Scott Allsop's Blog, page 19

7th November 1917: Bolshevik Red Guards take control of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg

The 'storming of the Winter Palace' presents the takeover of the Winter Palace as a huge battle. However, this popular image is a ...

5th November 1605: Gunpowder Plot foiled when Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder beneath the House of Lords in London

However, the plot was revealed in an anonymous letter and Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of ...

3rd November 1918: The Kiel Mutiny begins, marking the start of the German Revolution

The mutiny quickly spread throughout the Kiel naval base, and within days tens of thousands of sailors and workers had joined the ...

2nd November 1936: BBC Television Service launched in the UK as the world’s first regular high-definition television service

Prior to the launch from Alexandra Palace in London, television had been in experimental stages. The BBC's launch of regular programming set a new standard for the medium and was a key part of the BBC’s broader mission to bring new forms of entertainment and information to the ...

1st November 1894: Nicholas II becomes Tsar of Russia following the death of his father, Tsar Alexander III

The 26 year old Tsar Nicholas II inherited an autocratic government, which had long resisted democratic reforms, and a society that was increasingly dissatisfied with the existing ...

31st October 1922: The cabinet of Benito Mussolini formally takes power in Italy

Mussolini, who was determined to restore the glory of the Roman Empire following the ‘mutilated victory’ of the First World War, had formed the precursor to the Fascist Party in ...

30th October 1938: The War of the Worlds radio play, directed by Orson Welles, terrifies listeners in America

Announcements were made before, during and after the radio broadcast that the events in War of the Worlds were fictitious, but it was clear that these warnings went unheeded by ...

29th October 1959: Comic book character Asterix the Gaul’s first appearance in the debut issue of Pilote magazine

Created by writer René Goscinny and illustrator Albert Uderzo, the story of Asterix is set in 50 B.C. and follows the adventures of the warrior Asterix from a small village in Gaul (modern-day France), during the time of the Roman Empire's ...

28th October 1962: End of the Cuban Missile Crisis as Khrushchev agrees to remove nuclear missiles from Cuba

Because America’s part of the agreement was kept secret, Khrushchev appeared to have ‘lost’. The reality is that both sides made ...

27th October 1988: Ronald Reagan halts construction of the new US embassy in Moscow

By the summer of 1987 it had become public knowledge that the Soviets had bugged the new building with technology that the United States was struggling to ...