Interesting Facts

25th November 1960 - Three sisters, Patria, Minerva and María Teresa Mirabal, were brutally murdered for their political activism. The sisters, known as the "Unforgettable Butterflies," became a symbol of violence against women in Latin America. Women's activists have marked November 25 as a day against violence since 1981 and on December 17, 1999, the United Nations General Assembly designated November 25 (the anniversary of the day of the murder of the Mirabal sisters) as the annual date for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in commemoration of the sisters. Due to their mark in history November 25, is observed each year as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in honor of the Mirabal sisters. It also marks the beginning of the 16 days of Activism against Gender Violence. The end of the 16 Days is December 10, International Human Rights Day. http://www.un.org/en/events/endviolenceday/

18th November 1307 - Famed marksman William Tell put an apple on his son's head and shot it off.  (Call Social Services) 1928 - Mickey Mouse appeared in Steamboat Willie, his first cartoon to be distributed. 2004 - Britain outlawed fox hunting in England and Wales.

11th November 1918 - On the 11th hour of the 11th Day in the 11th month the Armistice that officially ended the First World War was declared. https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/project/first-world-war https://flic.kr/g/fnA5wu 2005 - Lord Lichfield, the Royal photographer died at the age of 66 after suffering a major stroke. (Apart from being an excellent photographer he endeared himself to me by using a whistle to keep the Royal Family in order when taking the photographs at Charles and Diana's wedding - I am sure that he and Diana will have a few interesting words to say to each other.)

10th November 2008 - Mama Africa (Miriam Makeba) died of a heart attack after collapsing on stage.

8th November 1920 - Rupert Bear first appeared in the Daily Express.

5th November 1605 - Guy Fawkes and other conspirators attempted to blow up the English Parliament and failed. Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night

4th November 1783 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Symphony No. 36 was performed for the first time in Linz, Austria. 1839 – The Newport Rising took place, which is the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority on mainland Britain. 1847 – Sir James Young Simpson, a British physician, discovered the anaesthetic properties of chloroform. 1918 – Wilfred Owen, English soldier and poet died, 6 days before the end of the war. 1922 – British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men found the entrance to Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. 1952 – The United States government established the National Security Agency, or NSA. 1999 - Wallace and Gromit's animated adventure A Grand Day Out was first shown. 2008 – Barack Obama became the first man of African-American descent to be elected President of the United States.

3rd November 1928 - Mickey Mouse appeared in Walt Disney's first fully synchronized sound cartoon "Steamboat Willie". (Walt Disney actually did the voice too.)

31st October 1984 - Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, was killed by two assassins believed to be her own bodyguards. Booh - It's Halloween!

29th October 1986 - Margaret Thatcher officially opened the M25 motorway.

23rd October 1958 - Belgian cartoonist Peyo introduced Smurfs to the world.

21st October 1966 at 09:15 - 144 people, 116 of them children, were killed when a tip of coal waste slid onto the village of Aberfan in South Wales. At the Tribunal of Inquiry into the Aberfan Disaster, the NCB was found responsible for the disaster, due to "ignorance, ineptitude and a failure of communication". No NCB employee was fired, demoted or even disciplined.

20th October 1781 - British commander Lord Cornwallis surrendered to a Franco-American force led by George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau, at Yorktown, Virginia, paving the way for the end of the American Revolutionary War. 2015 - English radio launched online.

18th October 1922 - The BBC (British Broadcasting Corp.) was established.

15th October 1901 - Walt Disney was born. 2013 - The Royal Mail was privatised.

14th October 1066 - The Battle of Hastings, Duke William of Normandy and Norman army defeated the English forces of Harold II. 1773 - The first recorded Ministry of Education, the Komisja Edukacji Narodowej (Commission of National Education), was formed in Poland.

4th October 1957: The Russian satellite, Sputnik was launched into space. Becoming the first man-made object ever to leave the Earth's atmosphere.

4th October 1924 - Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared in the children's verse book, "When We Were Very Young".

3rd October 1990 - Germany officially reunified when the six re-established federal states (Bundesländer) of East Germany–Brandenburg, Berlin (formed by uniting the two halves of the formerly divided city), Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia–formally joined the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany).

30th September 2005 - A Danish newspaper published a series of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which Muslims found so insulting that 140 people died in the ensuing violence. (140 people died in the resulting protests - now that's a crime.)

27th September 1998 - Google officially came into the world. They formally incorporated the company, Google Inc., on September 7, 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. But according to Google, they are 10 years old today, so who am I to argue. Official Google Blog

22nd September 1977 - Steve Biko, the leader of the black consciousness movement in South Africa, died in police custody.

18th September 1970 - Music Legend Jimi Hendrix died after collapsing at a party in London.

16th September  1968 - Royal Mail, in the UK, began the two-tier postal system of first and second class stamps.

11th September 1944 - An allied bombing raid on the German city of Darmstadt killed an estimated 12,300 inhabitants and made 70,000 people homeless. "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."   Dwight Eisenhower 2001 - Four commercial passenger jet airliners were hijacked. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after some of it...

3rd September 2004 - The Beslan school hostage crisis ended with the overall loss of 344 civilians, at least 172 of whom were children. "For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out." James Baldwin

2nd September 1666 - The Great Fire of London began. It destroyed 13,000 houses in four days.

According to a study commissioned by the Society For The Protection Of Animals Abroad, the average British worker spends the equivalent of two weeks a year grumbling about work. (The most common gripes generally take up a total of 20 minutes of the working day, and include the amount of junk mail received, being copied into emails that are not related to their work, and someone stealing a favourite mug. The top 20 office grumbles were:- 1. Getting a phone call when you're literally about to leave the office 2. Computers being slow 3. IT issues 4. The temperature being too low/high  (See 5 and 10) 5. No air conditioning - I guess that's about the temperature being too high. 6. Computers crashing 7. Printers jamming or breaking down 8. Colleagues who are difficult to work with 9. When someone uses your desk when you're away and leaves it messy 10. Freezing cold air conditioning - That's about the temperature being too low. 11. Being in the office when the...

31st August 1997– Princess Diana, Al Fayed and their driver, Henri Paul, die in a high-speed car crash in a Paris tunnel. 1980 - Poland's Solidarity movement (Solidarnosc), was officially recognised. It is credited with playing a key role in the collapse of communism.

28th August 1963 - Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous, "I have a dream", speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before more than 200,000 people gathered for the Freedom March in Washington. 1996 -  Diana's divorce from Prince Charles became final today; she got to keep the title "Princess".

25th August 1944 - U.S. troops liberated Paris from the Nazis in World War II.

21st August 1770 – James Cook formally claimed eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales. 1831 – Nat Turner led black slaves and free blacks in a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. 1879 – The Virgin Mary, along with St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist, reportedly appeared to the people of Knock, County Mayo, Ireland. Paving the way for lots of little plastic figurines. 1911 – The Mona Lisa was stolen by an employee at the Louvre in Paris. 1968 - Dozens of people were killed in a massive military clampdown in Czechoslovakia. 1983 - Benigno Aquino, the Philippines opposition leader, was murdered just minutes after returning home from exile. 1986 - 1,700 people died when a cloud of lethal gas escaped from a volcanic lake, Lake Nyos, in Cameroon.

20th August 1858 – Charles Darwin first published his theory of evolution in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory. 1882 – Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuted in Moscow. 1940 – Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky was fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramon Mercader in Mexico. 1978 - A 29 year old airline stewardess, Irit Gidron, died during an attack on a bus carrying Israelis in central London. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) later said it had carried out the attack. 1986 – U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill gunned down 14 of his co-workers and then commited suicide in In Edmond, Oklahoma. 1988 – A cease-fire was agreed between Iran and Iraq, after almost eight years of war. 1989 – The pleasure boat Marchioness sank on the River Thames, in London, following a collision. 51 people were killed. 1991 – Estonia seceded from the Soviet Union.

19th August 1561 – 18-year-old Mary Queen of Scots returned to Scotland, after spending 13 years in France. 1692 – 5 people, 1 woman and 4 men, including a clergyman, were executed after being convicted of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. 1745 – Prince Charles Edward Stuart landed Glenfinnan, raised his standard and marched on London – the start of the Second Jacobite Rebellion known as "the 45". 1919 – Afghanistan gained full independence from the United Kingdom. 1934 – The creation of the position of Führer was approved by the German electorate with 89.9% of the popular vote. 1977 – Groucho Marx died. 1989 – Several hundred East Germans crossed the frontier between Hungary and Austria during the Pan-European Picnic, part of the events which began the process of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. 1999 – Tens of thousands of Serbians rallied in Belgrade, to demand the resignation of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević.

18th August 1982 - The first CD was produced at Philips' factory in Germany.

16th August 1819 – Seventeen people die and over 600 were injured in cavalry charges at a public meeting at St. Peter's Field, Manchester, England, which was held to demand the reform of parliamentary representation. This became known as The Peterloo Massacre. 1902 – Georgette Heyer, English author was born. 1906 – An estimated 8.2 MW earthquake hit Valparaíso, Chile, killing 3,886 people. 1913 – Tōhoku Imperial University of Japan (modern day Tohoku University) becomes the first university in Japan to admit female students. 1946 – Mass riots in Kolkata began, in which more than 4,000 people were murdered over the next 72 hours. 1960 – Cyprus gained its independence from the United Kingdom. 1974 – Punk Rock pioneers The Ramones played their first show in a local New York club called CBGB. 1977 - Elvis Presley died. 2012 – South African police fatally shot 34 miners and wounded 78 more during an industrial dispute near Rustenburg.

14th August 1947 - Colonial rule in India ended, and the country of Pakistan was created.

1946 - H G Wells died in London at the age of 79. His works included The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds.

9th August 1173 – Construction of the campanile of the Cathedral of Pisa (now known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa) began. It took two centuries to complete. 1483 – The Sistine Chapel opened in Rome with the celebration of a mass. 1842 – The Webster–Ashburton Treaty was signed, establishing the United States–Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains. 1892 – Thomas Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph. 1902 – Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1922 – Philip Larkin, English poet and author was born. 1936 – The Summer Olympic Games aka Games of the XI Olympiad were held in Berlin. Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the games becoming the first American to win four medals in one Olympiad. 1942 – Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement. 1945 – World War II: Nagasaki, Japan was devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat...

8th August 1503 – King James IV of Scotland married Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland. 1585 – John Davis entered the Cumberland Sound in search of the Northwest Passage. 1709 – The first documented balloon flight in Europe was demonstrated by Bartolomeu de Gusmão, in Lisbon. It did not end well, but he was the first. 1786 – Mont Blanc on the French – Italian border was climbed for the first time by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard. 1793 – The insurrection of Lyon occured during the French Revolution. 1794 – Joseph Whidbey led an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage near Juneau, Alaska. 1876 – Thomas Edison received a patent for his mimeograph. 1908 – Wilbur Wright made his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It was the Wright Brothers' first public flight. 1929 – The German airship Graf Zeppelin began a round-the-world flight. 1942 – The Quit India Movement was laun...

6th August 1926 - The American Olympic athlete, Gertrude Ederle, became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. It took her 14 hours, 39 minutes to swim the 56 kilometers from France to England. She held the record for 35 years. 1945 - The world's first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. An estimated 140,000 people were killed by the bomb and its aftermath.

5th August 1858 - After several unsuccessful attempts, the first telegraph line across the Atlantic Ocean was completed. 1962 - Marilyn Monroe was found dead. 1973 - Three people were killed and 55 wounded when two gunmen opened fire in a crowded passenger lounge at Athens airport.

4th August  1914 - Germany declared war on Belgium 1914 - Britain declared war on Germany. 1914 - The US declared neutrality. A woman gives flowers to a German soldier leaving for the front, Berlin, August 1914  pic.twitter.com/AbpfIdFCN9 — History In Pictures (@HistoryInPics)  August 5, 2014 1944 - Anne Frank was arrested in Amsterdam by German Security Police (Grüne Polizei) following a tip-off from an informer who was never identified.1964 - FBI agents uncovered the bodies of three missing civil rights workers at a dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

3rd August 2001 - A car bomb exploded in a busy west London street, injuring seven people. 2003 - The Anglican Church in America voted to approve the appointment of an openly gay bishop. 2008 - Nobel literature prize winner, Alexander Solzhenitsyn who revealed the horror of Stalin's camps to the world, died aged 89.

1st August Yorkshire Day

1st August 1907 - Robert Baden-Powell opened the first experimental Scout camp on Brownsea Island. 20 scouts attended. 1908 - Lloyd George introduced the Old Age Pensions Act that provided between 1s. and 5s. a week to people over seventy. These pensions were only paid to citizens on incomes that were not over 12s.

31st July 1498 - On his third voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus "discovered" the island of Trinidad. 1703 - Daniel Defoe was placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel. He had ruthlessly satirised the High Church Tories in a pamphlet, but allegedly, instead of throwing rotten veg and fruit at him, the crowd threw flowers. 1741 – Charles Albert of Bavaria invaded Upper Austria and Bohemia. 1790 – The first U.S. patent was issued to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process. 1792 - Director David Rittenhouse laid the cornerstone in Philadelphia for the U.S. Mint, the first building of the federal government. 1895 – The Basque Nationalist Party (Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea-Partido Nacionalista Vasco) was founded by Basque nationalist leader Sabino Arana. 1913 – The Balkan States signed an armistice at Bucharest. 1919 – The German national assembly adopted the Weimar constitution. 1938 – Bulgaria signed a non-aggression pact with Greece an...

30th July 762 – Baghdad was founded. 1866 – New Orleans's Democratic government ordered police to raid an integrated Republican Party meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150. 1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid. 1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappeared from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He was never seen or heard from again. 2003 – In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the assembly line. 2006 – The world's longest running music show, Top of the Pops, was broadcast for the last time on BBC Two. The show had aired for 42 years. 2006 – At least 28 civilians, including 16 children were killed by the Israeli Air Force in Lebanon. 2005 - Anthony Walker, a British student was murdered in a racially motivated crime. 2007 - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to ...

July 28th 1540 – Thomas Cromwell was executed at the order of Henry VIII of England on charges of treason. Henry married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day. 1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just were executed by guillotine in Paris, France. 1821 – José de San Martín declared the independence of Peru from Spain. 1868 – The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was certified, establishing African American citizenship and guaranteeing due process of law. 1914 – World War I: Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia after Serbia rejected the conditions of an ultimatum sent by Austria on July 23 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. 1943 – World War II: Operation Gomorrah – The Royal Air Force bombed Hamburg, Germany causing a firestorm that killed 42,000 German civilians. 1945 – A U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 and injuring 26. 194...

26th July 1745 – The first recorded women's cricket match took place near Guildford, England 1803 – The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opened in south London. 1847 – Liberia declared independence. 1944 – The first German V-2 rocket hit Great Britain. 1945 – The Potsdam Declaration was signed in Potsdam, Germany. 1945 - Clement Attlee became Britain's new prime minister after Labour won a sweeping victory. (It's always a bit surprising to think of this when you consider how popular Churchill was during the war. Maybe people just wanted to look to the future and forget the past.) 1952 - Eva Peron died. 1963 - Thousands were killed during an earthquake in the Yugoslavian city of Skopje. 1989 – A federal grand jury indicted Cornell University student Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing the Morris worm. He was the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

25th July 1943 - Italian dictator Benito Mussolini stepped down as head of the armed forces and the government. 1969 - Senator Edward Kennedy plead guilty to leaving the scene of a crime following the Chappaquiddick car crash. 1978 - The first so called 'test tube baby' was born in Manchester, England. 1992 - The Olympic Games opened in Barcelona with all countries present for the first time in modern history. 2000 - 113 people died when Concorde crashed minutes after take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris. Concorde was out of service for more than a year after the Paris crash, it struggled to attract enough passengers and was retired in October 2003 as it was no longer profitable.

23rd July 1942 – The Treblinka extermination camp was opened. 1961 – The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was founded in Nicaragua. 1967 – Riots broke out in Detroit, Michigan, one of the worst riots in United States history, by the end 43 people were killed, 342 injured and 1,400 buildings burnt to the ground. 1974- The military government in Greece collapses and the former prime minister Constantine Karamanlis was invited to return. 1982 – The International Whaling Commission voted to end commercial whaling by 1985-86. 1983 – The Sri Lankan Civil War began with the killing of 13 Sri Lanka Army soldiers by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. In the subsequent government-organised pogrom of Black July, about 1,000 Tamils were slaughtered, some 400,000 Tamils fled to neighbouring Tamil Nadu, India and many found refuge in Europe and Canada. 1984 – Vanessa Williams became the first Miss America to resign when she surrendered her crown after nude photos of her ...

23rd July 1829 – In the United States, William Austin Burt patented the Typographer, a precursor to the typewriter. 1840 – The Province of Canada was created by the Act of Union. 1892 – Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia was born. 1903 – The Ford Motor Company sold its first car. 1904 - The first ice cream cone was served. 1914 – Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia demanding Serbia allow the Austrians to determine who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Serbia rejected those demands and Austria declared war on July 28. 1926 – Fox Film bought the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film. 1929 – The Fascist government in Italy banned the use of foreign words.

1298 – King Edward I of England and his longbowmen defeated William Wallace and his Scottish schiltrons outside the town of Falkirk. 1456 – John Hunyadi, Regent of Kingdom of Hungary defeats Mehmet II of Ottoman Empire in Belgrade. 1894 – The first ever motorized racing event was held in France between the cities of Paris and Rouen. The race was won by Jules de Dion. 1916 – In San Francisco, California, a bomb exploded on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade killing 10 and injuring 40. The true identity of the bomber (or bombers) remains unknown. 1933 – Wiley Post became the first person to fly solo around the world, traveling 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. 1934 – "Public Enemy No. 1" John Dillinger was mortally wounded by FBI agents, outside Chicago's Biograph Theatre. 1942 – The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto began. 1944 – The Polish Committee of National Liberation published its manifesto, starting the...

21st July 365 – A tsunami devestated the city of Alexandria, Egypt. The tsunami was caused by an earthquake estimated to be 8.0 on the Richter Scale. 5,000 people perished in the Alexandria, and 45,000 more died outside of the city. 1403 – King Henry IV of England defeated rebels to the north of the county town of Shropshire, England. 1545 – French troops landed on the coast of the Isle of Wight. 1904 – Louis Rigolly, a Frenchman, became the first man to break the 100mph barrier on land. He drove a 15-liter Gobron-Brille in Ostend, Belgium. 1925 – In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100. 1925 – Sir Malcolm Campbell became the first man to break the 150mph land barrier at Pendine Sands in Wales. He drove a Sunbeam to a two-way average of 150.33mph. 1969 – Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men to walk on the Moon, during the Apollo 11 mission. 1972 – Th...

1968 – The Special Olympics was founded. 1969 - Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr. became the first humans to land on the Moon, while Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, orbited above. 1974 - Thousands of Turkish troops invaded northern Cyprus. 1982 – The Provisional IRA detonated two bombs in Hyde Park and Regents Park in central London, killing eight soldiers on ceremonial duty, wounding forty-seven bystanders, and leading to the deaths of seven horses. 1986 – In South Africa, police fired tear gas into a church service for families of those held under the government's emergency decrees. 1989 – Burma's ruling junta put opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. 1990 - An IRA bomb blew a 10-foot hole in the London Stock Exchange. 1996 – In Spain, an ETA bomb at an airport killed 35. 1998 – Two hundred aid workers from CARE International, Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups l...

20th July 1712 – The Riot Act took effect in Great Britain. 1859 - American baseball fans were charged an admission fee for the first time. 1,500 spectators paid 50 cents each to see Brooklyn play New York. 1881 – Sioux Chief Sitting Bull led the last of his fugitive people in surrender to United States troops at Fort Buford, North Dakota. 1885 – The Football Association legalised professional football under pressure from the British Football Association. 1903 – Ford Motor Company shipped its first car. 1924 – Tehran fell under martial law after the American vice consul, Robert Imbrie, was killed by a mob enraged by rumours he had poisoned a fountain and killed several people. 1926 – A convention of the Methodist Church voted to allow women to become priests. 1928 – The Hungarian government issued a decree ordering Gypsies to end their nomadic ways, settle permanently in one place, and subject themselves to the same laws and taxes as other Hungarians. 1933 - Two-hun...

19th July 1545 – The Tudor warship Mary Rose sank off Portsmouth. 1553 – Lady Jane Grey was replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after having been Queen for just nine days. 1692 – Five women were hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, USA. 1799 – A group of Napoleon Bonaparte's soldiers discovered what is now known as The Rosetta Stone, enabling the translation of hieroglyphics for the first time. 1843 – Brunel's steamship the SS Great Britain was launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull or screw propeller and also becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world. 1870 – France declared war on Prussia. 1947 – Bogyoke Aung San, Prime minister of the shadow Burma government, and 6 of his cabinet along with 2 non-cabinet members were assassinated. 1963 – Joe Walker flew a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 metres (347,800 feet). Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualified as human spaceflight...

12th July 55 - Julius Caesar was born. 1543 – King Henry VIII of England married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr at Hampton Court Palace. 1812 – The United States invaded Canada at Windsor, Ontario. 1961 – The Panshet and Khadakvasala dams in India burst destroying most of the older sections of the city of Pune. Half of the city was submerged. More than 100,000 families dislocated and the death tally exceeded 2,000. 1962 – The Rolling Stones performed their first ever concert, at the Marquee Club in London. 1998 - Three young brothers, Richard Quinn, 11, Mark Quinn, 9, and Jason Quinn, 7, were murdered in a loyalist arson attack as the stand-off between Orangemen and police at Drumcree in Ireland. 2006 - Hezbollah guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in a cross-border raid; Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon in response.

10th July 988 – The city of Dublin was founded on the banks of the river Liffey in Ireland. 1040 - Lady Godiva stripped and rode round the streets of Coventry in her birthday suit, to protest the heavy taxation imposed by her husband, Lord Leofric, the Earl of Mercia. 1212 – The most severe of several early fires of London burnt most of the city to the ground. 1460 – Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick defeated the king's Lancastrian forces and took King Henry VI prisoner in the Battle of Northampton. 1553 – Lady Jane Grey took the throne of England for - nine days. Awww bless. 1778 – Louis XVI of France declared war on the Kingdom of Great Britain. 1856 – Nikola Tesla was born. 1913 – Temperatures in Death Valley, California hit 134 °F (~56.7 °C), which is the highest temperature recorded in the United States. 1938 – Howard Hughes set a new record by completing a 91 hour airplane flight around the world. 1940 - The German air force, the Luftwaffe, attacked ...

9th July 1982 - The Queen fended off an intruder, when a man broke into Buckingham Palace and spent ten minutes talking to her, in her bedroom! 1991 - The Bank of Credit and Commerce International collapsed, losing about 20 local councils in the UK up to £30m in investments.

8th July 1949 – Celebrities Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson were named in an FBI report as Communist Party members. 1953 – The United States Supreme Court ruled that Washington, D.C. restaurants could not refuse to serve black patrons. 1965 - Ronald Biggs who was serving a 30-year prison sentence for his part in the Great Train Robbery escaped from Wandsworth prison. 1968 – James Earl Ray was arrested for the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. 1984 – Homosexuality was declared legal in the Australia state of New South Wales. 1996 - Three young children and four adults were attacked by a man with a machete at an infant school in Wolverhampton, England. 2001 – Mamoru Takuma stabbed 8 school pupils to death at Ikeda Elementary School. 2003 - Conjoined Iranian twins, Ladan Bijani and Laleh Bijani (in Persian: لادن و لاله بیژنی ), who had volunteered to go ahead with a major operation to separate the...

7th July 1543 – French troops invade Luxembourg. 1947 – The Roswell UFO incident took place. 1967 – The civil war in Biafra began. 1969 – In Canada, the Official Languages Act was adopted making the French language equal to the English language throughout the Federal government. 1978 – The Solomon Islands became independent from the United Kingdom. 2005 - Four bombs were set off on the London public transport system during the morning rush hour, killing 56 people, and injuring 700. It was the deadliest single act of terrorism in the UK since the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, which killed 270 people. A group called "Al Qaeda in Europe" claimed responsibility for the attacks. 2006 – The Western Black Rhinoceros, the rarest of the Black Rhino subspecies, was declared extinct by the World Conservation Union, due to poaching.

4th July 1776 - The Declaration of Independence was adopted. However, the 4th of July was not declared a public holiday in the USA until 1941.  (PS - Idependence Day is not celebrated in the UK.) 1865 - Alice in Wonderland was first published.

3rd July 1844 – The last nesting pair of Great Auks was killed. They were found incubating an egg off Iceland. Jón Brandsson and Sigurður Ísleifsson strangled the adults and Ketill Ketilsson smashed the egg with his boot. 1884 – The Dow Jones published its 1st stock average. 1928 - The first colour television transmission took place in London. 1969 - Former Rolling Stones guitarist, Brian Jones (born Lewis Brian Hopkin-Jones) drowned. 1971 - Jim Morrison, the lead singer of American rock group The Doors, was found dead in a bathtub in Paris of heart failure. He was only 27. 1976 - Israeli commandos rescued 103 hostages held by Arab militants at Entebbe airport, Uganda. 1987 - Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie was sentenced to life imprisonment at a court in Lyon. 1988 - Missiles fired from an American naval warship, the USS Vincennes, brought down an Iranian passenger jet in the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard. 1996 – The Stone of Scone was returned to S...

2nd July 862 – St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester died. 1698 – Thomas Savery patented the first steam engine. 1776 – The Continental Congress adopted a resolution severing ties with Great Britain although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence was not approved until July 4. 1777 – Vermont became the first American territory to abolish slavery. 1839 - 53 African slaves being transported to Cuba on the Spanish merchant ship La Amistad revolted against their captors led by Joseph Cinque. 1850 – The self-contained gas mask was patented by Benjamin J. Lane. 1853 – The Russian Army invaded Turkey, beginning the Crimean War. 1881 – Charles J. Guiteau shot and fatally wounded U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually died on September 19. 1897 – Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi obtained a patent for radio in London. 1900 - The world's first rigid airship was demonstrated by Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany...

30th June 1860 – The 1860 Oxford evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History took place. 1908 – The Tunguska event occured in Siberia. 1936 - Gone with the Wind was published. 1934 – The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, took place. 1953 – The first Chevrolet Corvette rolled off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan, USA. (I wonder if it was a little red one.) 1960 – Congo gained independence from Belgium. 1963 – A car bomb, intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco, killed seven police and military officers near Palermo. 1969 – Nigeria banned Red Cross aid to Biafra, leaving over 4 million people to face starvation. 1971 - Three Russian cosmonauts were found dead in their Soyuz 11 space capsule after it made what looked like a perfect landing in Kazakhstan. 1985 - 39 Americans being held captive by the Shia Muslim Amal militia in Lebanon were released, after almost three weeks in ...

In 1994, a Paddington Bear stuffed toy was chosen as the first item to pass from the English side of the Channel Tunnel to the French side when the two sides were linked up. (I wonder if they were confused.) 

28th June 1922 - 18 year old Ralph Samuelson slapped a pair of sticks on his feet, grabbed hold of a rope behind a boat, and became the world's first waterskier. (His brother Ben operated the powerboat that pulled Ralph along. He broke the original skis in one landing, but his slightly-modified second pair still can be seen at the Water Ski Hall of Fame museum in Winter Haven, Florida.) 1960 - 45 men were killed in a gas explosion at a coal mine in Monmouthshire, Wales. 2004 - The United States handed power back to the Iraqi people at a low-key ceremony in Baghdad.

27th June 2017 Author Michael Bond, creator of Paddington Bear, died aged 91

27th June 1967 - The world's first ATM was installed by Barclay's Bank in North London. (We also call the a hole in the wall or a cash machine.) 1986 - The International Court of Justice found the United States guilty of violating international law by supporting Contra rebels in Nicaragua. 1991 - Yugoslav tanks, troops and aircraft rolled into the small republic of Slovenia, 48 hours after it declared independence.

26th June 1284 – The legendary Pied Piper led 130 children out of Hamelin, Germany. 1483 – Richard III was crowned king of England. 1870 – The Christian holiday of Christmas was declared a federal holiday in the United States. 1917 – The first U.S. troops arrived in France to fight alongside Britain, France, Italy, and Russia against Germany, and Austria-Hungary in World War I. 1945 – The United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco. 1948 – The Western allies began an airlift to Berlin after the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin. 1960 – The former British Protectorate of Somaliland British Somaliland gained its independence. 1963 – John F. Kennedy spoke the famous words "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a doughnut), on a visit to West Berlin. 1974 - The bar code, allowing for the electronic scanning of prices, was used for the first time on a pack of gum at a supermarket in Troy, Ohio. 1977 – The Yorkshire Ripper killed 16 year old shop assistant Jayne...

25th June 1678 – Elena Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman to be awarded a doctorate of philosophy. 1876 – Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer died at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. 1947 – The Diary of Anne Frank was published. 1951 - The first colour TV broadcast took place on America's CBS Network. 1991 – Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia. 1996 – The Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia killed 19 U.S. servicemen. 2006 – Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, was kidnapped in a cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip in Palestine. 2007 – Severe flooding hit England. Parts of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire flooded including Louth, Horncastle and worst affected, Hull. 2009 - Michael Jackson died.

23rd June 1973 – A fire at a house in Hull, England, which killed a six year old boy was passed off as an accident; it later emerged that it was the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale. 1983 - Pope John Paul II privately met banned union leader Lech Walesa, the founder of Solidarity, on a visit to Poland. 1984 - An auction of John Lennon's possessions raised $430,000, including $19,000 for a guitar used while Lennon was with the Beatles. 1985 – A terrorist bomb brought a Boeing 747 down off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people on board. 1988 – James Hansen testified to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that it was 99% probable that global warming had begun. 1991 – Moldova declared independence. 1992 - New York crime boss John Gotti (the Teflon Don) was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole. 1996 - The Nintendo 64 went on sale in Japan. 2004 - A U.S. lawyer...

22nd June 1633 – The Holy Office in Rome forced Galileo Galilei to recant his view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe. 1907 – The London Underground's Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway opened. 1922 – 19 strikebreakers and 2 union miners were murdered in Herrin, Illinois . 1941 - Hitler's German troops invaded the Soviet Union. 1969 – The Cuyahoga River, in Northeast Ohio in the United States, caught fire, which triggered a crack-down on pollution in the river. Time magazine described the Cuyahoga as the river that "oozes rather than flows" and in which a person "does not drown but decays." 1969 – Judy Garland died. 1978 – Charon, a satellite of the dwarf planet Pluto, was discovered. 1981 - Mark Chapman changed his plea to guilty and admitted he murdered John Lennon in December 1980. 1984 – Virgin Atlantic Airways launched. Its first flight was from London Heathrow Airport. 1987 – Fred Astaire died. ...

21st June 1305 – King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia and Poland died. 1377 – King Edward III of England died. 1652 – Inigo Jones died. 1905, Jean-Paul Sartre was born. 1948 – Columbia Records introduced the long-playing record album (LP) in a public demonstration at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. 1964 – Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner, were murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan. 1982 – Princess Diana gave birth to Prince William, heir to the throne. 1985 - Scientists announced that skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil were those of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele. 2001 – John Lee Hooker died. 2004 – SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight. 2009 – Self-rule was introduced in Greenland.

20th June 451 – Flavius Aetius' defeated Attila the Hun. 1214 – The University of Oxford received its charter. 1631 – The Irish village of Baltimore was attacked by Algerian pirates. 1685 – James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth declared himself King of England at Bridgwater. 1756 – A British garrison was imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta. 1782 – The U.S. Congress adopted the Great Seal of the United States. 1791 – King Louis XVI of France and his immediate family began the Flight to Varennes during The French Revolution. 1837 – Queen Victoria succeeded to the British throne. 1840 – Samuel Morse received the patent for the telegraph. 1976 - Hundreds of Americans and Britons were moved from Beirut and taken to safety in Syria by the US military, following the murder of the US ambassador. 1979 – ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart was shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The murder was caught on tape and sparked inte...

19th June 1269 – King Louis IX of France ordered all Jews found in public without an identifying yellow badge to be fined ten livres of silver. 1306 – The Earl of Pembroke's army defeated Bruce's Scottish army at the Battle of Methven. 1865 – Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, United States, were finally informed of their freedom. The anniversary is still officially celebrated in Texas and 13 other contiguous states as Juneteenth. 1961 – Kuwait declared independence from the United Kingdom. 1964 – The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate. 1970 - Edward Heath became prime minister after a surprise victory for the Conservatives in the general election. 1975 - An inquest jury decided Lord Lucan murdered the 29-year-old nanny of his three young children. 1978 – Garfield comic strip was first published. It has grown to over $1 billion in revenue, and is dis...

19th June The State Opening of Parliament.

18th June 1429 – French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc defeated the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. This turned the tide of the Hundred Years' War. 1767 – Samuel Wallis, an English sea captain, sighted Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island. 1812 - The United States declared war on on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1815 – The Battle of Waterloo led to Napoleon Bonaparte abdicating the throne of France for the second and final time. 1858 – Charles Darwin received a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that included nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own. This prompted Darwin to publish his theory. 1873 – Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 US presidential election. (The 19th Amendment (Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution, which prohibits each of the states and the federal government from denying any citizen the right t...

17th June 1579 – Sir Francis Drake claimed a land he called "Nova Albion" (modern California) for England. 1631 – Mumtaz Mahal died during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, then spent more than 20 years building her tomb, the Taj Mahal. 1882 - Igor Stravinsky, the Russian composer, was born. 1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbour aboard the French ship Isere. 1939 – Last public guillotining in France took place. Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, was guillotined in Versailles outside the prison Saint-Pierre. 1940 – The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fell under the occupation of the Soviet Union. 1944 – Iceland declared independence from Denmark and became a republic. 1947 - Pan Am Airways was chartered as the world's first worldwide passenger airline. 1950 - The first documented kidney transplant took place in Chicago, on Ruth Tucker, a 44-year-old woman with polycystic kidney disease. Un...

16th June 1487 – The Battle of Stoke Field was fought. The final battle of the Wars of the Roses. 1586 – Mary Queen of Scots recognizes Philip II of Spain as her heir. 1779 – Spain declared war on Great Britain, and the siege of Gibraltar began. 1871 – The University Tests Act allowed students to enter the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham without religious tests, except for courses in theology. 1883 – Panic broke out at The Victoria Hall theatre, killing 183 children. 1903 – The Ford Motor Company was incorporated. 1915 – The British Women's Institute was founded. 1963 – Russian Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. 1972 – Red Army Faction member Ulrike Meinhof was captured by police in Langenhagen. 1976 – A non-violent march by 15,000 students in Soweto, South Africa turned into days of rioting when police opened fire on the crowd and kiled 566 children. 1992 - Andrew Morton's explosive new book about Princess Dian...

According to a poll commissioned by  ISA and Scottish Friendly, Brits spend nearly 3 years of their lives dithering. (The top 5 reasons to dither were:- Choosing birthday presents. Choosing what to wear on a night out. What to eat for dinner. What to watch on TV. Where to go on holiday. What makes you dither?)

15th June 1215 – King John of England put his seal to the Magna Carta. 1667 – The first human blood transfusion was administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys. 1752 – Benjamin Franklin proved that lightning is electricity. 1785 – Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, co-pilot of the first-ever manned flight (1783), and his companion, Pierre Romain, became the first-ever casualties of an air crash when their hot air balloon exploded during an attempt to cross the English Channel. 1844 – Charles Goodyear received a patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber. 1877 – Henry Ossian Flipper became the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy. 1909 – Representatives from England, Australia and South Africa met at Lord's and formed the ICC (Imperial Cricket Conference). 1911 – Tabulating Computing Recording Corporation (IBM) was incorporated. 1919 – John Alcock and Arthur Brown complete the first nonstop transatlantic flight a...

14th June 1381 – Richard II met leaders of the Peasants' Revolt on Blackheath. 1381 - The Tower of London was stormed by rebels who entered without resistance. 1645 – Battle of Naseby – 12,000 Royalist forces were beaten by 15,000 Parliamentarian soldiers. 1648 – Margaret Jones was hanged in Boston for witchcraft. 1777 – The Stars and Stripes was adopted by Congress as the Flag of the United States. 1789 – Bounty mutiny survivors including Captain William Bligh and 18 others reached Timor after a nearly 7,400 km (4,000-mile) journey in an open boat. 1789 – Whisky distilled from corn was first produced by American clergyman the Rev Elijah Craig. He called it Bourbon because he lived in Bourbon County, Kentucky. 1822 – Charles Babbage proposed a difference engine in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society entitled "Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables". 1839 – The village of Henley, on the River...

10th June 1184 BC – The city of Troy was sacked and burned. 1509 – Henry VIII of England married Catherine of Aragon. 1692 - Salem Village. Bridget Bishop, the first colonist tried in the Salem witch trials, was hanged after being found guilty of the practice of witchcraft. (In 1956 the Massachusetts General Court passed an act exonerating her. Well that's alright then.) 1776 - Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were appointed to the Committee of Five to draft the American declaration of independence. 1788 – Russian explorer Gerasim Izmailov reached Alaska. 1955 – Eighty-three people were killed and at least 100 injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collided at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. 1959 - The Hovercraft, invented by Christopher Cockerell, was officially launched in Southampton. 1962 – Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin became the only prisoners to successfully escape from Alcatraz I...

9th June 62 – Claudia Octavia commited suicide. 68 - Roman Emperor Nero commited suicide. 1934 – Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen. 1958 – Queen Elizabeth II officially opened London Gatwick Airport, (LGW). 1975 - BBC radio broadcast the first live transmission from the House of Commons. 1978 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (The Mormons) opened its priesthood to "all worthy men", ending a 148-year-old policy excluding black men. 1985 – Thomas Sutherland was kidnapped in Lebanon (he was not released until 1991). 1999 – The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) signed a peace treaty.

8th June 1949 - George Orwell's book 1984 (Nineteen eighty-four) was published.

7th June 1546 - England signed the Peace of Andres with Scotland and Ireland. 1557 - England declared war on France. 1862 - The United States and Britain agreed to suppress the slave trade. 1965 - Sony Corp introduced its home video tape recorder, priced at $995. 1975 - Sony introduced the Betamax videocassette recorder for sale to the public 2012 - Remains of the Curtain Theatre, where some of Shakespeare's plays were first performed, were found under a pub in London.

6th June 1944 - The Battle of Normandy began as thousands of Allied troops started landing on the beaches of Normandy in northern Franc: the beginning of D-Day, which was code named Operation Overlord, 1966 - James Meredith, the first black man to brave the colour bar at the University of Mississippi, was shot in the back and legs while on a civil rights march. 1975 - British voters backed the UK's continued membership of the EEC by two-to-one in a nationwide referendum. 1982 – The Lebanon War began. 1984 - Nearly 300 people were killed as Indian troops stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, which was being held by Sikh militants. 2004 – Tamil was established as a "classical language" by the President of India.

5th June 1963 - The Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, resigned from government, resigns over a sex scandal, admitting he lied to Parliament about his relationship with a call girl. 1993 – Parts of the Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, in the UK, fell into the sea following a landslide.

3rd June 1539 – Hernando De Soto, Spanish explorer and conquistador, claimed Florida for Spain. 1839 – Lin Tse-hsü destroyed 1.2 million kg of opium in Humen, confiscated from British merchants, providing Britain with a Casus belli to open hostilities with China, resulting in the First Opium War. 1924 – Franz Kafka died. 1937 – The Duke of Windsor married Wallis Simpson. 1940 – The Luftwaffe bombed Paris. 1946 - The first (modern) bikini bathing suit was displayed in Paris. Where else? 1956 – British Rail renamed 'Third Class' passenger facilities as 'Second Class'. Second Class facilities had been abolished in 1875, leaving just First Class and Third Class. (That's Britain for you.) 1989 – Troops attempted to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation.

2nd June 455 – The Vandals entered Rome, and plundered the city for two weeks. 1692 – Bridget Bishop was the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. 1793 – Jean-Paul Marat recited the names of 29 people to the French National Convention. Almost all of these people were guillotined, followed by 17,000 more over the course of the next year during the Reign of Terror. 1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States. 1946 – Italians voted to turn Italy from a monarchy into a Republic. After the referendum the king of Italy Umberto II di Savoia was exiled. 1953 - Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. 1966 - The United States landed a spacecraft on the Moon on its first try (four months behind the Soviet Union). 1985 - English clubs were banned from playing in Europe indefinitely, after the riot at Brussels...

1st June 193 – Roman Emperor Didius Julianus was murdered. 1495 – Friar John Cor recorded the first known batch of scotch whisky. 1533 – Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen of England. 1794 – The battle of the Glorious First of June was fought, the first naval engagement between Britain and France during the French Revolutionary Wars. 1869 – Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric voting machine. 1910 – Robert Falcon Scott's South Pole expedition left England. 1922 – The Royal Ulster Constabulary was founded. 1935 – The first driving tests were introduced in the United Kingdom. 1941 – The Farhud, a pogrom against Iraqi Jews, took place in Baghdad. 1942 – The Warsaw paper Liberty Brigade published the first news of the concentration camps. 1967 – The groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album by The Beatles was released. 1970 - British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was egged. 1974 – The Heimlich maneuver for rescuing choking victims w...

31st May 1578 – King Henry III* laid the first stone of the Pont Neuf (New Bridge), in Paris. It is now the oldest bridge there. 1669 – Citing poor eyesight, Samuel Pepys recorded the last event in his diary. 1946 - Heathrow International airport opened for civilian use. 1985 - The Football Association, supported by Margaret Thatcher, banned English football clubs from playing in Europe following the Heysel stadium tragedy. *Henry III of France of course. 

29th May 1660 – Charles II was restored to the throne of Great Britain. (It was his birthday too.) 1913 – Igor Stravinsky's ballet score; The Rite of Spring premiered in Paris, France, provoking a riot. 1914 – Ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence; 1,024 people died. 1919 – Einstein's theory of general relativity was tested (and later confirmed) by Arthur Eddington's observation of a total solar eclipse in Principe and by Andrew Crommelin in Sobral, Ceará, Brazil. 1942 – Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra recorded Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", the best-selling Christmas single in history. 1953 – Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay's (adopted) 39th birthday. 1968 - Manchester Utd Football Club won the European Cup becoming the first English club to do so. 1972 – 26 people were killed...

28th May 1503 – James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor were married according to a Papal Bull by Pope Alexander VI. A Treaty of Everlasting Peace between Scotland and England signed on that occasion resulted in a peace that lasted ten years. 1533 – The Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declares the marriage of King Henry VIII of England to Anne Boleyn valid. 1859 – Big Ben was drawn on a carriage pulled by 16 horses from Whitechapel Bell Foundry to the Palace of Westminster. 1934 – The Glyndebourne festival in England was inaugurated. 1937 – Neville Chamberlain became British Prime Minister. 1942 – In retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Nazis in Czechoslovakia killed over 1800 people. 1952 – Women in Greece were given the right to vote. 1959: Two monkeys, Abe and Baker, became the first living creatures to survive a space mission. (Able died from the effects of anesthesia given for removal of implanted electrodes.) 1964 – The Palestine Libe...

23rd May 1701 - Capt. William Kidd was hanged in London for piracy and murder. 1977 - More than 100 children and six teachers were taken hostage in a primary school in Northern Holland (The Netherlands). 1984 - At least four people were killed and dozens more injured in an explosion at a Lancashire water treatment plant.

20th May 1506 - Christopher Columbus died in poverty in Spain. 1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issued the first modern atlas. 1609 – Shakespeare's Sonnets were first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by the publisher Thomas Thorpe. 1631 – The city of Magdeburg in Germany was seized by forces of the Holy Roman Empire and most of its inhabitants massacred, in one of the bloodiest incidents of the Thirty Years' War. 1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets. 1902 – Cuba gained independence from the United States. Tomás Estrada Palma became the first President of Cuba. 1927 - Charles Lindbergh took off for Paris from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, N.Y., aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. 1932 – Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland to begin the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot. She landed in Irel...

According to the Recycling Association, Lucozade sport drink bottles, and Pringles crisp tubes are the worst products for recycling. (It's not just about how much plastic is used; the variety of materials that go into the packaging is key.  Pringles with its distinctive tube is one of the worst: it has a metal base, plastic cap, foil tear off lide and foil-lined cardboard sleeve.  The association described it as a nightmare. I'm not sure which bin they should go into, but luckily I don't drink Lucozade, and I don't eat Pringles.)

19th May 1499 – Catherine of Aragon, was married by proxy to Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales. Catherine was just 13 and Arthur 12. 1536 – Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, was beheaded for adultery, treason, and incest. 1568 – Queen Elizabeth I of England ordered the arrest of Mary Queen of Scots. 1649 – An Act of Parliament declaring England a Commonwealth was passed by the Long Parliament. England would be a republic for the next eleven years. 1890 – Ho Chi Minh, the1st President of Vietnam was born. 1897 – Oscar Wilde was released from Reading Prison. 1943 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set Monday, May 1, 1944 as the date for the cross-English Channel landing (D-Day). It would be delayed over a month due to bad weather. 1962 - Marilyn Monroe sang "that" birthday salute to U.S. President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, New York City. 1984 – Poet John Betjeman, who had been B...