Anniversaries to remember this year

Eugene Byrne looks at just a few of the (un)important round-figured anniversaries coming up this year, and indeed some of the BT articles we'll be doing over the next 12 months.

- 

Douglas from London to Bristol while chained up

JANUARY » Monsignor Ronald Knox. Name mean anything to you? Most readers have probably never heard of him, though in his day he was a prominent Roman Catholic theologian.

But never mind all of that. He deserves to be better known because he beat Orson Welles to it.

You may have heard of the famous episode in the United States in 1930 when Welles produced a radio dramatisation of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds which convinced numerous listeners that Earth really, really was being invaded by Martians.

But Ronnie Knox got there first, 12 years beforehand, with a BBC Radio programme which was meant to be satirical. In January 1926 when radio was still very much a novelty he unwittingly convinced thousands of Britons that there was a revolution going on and that the mob had taken to the streets of London.

» Scottish engineer John Logie Baird gave the first ever public demonstration of television 100 years ago on January 26. We can't think of any remotely local connections for this, but we promise to do our best to find some.

FEBRUARY

» We're not sure of the exact date, but sometime in February of 1486 one Alice Newnett of Wiltshire died and then came back to life again as she was revived by the spirit of the late and saintly King Henry VI. That's the story anyway.

» On February 3 it'll be 200 years since the birth of political philosopher Walter Bagehot in Somerset. We promise to try and find something interesting to say about him, but, you know, political philosopher, so don't hold your breath.

» A century ago on February 25 movie actor and stuntman Harry Lorraine rode a motorcycle - a Bristol-made Douglas, of course - from London to Bristol. The big deal was that he was handcuffed and chained up all the way.

MARCH