On 3rd February 1935, 300,000 Welsh People took to the streets in protest over low incomes, poor health, substandard housing and the reduction in unemployment benefit (The Means Test), which had resulted in Wales becoming one of the world's most depressed countries. 

The 1920s and 1930s were the classic example of capitalism in crisis.  After the First World War ended in 1918 it was initially thought that the recession which followed was as a result of a post-war disruption to economy.  However things were about to get a whole lot worse. 

The danger signals had started to appear in the mid 1920s when unemployment among coal miners rose to 29%, which had risen to 43% by 1932.  Other industries such as steel, tinplate, slate and agriculture, were also badly affected and resulted in massive emigration, with over 440,000 people leaving Wales, which also dealt a devastating blow to chapel culture and to the Welsh language. 

On 3rd Feb 1134 Robert Curthose, the eldest son of William the Conqueror, died whilst imprisoned in Cardiff Castle.

Robert Curthose was born in about 1053 and at the age of 14, he became co-regent of Normandy with his mother. However when Robert suggested in 1077 that he should become the sole ruler of Normandy and Maine, the king refused and Robert rebelled.  William put down the rebellion and Robert was forced to flee. In 1080 his mother, Matilda of Flanders, managed to persuade the two men to end their feud and Robert inherited Normandy after his father's death in 1087.  However, Robert became involved in a dispute over who should rule England, with his younger brother, William Rufus, who put down a rebellion on Robert's behalf to claim the throne.

Robert joined the First Crusade in 1096 and was involved in capture of Jerusalem.  When William Rufus died in 1100, he again attempted to become king of England, but was forced to withdraw by his brother Henry I, who in 1106, captured and imprisoned Robert in the Tower of London. In 1128 he was transferred to a castle in Devizes and later held in Cardiff where in his last years, it is reported that he learned Welsh and wrote at least one poem in the language.  

Born this day 1478, in Brecon Castle

Edward Stafford   (3rd Duke of Buckingham), nobleman and nephew of King Edward IV, who was executed for treason on Tower Hill in 1521. 

Staffords father was a supporter of Henry VII's claim to the throne of England and was beheaded for participating in a rebellion against Richard III.  Therefore in his early years Stafford himself was in danger of his life and is said to have been hidden in various houses in Herefordshire.  However when Henry VII came to the throne, Stafford and his family came back into favour. and he became one of the most powerful men in the kingdom.

He attended Henry VII's coronation and was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter.  He carried the crown at the coronation of Henry VIII  and served as a captain during Henry VIII's invasion of France.  He was later appointed to commissions of the peace, with responsibility for keeping order in South Wales.  However he started to fall out of favour with Henry VIII and was tried, convicted and executed for plotting to kill the king.  

3rd February is the anniversary of the death in 1762, of Richard ‘Beau’ Nash, celebrated dandy and leader of fashion.

Born in Swansea on 18 October 1674, Nash attended Oxford University, before becoming an army officer and then later a barrister.  However, he became famous as Master of Ceremonies for the town of Bath, which he instrumental in making the most fashionable resort in England.  His nickname was earned through his fashionable clothes and elegance. However, Nash was also a notorious gambler, who died bankrupt and was buried in a pauper’s grave.

Born in February 1693 in Llandygwydd in Cardiganshire 

Theophilus Evans - cleric, historian, and man of letters, who is best known for his work  Drych y Prif Oesoedd  (Mirror of the Early Centuries) (1716) in which he identified Bangor-is-y-coed as the monastry that Saint Augustine ordered the slaughter of 1200 monks during his attempt to get the Welsh Church to conform to the teaching of Rome.

Evans was the vicar of Llandyfrïog , near Newcastle Emlyn, Llanynys in Breconshire and then from 1738 of the parishes Llangamarch, Llanwrtyd and Abergwesyn also in Breconshire, where he said to have discovered the properties of the spa water at Llanwrtyd Wells by drinking it when everybody said it to poisonous and thus curing himself of scurvy.  Also The hymnist William Williams, Pantycelyn   was appointed his curate in 1740 but as Evans refused to recommend him for ordination as a priest, he left in 1743.

Born on this day 1812 at Tyn y Meini, Bryndreiniog, Pen-y-Bont-Fawr, Montgomeryshire.

Robert Elis, known by his bardic name Cynddelw - Baptist minister, poet and lexicographer.

Elis's poem Yr Adgyfodiad was published in 1849, whilst he was a minister at Tredegar in the Sirhowy Valley and his dictionary, Geiriadur Cymreig Cymraeg, published in Caernarfon in 1868 was one of the first Welsh only dictionaries. 

On 3rd February 1925, an estimated 100,000 people line the streets of Cardiff for the funeral of boxer,'peerless' Jim Driscoll.