As it’s 20 June, we might celebrate any number of marvellous events today. Firstly, there’s the 451st anniversary of the birth of Wilhelm Kettler, Duke of Courland and Semigallia, and owner and wearer of these still unsurpassed trousers
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It’s also the 253rd anniversary of this peerless evening out (with thanks to @victorianlondon.bsky.social, who posted this on the old place some years ago)
On a tragic note, though, (well, depending on how much you enjoy laughing at the misfortunes of others, I suppose, and on the extent to which the passage of time lessens tragedy) it’s 251 years to the day since the first death in a submarine
Our unfortunate protagonist is one John Day, variously described as a wagon-maker, a carpenter, and a labourer for a shipwright at Yarmouth, depending on your source, but basically: he did stuff with wood, and seems to have been pretty good at it. What he was not, sadly, was a physicist
He had a plan, though: build a submarine and stay underwater in it for a day, taking bets on it, and making some good money. Apparently, he tested it with a small boat on the Norfolk Broads – attaching a watertight container, and then sinking the combined vessel while the tide went in and out
A book called Lost Patrols: Submarine Wrecks of the English Channel by Innes McCartney suggests he “used a pond near Yarmouth to descend to 30 feet”, found “an investor, Christopher Blake”, and devised a plan to “descend to 130ft in full view of the public and stay down for 12 hours”
Blake, a “notorious gambler” or “well-known sporting character of the period”, depending on your source, “backed the scheme with £350 and promised Mr Day 10% of all the revenues he would make on the bets”. They chose a date (20 June 1774) and a location – Plymouth – and Day got to work
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