On 19th December…

1783 - At the age of 24 years, William Pitt the Younger became the youngest ever British Prime Minister.

1843 - Charles Dickens’ story ‘A Christmas Carol’, was published for the first time. It is a story of how Ebenezer Scrooge was visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve to encourage him to change his mean and miserly ways. The book was so popular that it sold out in just a few days.

1851 - The famous, English, landscape artist J.M.W. Turner died of cholera. He is buried in St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

On 20th December…

860 - King Aethelbald, an Anglo-Saxon king of the English kingdom of Wessex died. He was an older brother of King Alfred the Great.

On 21st December…

1988 - A jumbo jet travelling to New York from London was blown out of the sky by a terrorist bomb. It had been flying for 38 minutes and was at an altitude of 31,000 feet (9449 metres) when a bomb onboard exploded sending the plane plummeting to the ground. It fell onto the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all passengers and crew on board plus 11 people on the ground. It is the worst aviation incident to take place in the U.K.

On 22nd December…

1880 - George Eliot the English novelist died. George Eliot was the pseudonym (pen name) that she used to disguise the fact she was a female writer because female writers were not taken seriously and were usually associated with romantic novels. Her real name was Mary Ann Evans.

1943 - Beatrix Potter, author of children’s stories such as the ‘Tales of Peter Rabbit’ died.

On 23rd December…

1732 - Richard Arkwright was born in Preston, Lancashire, England. He was an industrialist and inventor whose pioneering use of factory production systems made his factories more productive and profitable than his competitors. He was well known throughout the textile industry at the time.

On 24th December…

1524 - Vasco da Gama the Portuguese explorer died. He is famed for his voyages to India around the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa.

On 25th December…

1642 - Isaac Newton was born in Lincolnshire, England. He is the scientist who developed the theory of gravity, and the laws of motion which became the basis of physics. He also developed a new type of mathematics and invented the reflecting telescope which uses mirrors to reflect light and form an image. Most major telescopes used in astronomy today are reflecting telescopes.