Scott Allsop's Blog, page 216

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...

20th July 1969: Apollo 11 lands on the moon

On the 20th July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin successfully landed the Eagle, the Lunar Module of Apollo 11, on the surface of the moon. The words, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed" confirmed the safe touchdown at around 8:17pm UTC. Just over 6 hours later Neil Armstrong opened the hatch of the lander and descended the ladder to become the first person to walk on the moon. Apollo 11 was launched using a Saturn V rocket on the 16th July, meaning the crew travelled f...

19th July 1870: The Franco-Prussian War begins

The Franco-Prussian War began with a declaration of war by the French emperor, Napoleon III. The Franco-Prussian War marked the culmination of a long period of declining relations between France and the German state of Prussia. Prussia had defeated Austria in the Seven Weeks’ War three years previously, and France was concerned that the established balance of power within Europe was at risk. In June 1870 Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a relative of King Wilhelm I of Prussia, was...

18th July 1925: Hitler publishes first volume of Mein Kampf

On the 18th July 1925, the first volume of Adolf Hitler’s rambling racist manifesto Mein Kampf – which translates as My Struggle or My Battle – was first published. Dictated to his assistant Rudolf Hess whilst imprisoned in surprisingly luxurious conditions at Landsberg Prison, Mein Kampf laid out the blueprint for Hitler’s future plans for Germany, although when it was first published it gained little following outside the ranks of the Nationalist Socialist faithful. In 1923, Hitler launched...

17th July 1453: The Battle of Castillon, widely accepted as last conflict of the Hundred Years’ War

The Battle of Castillon, considered to be the last battle of the Hundred Years’ War, was fought between France and England. After more than a century of conflict, by the end of 1451 the French under King Charles VII had captured almost all the remaining English possessions in France. Charles’ army had driven the English out of the remaining regions of Guyenne and Gascony but the locals, who had been English subjects for almost three centuries, requested liberation by Henry VI. The English kin...

16th July 1945: USA tests the first ever nuclear bomb

The 16th July 1945 marked the start of the atomic age when the USA detonated the first nuclear bomb under the codename ‘Trinity’. Nicknamed ‘the gadget’ by the people working on it, the plutonium-based weapon was detonated at the Alamogordo Test Range in New Mexico. The explosion was equivalent to about 20 kilotons of TNT, and the blast-wave was felt by civilians up to 160 miles away. To maintain secrecy, a press release was issued shortly after the successful detonation that claimed a large...