October 2nd in History
October 2nd
1263 The battle of Largs: Scots defeat the Norwegians on the Firth of Clyde, Scotland, returning the Western Isles to Scotland and ending 500 years of Viking invasions.
1789 George Washington transmits the proposed constitutional amendments, known as the United States Bill of Rights, to the states for ratification.
1836 After five years at sea, Charles Darwin returns to England aboard HMS Beagle.
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2 October holds special significance for the Labour Party in Wales as it was on this day;
1900 - Keir Hardie became MP for Merthyr and Aberdare.
1983 - Neil Kinnock became the leader of the Labour Party, the party that Hardie had been instrumental in founding
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1904 German General Lothar von Trotha issues an order to exterminate the native Herero and Namaqua peoples of German South West Africa (present-day Namibia), resulting in the first genocide of the 20th century, which kills 65,000 Herero and 10,000 Namaqua.
1925 London's first red buses with roofed-in upper decks went into service, but they had been in use in Widnes, Cheshire, since 1909.
1942 RMS Queen Mary, carrying thousands of US troops, slices cruiser HMS Curacoa in half, killing 239.
1953 A photograph of William Pettit, wanted for murder, was shown on BBC TV at the request of the police - the first time in Britain that television was used to help find a wanted man.
The Welsh Air Service was the world's first regular passenger helicopter service. The service was started on 2nd October 1950 by British European Airways and operated between Cardiff, Wrexham and Liverpool.
The Sikorsky S51 helicopters called at Plas Coch in Wrexham and reached Speake airport in Liverpool within two hours. The service operated from Monday to Friday and carried up to six passengers. However, passenger numbers were too low to make the service economic and it was terminated in 1951
2 Oct 1970
Pink Floyd released their fifth, and first UK No.1 album Atom Heart Mother in the UK. The original album cover shows a cow standing in a pasture with no text, nor any other clue as to what might be on the record. Storm Thorgerson, inspired by Andy Warhol's famous ‘cow wallpaper,’ has said that he simply drove out into a rural area near Potters Bar, England and photographed the first cow he saw. The cow's owner identified her name as ‘Lulubelle III’.
2 Oct 1967
All six members of the Grateful Dead were busted by California narcotics agents for possession of marijuana at the groups' 710 Ashbury Street House in San Francisco, California.
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