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Edward VIII (1894–1972) was
King of
Great Britain,
Ireland, the
British Dominions beyond the Seas, and
Emperor of India from the death of his father,
George V, on
20 January1936, until his
abdication on
11 December1936. As a young man he served in
World War I, undertook several foreign tours on behalf of his father, and was associated with a succession of older married women. Only months into his reign, Edward forced a constitutional crisis by proposing marriage to the American divorcée
Wallis Simpson. Although legally Edward could have married Mrs. Simpson and remained king, his various prime ministers opposed the marriage, arguing that the people would never accept her as queen. Edward knew that the ministry of British Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin would resign if the marriage went ahead; this could have dragged the King into a
general election thus ruining irreparably his status as a politically neutral
constitutional monarch. Rather than give up Mrs. Simpson, Edward chose to
abdicate, making him the only monarch of Britain, and indeed any
Commonwealth Realm, to have voluntarily relinquished the throne. He is one of the shortest-reigning monarchs in British history, and was never
crowned. (more...)
The 1990 Strangeways Prison riot was a 25-day
prison riot and rooftop protest at
Strangeways Prison in
Manchester,
England. The riot began on
1 April1990 when prisoners took control of the prison
chapel, and the riot quickly spread throughout most of the prison. The riot and rooftop protest ended on
25 April when the final five prisoners were removed from the rooftop, making it the longest prison riot in British penal history. One prisoner was killed during the riot, and 147 prison officers and 47 prisoners were injured. Much of the prison was damaged or destroyed with the cost of repairs coming to £55 million. The riot sparked a series of disturbances in prisons across England,
Scotland and
Wales, resulting in the
British government announcing a
public inquiry into the riots headed by
Lord Woolf. The resulting Woolf Report concluded that conditions in the prison had been intolerable, and recommended major reform of the prison system. The Guardian newspaper described the report as a blueprint for the restoration of "decency and justice into jails where conditions had become intolerable". (more...)
1914 – Around 2,000 members of European society attended a ball at
Kenwood House, England, in one of the last major social events before the outbreak of the
First World War.
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