Glyndwr takes Carmarthen on 6th July 1403.

Owain Glyndwr, since being proclaimed Prince of Wales by his followers, had been a thorn in the flesh of Henry IV of England.  However, until 1403 Owain's success had been confined to North Wales, where, along with his Tudur cousins, he had captured or destroyed several Anglo-Norman strongholds such as Ruthin, Conwy and Welshpool.  Owain had thwarted Henry's counter-attacks, captured his son's baggage train and in 1401 had achieved a major victory at the battle of Mynydd Hyddgen. 

During 1402, Glyndwr's forces had gone from strength to strength, capturing and ransoming his arch-rival Reginald de Grey in April and defeating and capturing Edmund Mortimer at the battle of Pilleth on Bryn Glas hill near Presteigne in June. This represented a significant advance into Mid Wales.  An alliance with the Mortimer family, sealed by marriage to Owain's daughter, posed an increased threat to Henry IV's power.  However, it was in July 1403 that Owain Glyndwr truly swept to power throughout Wales. His advance through his mother's homeland of Deheubarth, down the Tywi Valley secured the strongholds of Dryslwyn, Newcastle Emlyn and on 6th July, following a short siege, Carmarthen.  With his army now 8000 strong, and with hundreds of Welsh archers and experienced men-at-arms defecting from Henry's army to swell Glyndwr's ranks, this could be said to represent the almost total collapse of English rule in Wales at that time. 

Wales welcomes the World to the Llangollen Musical Eisteddfod.

The Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod is a music festival which takes place every year during the second week of July in Llangollen, North Wales.

Performers from different countries around the world participate in high quality competitions which are followed in the evening by concerts, where the competition winners and most enchanting competitors perform on the Eisteddfod stage alongside professional artists.  Approximately five thousand instrumentalists, dancers and singers from many different  countries perform to audiences numbering over 50,000 during the week-long event. World renowned performers at Llangollen have included in the past Luciano Pavarotti (who competed for the first time in 1955 along with his father and a local choir from their home in Modena, Italy). Julian Lloyd Webber has graced the Llangollen stage, as has Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

The Gala Concert on the final Sunday has featured Welsh soprano Katherine Jenkins, Bryn Terfel, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, and James Galway.

Glamorgan CCC was formed on 6 July 1888 at a meeting in the Angel Hotel, Cardiff.

Cricket was probably first played in Wales by the end of the 17th century. The earliest known occurrence of the game of cricket in the county of Glamorgan is found in a reference to a match at Swansea in 1780.

The club competed in the Minor Counties Championship for many years and then applied for first-class status after the First World War, playing its inaugural first-class match  against Sussex CCC at Cardiff Arms Park on 18, 19 & 20 May 1921, a match that Glamorgan won.

*  Glamorgan County Cricket Club is one of the 18 first class county clubs and the only Welsh one, playing cricket in England and Wales.

*  Glamorgan CCC have won the English County Championship competition 3 times;  in 1948, 1969 and 1997.

*  Glamorgan have also beaten all of the major Test playing nations.

*  The club is based in Cardiff and plays most of its home games at the SWALEC Stadium in Sophia Gardens, however, matches are occasionally played at Swansea, Cresselly and Colwyn Bay.

*  Glamorgan's all-time top run scorer is Alan Jones with 34,056 runs.

*  Glamorgan's all-time top wicket taker is Don Sheppard with 2,174 wickets.

Born this day 1736 in Hunterdon County, New Jersey (All four of his grandparents were Welsh immigrants who lived in Pennsylvania).  Picture shows the formal surrender of  General Burgoyne to General Gates, Daniel Morgan dressed in white stands proudly in the foreground.

Daniel Morgan  - American soldier, who distinguished himself in major American Revolutionary War battles.

Daniel Morgan was a wild character; lecherous, a drunkard, fond of women and fighting, and allegedly a horse thief. However, it is possible that without him, the American Revolution would not have succeeded. He was brave in battle and was adept at leading untrained troops. he was tactically cunning and calm under fire.
Morgan argued with his father and left home at a young age, never to return. He moved to the wilds of Northwestern Virginia, where despite his disrepute, he became well known for his loyalty, toughness and fearlessness in defending the 'wild frontier'.

Morgan was a big, powerful man, with unstinting courage and stamina. His prowess in frontier tactics such as marksmanship and guerrilla-style skirmishes made him a valuable asset in the conflict between British and American forces.

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On 6 July 1843 the Bolgoed tollgate on the outskirts of Pontarddulais was attacked and destroyed by a group of some 200 men, during the final stages of the Rebecca Riots

The Rebecca riots took place between 1839 and 1843, in the rural parts of west Wales, mostly in Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire, and Carmarthenshire, they were a series of protests made mostly by tenant farmers against the payment of tolls to use the roads, but many other 'Rebecca' incidents were about general economic conditions. During the riots, men disguised as women attacked the tollgates. They called themselves 'Rebecca and her daughters', most likely referring to a passage in the Bible where Rebecca talks of the need to 'possess the gates of those who hate them'

The 1830's, the period leading up to riots were turbulent times. The population of the rural areas of Wales had doubled in the century before the riots and it was hard for them all to gain a livelihood. The common lands which were once available for the use of all the people in a village were now enclosed and had become the property of the big estates, they were leased out to farmers for rents out of proportion to what they could earn from their produce. On top of this farmers also had to pay tithes (a tenth of all their produce each year) to the church, to support the local church (even though most people in Wales were non -conformist). As a result of this, it was inevitable that farm labourers wages were low and if you did not have enough money to support yourself you were split from your family and put into one of the new workhouses, where conditions were worse than for the worst paid labourer outside. The last straw was the toll gate system, roads were especially bad in Wales and to remedy this, the government established turnpike trusts, which were made up of trustees (usually local businessmen and landowners) who were responsible for maintaining the roads, to fund this they were allowed to erect toll gates and collect charges from road users. Farmers were especially hard-hit by this as they used the roads to transport produce and lime to improve the soil.

Then in 1842-3, economic conditions got even worse and the outbreaks swept through the three counties. Soon not a single toll gate was standing. The government sent in troops to try to prevent the outbreaks but they were ineffective and were often sent on wild goose chases.  In the end, the government had to modify the toll gate system and amend the poor law and gradually economic conditions improved. 

Today is the feast day of Saint Erfyl.

Saint Erfyl c. 500 - was a female Welsh virgin who founded a church at Llanerfyl in Powys. 

There is an unusual inscribed stone at Llanerfyl Church, which seems to be a sub-Roman memorial stone dating from the 5th or 6th century. The inscription, in horizontal Roman capitals,  commemorates the 13 year old daughter of Paterninus, Rustica.

Born on this day 1913 in Cwm Rhondda, Glamorgan

"I was born in 1913, the following year was even worse"

Gwyn Thomas   was one of the foremost Welsh writers of the 20th century. He wrote novels and short stories, plays for radio and stage, and was also a scriptwriter and presenter for television, as well as a much-loved columnist in Punch. He has been called 'the true voice of the English-speaking valleys'.  Once described as 'the greatest talker in the world' he was the veteran entertainer of The Brains Trust and Tonight and is also remembered for his empathetic commentary in a moving programme on the Aberfan disaster.

A former schoolmaster turned novelist turned programme maker, Thomas's  included among his friends Richard Burton, Stanley Baker, Sam Wannamaker and Donald Houston. Yet beyond the world of celebrity, he was a writer passionately committed to a humane socialism, most of whose work, novels, stories, plays, are set in or informed by his native Rhondda valley. Writing about the appalling poverty he and his fellow south Walians suffered during his early years, Thomas was inspired by his community and chose not bitter despair, but humour in the face of adversity.

The Battle of Aqaba was fought on 6th July 1917 for possession of  the Jordanian port of Aqaba. Under the leadership of Auda ibu Tayi and advised by T.E Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"), the advancing forces of the Arab Revolt were victorious over the Turkish defenders.

The capture of Aqaba helped to re-establish vital supply lines between Egypt and the Arab and British forces stationed further north in Jordan and Greater Palestine.  More importantly, control of Aqaba reduced  the threat of a Turkish offensive onto the strategically important Suez Canal.  Aqaba was subsequently transferred to the British protectorate of Transjordan in 1925.