January 28 » Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent, becomes the first person to be convicted of speeding. He was fined one shilling, plus costs, for speeding at 8mph (13km/h), thereby exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2mph (3.2km/h).
March 1 » Henri Becquerel discovers radioactive decay.
May 27 » The F4-strength St. Louis–East St. Louis tornado hits in St. Louis, Missouri, and East St. Louis, Illinois, killing at least 255 people and causing over $10-million in damage.
June 2 » Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his wireless telegraph.
December 14 » The Glasgow Underground Railway is opened by the Glasgow District Subway Company.
Day of death February 20, 1981
The temperature on February 20, 1981 was between -4.7 °C and -0.2 °C and averaged -1.6 °C. There was 1.2 mm of rain during 5.0 hours. There was 1.3 hours of sunshine (13%). The partly clouded was. The average windspeed was 3 Bft (moderate breeze) and was prevailing from the north-northeast. Source: KNMI
In The Netherlands , there was from Monday, December 19, 1977 to Friday, September 11, 1981 the cabinet Van Agt I, with Mr. A.A.M. van Agt (CDA/KVP) as prime minister.
In The Netherlands , there was from Friday, September 11, 1981 to Saturday, May 29, 1982 the cabinet Van Agt II, with Mr. A.A.M. van Agt (CDA) as prime minister.
January 1 » Greece is admitted into the European Community.
January 8 » A local farmer reports a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France, claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".
January 15 » Pope John Paul II receives a delegation from Solidarity (Polish trade union) at the Vatican led by Lech Wałęsa.
May 12 » Francis Hughes, Provisional IRA hunger striker, dies in the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland.
July 7 » US President Ronald Reagan appoints Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States.
October 6 » Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is murdered by Islamic extremists.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: J. van Broekhoven, "Database Van Broekhoven", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/database-van-broekhoven/I210940.php : accessed May 11, 2025), "Laurentia Catharina Maria van Mechelen (1896-1981)".
Copy warning
Genealogical publications are copyright protected. Although data is often retrieved from public archives, the searching, interpreting, collecting, selecting and sorting of the data results in a unique product. Copyright protected work may not simply be copied or republished.
Please stick to the following rules
Request permission to copy data or at least inform the author, chances are that the author gives permission, often the contact also leads to more exchange of data.
Do not use this data until you have checked it, preferably at the source (the archives).
State from whom you have copied the data and ideally also his/her original source.