Scott Allsop's Blog, page 210

23rd September 1974: BBC launches the Ceefax teletext service

On the 23rd September 1974, the world’s first teletext service went live when the BBC began transmitting its Ceefax service. Designed as a way to broadcast text-based information during the overnight ‘close-down’ of television services, it was the dominant medium for accessing breaking news until the arrival of the World Wide Web. A system for broadcasting text had been developed by the BBC during the 1960s, but it was a noisy and limited mechanical system that only ever made it as far as int...

22nd September 1888: First edition of National Geographic Magazine published

The first edition of the National Geographic Magazine was published by the National Geographic Society. The National Geographic Society was established in Washington D.C. in January 1888. Founded by just thirty-three men, the Society’s first President was the lawyer and financier Gardiner Greene Hubbard whose lay interest in science and geography perfectly embodied the Society’s creation ‘for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge’. Nine months after the Society’s foundation, th...

21st September 1937: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien is first published

On the 21st September 1937, J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel The Hobbit was first published in the United Kingdom. Although it has remained in print ever since, Tolkien made a number of revisions to the text over the course of the next thirty years to bring plot elements into line with the storyline of the subsequent Lord of the Rings, and also to retain copyright in the USA. Tolkien was an academic linguist who was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxfo...

20th September 1835: The start of the Ragamuffin War

The Ragamuffin War began when Brazilian rebels in the southern province of Rio Grande do Sul captured Porto Alegre. The early 1830s had seen gaucho ranchers in southern Brazil growing increasingly frustrated with the country’s central government. Their primary grievance concerned a tax on the province’s main product, a type of dried and salted beef known as charque, that had led to the market being flooded with cheaper imported versions from Uruguay and Argentina. As criticism of the governme...

19th September 1970: First Glastonbury Festival takes place

On the 19th September 1970 the first Glastonbury Festival took place at Worthy Farm in Somerset. Organised by dairy farmer Michael Eavis, the event was billed as the Pilton Pop, Blues & Folk Festival and attracted 1,500 people who paid a pound each to see a number of bands on a single stage and drink as much milk as they wanted. The two-day festival was inspired by Eavis’ visit to the nearby Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music albeit on a much smaller scale. Described by performer Ia...

18th September 1932: Actress Peg Entwistle’s body found after jumping from the Hollywood sign

The body of actress Peg Entwistle was found in a ravine below the Hollywoodland sign in Los Angeles. Millicent Lillian Entwistle was born in Wales to English parents, but had settled in New York with her actor father by 1916. After he died in 1922, the fourteen year old Peg and her two half-brothers were cared for by their uncle who had also moved to New York. Within a few years Entwistle had followed her father into the theatre, and she appeared in ten Broadway plays between 1926 and 1932. S...

17th September 1978: Egypt & Israel sign Camp David Accords

On the 17th September 1978 the Camp David Accords, which led to the first ever peace treaty between Israel and an Arab state, were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Brokered by US President Jimmy Carter, the two frameworks that were agreed upon gained their name from the Presidential retreat at Camp David where the negotiations took place. Having accepted Carter’s invitation to attend talks, Begin didn’t expect to leave with anything more t...

16th September 1955: Uprising that topples Juan Perón from power in Argentina begins

The Revolución Libertadora began in Argentina, resulting in the end of Juan Perón’s second term as President. Juan Perón had been elected President of Argentina in 1946 with overwhelming support from the country’s working class thanks in large part to his wife, Evita. Perón went on to win a second term but, before long, the economy began to falter. This coincided with Evita’s death from cancer in July 1952, and Perón soon found his support amongst the working classes declining. By 1955 Perón’...

15th September 1935: ‘Nuremberg Laws’ introduced in Germany

On the 15th September 1935, the German Reichstag passed the Nuremberg Laws that legally discriminated against Jews. The antisemitic legislation consisted of two laws - the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, and the Reich Citizenship Law. Since coming to power in 1933, the Nazi Party had produced large amounts of propaganda that discriminated against minorities, and which gradually encouraged people in Germany to view Jews in particular as belonging to a separate race to...

14th September 1959: The USSR sends the first man-made object to the Moon’s surface

Shortly after midnight in Moscow, the Soviets became the first to successfully send a human-made object to the Moon. The Luna 2 probe was developed under the supervision of Sergei Korolev. Korolev was the Chief Designer of the Soviet space program, and he had previously created the R-7 Rocket that launched both the Sputnik 1 satellite and Laika the dog in to space. The Soviets had attempted to reach the Moon earlier in 1959 with Luna 1, but this probe missed its target due to a malfunction on...