Scott Allsop's Blog, page 237

14th November 1960: Ruby Bridges, first African-American to desegregate an elementary school

Bridges was born in 1954, the same year that the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas that racially segregated schools were unconstitutional. Although the...

13th November 1002: St Brice’s Day Massacre

On the 13th November 1002, the St Brice’s Day Massacre took place when king Æthelred the Unready “ordered slain all the Danish men who were in England”. Although it is believed that there was considerable...

12th November 1927: Leon Trotsky expelled from the Communist Party of the USSR

Trotsky had been a key figure in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. He soon became one of the members of the first Politburo that was founded to manage the transition to a communist state, alongside...

11th November 1918: WW1 Armistice of Compiègne is signed

On the 11th November 1918, fighting on the First World War’s Western Front ended when representatives from the Allies and Germany signed the Armistice of Compiègne. Named after the location in which it was signed,...

10th November 1871: Henry Morton Stanley locates Dr David Livingstone in Africa

Henry Morton Stanley, a Welsh-American journalist and explorer, allegedly greeted the missing Scottish missionary David Livingstone with the phrase, “Dr Livingston, I presume?” David Livingstone was born in 1813 and, having completed training as a...

9th November 1989: East Germany opens the Berlin Wall

In the evening of the 9th November 1989, the East German government opened the Berlin Wall after central committee spokesman Guenter Schabowski mistakenly announced that GDR citizens could cross into West Berlin with immediate effect....

8th November 1520: The Stockholm Bloodbath begins under Denmark’s Christian II

Christian II had invaded Sweden in an attempt to preserve the Kalmar Union that joined the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Sweden and Norway under a single monarch. Sweden’s anti-unionist party under the regent Sten Sture...

7th November 1917: The Bolshevik Revolution

On the 7th November 1917, Red Guards entered the Winter Palace in St Petersburg in a defining event of the Bolshevik Revolution. Sometimes referred to as the October Revolution, the 7th November is the date...

6th November 1860: Abraham Lincoln elected as the 16th President of the USA

Abraham Lincoln was elected barely five months before the outbreak of the American Civil War, and was assassinated less than a month before its end. During this time he paved the way for the abolition...

5th November 1605: Guy Fawkes discovered during Gunpowder Plot

On the 5th November 1605, the Gunpowder Plot was foiled when Guy or Guido Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder that had been placed in an undercroft below the House of Lords in...