Scott Allsop's Blog, page 18

26th November 1805: The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, the highest canal aqueduct in the world, opens in North Wales

Built to carry the Llangollen Canal across the River Dee, which provided a direct waterway link between the industrial towns of Shropshire and the Welsh coalfields, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is one of the most remarkable engineering achievements of the Industrial ...

25th November 1952: Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap opens in London, later to become the longest-running play in the world

Christie stipulated that The Mousetrap should not be adapted into other formats, helping to maintain its appeal as a unique theatrical experience. It holds the world record for the longest continuous run of any play, with more than 29,000 ...

19th November 1985: Reagan and Gorbachev meet for the first time at the Geneva Summit

U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev met for the first time at the Geneva ...

18th November 1883: The Day of Two Noons sees four standard time zones applied across the continental United States

Railroad companies found it difficult to coordinate train schedules and prevent accidents as trains crossed different regions with varied local times, so adopted a solution to divide the country into four distinct time zones: Eastern, Central, Mountain, and ...

17th November 1894: H. H. Holmes, one of America’s earliest serial killers, apprehended in Boston

During Holmes’ time in Chicago, he owned a multi-story building that later became known as the “Murder Castle” thanks to sensationalist newspaper reports from the ...

16th November 1793: Mass drownings begin in Nantes as part of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution

The drownings at Nantes began when dozens of refractory priests were loaded onto adapted barges, which were taken to the middle of the Loire River and deliberately sunk, or the prisoners thrown ...

13th November 1956: Supreme Court upholds Browder v Gayle to desegregate buses in Alabama

The United States Supreme Court upheld the District Court’s ruling in Browder v. Gayle that segregation on public buses and transportation in Alabama was ...

12th November 1933: German referendum on withdrawing from the League of Nations

Voters were asked whether they approved of the Nazi government’s withdrawal from the League of Nations. Official results indicated overwhelming support, with approximately 95% of voters casting ballots in favour of the ...

9th November 1799: Coup of 18 Brumaire sees Napoleon Bonaparte begin his rise to power

After the coup, the Law of Brumaire established a new government under the direction of three consuls although Napoleon held the real power as First ...

8th November 1620: Battle of White Mountain fought near Prague in the early stages of the Thirty Years’ War

While the Battle of White Mountain allowed Ferdinand II to reassert Habsburg control over the region, initiating a harsh re-Catholicization process and stripping the Bohemian nobility of their lands and privileges, the war grew into a pan-European conflict that caused up to 8 million military and civilian ...