This Day in History - 1st August

August 1st is 'Yorkshire Day' - to promote the historic English county. It was celebrated in 1975, by the Yorkshire Ridings Society, initially in Beverley, as a protest movement against the Local Government re-organisation of 1974. The date alludes to the Battle of Minden (1759) and it is also the anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834, for which a Yorkshire MP, William Wilberforce, had campaigned. 

1740Rule Britannia was sung for the first time, for the then Prince of Wales's daughter's third birthday.

1774English chemist Joseph Priestley identified oxygen, which he called 'a new species of air'.

1798The English, under Nelson, destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile, in Aboukir Bay, stopping Napoleon Bonaparte's plans to invade the Middle East.

1800The Act of Union 1800 was passed which merged the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1831New London Bridge was opened by King William IV. It lasted for 140 years and was sold and rebuilt in Arizona.

1834The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 came into force throughout the British Empire and an estimated 770,000 slaves were freed. 

1883Parcel post started in Britain.

1914World War I began with Germany's invasion of Luxembourg. The same day, Germany and Russia declared war against each other.

1966The British Empire officially came to an end as the Colonial Office closed its doors and lowered its flag, giving way to the Commonwealth.

1975In Britain, cigarette advertising was banned on television.

1984Commercial peat-cutters discovered the preserved body of a man they called Lindow Man, at Lindow Moss in Cheshire. It is thought that he was deposited some time between 2 BC and 119 AD.

1992Linford Christie won the 100m gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics.

2001Officers from Scotland Yard's Child Protection Team investigated a boy's claims that he was held captive in his own home for eight years.

2007The worldwide centenary of Scouting took place at Brownsea Island, the largest of the islands in Poole Harbour in the county of Dorset. The first camp in 1907 is regarded as the real origin of the worldwide Scout movement.

2008Barry George was found not guilty of the murder of BBC television presenter Jill Dando outside her London home. He was first convicted in 2001 but an Old Bailey retrial was ordered after doubt was cast on the reliability of gunshot residue evidence.

2012Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins and the women's rowing duo (Helen Glover and Heather Stanning) scooped Britain's first gold medals of the Olympic Games.

2015The death (aged 72) of the English singer and television presenter Priscilla White, known by her stage name Cilla Black. She gained a part-time job as a cloakroom attendant at Liverpool's famous Cavern Club and her impromptu performances impressed the Beatles, leading to an audition by the music entrepreneur Brian Epstein. 

2016The Yorkshire Dales National Park was extended by nearly a quarter (161 square miles were added), covering new areas in Cumbria and into Lancashire.

2016The Heysham 2, Unit 8 nuclear power station. in Lancashire broke the world record for the longest continuous operation of a nuclear generator without a shutdown. The record breaking run exceeded the previous record of 894 days set by Pickering Nuclear Generating Station's Unit 7 (Lake Ontario, Canada) in 1994.

2017The reopening, after a £19 million restoration, of the Piece Hall in Halifax, one of England's most outstanding Georgian buildings. The Piece Hall opened initially on 1st January 1779 as a cloth hall and was the most ambitious and prestigious of its type. It had 315 separate rooms arranged around a central courtyard which were used by handloom weavers to sell the woollen cloth 'pieces' they had produced.