In the summer of 1513, the muddy plains near Guinegate, in the borderlands of Artois, became the stage for one of the more unusual English victories of the early Tudor period. Known as the Battle of the Spurs—a name coined in sly mockery of…
Read MoreOn August 13, 1913, Harry Brearley, a pioneering metallurgist hailing from England, added some chromium to a steel mixture and changed industry and home appliances forever. The mixture he produced made a strong metal that was both resistance to corrosion and rust, stainless steel. …
Read MoreOn a quiet London morning in August 1969, a Scottish photographer named Iain Macmillan climbed a stepladder in the middle of the street while a police officer held up traffic. For just ten minutes, he had the full cooperation of four of the most…
Read MoreOn August 8, 1945 the United States, England, France and the Soviet Union joined together and signed the London Agreement, a new treaty to impose justice against the Nazis for their crimes. For two months during the summer of 1945, Robert H. Jackson and…
Read MoreOn August 7, 1888, Martha Tabram, was found dead after a brutal murder. Her lifeless body bore the grim evidence of a brutal attack, displaying a horrifying thirty-nine stab wounds scattered across her body. The bulk of the wounds were inflicted using a commonplace…
Read MoreOn August 1, 1800, the Acts of Union were passed by the parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland, legally binding the two into a single political entity: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The union, which took effect on January 1, 1801,…
Read MoreJuly 25, 305, one of Rome’s most extraordinary emperors received a crown from his army, reshaping history for the centuries that followed. Born in Naissus, a city in the Balkans, Constantine The Great ascended to power during a critical period of the Roman Empire’s…
Read MoreOn July 24, 1304, Stirling Castle—the last major Scottish stronghold resisting English occupation—surrendered to the forces of King Edward I after a prolonged siege. The fall of the fortress marked a significant moment in the Wars of Scottish Independence, not merely for its military…
Read MoreOn July 15, 1799, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s military campaign in Egypt, a French soldier stumbled across a huge black stone with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles east of Alexandria. Made of black basalt with the writing of an ancient…
Read MoreOn July 12, 1543, in a private ceremony at Hampton Court Palace, King Henry VIII of England wed Catherine Parr, the sixth and final queen consort of his turbulent reign. A widow twice over and nearly a decade younger than the aging monarch, Catherine…
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