December 25, 1932: The 1st Royal Christmas Message

December 25, 1932: King George V delivers a Royal Christmas Message to the British Empire, broadcast live over the British Broadcasting Corporation and its Worldwide Service, thus beginning a tradition.

John Reith, founder of the BBC, had first approached the King about the idea in 1922, but the King declined, saying that radio was mainly an entertainment. Reith waited 10 years before trying again. This time, he was smart: He gave the idea to Queen Mary first. When she told her husband it was a good idea, he relented. To be on the safe side, he also talked to the Prime Minister, James Ramsay MacDonald, who was prepared to be an additional voice to try to talk the King into it.

The tradition of the British royal family staying at Sandringham House, their country retreat in Norfolk, East Anglia, for the Christmas season had been put in place ever since it was bought in 1862, as a summer home for the King's father, then the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. A temporary studio was set up there, eventually replaced by a permanent one.

The address was written for the King by one of Britain's most honored (if not "greatest") authors then living, Rudyard Kipling, and is said to have been heard by 20 million people. The broadcast began at 3:00 PM London time, for the best possible distribution across the time zones: Eastern Canada, 10:00 AM; South Africa, 5:00 PM; New Dehli, 8:30 PM; Hong Kong, 11:00 PM; Sydney and Melbourne, 1:00 AM on December 26.

The speech was introduced by a local shepherd named Walton Handy. The town church rang its bells, and its choir sang Christmas carols. Finally, the King spoke, for a little over 3 minutes:

Through one of the marvels of modern science, I am enabled, this Christmas Day, to speak to all my peoples throughout the Empire.

I take it as a good omen that Wireless should have reached its present perfection at a time when the Empire has been linked in closer union. For it offers us immense possibilities to make that union closer still.

It may be that our future may lay upon us more than one stern test. Our past will have taught us how to meet it unshaken.

For the present, the work to which we are all equally bound is to arrive at a reasoned tranquility within our borders; to regain prosperity without self-seeking, and to carry with us those whom the burden of past years has disheartened or overborne.

My life's aim has been to serve as I might, towards those ends. Your loyalty, your confidence in me has been my abundant reward.

I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all.

To men and women so cut off by the snows, the desert or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them; to those cut off from fuller life by blindness, sickness, or infirmity; and to those who are celebrating this day with their children and grandchildren.

To all, to each, I wish a Happy Christmas. God Bless You!

George V delivered such Messages again in 1933 and 1934. In 1935, it was noticed that his voice sounded weaker. Sure enough, he died less than a month later, on January 20, 1936.

His son, King Edward VIII, abdicated the throne on December 11, 1936, so not only did he never get a Coronation, he never got to deliver a Royal Christmas Message. His brother became King George VI. He did not deliver a Royal Christmas Message in 1936. He did in 1937, but not in 1938. But in 1939, all through World War II, and into his final illness, he and delivered them every year through 1951. He died on February 6, 1952.

Since then, his daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, has delivered the Message every December 25. Her 1st Message, in 1952, was simulcast, in sound only, on BBC television. Not until 1957 would it be broadcast live on TV.

In 1953, as she and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, were on a tour of the British Commonwealth, she delivered her Message from Auckland, New Zealand. Since then, it has been pre-recorded at either Sandringham House or Buckingham Palace.

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December 25, 1932 was a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The NFL season had ended the previous Sunday, with the Chicago Bears defeating the Portsmouth Spartans (of Ohio) for the Championship.

There were 2 games played in the NHL that day. The New York Rangers beat the Montreal Maroons, 2-0 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

"Back in Blighty," this was the era when England's Football League still regularly played games on Christmas Day. But not on Sundays, so there were no games played in that League.

February 6, 1952: King George VI Dies

King George VI, London Airport, January 31, 1952.

His last public appearance, and his last known photo.

He was 56 years old, but looks much older.

February 6, 1952: King George VI of Great Britain dies of a coronary thrombosis at his country home, Sandringham House, in Norfolk, England. He was 56 years old, and had been battling several illnesses, including lung cancer, for years.

Born December 14, 1895 as Albert Arthur Frederick George, the 2nd son of King George V, he was the Duke of York to the public, and "Bertie" to his family. (His grandfather, King Edward VII, had been born Albert Edward, and was also "Bertie" to his family.) When his father died, his brother, the Prince of Wales, became King Edward VIII. But Edward abdicated the throne on December 11, 1936, because the King no longer ruled absolutely, and Parliament was not willing to accept that he wanted to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American.

So Bertie became King, and, since Queen Victoria had ruled after the death of her husband, Prince Albert, that no King of England could take the name Albert, Bertie took the regnal name George VI. While he had been trained in royal protocol, and had made many public appearances on behalf of the royal family, he had never expected to become King until the scandal of Edward's affair became public.

He had a serious stammer, which was a lot harder for radio broadcasts and newsreels to hide than was the polio of America's President at the time, Franklin D. Roosevelt. King George went to great lengths to overcome this, as seen in Colin Firth's Oscar-winning role in the film The King's Speech. Those lengths improved his public speaking considerably, but not completely.

Being his country's head of state through World War II took a terrible toll on him. And, like Roosevelt (but not like the continually cigar-smoking Prime Minister, Winston Churchill), the King smoked cigarettes unceasingly. When The War ended, he was not yet 50 years old, but looked 60.

In 1949, he needed surgery to remove an arterial blockage in his right leg. Had it failed, the leg would have had to be amputated. This postponed a tour that he and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, were going to take to Australia and New Zealand. In his place went their daughter, Princess Elizabeth, and her husband, Prince Philip. In September 1951, another trip was postponed, and subsequently undertaken by the Princess and her husband, when the King's cancer had required the removal of his left lung.

Since 1932, when George V finally accepted, 10 years after first being asked, that radio broadcasting was no longer just a means of entertainment, the British monarch has delivered a Christmas broadcast, to the nation and first the British Empire, and later to the British Commonwealth. George VI had faithfully done this since December 25, 1936. But in 1951, he was too ill to sit still for the usual 10 minutes or so. He recorded it piece by piece, and it was edited together. (It would not be done on television until 1957, and it is still recorded beforehand.)

On January 31, 1952, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip flew to Kenya, then still a British colony, as a stopover on a tour of Australia. The King saw them off at London Airport (renamed Heathrow Airport in 1966). It was his last public appearance. He and the Queen went to Sandringham, and, 6 days later, at 7:30 AM local time on February 6, it was found that he had passed away in his sleep.

This was not the age of social media, or of 24-hour news. Only a small minority of people on Earth even had television sets. The whole world did not find out at once. Certainly, the British government could not reveal the news to the world before notifying the heir to the throne. And getting word from London to the rural hotel where the heir and her husband were staying was not easy.

Philip was told first. He then asked his wife to take a walk with him. All at once, he had to tell his wife that her father was dead, her King was dead, and that she was now the head of state of the British Commonwealth. And she was only 25 years old. (She turned 26 on April 21.)

She returned at once, setting foot at the same airport, as Queen Elizabeth II. (Like her grandfather, but unlike her father and her great-grandfather, she chose her own name as her regnal name.) Churchill was there to greet her. For her grace in mourning, and for her steadiness in reigning over a grieving nation at such a young age, Time magazine named her its Woman of the Year. This was in place of a "Man of the Year"; the distinction's name wasn't changed to "Person of the Year" until 1999.

A state funeral was held. Edward VIII, now with the title of the Duke of Windsor, marched behind his brother's horse-drawn coffin. It was the only time after his abdication that he set foot in his homeland, as he had been living in France ever since.

King George VI is laid to rest inside St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, the family's preferred residence over London's Buckingham Palace, in Windsor, Berkshire, about 30 miles west of London. His widow, re-titled Elizabeth the Queen Mother, lived until 2002, age 101, and was buried alongside him. His 2nd daughter, Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, is also buried there. As are, among others, the great rivals in the War of the Roses, Kings Henry VI and Edward IV; and also Kings Henry VIII, Charles I, George III, George IV, Edward VII and George V. 

Queen Elizabeth II is now 95, and has reigned for 70 years, both records for an English and/or British monarch. She appears to be in good health: She has never smoked, and while she enjoys drinking, she does it in moderation. Nevertheless, plans for her memorials have been made, but it is not publicly known where she will be laid to rest. Somewhere at Windsor Castle is likely, but it could be in a separate mausoleum, as is the case with her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.

He was played by James Wilby in Bertie & Elizabeth in 2002, Bill Champion in Wallis & Edward in 2005,Colin Firth in The King's Speech in 2010, Samuel West in Hyde Park on Hudson in 2012, Rupert Everett in A Royal Night Out in 2015, Jared Harris on The Crown in 2016, and Ben Mendelsohn in Darkest Hour in 2017.

UPDATE: Queen Elizabeth died on September 8, 2022, at 96. She was laid to rest in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, near her parents, her sister, and her husband.

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February 6, 1952 was a Wednesday. England's Football League then played almost exclusively on Saturdays, but despite the funeral activities taking place over several days, no games were postponed. The great rivals of North London played their Derby on February 9 at White Hart Lane as scheduled, and Arsenal defeated Tottenham Hotspur 2-1.

In America, it was the off-season for MLB and the NFL. It was midseason for the NHL, but no games were played. The NHL was then headquartered in Toronto, and Canada was (and remains) part of the Commonwealth, with the British monarch as head of state. And so, the game scheduled for that night at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New York Rangers, was postponed. It was rescheduled for February 19, and ended in a 3-3 tie.

There were, however, 2 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Baltimore Bullets, 73-70 at what my generation would call the old Madison Square Garden. No Knick player scored more than 14 points: Dick McGuire and Max Zaslofsky both scored that many -- but a balanced team effort won the game.

This version of the Bullets would go out of business in 1954, and is not connected to with the new Bullets, who started in 1963, moved to Washington in 1973, and were renamed the Wizards in 1997.

* And the Boston Celtics beat the Syracuse Nationals, 99-88 at the Boston Garden. Bob Cousy scored 33 for the Celts.

January 20, 1936: King George V Dies

January 20, 1936: King George V -- in full, George V, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India -- dies at Sandringham House, the monarchy's country retreat in Norfolk, England. He was 70 years old.

Born George Frederick Ernest Albert of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on June 3, 1865, he was the 2nd son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and thus grandson of Queen Victoria. At the time, he was 3rd in line for the throne, behind his father and his older brother.

The Prince's 1st son was Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale. Nicknamed "Prince Eddy," he was engaged to Princess Mary, the daughter of Germany's Duke of Teck, but was a compulsive womanizer, and there were rumors of what would now be called a gay affair.

It has been rumored that Eddy's tendency toward London prostitutes made him Jack the Ripper, and a late 20th Century book about the case was titled Prince Jack. Records show that he was at Windsor Castle on the nights of all 5 "canonical Ripper murders," and, given modes of transportation in 1888, couldn't possibly have gotten out, gone to London, committed any of them, and gotten back without anyone noticing him.

Another rumor is that the royal physician, Dr. William Gull, killed those prostitutes to cover up Eddy's involvement, which (some said) involved an illegitimate child. But Gull was 71 years old at the time, and recovering from a stroke, making it unlikely that he could have overpowered even a woman.

On January 14, 1892, Eddy died, only 28 years old, officially of an influenza epidemic that was then raging through Britain. More salacious historians have suggested that his sex life caught up with him, and that he died of syphilis.

Regardless, it made his brother George 2nd in line to the throne. And, far be it for the British royal family to waste a good candidate for marriage: On July 6, 1893, George and Mary of Teck were married. They went on to have 5 children: Edward, known to the family as David, eventually named Prince of Wales; Albert, known to the family as Bertie, eventually named Duke of York; Mary, the Princess Royal, who married the Earl of Harewood; Henry, Duke of Gloucester; and John, who had epilepsy, and died of a severe seizure in 1919, only 13 years old.

Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901, and George's father became King Edward VII. George became Prince of Wales. On May 6, 1910, Edward died, and, not quite 45 years old, his son became King George V.

George and Mary had 2 coronations: On June 22, 1911, as King and Queen of Great Britain and Ireland at Westminster Abbey in London; and on December 12, 1911, as Emperor and Empress of India at the Delhi Durbar. Victoria had been proclaimed Empress of India in 1877, and Edward VII proclaimed Emperor of India in 1903, but neither ever visited India, and were crowned in absentia. (Edward VIII and George VI held the title of Emperor of India, but never went there while on the throne.)

At first, George was popular. Then came World War I, and George found 2 of his 1st cousins on opposite sides: Czar Nicholas II of Russia on his, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany on the other. (The words "Czar" and "Kaiser" both come from the Latin title for Emperor, "Caesar.")

As Lord Mountbatten, the King's nephew, said in a documentary over half a century later, the people of Britain came to despise all things German: "They insulted German governesses. They wouldn't listen to German music. They even kicked dachshunds in the streets. And the press played this up, and made things much worse."

To make matters worse than that, the Germans had planes named Gotha bombers. And another 1st cousin, Charles Edward, was the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and commanded German troops. And George V was of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the family name of Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert. George V, Charles Edward, and Wilhelm II were all grandsons of Victoria and Albert, while Nicholas II married a granddaughter of Victoria and Albert.

H.G. Wells, one of the pioneers of science fiction, and a socialist opposed to all monarchies, wrote that George was "presiding over an alien and uninspiring court." Reading this, George blew his stack: "I may be uninspiring, but I'm damned if I'm an alien!"

So the decision was made to change the family name, taking it from the Castle in Berkshire that had been a country home to the family since William the Conqueror in 1070: The House of Windsor. This decision proved popular. (The Mountbatten name was also new: They formerly had the German name Battenberg.)

After the war, the monarchies of Germany, Austria, Russia and Turkey were abolished, and those of Italy and Belgium seriously diminished. The monarchy of Spain would also fall during George's reign, although that had nothing to do with World War I, in which Spain was neutral. Ireland was partitioned, and only the 6 Counties that made up Northern Ireland remained under George's reign.

George remained popular, but not healthy, smoking too much. He nearly died in 1928, while Edward, Prince of Wales, was on vacation (or "on holiday," as the British would say). He was guilted into coming home, just in case, but by the time he arrived, his father had taken a turn for the better.

In 1935, the 25th Anniversary of his reign, a Silver Jubilee was held for the King. By this point, he had become the 1st British monarch to make speeches over radio, including the institution of the annual monarch's Christmas Message, and publicly thanked the people for their devotion and their love.

But the end was near. His royal physician was Bertrand Dawson, 1st Viscount of Penn, and he was considered a poor doctor. Someone even wrote a short poem:

Lord Dawson of Penn

killed many men.

That's why we sing

"God save the King."

On the night of January 20, 1936, George seemed to be close to death, and Dawson sent a bulletin to the BBC: "The King's life is moving peacefully towards its close." But it wasn't moving fast enough for Dawson's tastes. As Kenneth Rose, columnist for the Daily Telegraph, and winner of an award for his 1983 biography of George, said of the text of the bulletin, for the 1994 documentary The Windsors: A Royal Family:

We now know that that wasn't true. Lord Dawson thought that the King ought to die at midnight, so that the death could be announced in the morning edition of The Times, rather than, as he put it, "less appropriate evening journals." 

Dawson wrote in his diary:

At about 11 o'clock it was evident that the last stage might endure for many hours, unknown to the Patient but little comporting with that dignity and serenity which he so richly merited and which demanded a brief final scene. Hours of waiting just for the mechanical end when all that is really life has departed only exhausts the onlookers & keeps them so strained that they cannot avail themselves of the solace of thought, communion or prayer. I therefore decided to determine the end.

In one syringe, he prepared a dose of cocaine, enough to be lethal all by itself. In another, he prepared a similarly fatal dose of morphine. He told his nurse, Catherine Black, to inject the morphine into the King's neck, and he would do the same with the cocaine. Miss Black refused to murder her King. Dawson did both of them himself. Seeing what was being done, King George V, head of state for of one-quarter of the planet, with his mental faculties intact until the end, spoke his last words, to his doctor: "God damn you!"

At 11:55 PM, he was pronounced dead. The next morning, The Times of London, having their deadline met, got their scoop, so that the trashy tabloids would not announce it first. Not until 1986 -- 50 years after the King's death, 41 years after Lord Dawson's, and 3 years after the publication of Rose's biography -- was the royal euthanasia/assassination revealed to the public.

George V remains the only monarch of England and/or Great Britain to have been murdered since the execution of King Charles I in 1649.

He was succeeded by his son, who became King Edward VIII. His private life was already so tawdry that George said Edward would ruin himself in 12 months. George gave his son 1 month's too much credit. On December 10, 1936, Edward abdicated, in favor of George's 2nd son, Albert, who became King George VI. He died in 1952, and his daughter, the granddaughter of George V, took the throne as Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Mary died on March 24, 1953, a few weeks before Elizabeth was crowned. Edward, Duke of Windsor, lived in exile until 1972.

Of the other 3 children of King George V and Queen Mary: Mary, the Princess Royal, married the heir to the Earldom of Harewood, and became Countess of Harewood, living until 1965; Henry became Duke of Gloucester, served as Governor-General of Australia from 1945 to 1947, and lived until 1974; and George became Duke of Kent and a Commodore in the Royal Air Force, dying in a plane crash in 1942.

King George V has been played by Michael Osborne in Edward the Seventh in 1975, Marius Goring in Edward & Wallis in 1978, John Warner in The Treaty in 1991, David Troughton in All the King's Men in 1999, Tom Hollander in The Lost Prince in 2003, Michael Gambon in The King's Speech in 2010, Simon Jones in the film of Downton Abbey in 2019, and Tom Hollander again (also playing his cousins, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Czar Nicholas II) in The King's Man in 2021.

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January 20, 1936 was a Monday. Baseball and football were out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And no games were played in the NHL that day. So there were no scores on this historic day.

There were 2 NHL games played the next day, the day of the announcement of the King's death, despite the fact that Canada was still part of the British Empire. However, none of the Canada-based teams were at home. The Montreal Maroons were in Boston, and lost 1-0 to the Bruins; while the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs were not scheduled, and the Ottawa Senators had moved in 1934, becoming the St. Louis Eagles, and folded after 1 season there.

January 14, 1892: The Death of Prince Albert Victor, Who Would Have Been King

January 14, 1892: Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, Earl of Athlone, dies. He was only 28 years old. Had he lived another 19 years, he would have been King of England.

Albert Victor Christian Edward Saxe-Coburg und Gotha was born on January 8, 1864, at Frogmore House, on the grounds of Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, England. His father was Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. His mother was the former Princess Alexandra of Denmark. His grandmother was Queen Victoria of Great Britain. At his birth, he was 2nd in line for the throne, behind his father.

He was named Albert for his father, and Victor for his grandmother. The surname came from his grandfather, Victoria's late husband, Prince Albert of the German state of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha. But, like his first cousin who would be born 2 years later, Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, he was known to his family by the last of his names, becoming "Prince Eddy."

Albert Edward and Alexandra, or "Bertie" and "Alix," went on to have 6 children. Eddy was followed in 1865 by George; in 1867, by Louise; in 1868, by Victoria; in 1869, by Maud; and, in 1871, by Alexander who died a day after his birth.

As a young man, he travelled widely as a Royal Navy cadet. As an adult, he joined the British Army, though he undertook no active military duties. But in July 1889, London's Metropolitan Police uncovered a male brothel operated by Charles Hammond in Cleveland Street. Under interrogation, the male prostitutes and pimps revealed the names of their clients, who included Lord Arthur Somerset, an Extra Equerry (personal attendant) to the Prince of Wales. At the time, in Britain, all homosexual acts between men were illegal, and those identified risked social ostracism, prosecution, and, at worst, two years' imprisonment with hard labour -- as the writer Oscar Wilde would find out in 1895.

The resultant "Cleveland Street Scandal" implicated other high-ranking figures in British society, and rumors swept upper-class London that a member of the royal family was involved -- specifically, Albert Victor. The prostitutes had not named him, and it is suggested that Somerset's solicitor, Arthur Newton, fabricated and circulated the rumor, to deflect attention from his client. The Prince of Wales intervened in the investigation; no clients were ever prosecuted, and nothing against Albert Victor was proven.

Although there is no conclusive evidence for or against his involvement, or that he ever visited a homosexual club or brothel, the rumors and the cover-up have led some biographers to speculate that he did visit Cleveland Street, and that he was "possibly bisexual, probably homosexual." However, royal historians appear to be split on the issue, due to conflicting evidence.

While English newspapers suppressed mention of Albert Victor's name in connection with the case, Welsh-language, colonial, and American newspapers were less restrained. The New York Times ridiculed him as a "dullard" and "stupid perverse boy" who would "never be allowed to ascend the British throne."

The Prince's connection to the scandal, however tenuous, later inspired an even more tenuous connection to another awful story of 1880s London: The Whitechapel Murders, ascribed to an unknown serial killer who was nicknamed "Jack the Ripper."

A popular theory is that it was Dr. William Gull, a physician working for the royal family, who killed prostitutes known to have been visited by Prince Albert Victor. Gull, possibly acting on the Queen's orders, had to silence these women. An additional theory said that Eddy himself was the Ripper, leading to the title of a book: Frank Spiering's 1981 Prince Jack.

It wasn't Prince Eddy: Records show that he was at Windsor Castle, 25 miles away, at the time of every one of the Ripper's "canonical five murders." Given the transportation available at the time, there was no way he could have gotten to the murder sites and back without blowing his cover. It wasn't Gull, either: He was 71 years old, and had suffered a stroke, and was unlikely to have been able to overpower the women enough to kill them. If he ever killed anybody, it was through medical mistake, not willful murder.

In order to get him away from the scandal until it could fade away, in October 1889, Prince Eddy was sent on a tour of India. He returned in time for the Queen's "Birthday Honours" on May 24, 1890, her 71st birthday. She granted him the titles of Duke of Clarence and Avondale, and Earl of Athlone. Clarence, an English title; Avondale, a Scottish one; and Athlone, an Irish one.

But there were more girls, including actresses and showgirls. There were rumors of venereal disease. In order to shield Eddy from scandal, it was decided that he had to be married off. (Not that having a beautiful wife who enjoyed sex enough to produce 6 children kept his father from constantly straying.) Victoria's 1st choice was to have him marry his own 1st cousin, Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine. He did his duty, and proposed; she refused hers, and declined. In 1894, she married another cousin: Czar Nicholas II of Russia. This proved to be a horrible idea.

The Queen chose another 1st cousin: Princess Margaret of Prussia. But while Albert Edward, his father, approved, Alix, his mother, did not. Eddy fell in love with Princess Hélène of Orléans, granddaughter of the last King of France. Victoria refused, because she was a Catholic, and any heir to the British throne had to be, and marry, a Protestant. She was also pursued by Russian and Austrian royal heirs, Instead, she married an Italian Prince.

On December 3, 1891, Eddy proposed to Princess Mary of Teck, a German royal. Victoria approved, and the wedding was set for February 27, 1892. Victoria told the family that she was going to appoint Eddy to be Viceroy of Ireland.

But there was an influenza pandemic, and Eddy fell ill. He developed pneumonia, and was taken to the country, to Sandringham House in Norfolk. He died on January 14, 1892, just past his 28th birthday.

Mary and Eddy's brother, Prince George, Duke of York, apparently grew close in mourning. In May 1893, George proposed, Mary accepted, and Victoria approved. They were married on July 6, 1893. Victoria died on January 22, 1901, and Albert Edward, father of Eddy and George, became King Edward VII. He died on May 6, 1910, and, instead of Prince Eddy, the new king was his brother, who became King George V.

If Eddy had lived, and married Mary, they probably would have had children. We'll never know what they would have become, but it certainly wouldn't have been George's eldest son, who became the scandalous King Edward VIII, who then had no children; or George's 2nd son, who became King George VI, and then the father of Queen Elizabeth II.

No person so close in the line of succession to the British throne, other than the reigning monarch, has died since.

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January 14, 1892 was a Thursday. There were no scores on this day: Baseball and football were out of season, basketball was newly-invented, and while the hockey season was in progress, no games were scheduled.