Interesting Facts

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...

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.

The jockey Herbert Jones, who was riding the horse that hit and killed Emily Wilding Davison in 1913, killed himself in 1951. (He was thrown from his horse, Anmer, and after the incident he suffered a mild concussion, but afterwards claimed he was "haunted by that poor woman's face". He suffered from depression soon after his wife's death and was found by his son in a gas-filled kitchen. It's strange, when I was at school we all learnt about Emily Davison, but no one mentioned the jockey.)

It's only 62 years since the last person was prosecuted for witchcraft in the UK. (Helen Duncan (1897 – 1956) was a Scottish medium. During World War II, she held a seance in Portsmouth at which she indicated knowledge that a warship had been sunk. Because this fact had been kept from the public, the British Admiralty chose to attempt to discredit her. She was arrested and eventually charged at first with conspiracy and then witchcraft, she was jailed for nine months. Winston Churchill was less than impressed with the whole thing and eventually repealed the Witchcraft Act in 1951.)