8 October 1965: The Post Office Tower opens

By far the tallest building in London at the time, the Post Office Tower was officially opened by Harold Wilson on this day in 1965.

Post Office Tower, August 1965 © David Cairns/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Post Office Tower in August 1965
(Image credit: © David Cairns/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In the late 1950s, the telecommunications revolution was just getting started. The telephone network was expanding fast, and TV had recently expanded to two stations. The country needed new infrastructure. The options were to lay thousands of miles of costly cables, or build a tower to transmit via microwave. The General Post Office decided on the latter.

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Ben Judge

Ben studied modern languages at London University's Queen Mary College. After dabbling unhappily in local government finance for a while, he went to work for The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh. The launch of the paper's website, scotsman.com, in the early years of the dotcom craze, saw Ben move online to manage the Business and Motors channels before becoming deputy editor with responsibility for all aspects of online production for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News websites, along with the papers' Edinburgh Festivals website.

Ben joined MoneyWeek as website editor in 2008, just as the Great Financial Crisis was brewing. He has written extensively for the website and magazine, with a particular emphasis on alternative finance and fintech, including blockchain and bitcoin. 

As an early adopter of bitcoin, Ben bought when the price was under $200, but went on to spend it all on foolish fripperies.