January 12th...
1807: A ship carrying 37.000 pounds of gunpowder explodes as it navigates through the city of Leiden, Netherlands. 151 people were killed, over 2000 were injured and some 220 homes were destroyed.
1813: US Frigate
Chesapeake captures the British merchant ship
HMS Volunteer in the Atlantic and sends her into Portsmouth as a prize.
1836: HMS Beagle anchored at Sydney Cove, Australia at Port Jackson, beginning Charles Darwin’s short acquaintance with Australia.
1899: Having lost her steering gear and dragging her anchor, 13 crew members and 5 apprentices are rescued from the stricken 1,900-ton three-masted schooner
Forrest Hall off the North Somerset coast, United Kingdom, by the crew of
Louisa, the Lynmouth Lifeboat.
Due to the terrible weather, it had not been possible to launch
Louisa from Lynmouth, so she was taken by road to Porlock's sheltered harbour 13 miles around the coast, and launched from there instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynmouth1908: A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower, France, for the first time.
1913: Kiel and Wilhelmshaven become submarine bases in Germany.
1930:
Reine des Cieux, a French ketch broke free from her moorings in Torbay. The three crew were rescued by the Padstow Lifeboat, before she came ashore at Bridport, Dorset and broke up.
1937: A plough for laying submarine cables is patented patented. The invention relates to a novel method of, and apparatus for, laying a submarine cable in a trench of predetermined depth in the bed of the ocean or other body of deep water. See the original document, description and diagrams at
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2067717.html1950: HMS Truculent (P315), a T-class submarine, sinks in the Thames estuary after colliding with the Swedish oil tanker Divina. A total of 64 people died, most in freezing cold mid-winter conditions after escaping the collision.
1953: Landings tested on board USS Antietam an Essex-class aircraft carrier, after major alterations had converted her into the world's first, true, angled-deck aircraft carrier.
1971: John Tovey died. English Royal Navy admiral (b.1885).
2004: Queen Mary 2 set sail on her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in the United States, carrying 2,620 passengers under the command of captain Ronald Warwick.
2006 – Decommissioned French aircraft carrier Clemenceau is barred access to the Suez Canal by Egyptan aurthorities, after Greenpeace activists had boarded it, claiming it contained hundreds of tons of toxic waste that France intended to dump in India.