Scott Allsop's Blog, page 32

3rd August 1798: Battle of the Nile ends with a decisive British victory over the French Navy during the French Revolutionary Wars

The turning point came when the French flagship, L'Orient, caught fire and exploded. The massive blast illuminated the night sky and demoralized the French ...

2nd August 1873: The Clay Street Hill Railroad becomes San Francisco’s first cable car

The Clay Street Hill Railroad was successfully tested, becoming San Francisco’s first operational cable ...

1st August 1981: Cable music television channel MTV is launched

Originally broadcast from a studio in New Jersey, MTV launched at 12:01am with the words ‘Ladies and gentlemen, rock and ...

31st July 1917: Battle of Passchendaele begins during the First World War, resulting in one of the muddiest battles of the conflict

The landscape was scarred by craters filled with water and, by the time the battle ended over three months later following the Canadian capture of the village of Passchendaele, there were approximately 500,000 casualties on both ...

30th July 762: Construction begins on the city of Baghdad under Caliph Al-Mansur

The city of Baghdad was founded by the Abbasid Caliph ...

29th July 1588: Decisive Battle of Gravelines during the Spanish Armada

The Battle of Gravelines, the decisive battle of the Spanish Armada, took place off the coast of ...

28th July 1932: Bonus Marchers forcibly evicted from Washington D.C. by the Army

Bonus Marchers in Washington D.C. were forcibly removed by the U.S. Army under General Douglas ...

27th July 1794: Thermidorian Reaction begins in France with the arrest of Maximilien Robspierre

In an attempt to evade capture Robespierre only succeeded in shattering his jaw when he reputedly attempted to shoot himself with a pistol, and spent the rest of the night on a table in the Committee of General Security before he was executed by ...

26th July 1948: Truman abolished racial segregation in the US military with Executive Order 9981

President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981 that abolished racial segregation in the U.S. ...

25th July 1934: Austrian Chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, assassinated by members of the Austrian Nazi Party

Members of the Austrian Nazi Party, seeking to annex Austria into Nazi Germany, stormed the Chancellery building in Vienna where they shot and fatally wounded Dollfuss, who succumbed to his injuries later that ...