Scott Allsop's Blog, page 212

30th July 762: Construction begins on the city of Baghdad under Caliph Al-Mansur

The city of Baghdad was founded by the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur. The Abbasids overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate in 750, and quickly consolidated their power by removing potential opponents. By 762 the new caliph had secured his position, and set about building a new administrative capital on the banks of the Tigris at a site previously occupied by an ancient village. Situated at a junction with the Sarat Canal that connected to the Euphrates, the new city benefited not only from plentiful acces...

29th July 1588: Decisive Battle of Gravelines during the Spanish Armada

The Battle of Gravelines, the decisive battle of the Spanish Armada, took place off the coast of Flanders. In May 1588, King Philip II of Spain sent a fleet of 130 ships under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia to support the invasion of England by 30,000 troops based in the Spanish Netherlands. Their objective, which had the support of Pope Sixtus V, was to overthrow Elizabeth I and reinstate Catholicism. Elizabeth was expecting an invasion attempt, so had sent Sir Francis Drake to th...

28th July 1858: First use of fingerprints as a means of identification

On the 28th July 1858 William Herschel, a British Magistrate in West Bengal in India, made the first modern use of fingerprints for identification. Although records of finger and palm prints being used as early as the year 300 were subsequently found in China, Herschel was the first westerner to routinely take advantage of the unique nature of a person’s prints to sign contracts. It was only later that their use in criminal investigations began. Herschel had been interested in fingerprinting...

27th July 1940: Bugs Bunny makes his cartoon debut in A Wild Hare

Bugs Bunny made his first appearance in the Merrie Melodies cartoon A Wild Hare. A wisecracking rabbit voiced by Mel Blanc had first appeared in 1938’s Porky’s Hare Hunt. However, it wasn’t until two years later that director Tex Avery asked the animator Bob Givens to redesign the character as the bold tormentor of the hunter, Elmer Fudd. In the cartoon A Wild Hare Fudd tries numerous times to shoot Bugs Bunny with his double-barrelled shotgun. In one sequence where Elmer tries to dig out the...

26th July 1936: Germany and Italy agree to support Franco

On the 26th July 1936, Adolf Hitler informed General Francisco Franco that Germany would support his Nationalist rebellion in Spain. Benito Mussolini, the leader of Italy, also agreed to intervene in the war on the Nationalist side after being encouraged to do so by Hitler. Although both countries later signed the Non-Intervention Agreement, they continued to send troops and equipment to support Franco’s forces. The Spanish Civil War broke out on the 17th July, when an army uprising against t...

25th July 1909: Louis Blériot makes the first powered cross-Channel flight

French aviator Louis Charles Joseph Blériot made the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air aircraft. After graduating from the prestigious École Centrale in Paris, Blériot quickly established himself as a talented engineer, and launched his own company to sell the world’s first practical car headlamp. The success of this business provided him with the funds to begin developing his own aircraft. Having started with ornithopters and gliders, by 1905 Blériot had moved on...

24th July 1927: Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing is unveiled

On the 24th July 1927, the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing was unveiled in the Belgian city of Ypres. The memorial is one of four memorials to missing British and Commonwealth soldiers from the First World War in the area around the Ypres Salient, and features more than 54,000 names. Every evening at 8pm the Menin Gate is the location for a ceremony in which buglers from the city’s fire brigade sound the Last Post. Ypres occupied a strategic position throughout the First World War that cam...

23rd July 1943: Archibald Brown blown up by an anti-tank grenade placed under his seat

Archibald Brown was murdered by his son, who placed an anti-tank grenade under the seat of his bath chair. 47 year old Archibald Brown had required the use of a bath chair, a luxurious type of wheelchair, since a motorcycle accident more than twenty years earlier had caused him to lose the use of both of his legs. After inheriting a large amount of money from his own father, Archibald employed three nurses to provide care for him at home in Rayleigh in Essex. Meanwhile he subjected his wife,...

22nd July 1706: Terms of the Acts of Union 1707 agreed

On the 22nd July 1706, the foundation for the establishment of the Kingdom of Great Britain was laid when commissioners from England and Scotland agreed the Acts of Union. Although both countries had been under the same monarch since King James I and VI, it took over a century for the two countries to be united as Great Britain. Previous attempts to unite Scotland and England had taken place since James came to the throne, but each had resulted in failure. However by the start of the 18th cen...

21st July 1925: ‘Monkey Trial’ finds John T. Scopes guilty of teaching evolution

John Thomas Scopes, a substitute science teacher in Tennessee, was found guilty of teaching evolution in school. In March 1925 Tennessee governor Austin Peay signed into law the Butler Act, which prohibited teachers in state-funded schools from teaching human evolution as it went against the Biblical account of mankind’s origins. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) soon announced that it was keen to finance a legal test case to challenge the constitutionality of the Butler Act if a teac...