On This Day - 12th October
632 The death, at the Battle of Hatfield Chase near Doncaster, of Edwin of Deira. He was the first Christian king of Northumbria and the most powerful English ruler of his day. His death and the defeat of his army led to the temporary collapse of Northumbria.
1537 Edward VI, the only son of Henry VIII by his third wife Jane Seymour was born. Jane died 13 days after giving birth to him.
1817 The launch of HMS Trincomalee - see 
picture. She is berthed at Jackson Dock, Hartlepool. Between July 2015 and July 2017, HMS Trincomalee had the distinction of being "The oldest warship afloat anywhere in the world" after the USS Constitution (launched in 1797) was moved to dry dock for a major restoration.
1823 Charles Macintosh of Scotland began selling raincoats, now better known as - Macs. He was first employed as a clerk but before he was twenty resigned his clerkship to take up the manufacture of chemicals. The essence of his patent for waterproof fabrics was the cementing together of two pieces of natural India-rubber, the rubber being made soluble by the action of naphtha, a byproduct of tar. For his various chemical discoveries he was, in 1823, elected a fellow of the Royal Society.
1845 The death of Elizabeth Fry, English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist. She was a major driving force behind new legislation to make the treatment of prisoners more humane. Since 2001, she has been depicted on the Bank of England £5 note.
1859 Robert Stephenson, English civil engineer, died. He was the only son of George Stephenson, the famed locomotive builder and railway engineer. Many of the achievements popularly credited to his father were actually the joint efforts of father and son. A replica of Robert Stephenson's Rocket - see 
picture is on view at the York Railway Museum.
1866 James Ramsay McDonald, Scottish statesman, was born. He became the first Labour Prime Minister in 1924. His opposition to the First World War made him unpopular, and he was defeated in 1918. However post war disillusionment quickly made his anti-war position more popular, and he returned to Parliament in 1922, the point at which Labour replaced the Liberal Party as the second-largest party.
1872 The birth at the Old Vicarage (see 
picture) in Down Ampney (Gloucestershire - Cotswolds) of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. He was he third child and younger son of the vicar of All Saints Church. See 
picture. A tune he composed, used for the hymn 'Come Down, O Love Divine', is titled 'Down Ampney' in its honour.
1936 The leader of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley, led a controversial anti-Jewish march down the Mile End Road in London which was a predominantly Jewish area of the capital.
1915 Despite international protests, Edith Cavell, an English nurse in Belgium,
was shot by a German firing squad, for aiding the escape of Allied prisoners. She was born in Swardeston, close to Norwich and there is a memorial to her (see 
picture) outside Norwich Cathedral.
1940 World War II: Adolf Hitler postponed indefinitely 'Operation Sealion' - the planned invasion of Britain.
1948 The first Morris Minor, designed by Alec Issigonis, was produced at Cowley,
Oxfordshire. 1.6 million Morris Minors were built until production ceased in 1971. See 
picture of a 1969 Morris Minor van at Hull's Streetlife Museum.
1951 The launch of Holme Moss Transmitting Station, (see 
picture) one of the highest in the country, reaching 228m above ground and 524m above sea level. In 1951 it provided BBC television (the only TV programme at the time) but now transmits VHF, FM and DAB radio to Derbyshire, Manchester and West Yorkshire, with coverage of around 13.5 million people.
1967 Zoologist Desmond Morris stunned the world with his book The Naked Ape that compared human behaviour with animals.
1969 The opening of Preston Bus Station, one of the largest in Western Europe. Threatened with demolition since the year 2000, campaigns and applications were made numerous times to save the building. It featured on the 2012 World Monument Fund's list of sites at risk. Nevertheless, on 7th December 2012, Preston City Council announced that the bus station would be demolished, but in 2013 it was saved when English Heritage granted it the status of a Grade II listed building. See 
picture.
1979 The publication of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide comedy science fiction series by the English writer and dramatist Douglas Adams. His memorial service on 17th September 2001 at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square was the first church service of any kind broadcast live, on the web, by the BBC.
1982 British armed forces held a victory parade in London following the defeat of Argentina in the Falklands War.
1984 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escaped an assassination attempt when an IRA bomb exploded in the Grand Hotel, Brighton which was being used by delegates to the Conservative Party Conference. Five people were killed and 30 people injured, including the Employment Secretary Norman Tebbit and his wife Margaret, who was left permanently disabled.
1986 Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to visit China.
1989 The remains of Shakespeare's original Globe Theatre were found on London's Bankside.
2020 Charity fundraiser Lloyd Scott completed his Three Peaks challenge climb (Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon) wearing a 59kg. (9st.) diving suit. A veteran of 30 years of fundraising and more than 50 events, Scott famously completed the London Marathon in 2002 in a deep-sea diving suit. His other challenges have seen him cycle across Australia on a penny farthing, complete an underwater marathon and walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats dressed as a T-Rex - all of which has helped him raise more than £5m for charitable causes.