The artillery used by the British in the run-up to the Somme offensive in 1916 was so loud it could be heard in England.
Fact of the Day
Quote of the Day
"Nothing can be said in his vindication, but that his abolishing Religious Houses and leaving them to the ruinous depredations of time has been of infinite use to the landscape of England in general.
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~ Jane Austen on Henry VIII
On This Day
1664 The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam was captured by the British. It would be renamed New York.
1727 A fire during a puppet show in Burwell, Cambridgeshire, killed 78 people, 51 of whom were children.
1761 George III met and married Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Rarely for royalty, the couple enjoyed a genuinely close relationship.
1888 The first football league matches were held, with 12 teams from the Midlands and the North of England competing.
1888 The body of Annie Chapman, Jack the Ripper's second known victim, was discovered.
1914 Thomas Highgate, a 19-year-old private in the Royal West Kent Regiment, became the first British soldier to be executed 'as publicly as possible' for desertion during the First World War.
1944 The first V2 flying bombs fell on Britain, landing in Chiswick, London, and killing three.
1974 US President Gerald Ford issued a full and unconditional pardon for Richard Nixon, which meant that he couldn't be prosecuted for any federal crimes he'd committed during the Watergate scandal. The pardon was hugely controversial and probably cost Ford the next election.