Scott Allsop's Blog, page 215

30th June 1934: Nazi party purged on Night of the Long Knives

The 30th June 1934 saw the Nazis carry out a purge of their own party, when Hitler ordered the SS to murder leading figures of the SA or Brownshirts along with critics of the Nazi regime such as former chancellor von Schleicher. The purges actually went on throughout the weekend of the 30th June – 2nd July, even though the popular name suggests they only lasted for one night. By the middle of 1934 Hitler was consolidating his rule over Germany but the relative autonomy of the SA within the Na...

29th June 1613: The Globe Theatre in London burns to the ground

The Globe Theatre in London burned to the ground during a performance of Henry VIII. The Globe Theatre was situated on the southern side of the River Thames near today’s Southwark Bridge. It was owned by shareholders who were actors in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men whose lease had expired on their previous venue. On 28th December 1598, while the landowner was celebrating Christmas, they dismantled the old building and transported its timbers across the river to construct the Globe. Completed in...

28th June 1914 & 1919: Trigger and end of the First World War

The 28th June saw both the trigger and the definitive end of the First World War. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 had a direct effect on the outbreak of war, while the Treaty of Versailles was signed on exactly the same date five years later in 1919. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand offers one of the most popular counter-factual debates in history: What if the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne had not been shot dead by the Serbian nationalist terrorist gro...

27th June 1950: President Truman sends US navy and air force to Korea

US President Harry S. Truman ordered air and naval forces to assist South Korea against an invasion by North Korea. Towards the end of the Second World War in 1945 the ‘big three’ powers of the USA, the USSR and Great Britain met at the Yalta Conference. As part of a wide-ranging series of agreements, Korea was divided along the 38th parallel with a Soviet occupied zone in the north and Americans in the south. In May 1948 the north, led by Kim Il-sung, declared itself the communist Korean Dem...

26th June 1963: JFK declares ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’

On the 26th June 1963 American President John F. Kennedy declared US support for West Berlin with the phrase, "Ich bin ein Berliner" – I am a Berliner – 22 months after the Soviet-supported DDR, more commonly known as East Germany, built the Berlin Wall. Berlin had been a focal point for Cold War tensions ever since the Yalta and Potsdam conferences in 1945 divided the city – and the rest of Germany – between the four victorious powers at the end of the Second World War. When the USSR imposed...

25th June 1678: Elena Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman to receive a PhD

Elena Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman to receive a Doctorate of Philosophy, otherwise known as a Ph.D. Elena Cornaro was the daughter of Giovanni Battista Cornaro Piscopia, a member of an influential Venetian noble family. When she was seven years old her father was persuaded to start her on a classical education at which she excelled. By the time Giovanni was appointed to the powerful position of Procuratore di San Marco de supra in 1664, his daughter had already become fluent in num...

24th June 1374: Dance Plague breaks out in Aachen, Germany

On the 24th June 1374, people in Aachen in Germany suddenly and mysteriously began dancing in the streets and didn’t stop for many weeks. Known variously as St John's Dance, St. Vitus' Dance, or the ‘dancing plague’, the occurrence in Aachen was neither the first nor the last – but is one of the best documented. Many hundreds of people were affected by the dance mania, which involved erratic movements and often involuntary shouts and screams. Of those afflicted many would continue to dance un...

23rd June 1894: Establishment of the International Olympic Committee

The International Olympic Committee was founded at the Sorbonne in Paris. Prior to the ICO’s establishment by Pierre de Coubertin, the British physician Dr William Penny Brookes had established the Wenlock Olympian Games in the English market town of Much Wenlock. Although he always maintained that he had the idea of reviving the ancient Olympic Games for amateur athletes himself, Coubertin entered correspondence with Brookes and benefited from his connections with the Greek government. Coube...

22nd June 1633: Galileo forced to recant his belief in heliocentrism

The 22nd June 1633 saw Galileo Galilei, the famed scientist, was found “vehemently suspect of heresy” by the Papal Inquisition and forced to recant his belief in the heliocentric universe originally put forward by Copernicus ninety years previously. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest where he remained for the final nine years of his life. Galileo had visited Rome nearly two decades earlier in order to defend his belief that the Earth orbits the Sun rather than the other way round after com...

21st June 1791: Louis XVI’s attempts to escape from Paris in the Flight to Varennes

King Louis XVI of France and his family were caught attempting to escape Paris during the Flight to Varennes. By the summer of 1791 the royal family had been living in the Tuileries in the heart of Paris for almost two years. They had been forced to move there from the lavish Palace of Versailles after the October Days of 1789, and felt as if they were prisoners as a result of their rapidly declining power. The startling pace of change was viewed with alarm by the other monarchies of Europe,...