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1996 in the United Kingdom:

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Sport and Music

British and Irish current events

1996 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

1996 in British music

Events from the year 1996 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister - John Major, Conservative

Events

• 18 January - Six major environmental organisations add their support to the campaign over the Newbury By-pass in Berkshire.^[1]
• 19 January - The first MORI poll of 1996 shows Labour still comfortably ahead of the Tories with a showing of 55% and a lead of 26 points. [1]
• 5 February - the first genetically modified food products go on sale in the UK.^[2]
• 9 February
  • a large bomb explodes in the London Docklands area, near to South Quay DLR station, killing two people and injuring up to 40. The bomb was the responsibility of the IRA, and marks the end of a 17-month ceasefire.^[3]
  • The Parole Board goes public with its recommendation that Moors Murderer Myra Hindley should be moved to an open prison. Hindley, 53 and in her 30th year of imprisonment, is currently being held at Durham Prison, but if Home Secretary Michael Howard backs the Parole Board's recommendation, Hindley could soon be transferred to a prison with a more relaxed regime.
• 15 February - A report on the Arms-to-Iraq affair is critical of government ministers.^[4]
• 18 February - a bomb explodes on a London bus in Central London, killing the IRA bomber transporting the device, and injuring several people.^[5]
• 19/20 February - Approximately 1000 passengers are trapped in the Channel Tunnel when two Eurostar trains break down due to electronic failures caused by snow and ice.^[6]
• 13 March - The Dunblane massacre - A gunman kills 16 children, their teacher and himself at a primary school in Dunblane, Stirling. The killer, who wounded 13 other children and another teacher, is quickly identified as 43-year-old former scout leader Thomas Hamilton.^[7]
• 2 May - The Football Association confirms that Glenn Hoddle will be appointed as coach of the England national football team after the upcoming European Championships.
• 5 May - Manchester United are confirmed Premier League champions for the third time in four seasons.
• 11 May - Eric Cantona, FWA Player of the Year for this season, scores a late winner against Liverpool in the FA Cup final to ensure that Manchester United win it for a record ninth time, and become the first team in England to win the double twice.
• 27 May - The reconstruction of William Shakespeare's Globe Theatre opens in London.^[8]
• 30 May - The Duke and Duchess of York complete their divorce proceedings.^[8]
• 8 June - The UEFA Euro 1996, hosted by England begins. The first match, England vs Switzerland takes place at Wembley Stadium, London. It ends in a 1-1 draw.
• 13 June - Guernsey legalises abortion, 86 years after it was criminalised on the island.
• 15 June - A massive IRA bomb explodes in Manchester city centre, devastating the city's commercial district.^[9]
• 19 June - The government selects the Greenwich Peninsula site on the banks of the River Thames as the location for the Millennium Dome exhibition which is set to open for the year 2000.
• 21 June - The latest MORI poll shows the Tories on 31% (their best showing for three years), but they are still 21 points behind Labour with just under a year to go before an election has to be held. [2]
• 30 June - Germany wins the European Championship final with a 2-1 victory over Czech Republic at Wembley.
• 5 July - Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell, is born at the Roslin Institute in Scotland,
• 8 July
  • Three young children and four adults are attacked by a man with a machete at a nursery school in the Blakenhall area of Wolverhampton.^[10]
  • The Spice Girls first single Wannabe is released.
• 10 July - Police find the bodies of 45-year-old Lin Russell and her six-year-old daughter Megan near village of Nonington in Kent. Lin's other daughter, nine-year-old Josie, survived the attack with massive head injuries. The killer is believed to have performed the attack with a hammer.^[11]
• 15 July - Horrett Campbell, 33, is arrested on seven counts of attempted murder following last week's machete attack at a Wolverhampton nursery school.
• 19 July–9 August - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, and win 1 gold, 8 silver and 6 bronze medals.
• 29 July - Alan Shearer becomes the world's most expensive footballer when Newcastle United F.C. pay £15 million for him. It beats the previous world record that was set four years ago when AC Milan of Italy signed Gianluigi Lentini for £13million, and is almost double the previous national record of £8.4million that Liverpool paid for Stan Collymore last year. The rising wealth of football in England since the creation of the Premier League four years ago is reflected in the fact that Shearer became the country's most expensive footballer back in 1992 for a fee of £3.6million - less than a quarter of his latest fee.^[8]
• 14 August - Unemployment has fallen to 2,126,200 - its lowest level in more than five years.
• 28 August - The Prince and Princess of Wales complete their divorce proceedings.^[8] The Princess of Wales loses her style of Royal Highness and assumes the style, Diana, Princess of Wales.
• September - Ford launches its revolutionary new Ka city car, which makes use of a shortened Fiesta chassis.
• 13 October - Racing driver Damon Hill wins the Japanese Grand Prix thus clinching the Drivers' World Championship.^[8]
• 16 October - The Government announces plans to ban handguns in the UK, following the Dunblane massacre.^[12]
• 18 November - Channel Tunnel fire - the Channel Tunnel is closed when a truck on a transporter wagon catches fire, disrupting Eurotunnel Shuttle and Eurostar services
• 30 November - The Stone of Scone is installed in Edinburgh Castle 700 years after it was removed from Scotland by King Edward I of England.^[8]
• 1 December - Lee Harvey, a 25-year-old Alvechurch man, is stabbed to death in a reported road rage attack on a country lane near Redditch in Worcestershire.
• 9 December - A jury at Stafford Crown Court finds Horrett Campbell guilty on all seven counts of attempted murder relating to the Wolverhampton nursery machete attack five months previously.^[13]
• 10 December
  • James Mirrlees wins the Nobel Prize in Economics jointly with William Vickrey "for their fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information".^[14]
  • Harold Kroto wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley "for their discovery of fullerenes".^[15]
• 18 December - Unemployment has fallen below 2,000,000 for the first time since early 1991, less than four years after it touched 3,000,000. Despite the strong economic recovery and falling unemployment, the Tories are still trailing behind Labour in the opinion polls.
• 19 December - Lee Harvey's girlfriend Tracie Andrews is charged with his murder, less than three weeks after his death was reported as the result of a "road rage" attack. She is freed on bail.
• 20 December - A police hunt begins in Chester for nine-year-old Kayleigh Ward, who went missing yesterday evening in the Blacon area of the city.

Publications

• Iain M. Banks' novel Excession.
• Seamus Deane's novel Reading in the Dark.
• Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels Feet of Clay and Hogfather; and his Johnny Maxwell novel Johnny and the Bomb.
• Graham Swift's novel Last Orders.

Births

• Samuel Chatto, son of Lady Sarah Chatto and Daniel Chatto
• Cassius Taylor, son of Lady Helen Taylor
• Alexander Ogilvy, son of James Ogilvy

Deaths

• 11 February - Cyril Poole, cricketer (born 1921)
• 14 February - Bob Paisley, footballer and football manager (born 1919)
• 27 February - Pat Smythe, show jumper (born 1928)
• 25 March - John Snagge, radio personality (born 1904)
• 6 April) - Greer Garson, actress (born 1904)
• 20 April - Christopher Robin Milne, author and bookseller (born 1920)
• 20 May - Jon Pertwee, actor (born 1919)
• 2 June - Leon Garfield, children's author (born 1921)
• 4 August - Geoff Hamilton, television presenter (born 1936)
• 9 August - Frank Whittle, RAF officer and inventor (born 1907)
• 13 October - Beryl Reid, actress (born 1919)
• 16 October - Eric Malpass, novelist (born 1910)
• 26 November - Michael Bentine, comedian and comic actor (born 1922)
• 9 December - Mary Leakey, archaeologist (born 1913)
• 11 December - Willie Rushton, comedian, actor, and cartoonist (born 1937)
• 11 December - W. G. G. Duncan Smith, World War II pilot (born 1914)
• 16 December - Quentin Bell, biographer and art historian (born 1910)

References

See also