Britain's King George I issues the Proclamation "For Suppressing Pirates in the West Indies," granting pirates who surrender a pardon (reissued 1718).
1800 Malta surrenders to the British after they blockade French troops.
1907 King Edward VII of Great Britain meets Russia's Foreign Minister Alexander Izvolsky in an attempt to strengthen Russia's relationship with Britain.
… The schoolchildren's strikes of 1911
On 5th September 1911, pupils of Bigyn School in Llanelli walked out in sympathy with a boy who they considered had been unfairly disciplined by a teacher. The students paraded the streets and visited other schools which resulted in pupils from New Dock, Lakefield and Old Road Schools coming out in solidarity. This was one of a series of UK-wide strikes by schoolchildren in at least 62 towns and cities demanding an end to corporal punishment and for shorter school hours. The schoolchildren's strikes followed a summer of workers' industrial disputes including the National Railway Strike of 1911, where mass picketing action at Llanelli railway station had been brutally suppressed by the police.
…. On 5th September 1927, Kathleen Thomas from Penarth, became the first person to swim the Bristol Channel.
Thomas had announced her intention to swim the treacherous 11 miles of chill, grey water between Penarth and Weston-super-Mare in the South Wales Echo, and no one believed that "a mere woman" would have the strength or stamina to go the distance.
That part of The Bristol Chanel, which has the second highest tidal range in the world, has a fearsome reputation due to its lethal tides, caused by scattered headlands and islands funneling enormous volumes of tidal water through small spaces and the distance Kathleen swam was considered closer to 22 miles once the perfidious currents were taken into account.
Crowds lined the beach to watch Kathleen wade into waters, accompanied by a launch containing representatives from the Welsh Amateur Swimming Association and a rowing boat carrying her uncle Jack in a bowler hat and 7hrs 20mins later, fortified by Bovril and chocolate, Kathleen arrived on the shores of the West Country. The terrific struggle against the currents had called on all her reserves of energy and the final 100 yards had demanded every last ounce of her strength.
She was taken to a nearby hotel after the swim, where she had both a warm and cold bath, took half-hour rest and ate a fish lunch before returning to Wales a hero.
….
1929 French premier Aristide Briand requests a United States of Europe.
1966: John Lennon flies to Spain to play the role of Musketeer Gripweed in Richard Lester's black comedy film How I Won the War. During filming, he starts wearing round "granny-glasses" which soon became his trademark.
2001 John Cage's musical composition "As Slow as Possible", intended to be played for 639 years, begins at St. Burchardi Church, Halberstadt, Germany.
