Scott Allsop's Blog, page 77

23rd March 1806: The Lewis and Clark Expedition begins its return journey

The Lewis and Clark Expedition began its journey home, having crossed the western United ...

22nd March 1621: Hugo Grotius, the Dutch legal scholar, escapes imprisonment in Loevestein Castle concealed inside a book chest

Grotius was permitted to have books sent to him in prison, and these were transported in a large chest. Over time his guards became less vigilant regarding the chest’s contents which led his wife and maid-servant to propose a plan to smuggle him out by hiding him inside ...

21st March 1921: The New Economic Policy introduced to the USSR by Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy at the 10th Communist Party ...

20th March 1602: The Dutch East India Company established

By the start of the 17th century merchants from the Dutch Republic had begun to undertake voyages to the ‘Spice Islands’ of the Indian ...

19th March 1962: Bob Dylan, the American singer-songwriter, releases his eponymous debut album

Only two tracks on Dylan’s debut album were his own compositions and it failed to hit the Billboard 100. The album sold less than 5,000 copies in its first year and earnt Dylan the nickname ‘Hammond’s Folly’ from record ...

18th March 1834: Tolpuddle Martyrs sentenced to transportation to Australia

The industrial revolution, combined with the first of the Enclosure Acts, had seen the earnings of poor farmers ...

17th March 1992: White South Africans vote to end apartheid in a referendum

A referendum in South Africa resulted in white South Africans voting to end ...

16th March 1968: My Lai Massacre committed by US soldiers from Company C of the Americal Division’s 11th Infantry Brigade

Commanded by Lieutenant William Calley, the troops killed between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in hamlets around the South Vietnamese village of Son ...

15th March 1906: Rolls-Royce Limited established in Britain

Rolls-Royce Limited was established by Charles Rolls and Henry ...

14th March 1950: The FBI first publishes its list of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives

What made the FBI’s list unique was that it brought dangerous fugitives to nationwide attention. The development of the internet has made the list’s reach global, though it is still an exclusively ...