On a crisp autumn day, October 4, 1853, the Ottoman Empire, weakened but defiant, declared war on the Russian Empire, igniting what would become one of the most significant conflicts of the 19th century—the Crimean War. For decades, the Ottoman Empire had been struggling…
Read More
On September 27, 1066, William the Conqueror set sail on a trip that would change the course of world history, leaving Normandy and sailing toward Britain. He would soon face the most important battle in British history before World War II and be seated…
Read More
In a year already crowded with photographic firsts, Sir John Herschel quietly added another milestone on September 9, 1839: the first successful image fixed on glass. The achievement, overshadowed at the time by the announcements of Louis Daguerre in Paris and William Henry Fox…
Read More
Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in British history, passed away on September 8, 2022, at the age of 96. Her death marked the end of an era that spanned more than seven decades, during which she became a figure of stability and continuity…
Read More
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 More
On 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 More
On 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 More
On 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 More
On 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 More
On 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 More
