James Towers
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James Towers
James Towers, VC (9 September 1897 – 24 January 1977) was an English soldier, farmer, and a recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. A soldier with The Cameronians during the First World War, he was awarded the VC for his actions on 6 October 1918, during the Hundred Days Offensive. Early life Born on 9 September 1897 in the village of Broughton, in Lancashire, James Towers was the son of a farmer. Educated at Emmanuel Boys' School, he later worked on his father's dairy farm. First World War In July 1915, when Towers was 17 and therefore underage, he joined the British Army's West Lancashire Artillery. His true age was discovered and he was discharged and sent home. In August the following year, and now aged 18, he enlisted in the 5th Dragoon Guards, a cavalry regiment but was soon transferred to serve in the infantry with the 2nd Battalion, The Cameronians, also ...
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Broughton, Lancashire
Broughton is a village and civil parish in the City of Preston, Lancashire, England, approximately north of Preston city centre. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 1,735, decreasing to 1,722 at the 2011 Census. The parish is included in Preston Rural East ward of Preston city council, and the Preston Rural division of Lancashire County council. The parish (officially Broughton-in-Amounderness) was part of Preston Rural District throughout its existence from 1894 to 1974. In 1974 the parish became part of the Borough of Preston, which became a city in 2002. History The manor of Broughton was originally part of the land owned by Earl Tostig and was later held by Uhtred, a Saxon thegn whose family took the name Singleton. In the reign of King John the manor was seized by Theobald Walter, but was restored to William Singleton by Henry III in 1261. It 1325 it was the home of Gilbert de Singleton. In the 16th century it was sold to the Langtons. The estate was g ...
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20th (Light) Division
The 20th (Light) Division was an infantry division of the British Army, part of Kitchener's Army, raised in the First World War. The division was formed in September 1914 as part of the K2 Army Group. The division landed in France July 1915 and spent the duration of the First World War in action on the Western Front. The division was disbanded after the end of the war in early 1919. History 1914–15 Formation and training The 20th (Light) Division was authorised on 11 September 1914 and was to be composed of newly raised battalions from quick marching rifle and light infantry regiments. The 59th and 60th Brigades were concentrated at Blackdown with the Division Headquarters and other division troops. The 61st Brigade was concentrated at Aldershot, where the medical component also trained, the Artillery was formed near Deepcut, the engineers were trained at Chatham. Clothing, in the form of emergency ''Kitchener Blue'' uniforms did not arrive until November, together with a few o ...
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5th Dragoon Guards Soldiers
Fifth is the ordinal form of the number five. Fifth or The Fifth may refer to: * Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as in the expression "pleading the Fifth" * Fifth column, a political term * Fifth disease, a contagious rash that spreads in school-aged children * Fifth force, a proposed force of nature in addition to the four known fundamental forces * Fifth (Stargate), a robotic character in the television series ''Stargate SG-1'' * Fifth (unit), a unit of volume used for distilled beverages in the U.S. * Fifth-generation programming language * The fifth in a series, or four after the first: see ordinal numbers * 1st Battalion, 5th Marines * The Fraction 1/5 * The royal fifth (Spanish and Portuguese), an old royal tax of 20% Music * A musical interval (music); specifically, a ** perfect fifth ** diminished fifth ** augmented fifth * Quintal harmony, in which chords concatenate fifth intervals (rather than the third intervals of tertian harmony) * Fifth (c ...
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People From Broughton, Lancashire
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility. The defining features of personhood and, consequently, what makes a person count as a person, differ widely among cultures and contexts. In addition to the question of personhood, of what makes a being count as a person to begin with, there are further questions about personal identity and self: both about what makes any particular person that particular person instead of another, and about what makes a person at one time the same person as they were or will be at another time despite any intervening changes. The plural form "people" is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group (as in "a people"), and this was the original meaning of the word; it subsequently acquired its use as a plural form of per ...
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1977 Deaths
Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). * January 17 ** 49 marines from the and are killed as a result of a collision in Barcelona harbour, Spain. * January 18 ** Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease. ** Australia's worst railway disaster at Granville, a suburb of Sydney, leaves 83 people dead. ** SFR Yugoslavia Prime minister Džemal Bijedić, his wife and 6 others are killed in a plane crash in Bosnia and Herzegovina. * January 19 – An Ejército del Aire CASA C-207C Azor (registration T.7-15) plane crashes into the side of a mountain near Chiva, on approach to Valencia Airport in Spain, killing all 11 people on board. * January 20 – Jimmy Carter is sworn in as the 39th Preside ...
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1897 Births
Events January–March * January 2 – The International Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is founded, in New York City. * January 4 – A British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosere, son-in-law of the ruler. This leads to a punitive expedition against Benin. * January 7 – A cyclone destroys Darwin, Australia. * January 8 – Lady Flora Shaw, future wife of Governor General Lord Lugard, officially proposes the name "Nigeria" in a newspaper contest, to be given to the British Niger Coast Protectorate. * January 22 – In this date's issue of the journal ''Engineering'', the word ''computer'' is first used to refer to a mechanical calculation device. * January 23 – Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only capital case in United States history, where spectral evidence helps secure a conviction. * January 31 – The Czechoslovak Trade Union Association is f ...
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VCs Of The First World War
''VCs of the First World War'' is a series of books that list the Victoria Cross recipients of the First World War. The series consists of 13 books written by four different authors, first published under the label Sutton Publishing Limited, part of The History Press. A new paperback edition of the series was commissioned in 2010 under The History Press imprint. Books Gerald Gliddon Gerald Gliddon wrote eight of the books and has therefore written the majority of the series: *''VCs of the First World War: 1914'' *''VCs of the First World War: The Somme 1916'' *''VCs of the First World War: Arras & Messines 1917'' *''VCs of the First World War: Cambrai 1917'' *''VCs of the First World War: Spring Offensive 1918'' *''VCs of the First World War: The Road to Victory 1918'' *''VCs of the First World War: The Final Days 1918'' covers the end of the First World War with the telling of the Battle of the Canal du Nord by seven Victoria Cross recipients, the battle led to the conquest of Ca ...
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Victory Medal (United Kingdom)
The Victory Medal (also called the Inter-Allied Victory Medal) is a United Kingdom and British Empire First World War campaign medal. The award of a common allied campaign medal was recommended by an inter-allied committee in March 1919. Each allied nation would design a 'Victory Medal' for award to their own nationals, all issues having certain common features, including a winged figure of victory on the obverse and the same ribbon. Fourteen countries finally awarded the medal. Eligibility The Victory Medal (United Kingdom) was issued to all those who received the 1914 Star or the 1914–15 Star, and to most of those who were awarded the British War Medal. It was not awarded singly. To qualify, recipients need to have served in the armed forces of the United Kingdom or the British Empire, or with certain recognised voluntary organisations, and have entered any theatre of war between 5 August 1914 and 11 November 1918. While home service did not count, United Kingdom based m ...
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British War Medal
The British War Medal is a campaign medal of the United Kingdom which was awarded to officers and men of British and Imperial forces for service in the First World War. Two versions of the medal were produced. About 6.5 million were struck in silver and 110,000 in bronze, the latter awarded to, among others, the Chinese, Maltese and Indian Labour Corps. Institution The British War Medal was instituted on 26 July 1919 for award to those who had rendered service between 5 August 1914, the day following the British declaration of war against the German Empire, and the armistice of 11 November 1918, both dates inclusive.The National Archives – British Army medal index cards 1914–1920
(Access date 24 June 2018)
Consideration was given to the award of clasps to com ...
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Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United Kingdom's most notable religious buildings and since Edward the Confessor, a burial site for English and, later, British monarchs. Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all coronations of English and British monarchs have occurred in Westminster Abbey. Sixteen royal weddings have occurred at the abbey since 1100. According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, a church was founded at the site (then known as Thorney Island) in the seventh century, at the time of Mellitus, Bishop of London. Construction of the present church began in 1245 on the orders of Henry III. The church was originally part of a Catholic Benedictine abbey, which was dissolved in 1539. It then served as the cathedral of the Dioce ...
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The Unknown Warrior
The British grave of the Unknown Warrior (often known as 'The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior') holds an unidentified member of the British armed forces killed on a European battlefield during the First World War.Hanson, Chapters 23 & 24 He was given a state funeral and buried in Westminster Abbey, London on 11 November 1920, simultaneously with a similar interment of a French unknown soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in France, making both graves the first examples of a tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the first to honour the unknown dead of the First World War. History of the Unknown Warrior Origins The idea of a Tomb of the Unknown Warrior was first conceived in 1916 by the Reverend David Railton, who, while serving as an army chaplain on the Western Front, had seen a grave marked by a rough cross, which bore the pencil-written legend 'An Unknown British Soldier'. He wrote to the dean of Westminster, Herbert Ryle, in 1920 proposing that an unidentified British soldier from th ...
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Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace () is a London royal residence and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. It has been a focal point for the British people at times of national rejoicing and mourning. Originally known as ''Buckingham House'', the building at the core of today's palace was a large townhouse built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703 on a site that had been in private ownership for at least 150 years. It was acquired by King George III in 1761 as a private residence for Queen Charlotte and became known as The Queen's House. During the 19th century it was enlarged by architects John Nash and Edward Blore, who constructed three wings around a central courtyard. Buckingham Palace became the London residence of the British monarch on the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. The last major structural additions were made in the late 19th ...
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