Scott Allsop's Blog, page 211

13th September 1985: Super Mario Bros. video game released

On the 13th September 1985, the Super Mario Bros. video game was released in Japan. Originally only available for the Japanese Family Computer, it took nearly another two years for the game to be available worldwide following the release of the iconic 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System or NES home video game console. The Italian-American plumber Mario, and his younger brother Luigi, had first appeared in a video game called simply Mario Bros. in 1983. Super Mario Bros. was therefore a pseudo...

12th September 1977: Steve Biko dies of injuries sustained in police custody

South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko died in Pretoria prison from injuries inflicted while in police custody. Bantu Stephen Biko established the South African Students' Organisation, and developed the ideology of Black Consciousness to challenge the apartheid system of racial segregation and white-minority rule. Having voted in favour of the Black People’s Convention in 1972, by 1973 Biko’s activities had caught the attention of the authorities. The government were concerned that...

11th September 1978: Last ever death from smallpox

On the 11th September 1978, Janet Parker became the last recorded person in the world to die from smallpox. Parker was a medical photographer working at the University of Birmingham Medical School who was infected with smallpox from a nearby lab that is believed to have been spread by air currents through service ducts within the building. At the time of her infection, the World Health Organisation had almost completed its successful international smallpox eradication programme. Although the...

10th September 1991: Nirvana release ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’

American rock band Nirvana released the critically acclaimed single “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic formed Nirvana in 1987. After a succession of drummers they recruited Dave Grohl in 1990, with whom they signed to DGC Records and soon began recording the album Nevermind. Cobain was initially reluctant to include “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as he was reportedly concerned that it sounded too similar to songs by the Pixies, a band whose music he had long admired and att...

9th September 1947: Moth ‘bug’ discovered inside a Harvard computer

On the 9th September 1947, the first computer ‘bug’ was found in the Harvard Mark II  electromechanical computer. In this case, the bug was a moth trapped between the points inside an electromagnetic relay. Its presence led to problems in the functioning of the whole computer which were resolved when the moth was removed. Development of the Harvard Mark II was financed by the United States Navy, which explains the involvement of Grace ‘Amazing Grace’ Hopper. She had previously been assigned t...

8th September 1941: Start of the Siege of Leningrad

The Siege of Leningrad, one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, began. Nazi Germany’s Lebensraum foreign policy sought to secure living space for future generations of Germans in the ‘Thousand-Year Reich’. Hitler intended the fertile lands of the western USSR to provide food for his new empire, while the native Slavic population would be destroyed and replaced with ethnic Germans. Leningrad, which is now known as Saint Petersburg, was a politically significant Soviet city d...

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...