A court of law's final order officially ending a marriage, enabling either party to remarry.
Decree absolute
Fact of the Day
The earliest book of English table manners was written by Daniel of Beccles in the time of Henry II. It prohibited elbows on tables, talking with full mouths and scratching armpits. It also gave guidance on what to do if the wife of the host were to make a pass at a guest: he should feign illness.
Quote of the Day
"It shall make a delightful summer capital when we invade Britain.
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~ Joseph Goebbels on Edinburgh
On This Day
69 Roman Emperor Galba was assassinated and Otho took his place.
1559 Elizabeth I was crowned Queen of England.
1597 William Shakespeare shown to have defaulted on a 5s tax bill in St Helen's Bishopgate.
1759 The British Museum opened to the public. Entry was free, but approval was needed and visitors could not walk around unguided.
1790 Fletcher Christian and his fellow mutineers landed HMS Bounty on their chosen safe haven of Pitcairn Island.
1797 The first top hat was worn by John Hetherington, a London haberdasher.
1859 The National Portrait Gallery opened to the public, with 56 portraits. Viewings were on Wednesdays and Saturdays by appointment only.
1867 40 people skating on the frozen surface of the lake in London's Regent's Park died when the ice broke.
1870 Britain's first woman doctor, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, passed her final exam and became a fully qualified MD.
1919 German socialist revolutionaries Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were killed by right-wing paramilitary units.
1929 Martin Luther King, minister, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, was born in Atlanta, Georgia.
1962 Centigrade was first used on a British weather forecast, over 200 years after the death of the scientist who invented it.