Interwar

Just twenty years after the War to End All Wars, Britain was once again at war with Germany. With hindsight a second conflagration had seemed inevitable, so did Britain sleepwalk into a world war that could have been avoided?

Interwar

Amundsen’s Last Expedition

Shortly after 4pm on 18 June 1928, the flying boat carrying the great polar explorer Roald Amundsen on his last expedition was seen by a Norwegian fisherman flying over the Arctic ocean into 'a bank of fog that rose up over the horizon…and…

Interwar

Edward VIII and the Abdication Crisis

On 11 December 1936, Edward VIII abdicated after spending just 11 months on the throne. His reason was simple: he wanted to marry the socially-unacceptable love of his life, Wallis Simpson. This left a trail of intrigue, rumour and recrimination…

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Fact of the Day

Both England and Russia imposed a tax on beards in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, making having a beard a status symbol.

Quote of the Day

"Parliaments are of the Nature of cats: they ever grow curst with age. "

~ Charles I

On This Day

1846 Scottish surgeon Robert Liston was the first European to use anaesthesia during an amputation. He could amputate a leg in two and a half minutes.

1898 Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discovered the radioactive element radium.

1937 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', the world's first full-length animated film, premiered in the USA

1946 A tsunami caused by an undersea earthquake killed at least 1,362 and left thousands homeless in Japan.

1967 Louis Washkansky, the first man to undergo a heart transplant, died in Cape Town, South Africa, 18 days after his operation.

1988 Pan Am Flight 103 exploded as it was flying over Lockerbie, Scotland. All 243 passengers and 16 crew, and 11 residents of Lockerbie were killed