Scott Allsop's Blog, page 208

7th September 1497: Perkin Warbeck claims he is English King Richard IV

On the 7th September the Second Cornish Uprising of 1497 began when Perkin Warbeck landed at Whitesand Bay near Land’s End. The significance of Warbeck is that he soon declared himself King Richard IV as he had convinced his followers that he was Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the two "Princes in the Tower". After surrendering to Henry VII’s forces in Hampshire, Warbeck was held by the King in relative luxury even though he confessed to being an imposter. His admission that he was actu...

6th September 1522: Victoria becomes the first ship to circumnavigate the world

The ship Victoria returned to Spain as the only survivor of Ferdinand Magellan’s fleet that circumnavigated the globe. Despite being Portuguese, Magellan’s voyage was funded by the Spanish king Charles I. Better known as the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Charles was determined to find a westward route to the Indies in order to avoid violating the Treaty of Tordesillas that reserved the eastward route around Africa for the Portuguese. Known as the Armada de Molucca, the expedition departed Sev...

5th September 1698: Peter the Great imposes a tax on beards

On the 5th September 1698, Tsar Peter I of Russia – otherwise known as Peter the Great – imposed a tax on beards. The long flowing beards of Russian tradition, which were closely associated with Orthodox Christianity, were faced with a progressive tax that charged up to an eye-watering 100 roubles. In return, the wearer would receive a small copper token indicating the tax had been paid but which declared “the beard is a superfluous burden”. Determined to modernise and westernise Russia follo...

4th September 1882: Thomas Edison opens the world’s first power plant on Pearl Street in New York

Thomas Edison began operating the first permanent commercial electrical power plant in New York. Edison created his incandescent light bulb in October 1879, and was quick to realise that he also had to develop a system to generate and distribute the required electricity to consumers. Having successfully installed a number of smaller private systems in both the United States and Britain, Edison bought two adjoining commercial buildings on Pearl Street in the area known as the First District in...

3rd September 1939: Second World War begins

On the 3rd September 1939, the Second World War officially began when France and the United Kingdom – together with Australia and New Zealand – declared war on Germany. Nazi forces had invaded Poland two days earlier, claiming to be acting in self-defence. Although both France and Britain had each signed Pacts with Poland regarding mutual assistance in case of invasion, no significant military action was taken for eight months against Germany. As a result, this period became known as the Phon...

2nd September 31 BCE: Marc Antony and Cleopatra defeated by Octavian at the Battle of Actium

Octavian defeated the combined forces of Marc Anthony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. The Second Triumvirate of Marc Antony, Octavian and Marcus Lepidus emerged out of the civil war that had erupted following the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE. However, the power-sharing agreement broke down as Antony grew closer to Queen Cleopatra VII Egypt. He eventually separated from his wife Octavia – Octavian’s sister – in favour of the Egyptian queen and together they along with Caesar...

1st September 1939: Nazi Germany invades Poland

On the 1st September 1939, German forces invaded Poland in a move that was to trigger the Second World War. Germany had already removed the threat that the USSR might respond aggressively by signing the Nazi-Soviet Pact a week earlier. Furthermore, the Nazis manufactured a situation in Poland to claim that their military response was an acting of self-defence. During the night of the 31st August, Nazi SS troops dressed in Polish uniforms and staged an attack on the Gleiwitz radio tower in Upp...

31st August 1888: Discovery of the first victim of Jack the Ripper in London

On the 31st August 1888, Mary Ann Nichols – commonly known as Polly – became the first confirmed victim of Jack the Ripper in the Whitechapel area of London. Not only had her throat been cut, but her body had been mutilated. Her corpse was left next to a gate in Buck's Row, which is now known as Durward Street, and was discovered by a cart driver. It was three weeks before the inquest was concluded, by which time a second murder with a similar modus operandi had been committed. On studying th...

30th August 1918: Lenin shot in a failed assassination attempt

On the 30th August 1918, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov – better known as Lenin – was the victim of a failed assassination plot. Fanya Kaplan, a member of the anti-Bolshevik faction of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, believed that Lenin was a ‘traitor to the revolution’ for dissolving the Constituent Assembly and banning other left-wing political parties. She fired three shots at him as he left the Hammer and Sickle factory in Moscow, of which one hit his arm and lodged in his sh...

29th August 1949: USSR conducts its first atomic bomb test

On the 29th August 1949, the Soviet Union successfully detonated its first nuclear weapon codenamed RDS-1 and nicknamed First Lightning. The explosion had the power of 22 kilotons of TNT, and was 50% more destructive than its designers had expected. The USSR started its nuclear program in 1943 after discovering the USA, Britain and Canada had begun bomb development. Assisted by intelligence from sources inside the USA’s Manhattan Project, the Soviet Union’s program developed quickly as the So...