h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

1966?
'66 was groovy man, swinging, free love, outa sight and in the groove. Sock it to me baby!
Failing that, just watch Austin Powers, you'll get the drift..........

Oh boy. 1899. BBC archives don't go back that far, but other sources are available.

It seems that the paper clip was invented in that year.
The first mile in a minute was covered. On a bicycle.
Dreyfus was pardoned.
Alfred Hitchcock, Ernest Hemingway, Erich Kästner and Noel Coward were born
Reuter - the news guy - died.
The siege of Mafeking started.
HP sauce was invented
A stone fell over at Stonehenge

The Times Archive is also fascinating, but I got chucked out after a couple of clicks because I wasn't a registered user.

In 1960 I've got JFK's election and the first televised presidential debate, Harold Macmillan's Winds of Change speech and the independence of most of French Africa.

My date has now moved back to 1911 when the hull of the Titanic was first launched. British MPs vote to receive a salary for the first time, and Air Mail takes off.

My father's date is now 1837 - the year Queen Victoria was crowned. I doubt he'll be impressed. People who died that year were Pushkin, John Field and Fourier.

(Gives Fourier a wave)



I'll get my coat.

End of World War II

Edison demonstrated the phonograph,the first Wimbledon tennis tournament was held, crazy horse surrendered and was later killed, the university boatrace between Oxford and Cambridge was a dead heat.
It doesn't sound that long ago really, but 1877 was the year Victoria became Empress of India

>> Failing that, just watch Austin Powers, you'll get the drift.......... <<

Because I like you Capt and I hate Mike Meyers (what a jerk) I'll tell you in confidence that his vision of 1966 is just so wrong on so many levels. It was much darker, a lot of it was still in black and white (again on so many levels).

See the original 'Alfie' (1966) with Michael Caine or the more 'modern' (1968) "IF" with Malcolm Macdowell and David Wood,
or, god forbid, anything with Rita Tushingham between 1962 and 1969.


~jwf~

I remember that black and white world of the 60's.

Mine is 1953, Which means i'm older then my own mother, scary!!
Things that happened in 1953:-

1,The structure of DNA was discovered.

2,It was the queen's coronation.

3, Rationing of sugar ended.

Finally Ian Flemming had the first James Bond book published Casino Royale.

There were lots more but those 4 took my fancy, turns out 1953 was wuite a busy year.

Not to mention Hillary and Tensing reaching the summit of Everest

My year is 1949. NATO was founded; Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was published; Mao created PR China; Whiskey Galore and Kind Hearts & Coronets were showing in British cinemas; Olivier's Hamlet won five Oscars; the BBC televised its first weather forecast and...



... Britain's first launderette opened in Bayswater!

Quite appropriate that Icy exhumed this one. Thanks

For me it's the summer of 1905. Down in Grimesthorpe, they're preparing the foundations for the arrival of my favourite steam engine: A12644697

1959 - Fidel Castro was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba, and it was the first year where the falling bee population was noticed.
It was also the year that The Dalai Lama fled Tibet and had the first published Asterix cartoon.

This is a fun game.

1897

Discovery of the electron
Publication of 'Dracula' by Bram Stoker
First recorded use of the word 'computer'

Noggin

Don't think anything much happened in my mirror year - 1939.

All the mirror years are odd? Ooh

Borley Rectory burnt down in 1939

My mirror year wasn't odd. I used the mirror day, and it was in Fabruary (now January) 1918

Yours was the oddest of all