On this day in history: Raid on the Medway, 1667
The Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in Britain in 1660 did not mean an end to all of the policies of Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth, especially with regard to…
First execution in Salem witch trials, 1692
Between February 1692 and May 1693, the fear of witchcraft drove the communities of three counties in the colonial state of Massachusetts into a panic that cost the lives of…
Lowest innings total in first-class cricket, 1907
On 11th June 1907, Gloucestershire resumed batting on the second day of their English County Cricket Championship match against Northamptonshire at the Spa Ground in Gloucester. At the end of…
Philippine Declaration of Independence from Spain, 1898
In March 1521, Ferdinand Magellan became the first European to set foot on one of the islands now known as the Philippines. He named them the Islas de San Lazaro…
Queen Victoria`s first train journey, 1842
On Wednesday 13th June 1842, Queen Victoria became the first reigning British monarch to travel by railway. The Great Western Railway (GWR) built her a special royal coach to convey…
Ottomans conquered the Kingdom of Sennar, 1821
The Kingdom of Sennar was created at the dawn sixteenth-century when the Funj people led by Amara Dunqas conquered much of modern day Sudan. About twenty years later the Amara…
Josiah Henson born, 1789
The man who partly inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s character of Uncle Tom was born into slavery on 15th June 1789 in Charles County, Maryland, on the farm of Francis Newman.…
First woman in space, 1963
Immediately after the Soviet Union’s success in putting the first man into space in 1961, the head of cosmonaut training on the Russian space programme, Nikolai Kamanin, suggested to his…
Mumtaz Muhal died, 1631
On 17th June 1631, the third wife of the Islamic ruler of India, the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, died during childbirth. Mumtaz would probably have been lost to posterity had…
Rosenbergs executed, 1953
In 1936 Julius Rosenberg met Ethel Greenglass through the Youth Communist League. They both lived in New York and came from working-class Jewish families. Three years after their first meeting…