Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest news on travelling, whether you're just dreaming of a great escape or actually away and having the time of your life. Today, on the final day of 2021, I want to look at those extraordinary 1st of January travel anniversaries. I've found quite a lot, and you might possibly be amused. I'll tell you how things have changed since that time. Right, 1st to January, 1946, Heathrow Airport,

then known as London Airport, opened for civilian traffic. The very first departure,

no I wasn't on board, thank you, was British South American Airways on a proving flight to

Lisbon and then onwards to Buenos Aires. Two years later,

1st January, 1948, we saw British Railways being nationalised. Before that, well, there were four

big rail companies. And oddly, we're now coming back to the stage where British Railways is nationalised once again.

A number of money things happened on the 1st of January, 1960 in France.

They introduced one new franc being worth 100 old francs.

And if you jump to 20 years ago on the 1st of January 2002 physical

euro coins and banknotes entered circulation before that the euro existed but only really

on paper and you got the very first coins and notes i was in malaga at the time it was

so exciting and of course at the time the pound was worth about one euro 40 now it's worth less

than one euro 20 ha which takes us on to the next one, which was 1st of January 1973.

Britain joined the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the EU.

I think it did quite a lot for the traveller.

On the 1st of January, 1993, for example, limits on alcohol were abolished for

travellers within, what was then the European community. And UK customs deemed the maximum

for personal use to be 90 litres of wine and 72 litres of beer, which sounds like quite a good night for me. Here it was a great travel,

new attraction story which went a little bit wrong. First of January 2000, the Millennium

Dome opened to a pretty unimpressed public. I was there on the opening day. I paid

20 quid to get in. By the following boxing day, you could get in for a pound. Of course,

it is now the O2 Arena and I go back there really quite a lot. First of January, 2021, the Brexit transition phase ended and that triggered a wide range of

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