{"id":8156,"date":"2021-12-09T07:05:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T06:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=193923"},"modified":"2021-12-09T07:44:38","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T06:44:38","slug":"9-december-on-this-day-in-history","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/9-december-on-this-day-in-history\/","title":{"rendered":"9 December: On this day in history"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Dominic Sandbrook\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Thursday, 09 December 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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9 December 1960:\u00a0Coronation Street hits TV sets<\/h3>\n

Millions of viewers tune in as the first episode of the working-class domestic saga airs<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For British audiences, 9 December 1960 was a milestone in television history. At seven that evening, with more than 3 million people staring at their sets, a brass band struck up a mournful tune, the grainy black and white picture showed a long street of terraced back-to-backs, and\u00a0Coronation Street<\/em>\u00a0began its record-breaking run as the nation\u2019s best-loved soap opera.<\/p>\n

Coronation Street<\/em>\u00a0was the brainchild of a young Granada scriptwriter, Tony Warren. In keeping with the sociological trends of the late 1950s, Warren was keen to explore working-class life in the urban north, a world already being transformed by postwar affluence.<\/p>\n

\u201cA fascinating freemasonry, a volume of unwritten rules,\u201d began his note on the new series. \u201cThese are the driving forces behind life in a working-class street in the north of England. To the uninitiated outsider, all this would be completely incomprehensible.\u201d The point of his new show, he explained, was \u201cto entertain by examining a community of this kind and initiating the viewer into the ways of the people who live there\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yet although viewers clearly loved the new soap, the critics were not kind to\u00a0Coronation Street<\/em>. In the\u00a0Mirror<\/em>, one writer thought Warren had focused on the \u201cwrong folk. For there is little reality in his new serial, which, apparently, we will have to suffer twice a week.\u201d The paper\u2019s main reviewer, Jack Bell, struck a similar note. Who, he wondered, could possibly want this \u201ccontinuous slice-of-life domestic drudgery two evenings a week\u201d?<\/p>\n

Julian Humphrys rounds up smaller anniversaries<\/h4>\n

9 December 1608<\/h6>\n

Poet John Milton is born. Early works include masques and religious tracts while a problematic first marriage to a girl 17 years his junior will lead him to write a paper proposing divorce on the grounds of incompatibility. A staunch supporter of and apologist for the English Commonwealth, he works for the Republic\u2019s Council of State despite losing his sight in 1652. His best-known work Paradise Lost<\/em> will be written after the Restoration.<\/p>\n

9 December 1641<\/h6>\n

Flemish painter Sir Anthony Van Dyck died in London where he had mainly lived and worked for nine years. Van Dyck is estimated to have painted around 40 portraits of King Charles I<\/a> and about 30 of Queen Henrietta Maria<\/a>.<\/p>\n

9 December 1872<\/h6>\n

Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback became the first person of African-American descent to become governor of a US state, when he briefly held office as the 24th governor\u00a0of Louisiana.<\/p>\n

9 December 1917\u00a0<\/h6>\n

The British capture Jerusalem from the Turks.<\/p>\n

9 December 1939<\/h6>\n

Corporal Thomas Priday of the First Battalion, King\u2019s Shropshire Light Infantry was killed leading a patrol near the Maginot Line in France. He is believed to be the first British soldier killed in action in the Second World War.<\/p>\n

9 December 1940<\/h6>\n

General O\u2019Connor\u2019s Western Desert Force launched Operation Compass, a counter-attack against General Graziani\u2019s 10th Italian Army at Sidi Barrani, Egypt. By early February 1941, over 130,000 prisoners had been taken together with 500 tanks and 800 guns.<\/p>\n

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