Born this day, 1747 in Llancarfan, Glamorganshire

Iolo Morganwg ( Edward Williams )  creator of the Gorsedd of the Bards of the Isle of Britain.

Morganwg was a stonemason by trade and his work took him to London, where he came into contact with the Gwyneddigion Society and he began to socialise in the cities cultural and unconventional circles.

Iolo Morganwg was also one of the founder members of the Unitarian movement in Wales, a supporter of the French Revolution, a hymn-writer and  poet whose addiction to the drug laudanum must have affected his view of the world and led to his creation of the Gorsedd of the Bards which established a glorious ancient past for Wales and Glamorganshire in particular and deceived even the most learned scholars of his time into believing that it was an authentic institution.   

Guardsman Lovell Everson from Machen near Caerphilly was killed in action on 10th  March 1918 at Arras.  He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Arras Memorial to the Missing.  

It is thought that Lovell Everson was killed during a trench raid by 1st Battalion the Welsh Guards who were capturing a prisoner for interrogation when they were hit by German shells.  

The daguerreotype of Margam Castle taken on 9th March 1841, by Calvert Jones is credited with being the first photograph taken in Wales.

Calvert Jones, who was born in Swansea, was a mathematician, painter and photographer.  When he became rector of Loughor, he took up photography as a hobby and took many photographs of the Swansea area, as well as in France and Italy. He also developed his own technique  of overlapping photographs to give panoramic images.

After inheriting the Heathfield estate in Swansea in 1847, he was responsible for developing the area and named Mansel Street after his brother.  He died in Bath, but was buried at St Mary's Church, Swansea, however, the grave was destroyed during the bombings of World War II.  

Born this day, 1942 in Garnant in the Amman Valley

John Cale, OBE - musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the rock band The Velvet Underground. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.  

On this day, 1950 Timothy Evans was executed by hanging but was later granted a posthumous pardon. The case is now acknowledged as a major miscarriage of justice and was instrumental in the abolition of capital punishment in the United Kingdom in 1965.

Timothy John Evans, from Merthyr, was tried and convicted of murdering his wife and infant daughter at their residence in Notting Hill, London and sentenced to death by hanging. However, three years later, John Christie, a downstairs neighbour was found to be a serial killer who confessed to murdering Mrs. Evans and was subsequently found to have also murdered Evans's daughter.  

Born on this day 1910 in Aberdare

Sir Rhys Llewellyn- mining executive, soldier and author.

Llewellyn was the Managing Director of Graigola colliery in Merthyr, an officer in the Welsh Guards during World War II, the High Sheriff of Glamorgan and author of a book on horse racing entitled Breeding to Race.  

Born on this day 1949 in Fleur-de-Lis, near Blackwood.

Mostyn Neil Hamilton (born 9 March 1949) - barrister, teacher and Conservative MP.  

Hamilton's father was a chief engineer for the National Coal Board and his grandfathers were both coal miners, however at the age of 15, he joined the Conservative party.  In 1997, Hamilton became involved in a political scandal known as the Cash-for-questions affair, after which he and his wife Christine sought to become media celebrities.

Harold Clayton Lloyd (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971)  was born in Nebraska, his paternal grandparents were from Wales. 

Lloyd was one of the most popular and influential film comedians and directors of the silent film era.  His films frequently contained daredevil physical stunts, which Lloyd often performed himself and resulted in the loss of the thumb and index finger of his right hand when a bomb was mistaken as a prop and which he disguised on future films with the use of a special prosthetic glove.  

Born this day 1671, in Lasynys Fawr, near Harlech,

Ellis Wynne, clergyman, hymn writer and author, he is remembered primarily for Gweledigaetheu y Bardd Cwsc ('Visions of the Sleeping Bard'), first published in London in 1703 and regarded as one of the most important and influential pieces of Welsh-language literature.

The 7th of March 1804 saw the inauguration of the British and Foreign Bible Society, largely at the instigation of the Reverend Thomas Charles of Bala. 

Charles had been greatly impressed by the determination of a poor young Welsh girl, named Mary Jones, who had walked 26 miles to purchase a Bible from him at Bala in 1800 and met with friends in London in 1803 to establish a society to make bibles ready available throughout the world.  Subsequently, the British and Foreign Bible Society was inaugurated the following year.

Charles later edited Welsh language versions of the First Testament and the Bible for the society.  

Born this day,1850 in Funchal on Madeira ( His father, Captain William Matthews was Welsh)

Sir Lloyd William Mathews who was a British naval officer, politician and abolitionist.

Mathews fought for control of what is now Ghana in the Third Anglo-Ashanti War of 1873–4 and afterwards stayed in East Africa to form an army for Sultan Barghash of Zanzibar in order to suppress the slave trade and rebellions against the Zanzibar government.  

Born on this day 1876 in Rhossili, Gower.

Edgar Evans who was a member of Captain Robert Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole in 1911–1912. The group of five men selected for the final expedition push, which included Evans, reached the Pole on 17 January 1912. however, all five perished on their return journey to base camp.  

Robert (Bob) Thomas, Welsh international rugby player, died on 7th March 1910. 

Born in 1871,  Thomas was a forward who was part of Wales' Triple Crown winning side of 1900.

A head injury sustained whilst playing and a work injury at Landore steel works, Swansea, when a pair of tongs went through his right hand are thought to have  factors in his premature death in 1910, aged 39.

On 7th March 1695, Sir John Trevor (from the Brynkinalt estate near Chirk in Denbighshire), Speaker of the House of Commons, was expelled for taking a bribe of 1000 guineas (£1.6 million in 2009).  He remained the only Speaker to be forced out of office until Michael Martin resigned in 2009.

Interestingly, Trevor was severely cross-eyed, which caused confusion as to which MP had "caught the Speaker's eye", and led to many speaking out of turn.

  In March 1878, the  'Thomas' process, which enabled iron ore containing phosphorus to be used in steel making was developed at Blaenavon Ironworks by Sidney Gilchrist Thomas and Percy Gilchrist. 

Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, whose father was Welsh born, was an industrial chemist in London who developed a solution to the problem of phosphorus in iron ore, which resulted in the production of low grade steel. His cousin, Percy Gilchrist was a chemist at the Blaenavon ironworks, where they persuaded the manager, Edward Martin to help test the process.

The invention was a success and proved to be of world-wide importance.  It increased Blaenavon's production so much that the nearby Big Pit coal mine was sunk to service its needs.  The population of Blaenavon parish subsequently grew to 11,452 by 1891.  

Born this day,1884 in Talysarn, Gwynedd

R Williams Parry, who was one of Wales' greatest poets, renowned for his early romantic poetry.  He won the chair at the 1910 National Eisteddfod.  

The Flintshire Bridge was opened on 6th March 1998 to provide an alternative route into North Wales from North-West England.

It spans 200 metres across the River Dee Estuary and is more than 18m high to allow shipping to pass underneath. It is Britain's largest asymmetric cable-stayed bridge.   

Died on this day 1895

Isaac D. Seyburn, Welsh-born American who served as an officer in the United States Navy during the Civil War and was wounded in action during the 1861 Battle of port Royal, he later moved to Louisiana, where he operated a sugar plantation.   

Born this day 1928 in Bolton (the son of a Welsh railway guard)  

Glyn Owen, television and film actor, best known for his roles in the hospital drama Emergency Ward 10 and the BBC series Howards Way.  

Born this day, 1965 in Caerau near Maesteg

Allan Bateman, former Welsh rugby union and rugby league international, who also played for the British and Irish Lions at rugby union and Great Britain at rugby league.

Is America named after a Welshman?

On this day 1496, John Cabot received the letter of authority from Henry VII to make a voyage of discovery to North America 

It has been suggested that the name, "America" was derived from the name of Richard ap Meryk, anglicised to Richard Amerike a wealthy Bristol merchant of Welsh descent, who was the principal owner of the "Matthew", the ship sailed by John Cabot, the Italian navigator during his voyage of exploration to North America in 1497.  However the more widely held view is that America is the named after the Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci.

Richard Amerike was born at Meryk Court, Weston under Penyard, near Ross-on-Wye in 1445, Herefordshire and was a descendant of the Earls of Gwent. he came into contact with John Cabot when Cabot came to Bristol in 1495 hoping to find  sponsors of a voyage of discovery.  At that time, Amerike and other Bristol merchants were trying to find new sources of fish and other resources and so impressed were they with Cabot, that they arranged an audience with King Henry VII who gave Cabot the authority to make the voyage and claim lands on his behalf.

The legend grew that the North American continent had been named for him because he was the main sponsor of the voyage and that his coat of arms was similar to the flag later adopted by the independent United States.

On this day 1295 the Battle of Maes Moydog occurred.

After the death of Llywelyn ap Grufydd in 1282, his brother Dafydd had taken up the mantle and continued the fight, however on his capture and public execution in 1283, Edward I hoped that Wales would be pacified.  He also introduced the English shire system and English laws, with The Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 and poured an enormous amount of money and effort into both the rebuilding of damaged castles and the construction of new ones.  The Welsh however resented English rule and rebelled  unsuccessfully in 1287 and 1288. Welsh discontent was brought to a head in 1294, when the payment of an unpopular tax coincided with the raising of Welsh troops for Edward's campaign in Gascony. 

30th September 1294  -  Welsh soldiers assembling at Shrewsbury, due to march to Portsmouth for Edward’s campaign in Gascony, mutinied and killed their English officers, the rebels rallied around a distant cousin of Llywelyn, Madog ap Llywelyn and several Welsh castles were put under siege.  

October 1294  - Edward  mustered an army at his customary base of Worcester, to send reinforcements to a besieged Brecon Castle.

5th December 1294  -  Edward led an army to Wrexham as the Welsh had managed to push the English out of North Wales into  Chester.  Some 10,000 rebels surrendered and were pardoned on the condition they serve with Edward in France. Madog, however, managed to convince his followers that it was better to die defending their homeland, than in a foreign land. 

24th December 1294  -  Edward was joined at his new castle on the Conway Estuary by Reginald de Gray’s force of 11,000 men

12th January 1295  - Edward sacked  Nefyn, but on the return journey, they were ambushed by Welsh forces near Bangor who retook the  booty they had taken from the town.  The King and most of his force survived and made it back to Conway, where they were besieged.

5th March 1295  - Madog marched on Shrewsbury and camped at Maes Moydog, near Montgomery.  However, 2,500 English from Oswestry under the command of William de Beauchamp approached the Welsh camp and routed the Welsh army. The English lost just 90 men, the Welsh 700 

10th March 1295  -  The Welsh lost  a further 500 men following a midnight sortie of their camp. 

15th April 1295  -  Edward sent a force to occupy Anglesey and ordered the construction of Beaumaris Castle. 

Edward received surrenders and pledges of allegiance from all over Wales.  Madog went on the run but was eventually forced to surrender and imprisoned in the Tower of London for the rest of his life.

Born this day, 1886 in Pontypridd

Frederick Hall Thomas, known as Freddie Welsh - World lightweight champion. 

In the early part of the 20th century, the area around Pontypridd produced more champions  than any other  comparably sized region  in the world and Freddie Welsh was one such champion. 

Freddie was a sickly child, suffering from consumption and his parents were advised for him to take up boxing to strengthen his lungs.  Freddie was a natural and when aged sixteen, he decided to further his career in America, where initially, he just earned enough to live as a  hobo or  migratory worker, jumping trains to avoid paying the fare, but he soon became a professional boxer and his fortunes changed.

To start with, he took the name Freddie Cymro but changed it to Freddie Welsh on the advice that the pronunciation may confuse the American public and soon established himself on the East Coast.  However, Freddie then returned to Wales to look after his seriously ill mother and subsequently became British and World lightweight champion.    

The  Britannia Bridge connecting Ynys Mon (Anglesey) with the rest of Wales was opened on 5th March 1850.

The tubular, wrought iron box section bridge was designed and built by Robert Stephenson for carrying rail traffic but was rebuilt as a  steel truss arch bridge to carry both road and rail traffic, following a fire in 1970.

Born this day 1800 in Risca 

William Price  -   Physician and eccentric (pictured  in ritual, Neo-druidic attire whilst on stage)

He trained as a doctor in Caerphilly and after qualifying from the Royal College of Surgeons in London in 1821 he returned to Wales to practice.  He became involved in Chartist politics, becoming a local leader and after the Chartist march on Newport in 1839, he fled to France disguised as a woman, whilst in France,  he visited the Louvre museum, where he became highly interested in a stone with a Greek inscription that he interpreted as a prophecy given by an ancient Welsh prince named Alun, who would liberate the Welsh people.  Feeling that that the prophecy applied to him, Price returned to Wales to free his people from the English-dominated authorities.

Upon his return, he began to get increasingly interested in Welsh cultural activities, he scorned orthodox religion, claimed to be an arch-druid and performed ancient rites on the Pontypridd rocking-stone.  Price was also responsible for the building of the famous "Round houses" in Pontypridd, persuading a local builder to build them, even though he didn't own the land.  At this time he had taken to wearing  a white tunic, covering a scarlet waistcoat,  green cloth trousers and a huge fox skin hat, he neither shaved or cut his hair.

After another spell in France, he returned and opened a medical practice in Llantrisant and in 1881 at the age of 81 married  Gwenllian Llewelyn, who was only 21 and she bore him a son, whom Price named Iesu Grist (Jesus  Christ), however, the infant died after five months and Price decided to cremate his son’s body upon the summit of a hill outside Llantrisant.  Cremation at the time was unlawful and Price was arrested and put on trial for the illegal disposal of a corpse.  However, he successfully argued that there was no legislation that specifically outlawed it and this paved the way for the Cremation Act of 1902.  On his release, Price returned to Llantrisant to find a crowd of supporters cheering for his victory and  in 1892 he erected a pole which was over sixty feet high, with a crescent moon symbol at its peak, on top of the hill where the cremation had taken place.

William Price died on 23rd January 1893 and 20,000 people attended his cremation on a pyre of two tons of coal, on a hillside overlooking Llantrisant.  

A relatively unreported and serious riot took place on 4th March 1919 in the Canadian Army Camp at Kinmel Park, near Abergele in North Wales. 

There was discontent among the 15,000 Canadian soldiers waiting to be repatriated after World War One, as the place was a sea of mud, sleeping conditions were cramped and blankets in short supply.  On top of this, food rations had been halved and many had not received their pay for over a month.  The tipping point seemed to be when it was announced that the ships designated to take the Canadians home had been allocated to the Americans.

The men at Kinmel were infuriated and after nothing was done following several protests, the mood turned to outrage.  Some of the soldiers looted and started fires in Quartermaster's Stores and officers'  messes.  Rifle shots were exchanged with officers resulting in the deaths of three rioters and two guards, with many others being wounded.

The mutiny was put down the following  morning and 78 of the Canadian soldiers were arrested.  However the incident was "hushed up" and the remaining Canadians had been transported home by 25th March. 

Born this day 1948 in Ely, Cardiff

Shakin' Stevens, (born Michael Barratt)  "Shaky - Pop and rock and roll singer and songwriter who was the biggest-selling singles artist in the UK in the 1980s, entering the charts on 33 occasions.    

Born this day, 1955 in Llandudno

Joseph Patrick "Joey" Jones,   former Welsh soccer international, who won 72 caps. He also won the European Cup with Liverpool and is best remembered for his uncompromising style of play and committed attitude.  

Born this day 1924 in Rhuthun

David Oswald Thomas, who was a philosopher, best known for his interpretation of the work of the philosopher Richard Price.

After his early education at Denbigh Grammar School, he became a bank clerk, followed by military service in the RAF. After demobilization he entered the University College of Wales at Bangor, where he studied philosophy, taking a particular interest in the political philosophy of Richard Price. Thomas felt that thinkers like Price had received insufficient attention and made the eighteenth-century Welsh philosopher his life's work. In 1977, he published the definitive study of Price, The Honest Mind.