Last hanging at Tyburn gallows, 1783
The gallows at Tyburn in London were the site of the demise of many infamous characters. The first record of an execution there dates from 1196 when the leader of…
Nixon won presidential election, 1968
On 5th November 1968, Richard Millhous Nixon won the U.S. presidential election following a turbulent campaign that saw the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, as well…
First Sex Pistols gig, 1975
On 6th November 1975, one of the most infamous rock bands of all time played their first concert at St. Martin’s College of Art in London. The Sex Pistols emerged…
Jesús García saves the town of Nacozari, 1907
In 1898, Jesús García moved with his family to the town of Nacozari in the Mexican province of Sonora. His father worked as a blacksmith in the town, which was…
The Louvre opened as a museum, 1793
On 8th November 1793, as the Reign of Terror began in Revolutionary France the Palais du Louvre (Louvre Palace) first opened in its new role housing a national museum. The…
First issue of Rolling Stone published, 1967
In 1966 Jann Wenner dropped out of Berkeley and sought work as a journalist. His friend and mentor the music critic Ralph J. Gleason found him a job working at…
Stanley found Livingstone, 1871
On 8th December 1840 Dr. David Livingston sailed from Britain to embark on missionary work in southern Africa. The month before he left he had received a medical licence from…
Signing of the Armistice ended the Great War, 1918
After over four years of war, in the Autumn of 1918 the forces of the Central powers began a slow retreat from the Western Front following a series of Allied…
Sir Thomas Fairfax died, 1671
Thomas Fairfax was born in January in 1612 at Denton Yorkshire. He was the eldest son of Ferdinando Fairfax, the second Lord Fairfax of Cameron, and his wife, Mary Sheffield,…
First manmade object to orbit another planet, 1971
On 30th May 1971, an Atlas-Centaur rocket launched from Cape Canaveral carrying the Mariner 9 spacecraft. NASA’s Mariner program was an investigation of Mars, Venus and Mercury using unmanned probes.…
Philosopher G.W.F. Hegel died, 1831
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born on 27th August 1770 in Stuttgart, which was then part of the Duchy of Württemberg where his father served as a revenue officer. Hegel…
UNESCO established, 1945
In November 1942, the education ministers of the allied governments then exiled in London attended a meeting at the invitation of the President of the Board of Education of England…
Suez Canal opened, 1869
In the late eighteenth-century, Napoleon Bonaparte charged a survey team with the task of discovering the remnants of an ancient waterway that once joined the Mediterranean Sea and the Red…
King`s Cross Fire, 1987
On 18th November 1987 at around 7.30pm a fire was discovered in a machine room at King’s Cross St Pancras underground station. The machine room was beneath an escalator that…
Pelé scored his 1000th goal, 1969
The most famous footballer of all time was born Edison Arantes do Nascimento in the city of Três Corações in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. In spite of his…
Recording of Funky Drummer, 1970
On 20th November 1970, “The Godfather of Soul”, James Brown, went into the King Records studio in Cincinnati, Ohio to record a session with his band, the James Brown Orchestra.…
First appearance of Sweeney Todd, 1846
The 21st November 1846 issue of Edward Lloyd’s ‘penny dreadful’ The People’s Periodical and Family Library contained the first part serialised story entitled The String of Pearls: A Romance. The…
Blackbeard killed, 1718
The early life of the pirate known as Blackbeard remains something of a mystery, as does his real name. Edward Teach (or Thatch, or possibly Drummond) probably grew up in…
First broadcast of Doctor Who, 1963
In December 1962, a Canadian-born science fiction fan called Sydney Newman took over as Head of Drama at BBC Television. The following March, he was given the task of filling…
American Woman Suffrage Association formed, 1869
In January 1866, at a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Boston, Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone proposed the creation of a new organisation with the goal of…
Hollywood blacklist instituted, 1947
In May 1938, Congressmen Martin Dies and Samuel Dickstein created the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) to investigate Communist and Nazi activities in the United States. The committee was…
The Great Storm of 1703
On the night of 26th November 1703, the gale force winds that had swept over Britain for a week reached a climax. Winds travelling at an estimated 120 mph blew…