At 9.15 am on Friday, October 21, 1966, a waste tip above the mining village of Aberfan began to slide down the mountainside, firstly destroying a farm cottage and killing all its occupants. It then approached Pantglas Junior School, where the children had only just returned to their classes after singing All Things Bright and Beautiful at their morning assembly. The slide then engulfed the school and about 20 houses in the village, killing 144 people, including 116 school children

Workers up in the mountain had seen the slide start, but could not raise the alarm because their telephone cable had been stolen and down in the village, everybody heard the noise, but could see nothing, because of thick fog.

News of the tragedy travelled fast and hundreds of people stopped what they were doing and headed to Aberfan to try and help with the rescue. It was futile, as nobody was rescued alive after 11am and it was nearly a week before all the bodies were recovered.

On Mynydd Merthyr, directly above Aberfan. several tips containing millions of cubic metres of mining debris from the Merthyr Vale Colliery had been deposited over the years, onto highly porous sandstone that contained numerous underground springs. The NCB's area management had been made aware of the concerns regarding the tipping of spoil above the primary school, but these were largely ignored. In the days leading up to the disaster, there had been substantial bursts of heavy rain, which had caused 3–6 metres of subsidence on one of the tips. This then led to more than 150,000 cubic metres of debris breaking away and flowing downhill at high speed.

On 26th October 1966, a tribunal was appointed to inquire into the causes of and circumstances relating to the Aberfan disaster, which was chaired by Welsh barrister and Privy Councillor Lord Justice Edmund Davies.

The Tribunal's report found that

* The blame for the disaster rested entirely with the National Coal Board, and their "total absence of a tipping policy"

* Repeated warnings about the dangerous condition of the tip had been ignored.

* The tips had never been surveyed and were continuously being added to in a chaotic and unplanned manner. The disregard for the unstable geological conditions and the NCB's failure to act after previous smaller slides were found to have been major factors that contributed to the catastrophe.

On 21st October 1993 the Welsh Language Act 1993 was enacted.  It put Welsh and English on an equal basis, when providing services to the public in Wales and represents a milestone in the modern history of the language.

The Laws in Wales Acts 1535 - 1542 had made English the only language of the law courts and other aspects of public administration in Wales. The Welsh Courts Act 1942 had given the right to use Welsh in courts providing that the Welsh speaker was under a disadvantage in having to speak English and The Welsh Language Act 1967 gave rise to the concept of 'equal validity' between the Welsh and English languages, which resulted in Governmental Departments issuing documents in Welsh.  Then following a campaign of vandalising unilingual English road signs by members of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, local councils were allowed to provide many bilingual signs.  However it was the Welsh Language Act 1993 which established that 'in the course of public business and the administration of justice that both languages are to be treated on the basis of equality.'

The Act achieved three things:

* Setting up the Welsh Language Board, with the duty of promoting the use of Welsh and ensuring compliance with the other provisions.

* Giving people the right to use Welsh in court proceedings.

* All organisations in the public sector in Wales, being obliged to treat Welsh and English on an equal basis.  

Born on this day 1930 in Abersychan

Bryn Meredith - former Wales and Lions rugby international. Meredith was a mobile hooker, who played club rugby for Newport and London Welsh and is generally considered to be one of the finest forwards of all time.  

Born on this day 1944 in Pontyates

Mandy Rice-Davies - best known for her association with Christine Keeler and her role in the Profumo affair.

As a child, Rice-Davies moved to Solihull with her family and at 16 she went to London, where she appeared as 'Miss Austin' at the Earls Court Motor Show. She then got a job as a showgirl where she met Christine Keelor who introduced her to the well-connected osteopath Stephen Ward. Then in December 1962, while Keeler was visiting Rice-Davies, one of Keeler's former boyfriends, John Edgecombe, attempted to enter and fired several times at the door with a gun. His subsequent trial brought attention to the girls' involvement with many influential people, including the then Viscount Astor and the War Minister John Profumo. It was Profumo's relationship with Keeler that discredited the Conservative government of Harold Mcmillan and caused Profumo to resign.

Later Ward was brought to trial, charged with living off the immoral earnings of Keeler and Rice-Davies and it was whilst giving her evidence that Rice-Davies made her now famous riposte, when the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Viscount Astor denied an affair or having even met her, she replied, "He would, wouldn't he?" and by 1979, this phrase had entered the third edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

Later in life, Mandy Rice-Davies traded on the notoriety the trial brought her, she converted to Judaism and married the Israeli businessman, Rafi Shauli. The pair opened nightclubs and restaurants in Tel Aviv, called Mandy's Candies, Mandy's Singing Bamboo and Mandy's. Rice-Davies also made a series of unsuccessful pop singles in the mid-1960s.