Scott Allsop's Blog, page 258
March 13, 2017
14th March 1950: FBI launches its ‘Ten Most Wanted’ list
On the 14th March 1950, the FBI launched its list of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Its origins lay in a conversation between the Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Editor-in-Chief of the...
March 12, 2017
13th March 1881: Tsar Alexander II assassinated in Saint Petersburg
On the 13th March 1881, Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in a St Petersburg street by a member of the People’s Will revolutionary movement. Despite introducing a number of reforms such as the...
March 11, 2017
12th March 1930: Gandhi begins the Salt March to Dandi
On the 12th March 1930, Mohandas Gandhi began the Salt March – a 240 mile (390 km) journey to the coastal village of Dandi. He intended to produce salt from seawater to avoid paying tax...
March 10, 2017
11th March 1918: First confirmed case of ‘Spanish Flu’
On the 11th March 1918 the first confirmed case of what was to become known as Spanish Flu was identified at Camp Funston in Fort Riley, a huge military facility in Kansas. Within 18 months...
March 9, 2017
10th March 1876: Bell transmits speech using the telephone
On the 10th March 1876, Scottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell made the first successful telephone call when he contacted his assistant, Thomas Watson. Bell recorded in his journal that he shouted the phrase, “Mr. Watson,...
March 8, 2017
9th March 1841: US Supreme court rules on the Amistad slave case
On the 9th March 1841, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that captive Africans who had seized control of the Amistad ship had been taken into slavery illegally and were therefore free under American law. The...
March 7, 2017
8th March 1950: VW Transporter aka ‘camper’ & ‘bus’ production begins
On the 8th March 1950, the Volkswagen Type 2 – more commonly known as the ‘transporter’, the ‘bus’ or the ‘camper’ – went into production at the company’s Wolfsburg factory. The VW transporter went on...
March 6, 2017
7th March 1936: Germany remilitarises the Rhineland
On the 7th March 1936, the German Army under control of Adolf Hitler violated international agreements by remilitarising the Rhineland. Although Germany had retained political control over the area following the Treaty of Versailles, it...
March 5, 2017
6th March 1869: Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table
On the 6th March 1869, Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev presented his periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society. While not the first to attempt to classify the elements, Mendeleev’s system was the one to gain...
March 4, 2017
5th March 1946: Churchill makes his ‘Iron Curtain’ speech
On the 5th March 1946, Winston Churchill described the post-war division of Europe as an “iron curtain” in his “Sinews of Peace” address at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. Often interpreted as a key event...
