Scott Allsop's Blog, page 124

12th December 1963: Kenya gains independence from the United Kingdom

Kenya had been under British rule since the 19th Century, and since becoming a colony in 1920 African demands for a greater role in politics had ...

11th December 1936: King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom announces his abdication in a worldwide radio broadcast

King Edward VIII Edward abdicated in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, and became known as the Duke of ...

10th December 1799: France adopts the metric system for weights and measures

It is estimated that up to a quarter of a million different units of measurement were in use throughout France at eve of the Revolution in 1789, and that these differed not only from trade to trade but also from town to ...

9th December 1965: A Charlie Brown Christmas first broadcast by American television network CBS

A Charlie Brown Christmas went on to win both a Peabody Award and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's ...

8th December 1660: The first woman appears on a professional stage in England in Othello

Theatre in England had been banned by the Puritan Long Parliament in 1642 but, following the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, the ban was ...

7th December 1941: The Imperial Japanese Navy attack the United States’ Hawaiian naval base at Pearl Harbor

The following morning, President Franklin D. Roosevelt described the day of the attack on PEarl Harbor as ‘a date which will live in infamy’ and called for Congress to declare war on the Empire of ...

6th December 1969: Meredith Hunter killed at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival

Meredith Hunter was killed at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival during a performance by the Rolling ...

5th December 1934: The Walwal Incident lays the foundations for the Abyssinia Crisis

Over 150 soldiers from both sides died in a two-day skirmish that began on 5 December, and whose origins continue to be ...

4th December 1872: Deserted US merchant ship Mary Celeste found drifting in the Atlantic

Mary Celeste had departed New York on 7 ...

3rd December 1910: The world’s first neon light was turned on for the public at the Paris Motor Show

Frenchman Georges Claude’s neon lighting at the Paris Motor Show was used to light the front of the large exhibition space at the Grand Palais with red ...