Scott Allsop's Blog, page 10

26th April 1865: John Wilkes Booth, who had assassinated Abraham Lincoln, shot after refusing to surrender

He was dragged out of the barn where he had been hiding and died three hours ...

25th April 1859: Construction begins on the Suez Canal at the northern Egyptian port town of Port Said

The canal was designed as a sea-level waterway stretching approximately 120 miles across the Isthmus of Suez, and its completion in 1869, ten years after work began, significantly reduced travel time between Europe and ...

24th April 1932: Mass trespass of Kinder Scout in the Peak District protests against limited access to open countryside

The Kinder Mass Trespass involved approximately 400 people walking to the Kinder Scout plateau in deliberate defiance of the landowners, in a protest in favour of the right to ...

23rd April 1516: The Reinheitsgebot beer purity law first introduced in Bavaria

Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria signed the Reinheitsgebot, a law to ensure the purity of beer that specified a limited number of ...

21st April 1526: First Battle of Panipat marks the beginning of Mughal rule in India and the end of the Lodi dynasty

Babur, a descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan, had established a power base in Kabul but the victory at Panipat gave him control of Delhi and Agra, allowing him to establish the foundations of what would become the Mughal Empire in ...

19th April 1775: The Battles of Lexington and Concord mark the beginning of the American Revolutionary War

As the British troops arrived in Lexington, they encountered a small group and, although the exact events that unfolded are unclear, a shot was fired that initiated the first skirmish of the American Revolutionary ...

18th April 1942: The Doolittle Raid marks the first American air operation to strike the Japanese mainland

The Doolittle Raid saw sixteen B-25 Mitchell bombers demonstrate Japan’s vulnerability to air raids, and forced the Japanese military to divert resources to homeland ...

17th April 1961: The Bay of Pigs invasion launched by Brigade 2506

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was launched by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade ...

16th April 1746: The Battle of Culloden takes place near Inverness, Scotland, ending the Jacobite Rising of 1745

Culloden was the last pitched battle fought on British soil and the defeat ended Jacobite hopes of restoring the Stuart monarchy to the ...

15th April 1861: President Abraham Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to suppress the growing insurrection in the southern states

Lincoln’s call for volunteers was part of his effort to maintain the authority of the federal government after several southern states seceded from the ...