Scott Allsop's Blog, page 220

11th May 1997: Deep Blue chess computer beats Garry Kasparov

On the 11th May 1997, the IBM computer Deep Blue became the first computer to defeat a reigning world chess champion under tournament conditions when it beat Garry Kasparov 3-2 over six matches. Deep Blue began life as a graduate research project at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Developed over 8 years by a team of eight computer scientists, it operated through brute force computing power.  Ranked as the 259th most powerful computer in the world, Deep Blue was able t...

10th May 1857: The start of the Indian Mutiny (First War of Indian Independence)

The Indian Mutiny, also known as the First War of Indian Independence, began in Meerut. By the middle of the 19th century, the British East India Company ruled two thirds of the Indian subcontinent on behalf of the government. The remainder paid tribute to the British, but there was increasing discontent among native rulers about their rapidly declining position. For ordinary Indians there were also concerns about the pace of Westernisation that threatened local traditions and ignored religio...

9th May 1887: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show opens in London

On the 9th May 1887, Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show opened in London at the American Exhibition in West Brompton.  This was the first time Buffalo Bill had travelled to Britain, and marked the first time that many Europeans had seen the fabled ‘Cowboys and Indians’. Over 100 performers had travelled from New York aboard the steamship State of Nebraska, including members of a range of indigenous tribes who staged a very scripted and stage-friendly version of life on the Great Plains.  Alon...

8th May 1942: The Battle of the Coral Sea ends during the War in the Pacific

The Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval battle in which the participating ships never came in sight of each other, ended. The Coral Sea is situated off the northeast coast of Australia. Following Japan’s entry into the Second World War, the Imperial Japanese Navy sought to establish perimeter defences in the region to protect the Japanese empire and isolate Australia and New Zealand from their ally the United States. Japanese forces launched Operation MO, in which they planned to seize P...

7th May 1794: Robespierre establishes Cult of the Supreme Being

On the 7th May 1794, just a few weeks before the Law of 22nd Prairial that created the Great Terror, Maximilien Robespierre formally announced the creation of the Cult of the Supreme Being in a meeting of the National Convention. The Cult had been devised almost exclusively by Robespierre, and followed a period of dramatic de-Christianisation that had seen the French Church stripped of its authority.  The Republic had fought hard to remove the influence of the Church from politics, with even...

6th May 1983: The Hitler Diaries proven to be forgeries

West Germany’s Federal Archives revealed that forensic tests proved the Hitler Diaries were forgeries. In the final days of the Second World War, an aeroplane carrying some of Hitler’s closest staff members crashed near the German border with Czechoslovakia. Hitler’s personal valet, Sergeant Wilhelm Arndt, was killed and the personal effects he was carrying on behalf of the Fuhrer were lost. On hearing of the crash, Hitler allegedly exclaimed that, ‘In that plane were all my private archives...

5th May 1260: Kublai Khan declared Mongol Emperor

On 5th May 1260, Kublai Khan was declared Emperor of the Mongolian Empire.  A grandson of Genghis Khan, Kublai reigned for 34 years and established the Yuan dynasty that was the first non-Han dynasty to control the whole of China.  This is significant, because the Mongols were traditionally a nomadic tribe who ruled by the sword rather than diplomacy. The area governed by Kublai Khan was enormous, sweeping from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Black Sea in the west, and from Afghanistan i...

4th May 1970: Ohio National Guardsmen shoot Kent State University students

Ohio National Guardsmen shot and killed four Kent State University students. President Richard Nixon had promised to end American involvement in Vietnam following his election in 1968. Opposition to the war increased when the My Lai Massacre became public knowledge the following year and the draft lottery was reintroduced for the first time since the Second World War. By the time news broke that Nixon had authorised military action against Cambodia to eliminate suspected Viet Cong forces on 3...

3rd May 1830: First timetabled passenger railway begins service

On the 3rd May 1830, the world’s first timetabled steam-powered passenger service began operating on the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway. Due to Whitstable being a seaside town, the line became affectionately known as the Crab and Winkle line, and continued to operate a passenger service for just over a hundred years before becoming goods-only. It’s important to add some clarification to the Crab and Winkle line’s claim to fame.  Firstly, it wasn’t the world’s first passenger railway – that...

2nd May 1945: The Battle of Berlin ends with the German surrender to the USSR

The Battle of Berlin ended after German General Helmuth Weidling surrendered to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov. Determined to capture Berlin before the Western Allies, Stalin’s generals began their assault on the defensive line of the Oder and Neisse rivers on the morning of 16 April. 2 million German civilians and no more than 200,000 German soldiers were in and around Berlin when the USSR broke through the defences having suffered casualties in the tens of thousands. Travelling at up to 30-4...