The OK Corral 26 October

On the morning of this day, 26 October, in 1881, a Wednesday, a 30 second long gun battle took place in lot 2, in block 17, behind the corral, in Tombstone, Arizona. In that brief thirty seconds, Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday fought against Billy Claiborne, Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, Billy Clanton, and Ike Clanton.

Both McLaurys and Billy Clanton were killed by some of the thirty shots that were fired and the gunfight at the OK Corral found its place in American history.

Like so much legend, especially American legend, the gunfight was in fact little more than the culmination of a sordid struggle for power between rival gangs. The Earps were seen by their enemies as badge-toting pimps who ruthlessly enforced the business interests of the town while the Clantons and their cowboy crowd were viewed by their enemies as cattle rustlers, thieves, and murderers. The likely truth is that both groups were a bunch of nasty self-seeking crooks who should all have been exposed on a hillside at birth.

The two groups would probably have continued in pointless bickering for years but two events took place which bought matters to a head.

In March 1881 there was a stagecoach robbery, in which two people were killed and the prime suspect escaped from jail. This, as everyone who has ever watched a Western film knows, was nothing new, and this event would probably have been forgotten except that, for some little understood reason, the improbably named tart ‘Big Nose Kate’, made accusations that her paramour, Doc Holliday, had robbed the stagecoach. Like many such women before and since, she later recanted.

Coincidentally, Wyatt Earp, a chum of Doc Holliday, was standing for election as sheriff of Cochise County. In a crass attempt to grab the moral high ground he decided to coerce Ike Clanton to help arrest some of the men accused in the robbery – and thereby get his pal Doc Holliday off the hook. Ike, knowing a wind-up when he saw one, decided not to take part.

These two events resulted in the animosity between the Earps and Clantons growing.

Bickering ensued and during the morning of October 26 reports of the cowboys going about the place toting guns were rife, with Ike Clanton saying he was going to shoot down the Earps.

Virgil Earp, ever the diplomat, decided to pour petrol on troubled waters and enforce the town's little used law which said that all firearms had to be checked in with local authorities. He decided to approach Ike Clanton's group to demand they give up their guns.

Accompanied by his brothers Morgan and Wyatt, and soon by Holliday, they strode (no doubt with that bow-legged gait much loved in westerns) to the vacant lot near the corral. Virgil Earp shouted "Throw your hands up, I want your guns" at which point everyone and his dog opened fire.

Virgil and Morgan were seriously wounded, while Holliday received minor wounds. Wyatt remained standing. Ike Clanton, who had pushed more than anyone else for a showdown, was, ironically, unarmed and ran away. Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers Frank and Tom were killed.

There you have it; a legend or just another tawdry day in the wild west?

St Crispins Day 25 October

The 25th of October is St Crispins Day and on this day in 1415, Henry V, King of England, together with 1000 men-at-arms, 5000 archers and a couple of thousand armed peasants gave the flower of French aristocracy and an army of around 12000 a rattling good biffing at the battle of Agincourt.

Henry's success has been attributed to the success of his archers, armed with the immensely powerfull longbow and armour-piercing bodkin tipped arrows against the heavily armoured French. We English know that in fact, this, the greatest victory in English history, was achieved by simply having at the, to quote Mr Simpson, "cheese-eating surrender monkeys".

I believe that old Bill Shakespeare's rendition of Henry's stirring tonic for the troops said it better than I ever could:

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

The Most Famous Song In The World. 12 October

On this day, 12 October in 1609,probably the most famous song ever written was published by Thomas Ravenscroft, an English composer, theorist and editor. He is best known (although never very well known) as a composer of rounds and for compiling collections of folk music.

Some of the music he compiled has acquired astonishing fame, even though his name is rarely, if ever, associated with it. His most famous piece was published in a collection of works entitled Deuteromelia. He published also a book of psalms as well as two other collections of songs. Many of his works are now long forgotten but they include 11 anthems, 3 motets for five voices and four fantasias for viols.

Three Blind Mice, see how they run.

The Great Hurricane of 1780 10 October

Whilst no-one would wish to under-estimate the havoc caused by the recent hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Stan, spare a thought for this day, 10 October, in 1780 when the 'Great Hurricane of 1870' (this was in the days before hurricanes were given friendly names like Stan or Ida) smashed its way through the Caribbean. The 'Great Hurricane of 1780' was reckoned to be the deadliest hurricane of all time. There is no accurate figure of the number killed in the storm but about 22,000 people died when the storm swept over Martinique, St. Eustatius and Barbados between October 10 and October 16. Thousands more were killed at sea.

The historians amongst you will recall that 1780 was the middle of the American Revolution and, as a consequence, British and French fleets that were contesting for control of the area were very heavily damaged. The British fleet commanded by Admiral George Rodney, which was en route from New York to the West Indies, was dispersed by the storm. Only 12 ships eventually arrived at Barbados and eight of 12 surviving warships were a write-off and their crews were mostly drowned.

The British sent someone to survey the damage and he found that the destruction was so great that he (mistakenly) assumed that an earthquake had occurred at the same time as the storm. Barbados was almost completely leveled and almost every family living on the island lost a family member in the storm.

So don't come moaning to me about them Delta blues.

The Boys Brigade 4 October

On this day, 4 October, in 1883, the first ever Company of the Boys Brigade was formed by Sir William Alexander Smith at the Free Church Mission Hall, North Woodside Road, Glasgow. The Boys Brigade was the earliest of all youth organisations and was set up as a non-denominational Christian youth organization. Initially, the Brigade was based on military traditions and a simple rosette was worn as an identifying uniform. This was later replaced by the simple use of a belt, haversack and pillbox cap (a popular military cap of the day) worn over the boys' everyday clothing. The pillbox cap was used into the 1960s, long after it had fallen out of use in the British Army, when it was replaced with a field cap.

The Brigade was one of the earliest organisations that promoted camping for leisure - an activity that was previously rarely used outside the military. An early admirer of the Brigade was Lord Baden-Powell who as Vice President of the Boy's Brigade used it alongside initiatives in schools, particularly Eton, to promote the idea of scouting and outdoor pursuits and early examples of scouting were seen in Boys' Brigade scouting awards and Baden Powell latter and even specialized Boys' Brigade Scout sections who wore a blue uniform with shorts and the distinctive 'Smokey Bear' hat traditionally identified with the Scouts that Baden-Powell later went on to form.

The Boys' Brigade motto is "Sure and Steadfast" and the old logo is an anchor placed over a Greek Cross. Although now fairly rare, there are still to be found a few older images of the motto in which the motto is spelled "Sure and Stedfast". The anchor comes from a phrase in The Bible, from the Epistle to the Hebrews, Chapter 6, Verse 19: 'Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast'. The Greek cross, sometimes referred to as the Geneva cross in the style of that used by the Red Cross, was added when the Brigade merged with the Boys' Life Brigade in the 1920s. The modern version of the Boys' Brigade logo is a very sad looking 'BB' in a box - a masterpiece of dullness for what was once a hugely dynamic organisation.

Hung Drawn and Quartered 3 October

On this day, 3 October, in 1283, the last native Welsh Prince of Wales, Dafydd ap Gruffydd, had imposed upon him the dubious honour of becoming the first person in history to suffer the punishment of being "hanged, drawn and quartered" for treason against 'Longshanks' - King Edward I. The execution of Dafydd effectively ended Welsh independance and left Edward free to concentrate on biffing the rebelious Scots. William Wallace suffered a similar fate twenty years later.

To be hanged, drawn and quartered was the penalty reserved for treason. It was introduced by Longshanks because treason was deemed more heinous than murder and other capital crimes - this remained the view of subsequent Monarchs for six centuries (Monarchs are, as you all know, noted liberals). The punishment was reserved for male traitors - women found guilty of treason in England were let off lightly and merely burnt at the stake. The extraordinarily cruel punishment of hanging drawing and quartering was finally abolished in England in 1870, whilst burning at the stake was abolished in 1790.

The punishment, for those of you who don't know, was designed as much for deterence as punishment.

The hapless culprit was:

• Dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) to the place of execution.
• Hung by the neck, but taken down before death.
• Disembowelled, and the genitalia and entrails burned before the victim's eyes. The heart was the last organ to be removed and was shown to the victim before the entrails were burned.
• Beheaded and the body divided into four parts (quartered).
• Typically, the resulting five parts (i.e., the four quarters of the body and the head) were gibbetted (put on public display) in different parts of the city or town to deter other would-be traitors.
  

Apart from Dafydd ap Gruffydd, other famous victims of this punishment include Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot to assassinate James I, and Edward Marcus Despard and his six accomplices for plotting to assassinate George III.

And people moan about ASBOs.

Mad Cows and Englishmen - Michaelmass Madness 29 September

On this day, the 29 September (Michaelmass Day) in 1997 British scientists established a link between a human brain disease and one found in cows. The stunning conclusion of two major studies was that a new version of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (vCJD), was caused by eating BSE-infected meat. At that time 21 people in the UK were suffering from the disease. I have written elsewhere on the early causes of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or "mad cow disease" and the studies proved that the two diseases were caused by the same infectious protein. It was also discovered that the risk of humans becoming infected with vCJD depended on their having a genetic makeup that included a combination of genes called "M-M".

On this day in 1997 there had already been 18 human deaths from vCJD. Two months after these findings, a selective cull of cattle at most risk to the disease was started, and a 'beef on the bone' ban introduced. Since then there have been 139 deaths due to vCJD and there are 5 people who are still alive who are known to be dying of the illness. There are still an unknown number of people who may be incubating the disease - conceivably as many as the 32% of the population of Britain (about 19 million people) who have the "M-M" gene combination - but numbers have been declining since a peak in 2000. Hundreds of thousands of cattle have been culled to try and eradicate the disease.

Bells of Balanggiga

At Warren Air Force base outside Cheyenne, in the USA, there are two bells. The bells were taken as war booty from the church in Balanggiga, in Samar, in the Philippine Islands by US forces in retaliation for an uprising that took place there on this day, 28 September 1901, during the Philippine-American war.

There are, differing accounts of what actually took place. US historians, mainly in the person of one Joseph L. Schott, give a colourful account of Filipino mothers smuggling machetes about the village in coffins, small boys giving the signal to attack the defenceless American soldiers whilst they ate breakfast and American soldiers being mercilessly wiped out by hordes of vicious screaming Filipino madmen, armed to the teeth with bolo knives, picks and shovels - a massacre in other words. Others have questioned this view and suggested instead that the uprising was simply an ongoing part of the, largely guerilla, Filipino attempt at achieving liberation and Statehood and some have stated the view that the townspeople of Balanggiga rose up out of fear under the US occupation of their town.

If you were to ask yourself what you would do under similar circumstances you might, I suspect, be able to guess at the truth.

What seems to be nearest to the truth is that Company C of the US 9th Infantry were occupying the town at the time and Valeriano Abanador, the police chief, initiated the attack by assaulting Private Adolph Gamlin, who was on guard. Some undetermined time after this, a bell in the church tower was rung - which may or may not have been a signal for the other townsfolk to join battle.

Abanador grabbed Gamlin's rifle and as he did so, two other men killed the guards outside the convent and municipal hall. Other townspeople, armed with machetes, picks and shovels, (against the infantry's rifles) collapsed the US army's Sibley tents that were pitched in front of the municipal hall, entered the hall and made their way to the second floor. At the same time, other men in the church broke through into the convent through a connecting corridor and attacked and killed the officers who were billeted there. At the same time, an attack on the mess tent and the two barracks got underway.

This is where the plan came unstuck. With their meagre forces split into three, the townspeople had too few attackers to ensure success.

Some of the US soldiers who had been penned up in the barracks, were able to retake the municipal hall, arm themselves and fight back. At about the same time, Adolph Gamlin recovered consciousness, found a rifle and caused considerable casualties among the people outside the municipal hall.

Faced with immensely superior firepower (i.e. guns) and a rapidly degrading attack, Abanador ordered a retreat. The 9th Infantry survivors, being in insufficient numbers to hold the town, escaped by sea, after which the townspeople returned to bury their dead, then abandoned the town.

36 US soldiers were killed during the attack (including all of the commissioned officers). 26 US infantry men survived although only 4 were not wounded. On the townspeoples' side, there were 28 deaths and 22 were wounded.

Public demand in the U.S. for retaliation became a major issue, so President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the pacification of Samar. In six months, General 'Jake' Smith transformed Balanggiga into a 'howling wilderness.' He ordered his men to kill anybody capable of carrying arms, including ten-year-old boys. Smith particularly ordered Major Littleton Waller to punish the people of Samar for the deaths of the American troops. His exact orders were: "I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn, the better you will please me."

On or about October 25th, the 11th Infantry took two of the town's bells, these, according to Schotts account being the device that was used to launch a co-ordinated attack, and returned with them to the United States in 1904 to then-Fort Russell (now AFB Warren). The bells were finally abandoned there in 1913. A third, smaller bell, (probably the one that was rung during the uprising), according to Jim Beane, a former 9th Infantry sergeant, was later crated up and sent to Madison Barracks in New York. It is now with the 9th Infantry in Korea.

The Phillippine government have made repeated attempts to have the bells returned with no succces.

Probably becauase the US won, neither General Smith nor Major Waller were ever bought to account for war crimes - which is a bit of a surprise - to say the least.

Balanggiga - Massacre or just part of a heroic bid for freedom - what do you think?

Yanks Biffed at Pulang Lupa 13 September

In December 1898, the U.S. purchased the Philippines and other territories from Spain at the Treaty of Paris for 20 million US dollars. The US had plans to make the Philippines an American colony - which is a bit of a cheek for a nation that was and is, supposedly, against colonialism.

The people of the Philippines, who had had been fighting for their independence from Spain since 1896, rightly, had a different idea, and had already declared their independence on June 12. The US response, was to send, on August 14, 11,000 ground troops to occupy the Philippines. This was the start of The Philippine-American War and 129,000 more US troops were soon to follow. (We might ask, a century later, if the US has learned anything at all from history?)

On this day, September 13, in 1900 at Pulang Lupa, which is in Torrijos on Marinduque island in the Philippines, resistance fighters and guerrillas led by Colonel Maximo Abad inflicted a crushing defeat on a detachment of the US 29th Infantry, who were commanded by Captain Devereux Shields. The battle began when Abad and his men surrounded the infantrymen and fired a volley into the soldiers. Shields, realising that he was almost completely surrounded, ordered a retreat. But before his forces got far, Colonel Abad led a charge against the Americans. The result of the charge was a short but extremely vicious hand to hand fight, with Abad's men making use of their native machete - the bolo. The Americans took very heavy casualties, and retreated further. The guerrillas pursued and harried the Americans as they fled. The battle lasted all that day and into the early morning of the next day, when Captain Shields and his surviving men attempted to surrender en masse. But as they did, Abads men fired upon them and hacked them up with bolo knives. Many experts consider this the most bloody engagement of the war. Unfortunately, while it was undoubtedly one of only a few confidence-boosting victories for the Filipinos, it could not avert the inevitable defeat, which came, finally in 1913.

A very nasty, unnecessary and bloody war, the US lost some 4,324 American soldiers with 2,818 wounded. The Philippine Constabulary - in support of the US occupation, suffered 2,000 casualties, of which over a thousand were fatalities. In contrast, the Philippine military deaths are estimated at 20,000, while civilian deaths numbered around 1,000,000. The high casualty figures suffered by the people of the Philippines were due mostly to the superior arms and numbers of the Americans who were utterly merciless in suppressing what they viewed as an insurrection.

I wonder, if the US had not have won (since history is written by the victors), would the world have called this genocide?

Olaf Tryggvason, King of Vikings 9 September

There was once an island in the Baltic called Svolder (or Swold in modern English). Its exact location is now unknown because, in the course of a thousand years the coastline of the Baltic has altered enormousely and parts of the sea have silted up. As far as anyone knows, its most likely position was near Rügen, on the North German Coast.

On this day, 9 September, 1000, a sea battle took place there between the Norwegian Vikings, led by the great Norwegian mythic hero King Olaf Tryggvason and his enemies Eric Hakonson, his cousin and rival; Olaf, the king of Sweden; Sweyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark and the King of the Wends, Hallfred Ottarson.

The Icelandic sagas are the only source that retell the events of this great and tragic moment in viking history. During the summer, Olaf Tryggvason had been in the eastern Baltic with his fleet, biffing the Latvians.

Olaf's enemies, jealous of his power and great skill as a leader in battle, lay in wait for him at the island of Swold. Unbeknown to Olaf, they were intending to ambush him on his way home for the winter. Olaf's fleet sailed past the anchorage of Eric Hakonson in a long column - Olaf had parted earlier in the year on good terms so no attack was expected. Olaf was in the rear of his column in his great longship the Long Serpent. Olaf's enemies allowed the bulk of the Norwegian ships to pass, and then stood out to attack, hoping to catch Olaf's ship alone.

Olaf and his fleet could have escaped by the use of sail and oar, but with the true viking spirit he turned to give battle with the eleven ships immediately about him. Olaf lashed his ships together, side by side. His own, the Long Serpent, the finest war-vessel yet built in the north, was in the middle of the line, where her bows projected beyond the others. The idea was to leave all hands free to fight in a floating fort. Barriers were thrown up using oars and yards, limiting severely the enemy's routes of attack.

The Danes and Swedes rushed with 60 longships at the front of Olaf's line but with no success. Eric Hakonson attacked the flank. His vessel, the Iron Ram, was strengthened across the bows with bands of iron, and he forced his longship between the last and last but one of Olaf's line - overpowering the outer longship. He then rowed around and repeated the manouvre until, after many hours of combat, Olaf's ship, the Long Serpent alone was left.

At last, after fearsome hand to hand fighting. the Long Serpent too was overpowered. At that last, crucial moment, as his enemies pressed him about trying to capture him for ransom, a sudden blaze of vivid white light surrounded the king, blinding his enemies. Olaf, red with the blood of the slain, leapt into the sea, clasping his shield edgeways to his chest. He sank at once as the weight of his hauberk dragged him down and when at last the light faded, Olaf had disappeared forever below the heaving waves.

When the saga was told, the people would not believe that Olaf had died and looked ever to sea for his return.

So died Olaf Tryggvason, King of Vikings.

V-2 Rocket Hits London 8 September

On this day, 8 September, 1944, the first V-2 rocket was fired at London. The V-2 rocket (which gets its name from the German 'Vergeltungswaffe 2' or "reprisal weapon 2", was an early ballistic missile used by Germany during the later stages of World War II against mostly British and Belgian targets. The Germans had been developing the weapon since as early as 1927 and the V-2 was put into production in 1943. Our chaps were already aware of the weapon because an earlier test at Blizna in Poland, a fired missile had been recovered by Polish resistance agents from the banks of the Western Bug, and the details had passed on to British intelligence.

The British, in an attempt to delay the construction of the weapon, launched a massive bombing campaign against Peenemunde which, although successful, also killed many slave workers.

Most of the engineers involved in the project were keen on a mobile launch system, but, luckily for us, Hitler pressed for the construction of massive underground launch complexes. Adolf's grand plan was to have the rockets produced at dozens of factories which could be shipped to the launch sites in a continuous stream by rail and launched immediately. Bonkers, of course, every time a launch site was started our chaps bombed it out of existence, sometimes while the concrete was still wet. This delayed development considerably. Eventually, Adolf gave in and a mobile launch system was developed from which the missile could be launched practically anywhere, roads running though forests being a particular favourite. The system was so mobile and small that not one Meillerwagen was ever caught in action.

V-2 mass production took place at the Mittelwerk tunnel system under the Kohnstein mountain, part of the Mittelbau-Dora slave labour camp complex, near Nordhausen, Germany. Fatalities among the slave labourers was staggering, over 100 died every day and the majority of the slaves were Russian, Polish and French, although there were also prisoners of war, foreign workers and Germans forced to compulsory work.

When in full swing, 3172 V-2s were fired, of which 1402 were fired at England, with 1358 of them landing on London. Unlike the V1 Flying Bomb (or Buzz Bomb, as it was known), which made a characteristic buzzing sound, the V-2 traveled faster than the speed of sound, with no warning before impact and no possibility of defence. However, apart from the psychological effect, the V-2 was militarily ineffective. Its guidance systems were too primitive, each one cost as much as a four-engined bomber, which was more accurate, had a longer range, carried many more warheads, and was (providing our brave boys didn't shoot them from the sky) reusable.

Nevertheless, in all, 7000 civilians were killed in London by V-2 rockets.

After the war, Von Braun, who was the designer, went to work for the US Army. He became the father of almost all US rocketry, working on the Redstone, Jupiter, Jupiter-C, Pershing, and Saturn rockets. So that's alright then.

The Blitz 7 September

On this day, 7 September, in 1940, Nazi Germany started an aerial bombardment of Britain. Centred initially around the Docks situated in the East End of London, by the end of the war in 1945 the 'Blitz', as it became known, had inflicted around 43,000 deaths. Additionally, over a million houses were destroyed and 'bombsites' were still a part of Britains urban landscape until the early 1980s. Nevertheless, the Blitz failed to achieve the Germans' strategic objectives of knocking Britain out of the war or rendering it unable to resist an invasion. - So jolly hard cheese Adolf, you beastly, cabbage-eating swine!

The first raid on 7 September involved 300 bombers escorted by 600 fighters. A further 180 bombers attacked that night. Sadly, because of the inaccurate nature of bombing at the time, many of the bombs aimed at the docks fell on neighbouring residential areas, killing 430 Londoners and injuring another 1,600. This was a pattern that continued until mid-November 1940, with an average of 200 bombers attacking London almost every night.

By February 1941, when the Blitz still hadn't acheived its objective of bringing dear old Blighty to its knees, the focus of activity changed. (For those of you who are experts in such things, one of the major tenants of war-winning doctrine is 'maintenance of aim', which, luckily for us, young Mr Hitler didn't learn when he was at school - no doubt because of his all-consuming passion for painting houses and dressing up in strange outfits.) Anyway, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, well known German nautical type, persuaded Adolf to switch the focus of the campaign and attack British ports in support of the Battle of the Atlantic. Hitler, being the sort of chap he was - always happy to oblige a sailor - issued a directive on 6 February ordering the Luftwaffe to concentrate its efforts on ports.

That pretty much blew his chances, especially since the plucky Brits had by now come up with the Bristol Beaufighter, mounted with airborne radar systems, ground-based radar systems that guided night fighters to their targets, and an increasing number of anti-aircraft guns and searchlights that were radar-controlled. The tide was turning against the Bosch and the Luftwaffe's losses mounted. Finally, with the impending invasion of Russia requiring the movement of air power to the East, the Blitz was wound down in May 1941. Hurrah!

We shouldn't forget though, that Adolf was a multi-faceted chap (for a murderous dictator, that is) and, whilst Blitzing our brave East-enders, he was also orchastrating the Treaty of Craiova between Romania and Bulgaria. The treaty, signed on 7 September 1940, forced Romania to give the southern part of Dobrogea (the Cadrilater) to Bulgaria and to participate in the organization of a 'population exchange'. 88,000 Romanians and Aromanians were forced to abandon their houses in southern Dobrogea to move north while 65,000 Bulgarians had to move south.

Ethnic cleansing by bomb or bullet - all one to your thorough-going tyrant.

The Great Fire of London 2 September

On this day in 1666, a man called Thomas Farrinor, who was a baker to King Charles II and lived in Pudding Lane, in London retired for the evening. Some time, shortly after midnight, smouldering embers from the oven, which Farrinor had not properly extinguished earlier, set alight some nearby firewood. In London at that time, most buildings, including Farrinors bakery, were constructed of highly combustible materials like wood and straw and so a fire quickly took hold. Farrinor and his family managed to escape the burning building by climbing out through an upstairs window. The baker's housemaid failed to escape and was burned to death. A neighbour called Samuel Pepys was woken by the fire at around 1am.

Within an hour of the fire starting, the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, was woken with the news. He declared that "a woman might piss it out." Sadly, Sir Thomas was mistaken - the fire consumed a staggering 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, 6 chapels, 44 Company Halls, the Royal Exchange, the Custom House, St Paul's Cathedral, the Guildhall, the Bridewell Palace and other City prisons, the Session House, four bridges across the rivers Thames and Fleet, and three city gates, and made homeless 100,000 people, one sixth of the city's inhabitants at that time. Incredibly only 16 people died.

A writer at the time said: "Then the city did shake indeed, and the inhabitants did tremble, and flew away in great amazement from their houses, lest the flames should devour them: rattle, rattle, rattle, was the noise which the fire struck upon the ear round about, as if there had been a thousand iron chariots beating upon the stones. You might see the houses tumble, tumble, tumble, from one end of the street to the other, with a great crash, leaving the foundations open to the view of the heavens."

It is beleived that the destructive fury of this fire was never exceeded in any part of the world, by any fire originating in an accident. Within the walls of the City, it consumed almost five-sixths of the whole city; and outside the walls it cleared a space nearly as extensive as the one-sixth part left unburnt within. Hardly a single building was left standing. Public buildings, churches, and houses - all gone.

2 September 1666 - The Great Fire of London.

World Created 1 September

On this day, 1st September, 5509 BC the world was created. At least, if you are a member of one of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, today is definitely the day. On the other hand, in the western churches, Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC was the big day. For Jews, a certain ambiguity is acceptable and either Elul 25, AM 1 or Adar 25, AM 1 could be correct. It all comes down to how you decide to interpret the Book of Genesis in which a description is given of how God created the world - in six days. In this account, God also is supposed to have created the first human, a man named Adam. Genesis goes on to list a number of Adam's descendants, in many cases giving the ages at which they had children and died. If these events and ages are interpreted literally, it is possible to build up a chronology in which many of the events of the Old Testament are dated to an estimated number of years after the Creation. Over the years people have matched this Biblical chronology with recorded history and established a date for the Creation in a modern calendar. Unfortunately, there are periods in the Biblical story where dates are not given which has, not surprisingly, resulted in a variety of estimates of the date of Creation.

The two dominant dates for Biblical Creation using these estimates place the dates in about 5500 BC or about 4000 BC. Why the two dates? Well, astonishingly, there are two versions of the Word of God and most of the difference arise from two different versions of the Book of Genesis. The oldest version was translated into Greek from the Hebrew Torah during the third century BC and is known as the first book of the Septuagint. It was used by Jews until about 100AD, then by all Christians until 405AD, then by the Byzantines until 1453. This version is still used by the Orthodox churches.

The newer was a revision of the Torah by Jews in about 100AD, and is still used by all Jews today. Jerome translated this book into Latin and it is known as the first book of the Vulgate. From then it has been used by all Western Christians, who split into Roman Catholics and Protestants beginning in 1517.

Basically, the differences are down to the ages of various patriarchs from Adam to the father of Abraham. (For those who are interested in this stuff see Genesis 5, 11). The resulting difference between the two genealogies was 1466 years which is, for the bright sparks among you, almost all of the difference between 5500 BC and 4000 BC.

So there you have it. Just a couple of other slight difficulties with this idea, for a start off, according to Hindus, the universe undergoes endless cycles of creation each lasting exactly 4,320,000 years. The current universe is believed to have been created 3,893,100 years ago (and the earth with it) and is expected to dissolve in 426,900 years from now. What is more, the Mayan calendar dates the Earth to August 11 or August 13, 3114 BC.

Some of us, tend to need a slightly more scientific approach to figuring all of this out - dodgy translations of old fables being a tad to 'open to interpretation' and for those, the age of the Earth is considered to be 4.55 billion years - based upon dating of mineral crystal deposits and meteorites.

Of course, if you are of a different persuasion altogether, you might remember September 1st as the day Cetshwayo ascended to the throne as king of the Zulu nation following the death of his father Mpande in 1873 - or some such other momentous event.

The Gleiwitz Incident 31 August

Detractors from the recent Anglo-American adventure in Iraq point to the inescapable fact that the reasons given to the public for starting the conflict proved to be false. In a nutshell, the much-hyped danger from Iraq's supposed possesion of huge numbers of 'weapons of mass destruction' proved to be an utter falacy. It will be the job of historians in the future to examine the details of the evidence, once it is released from the confines of official secrecy, to decide how much or how little the politicians of the day were 'bending' the truth to suit some higher political goal.

In a different time, in a different war, for very different motives, a different tale was told. In 1939 Nazi Germany was fairly keen to expand their aggresive plans for the domination and subjugation of Europe and find a reason to attack neighbouring Poland - ("nasty Polish agressors, stealing German land, threatening national security, weapons of mass destruction, etc. etc" - you know the sort of thing) - and in a series of incidents known collectively as 'Operation Himmler' they attempted to justify to the world an invasion of Poland. On this day, 31 August, in 1939, the main event was staged - the Gleiwitz incident, which was an attack against a German radio station in Gleiwitz (in Polish: Gliwice). Gliwice is in Polish Silesia close to the German border.

The Gleiwitz incident was organised by Alfred Naujocks who was under orders from Reinhard Heydrich. Naujocks was assisted by Heinrich Müller, the chief of Gestapo. A small group of Gestapo seized the station and broadcast a message inciting Poles resident in Silesia to strike against Germans. (This message was, of course recorded and played to the worlds press as evidence of the aggresive intent of the non-existant Polish insurgents who were supposedly threatening Nazi Germany's security).

Franciszek Honiok, a German Silesian, who was a known sympathizer with the Poles was arrested by the Gestapo on 30 August. He was given a lethal injection (Why this was done I have no idea). He was then punctured by a number of gunshot wounds and left dead at the radio station as evidence that he had been killed while attacking. Of course, questions like who, in the wide, wide world of sport, would be defending against a possible attack on a tiny radio station didn't get asked. Nevertheless, the attack was supposed to represent an attack by Polish insurgents. Strangely, the "attackers" (including Honiok) did not wear Polish military uniforms.

On 1 September, Hitler was able to announce in the Reichstag that there had been 21 border incidents in total, including three very serious ones - one of which was the Gleiwitz incident. These were used as the excuse for the "defensive" attack that had been launched earlier that morning against Poland.

We, the British, being less susceptable to dodgy flim-flam about bogus dangers to national security, didn't believe Mr Hitler - thank goodness!

Wireless Wins Wars 30 August

Regular readers of these articles will recall an earlier post about the development of the wireless. Many of you, will, like me, feel also that the wireless is probably the greatest boon to civilisation since the invention of the chair. However, it does have it's drawbacks. On this day, 30 August, in 1914, these drawbacks were writ large on the world stage - for the first time.

In the first days of World War I, The Russian 1st and 2nd Armies and the German Eighth Army were limbering up for a major punch-up in the forests around Königsberg, East Prussia. Initially, the Russians did fairly well, and the Russian armies crossed into East Prussia, had at the Germans and the battle went in favour of the Russians. The German commander, General Maximilian von Prittwitz, came up with a cunning plan - run away. However, he was sacked before he abandoned the whole of East Prussia to the Russians.

It was at this point that the German replacement commander, Max Hoffmann, realised that the Russian army, in a revolutionary leap forward in the use of technology in warfare, was using wireless to transmit their attack plans to their forward commanders. Unfortunately, they hadn't completely thought through the idea and had not encrypted the messages. It turned out that the Russians believed that, even if the Germans managed to eavesdrop on their transmissions, the Germans would not have access to Russian translators and therefore would not realise the significance of the message contents. However, the Germans easily intercepted and translated the transmissions and as a consequence were able to anticipate the Russians' every move.

Hoffmann's plan left a screening force to delay the Russian 1st Army led by General Paul von Rennenkampf which was approaching from the east, and set a trap for the Russian 2nd Army led by General Alexander Samsonov which was moving up from the south. Hoffman, allowed the 2nd Army to advance, and then cut them off from their supply route - the old pincer movement much loved by film makers. This produced the almost complete destruction of the 2nd Army near Frogenau.

Rather than report the loss of his army to the Tsar, General Samsonov committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. The German victory compelled the Russians to remain on the defensive along the German front for the rest of the war.

General Erich Ludendorff, the chief of staff, dated the official dispatch reporting the victory from the nearby village of Tannenberg (Stębark), and the battle is thus known to history as the Battle of Tannenberg.

Wireless - what a let down.

Age of Chivalry Ends 26 August

This day, the 26th August, in 1346, the Age of Chivalry ended. The day of the Knight in shining armour was done. It happened, as did so many things that altered the course of civilisation, on a battlefield in France, near Crécy-en-Ponthieu, in an area that gave its name to later notorious battles - the Somme. The Battle of Crécy was, probably the defining combat of arms of the Hundred Years' War. It was a turning point in history because it was the moment when a new armament, the longbow used en masse, was used with utterly devastating effect to cut down hitherto undefeated armoured knights. It was also the first battle where prisoners and wounded were dispatched contrary to chivalric codes of warfare, (ie, if they were badly wounded and hence too expensive to care for and if they had no ransom value) and the illustrious noble cavalry was no longer undefeatable by infantry.

Edward III of England, having succesfully trounced the Jocks, had decided to pop over to France and, whilst topping up on his duty-free, give Philip VI of France a bit of a talking to about handing back one or two bits of Normandy - a sort of "your garden fence seems to have moved itself halfway across my garden" type of discussion. Phil was unimpressed and responded with a galic "up yours, Rosbiff"

So to battle. Edward very cleverly chose a battlefield where he reasoned his 12,000 Englishmen might stand a chance of defending themselves against the 40,000 French who had turned out to give them a slapping. Edward III ordered that everybody should fight on foot and split his army into three groups. His sixteen-year-old son, Edward, the Black Prince, was to command one of them. Edward had a secret weapon - longbowmen recruited from his Welsh dominions. These were peasants who could speak neither French nor English. Edward arrayed them in a V-formation along the crest of the hill. While the French were doing their hair, polishing up their armour, eating snails and swilling wine, the English built a system of ditches, pits and caltrops to maim and bring down the enemy cavalry.

French crossbowmen opened the batting; they launched a shower of volleys to disorganize and frighten the English infantry. This attack was accompanied by the sound of musical instruments, brought by Philip VI to scare the enemy. However, the crossbowmen failed. They could, at best only fire off 3 to 5 volleys a minute and they were no match for the longbowmen, who could fire 10 to 12 arrows in the same period of time. Worse still, the crossbows were hopeless in the wet and had been damaged by a shower that occurred just before the battle. The longbowmen avoided harm to their weapons by simply unstringing their bows until the weather improved. What's more the music was rubbish. Frightened and confused the crossbowmen retreated with heavy losses.

The French noble cavalry, having got very cross with "L'opeless crossbowmen" decided it was time for them to have a bash. However, the obstacles that the English had built while the French were smoking their Galoise slowed the charge to a shambolic hack. At the same time, the Welsh peasants discharged a curtain of arrows on the knights - the bodkin arrowheads ripping through the French armour. The French took frightful losses and at nightfall, Philip VI, himself wounded, ordered retreat. The result was a humiliating defeat for France. The French lost about 12000 men and the English, by unreliable accounts of the time, about 150. Hooray for our brave English boys!!

After the French ran away, the Welsh and English checked the wounded French to see who was worth taking prisoner for ransom. Those knights who were too severely wounded were polished off with misericordias (mercy-givers) which are long daggers inserted through the unprotected underarms and in to the heart. This was a shocking departure from the chivalric code of warfare - never before had peasants been allowed to kill a knight and never before had knights died from anonymous arrows. Thus endeth the Chivalric Age.

Channel Swimmer 25 August

In Dawley, Shropshire there is erected a memorial on which the inscription reads: "Nothing great is easy". The memorial was erected in 1909 by Thomas Webb, to commemorate the exploits of Dawleys most famous son, his brother Captain Mathew Webb who, on this day, 25 August, in 1875, successfully arrived in Calais, France having dived from the Admiralty Pier at Dover, England some 22 hours earlier. In doing so, Captain Webb became the first person to swim the English Channel without the use of 'artificial aids' (waterwings?).

Even before his attempt to swim the English Channel, Mathew Webb was famous for aquatic exploits of 'daring do'. For example, whilst serving as second mate on the Cunard ship 'Russia', which plied between New York and Liverpool, he attempted to rescue a man overboard by diving into the sea in mid-Atlantic. Sadly the overboard man was never found. Although Webb swam around for more than half-an-hour, he found only the young man's cap. Nevertheless, Webb's brave attempt made him a hero of the British press and won him an award of £100 and the Stanhope Gold Medal. (The Stanhope Gold Medal is the Royal Humane Society's top award and Webb was the first person ever to win it. The Stanhope Medal is named after a 19th century aristocrat, Chandos Scudamore Scudamore Stanhope.)

Having been inspired, whilst serving as captain on the steamship 'Emerald' by the failed channel swimming attempt of J. B. Johnson in 1873, Webb decided to have a go himself. His first attempt, on 12 August 1875 was thwarted by strong winds and poor sea conditions and he was forced to abandon the swim. However, undeterred, on 24 August 1875 he tried again. Backed by three chase boats and smeared in porpoise oil, (for luck, presumably), he set off into the ebb tide. Despite stings from jellyfish and strong currents he finally, after 21 hours and 45 minutes, landed near Calais.

After this, Captain Webb was a celebrity, he licensed his name for merchandising such items as commemorative pottery and match box covers. He also wrote a book entitled The Art of Swimming. He participated in exhibition swimming matches and stunts such as floating in a tank of water for 128 hours. His final stunt, was to attempt to swim across the Niagara River at the base of Niagara Falls - a feat widely held to be impossible. So it proved to be. At 4.25pm on 24 July 1883 he jumped into the river and within 10 minutes he had become caught in the current and was dragged under by a whirlpool. His body was found four days later. Captain Mathew Webb, brave but bonkers.

The Crisp 24 August

Today, the 24th of August, is the anniversary of that great day in 1853 when the potato crisp was invented. For those amongst you who have a burning need for clear terminology, let me spend a moment clarifying. Crisps (in English) are are a snack food made from potatoes cut into very thin slices, deep fried or baked until crisp, and then served. Chips are the larger, chewier fried potato sticks. In the United States, chips are called 'French Fries' and crisps are called chips. In New Zealand, Australia and South Africa chips and crisps are referred to as chips.

The original crisp was created by a Native American chef called George Crum, at the Moon Lake Lodge restaurant in Saratoga Springs, New York. Mr Crum had a customer, Cornelius Vanderbilt, who was a millionaire and a director of the Long Island Rail Road. (Mr Vanderbilt was generally perceived as a vulgar, mean-spirited individual who made life miserable for everyone around him, including his family. In his will, for example, he disowned his sons except for William who was by many accounts as ruthless a cove as his father. At the time of his death, Cornelius Vanderbilt's fortune was estimated at more than $100,000,000. Vanderbilt's most famous statement was on the subject of charitable giving, which he didn't believe in - "The public be damned" he said with a chummy sort of snarl.)

Anyway, Vanderbilt was, apparently a professional whinger when it came to chips - he continually sent his chips back complaining that they were too thick or too soggy. Eventually, the exasperated George Crum, rather than lodge a hatchet in Vanderbilt's bonce, decided to slice the potatoes so thin that they couldn't be eaten with a fork. Astonishingly, Vanderbilt was ecstatic about the chips (well, let's face it, you don't have much else to worry about if you're a multi-millionaire). The crisps became a regular item on the menu under the name "Saratoga Chips". They soon became popular throughout New England.

Mass marketing crisps became popular in the 1920s when the mechanical potato peeler was invented by Herman Lay, a traveling salesman from the southern United States, who was the founder of the 'Lay' bit of 'Frito Lay' who now own the brands Fritos, Doritos, Cheetos, Ruffles, Lay's, Funyuns, Rold Gold Pretzels, Lay's Stax, Baken-Ets (pork rinds), Tostitos, Munchos, Sun Chips, Munchies, Walkers, and others. Frito Lay is now owned by PepsiCo. Interestingly, before the airtight sealed bag came along, crisps were stored in barrels or tins. Sadly, this meant that the crisps at the bottom were often stale and damp (Yuch!!!). Luckily for today's generation of bulging, rotund teenagers, Laura Scudder invented the crisp bag by ironing together two pieces of wax paper, thereby creating an airtight seal, which keeps the crisps fresh until opened. Hooray!

William Wallace Executed 23 August

On this day, 23 August in 1305, William Wallace was executed as a traitor to King Edward I of England. In his defence, Wallace is reported to have said, "I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject."

William Wallace was 'a half-welsh, half-scot' commoner and by a strange turn of events led a Scots resistance to English domination in the reign of King Edward I. In 1286, Scotland's king Alexander III died after falling from his horse. Sadly, he had no direct heirs, so the Scottish lords declared Alexander's 4 year-old granddaughter, Margaret (called 'the Maid of Norway'), Queen. King Edward I of England, seizing the advantage, arranged the Treaty of Birgham with the Scottish lords, betrothing Margaret to his son, Edward on the understanding that Scotland would preserve its status as a separate nation. Unfortunately, Margaret fell ill and died at only 8 years old in 1290. Thirteen 'ginger' claimants to the Scottish throne appeared from the woodwork.

The Scots invited King Edward I of England to decide the royal succession. Ever the diplomat, Edward arrived at the Anglo-Scottish border with a large army and announced that he had come as an overlord to solve a dispute in a vassal state, forcing each potential king to pay homage to him. After hearing every claim, Edward in 1292 picked John Balliol to reign over what he described as "the Vassal State of Scotland". In March of 1296, Balliol renounced his homage to Edward, and by the end of the month Edward was biffing the Scots right and left and by July he had forced Balliol to abdicate at Kincardine Castle. Edward went to Berwick in August to receive formal homage from some 2,000 Scottish nobles (aka: the Ragman Roll), having previously removed the Stone of Destiny from Scone Palace, the stone on which all of the Kings of Scots had been crowned.

Meanwhile, whilst all this high politics is taking place, Wallace was busy stealing fish. Unluckily, he was caught by two English soldiers who Wallace immediately killed. The authorities, not surprisingly, issued a warrant for his arrest shortly thereafter. Undeterred, Wallace murdered Sir William Heselrig, the English Sheriff of Lanark, in May 1297, and dismembered the corpse. The story goes that Wallace committed these murders to avenge the death of one Marion Braidfute of Lamington — the young maiden Wallace allegedly courted and married. Sadly, no evidence of any sort exists to corroborate this detail and depite being a putative Scottish hero, he probably commited three gruesome murders to avoid being punished for the theft of a couple of fish.

Whilst on the run from the English, Wallace joined the Scottish armies that were being biffed about the glens by Edward and turned out to be, probably by dint of outrageous savagery, a very successful leader. He achieved victory in battles at Loudoun Hill and Ayr. In August of 1297, Wallace left Selkirk Forest to join Andrew de Moray's army at Stirling. Moray had begun another uprising, and their forces combined at Stirling, where they prepared to meet the English in battle. At the Battle of Stirling Bridge, Wallace killed 5400 of the Earl of Surrey's professional army - thus inflicting a memorable defeat on 'proud Edwards armies - and sent them hamewards tae think again'.

A year later, the tables were turned and the Scots were utterly thrashed at Falkirk, Wallace was captured on August 5, 1305, at Robroystoun, near Glasgow. Wallace was transported to London and tried for treason at Westminster Hall. Following the trial Wallace was taken down, stripped naked and dragged at the heels of a horse to Smithfield Market, where he was strangled by hanging, but released near death, emasculated, drawn and quartered, and, eventually, beheaded. His head was placed on a pike on London Bridge, which was later joined by the heads of his brother, John, and Sir Simon Fraser. His limbs were displayed, separately, in Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling, and Perth.

So my advice to you all is to make sure that you pay for your fish.

The Daguerreotype Photographic Process 19 August

On this day, August 19 in 1839, the French Government acquired the patent of the daguerreotype photographic process. The process is named after its inventor, French artist and chemist Louis J.M. Daguerre. The French Government announced the invention as a gift "Free to the World." - apart from the English, from whom the patent was withheld - this was, after all, before the Entente Cordial!

The daguerreotype is a type of photograph, but, unlike modern photographs, it has no negative. Instead, it is an image exposed directly onto a mirror-polished surface of silver, (which has first been exposed to iodine vapour), housed in a velvet-lined folding case. While the daguerreotype was not the first photographic process to be developed, it had the advantage over earlier processes, in which the images tended to fade quickly when exposed to light. The daguerreotype became the first commercially used photographic process - and jolly clever it was too.

However, just because it was jolly clever didn't mean that that was the end of it. The process was only used for about 10 years before being overtaken by, amongst others, the Ambrotype introduced in 1854, which gave a positive image on glass, with a black backing, the Tintype or Ferrotype, which produced an image on chemically-treated tin and the albumen print, a paper photograph produced from large glass negatives that was most commonly used in American Civil War photography.

The swift disappearance daguerreotype photography was inevitable because the process is intricate and complex. Not only that, it was also labour intensive, and involves multiple stages of production. As a result, daguerrotypes were expensive. Worse still, the typical exposure was often 60 to 90 seconds long, requiring the sitter to hold a pose for all that time. Additionally, since there is no negative, it had images could not later be reproduced. Finally, and probably most damning of all, let's not forget - it is a French invention. Nevertheless, French or not, unlike film and paper photography, a daguerreotype, when properly sealed, can last virtually forever.

First Flights 18 August

Most people, I think, are, these days, of the view that the first flight in an aeroplane was achieved by Wilbur and Orvill Wright at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina on December 17 1903. However, whilst there is no doubt that they flew on that day, they probably weren't the first.
For a start, on this day August 18 in 1903, Karl Jatho, a German pioneer and inventor flew with his self-made motored gliding airplane a distance of 60 m, flying at up to 10 ft (3 m) high. This was almost twice as far as Orville Wright's first controlled flight four months later, which was of 36 m (120 ft) in 12 seconds. He had four witnesses for his flight.

For you design buffs, it is interesting to note that Jatho's aeroplane was modeled on the Zanonia seed, a seed that was known for its gliding capability. Sadly however, in contrast to the Wright Brother's plane, the wings of Jagos giant zanonia seed were flat in profile and not curved. What that means in practical aerodynamics is that the aircraft was probably forced into the air by engine power alone and would not have been capable of much further development - due to it having the aerodynamics of a plank.

Further back still, on August 14 1901, Gustave Albin Whitehead took his first flight in Connecticut when he flew his aircraft the 'Number 21' three times, as reported by the Bridgeport Herald, the New York Herald and the Boston Transcript. The longest flight was 2.5km (1.5 miles) at a height of up to 60m (200ft): significantly better than the Wright brothers two years and four months later. Even more impressively, there are witness reports that he flew about 1km (half a mile) as early as 1899. In January 1902 he flew 10km (7 miles) over the Long Island strait in the improved 'Number 22' aeroplane.

What!!! I hear you expostulate ... how can this be true???? Well, it has been suggested by one or two mischievous correspondents (me included) that the reason his flights are unknown is that, firstly, the Wright brothers donated their Wright flyer to the Smithsonian Institute on condition the institute did not recognize an earlier aeroplane and secondly, because of his German origins he was forced to remain silent during the First World War.

Well blow me down - such skulldugerous aeronauts!.

First Automobile Accident 17 August

At West 74th Street and Central Park West in New York City there is erected a plaque which is a small indicator of the way the United States sees itself in relation to the rest of the world. It's not a big thing, as things go - the world will not stop turning - nations will not fall, nor cities crumble - it just shows a state of mind. It was erected on September 13, 1999 and it reads:

"Here at West 74th Street and Central Park West, Henry H. Bliss dismounted from a streetcar and was struck and knocked unconscious by an automobile on the evening of September 13, 1899. When Mr. Bliss, a New York real estate man, died the next morning from his injuries, he became the first recorded motor vehicle fatality in the Western Hemisphere. This sign was erected to remember Mr. Bliss on the centennial of his untimely death and to promote safety on our streets and highways."

A tragic moment for Mr Bliss and his family. Nevertheless, I would draw your attention to two small details: firstly the bit that says "first recorded motor vehicle fatality in the Western Hemisphere" and secondly the bit that says "September 13, 1899". The Western hemisphere bit is interesting because, according to the definition given in both the Encyclopeadia Brittanica and the Smithsonian Institute, the western hemisphere is: "the half of the Earth that lies west of the prime meridian", although the Smithsonian, and this is the nub of it, allows that Americans define the western hemisphere as "the major landmass that lies west of the prime meridian, namely the continent America (aka the Americas)" - which is interesting, I have never thought of Margaret Thatcher as an Eastern Potentate - let alone Winston Churchill, or, come to that, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

In fact, the first person killed by an automobile in the world - and indeed the Western World - was Bridget Driscoll on this Day, August 17th in 1896. As she and her teenage daughter, May, (and possibly one other person) crossed the grounds of the Crystal Palace,(Lat: 51:23:53N Lon: 0:05:07W and hence in the Western Hemisphere) an automobile that belonged to the Anglo-French Motor Car Company struck her at "tremendous speed" – according to witnesses some 4 MPH (6.4 km/h). The driver was Arthur James Edsall of Upper Norwood.

No plaque commemorates this tragic event - some nondescript street corner wouldn't be appropriate somehow and the Crystal Palace was burnt down in 1936. So the first person killed by an automobile, unlike the second, is unremembered. Although in the inquest The coroner, Percy Morrison (Croydon div. of Surrey) said: "This must never happen again" there were 3600 deaths and serious injuries on Britains roads last year and that would be a lot of plaques.

The Peterlooo Riots 16 August

I don't know if The Corn Laws are still a feature of secondary school, but I have a recollection of being crammed behind a desk in a classroom full of badly behaved youths and trying - not very hard - to listen to a goggle-eyed history teacher droning interminably on, through a haze of chalk dust that was suspended in the hot late-summer afternoon air, about tariffs and riots and corn. I never, for one minute thought I would ever be bothered about it again, but every year, on August 16th, I am reminded of that special boredom that only really bad schooling can provide.

The Corn Laws, for those of you who were wagging off school on that afternoon, were in force between 1815 and 1846. They were import tariffs designed to "protect" British farmers and landowners, against competition from cheap foreign grain imports - mostly from the Americans. In reality, they represented the power of the British aristocracy, and a repeal of the Corn Laws would have jeopardized the political power of the landowners and they were in fact a crossroads in the transition of Britain from a feudalist society, to a more modern, industrial one.

What has that got to do with August 16th? Well, in 1819 a meeting organized by the Manchester Patriotic Union Society, a political group that agitated for the repeal of the corn laws and parliamentary reform, was planned at St. Peter's Field, Manchester. A number of speakers, including Richard Carlile, John Cartwright and Henry Hunt, - the 19th century equivalents of 'Red Robbo' - had been invited to speak. The local magistrate, William Hulton, who seems to have based his opinions on no evidence whatsoever, was of the view that the meeting would end in a rebellion and had arranged for a substantial number of regular soldiers to be on hand. Around 60,000 or 80,000 People, many of whom were wearing their Sunday clothes, turned out for what all reports suggest was expected to be a peaceful meeting. Some carried banners with texts like "No Corn Laws", "Universal Suffrage" and "Vote By Ballot." The main speakers did not arrive until after 1:00 pm, and Hunt was invited to speak first at 1:20 pm.

At around 1:31 pm the magistrates decided to stop the meeting and started reading the Riot Act. Not suprisingly, people did not immediately disperse - even if they had wanted to, 80,000 people can't just disappear - and so the magistrates gave orders to Captain Joseph Nadin, Deputy Constable of Manchester, to arrest the leaders. Nadin requested military aid and magistrates sent for the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry - 120 cavalry militia recruited from among shopkeepers and tradesmen - who were all drunk.

Sixty Yeomanry cavalrymen, under their leader Captain Hugh Birley, brandishing their cavalry sabres, charged the cart that served as the speakers' stand. When some demonstrators tried to stop them by linking their hands, they begun to attack them with their sabres. When the cavalry reached the cart, they arrested Hunt, Joseph Johnson and a number of others, including some newspapermen. Not content with this, they then begun to chop at the flags and banners with their sabres. William Hulton decided that the crowd, by refusing to be chopped up, were committing assault and ordered Lieutenant Colonel Guy L'Estrange of the Hussars into the field at 1:50 pm, Within ten minutes the Hussars had cleared the field and also pacified the yeomanry. Eleven people were killed, including a woman, a child, and a peace officer. About 400 were injured, 100 of them women, many of whom were trampled by horses. One man had his nose severed, and others had numerous sabre cuts. Even some local masters, employers and owners were put off their peacock and smoked salmon sandwiches by the carnage.

So, there you have it, the Peterloo Massacre of August 16, 1819. The repeal of the Corn Laws was, in the end, bought about by the appearance of the potato blight in Ireland in 1845. Sir Robert Peel, Conservative Prime Minister, responded to the crisis by purchasing cheap American wheat and proposing to remove all import duties on grain. It was hoped that these actions would lower the price of bread enough to put it within the reach of the Irish peasantry - who didn't seem at all keen on eating cake.

The law was eventually repealed on 16 May 1846, when the bill to repeal passed by 98 votes. Peel, who had been badly mauled in the debates by Disraeli, was forced to resign, the government fell, and the Conservative Party was split in half. Those who sided with Peel became known as Peelites, numbering among them almost every Conservative of ministerial experience (Gladstone, Lord Aberdeen, among others). They eventually combined with the Whigs and Radicals to form the modern Liberal party in the 1860s. Disraeli, who had opposed Peel and supported the Corn Laws to the end, along with Lord Stanley, fashioned the modern Conservative party from the remnants of Peel's Conservative Party.

Anyone for toast?

Scottish Kings Duncan and Macbeth 15 August

August 15 should probably be entitled 'Scottish King Day' because on 15 August 1040 Mac Bethad mac Findláech, better known as Macbeth (Gaelic for "Son of Life") became the king of Scotland, by defeating Duncan I (Donnchad mac Crínáin) or 'Duncan the Gracious' as he was known to his chums.

Gracious Duncan was born on August 15 1001 and died on August 15 1040 after Macbeth gave him a jolly good biffing at a Battle near Elgin in Moray. Macbeth remained king of the Scots until August 15, 1057.

Gracious Duncan was a son of Crinan the Thane de Mormaer, who was a lay abbot of Dunkeld, and Princess Bethoc of Scotland. Duncan became King in succession to his maternal grandfather Malcolm II in 1034 and his accession is said to be the first example of inheritance of the Scottish throne in the direct line. "Duncan The Gracious", was a less than complimenary - if not downright ironic title as he was a not particularly strong or popular ruler. Not much is known about him apart from the fact that he marched south to besiege Durham In 1039, but was badly trounced and that he later attempted to seize control of Moray, but was bashed twice by the Earl of Orkney's son, Thorfinn, who was a chum of MacBeth, before being killed in battle. He was killed at Bothnguane and later buried at Iona.

Macbeth on the other hand was a strong king and ruled over a kingdom stable enough for him to be able to leave for several months on a pilgrimage to Rome. He instituted a new form of law and order in Scotland and his reign was noted as a time of prosperity. He almost certainly had absolutely nothing to do with witches. What's more, Mackers (as actors call him) probably had no relationship to the Kings of Scotland either and only the late 13th century Chronicle of Huntingdon calls him nepos (nephew or grandson) of King Malcolm (probably Malcolm III). He did however marry Gruoch; better known to history as Lady Macbeth (or Lady Mackers), a granddaughter of Kenneth III of Scotland, and daughter of the prince Bodhe. In 1031, according to the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, Macbeth was one of three Scottish kings who submitted to Canute the Great. Macbeth formed an alliance with Thorfinn, Earl of Orkney, son of Malcolm II's youngest daughter, and took up arms against Gracious Duncan. Duncan died on August 15, after fighting them in battle near Elgin on August 14, 1040.

Macbeth was killed by Malcolm's forces at a battle near Lumphanan and the throne passed to Macbeth's stepson, Lulach, on August 15, 1057. Macbeth's life story was almost nothing at all like Shakespeare's version but it would be nice to think Mackers' last words might have been: "I will not yield, To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, And to be baited with the rabble's curse. Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, And thou opposed, being of no woman born, Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!", although he probably just grunted.

The Quagga 12 August

On this day, 12 August, in 1883 at Artis Magistra zoo, which is in Amsterdam, the last of the Quagga died, the remainder of its species having been hunted to extinction. The last wild Quagga was probably shot in 1878. The Quagga was given its name by the KhoiKhoi (who used to be known as Hottentot). The name is onomatopoeic and, apparently, resembles the mating call of the Quagga.

A strange looking animal, it was once found in great numbers in the Cape Province of South Africa as well as in the southern part of the Orange Free State. The Quagga was, for many years thought to be a sub-species of the zebra, but had vivid stripes at the front of its body, faded stripes with wide inter-stripe spaces around the midriff and a plain brown rump.

In 1788 the Quagga was classified as a species, Equus quagga; however, over the next 50 years or so, many other zebras were described but because of the great variation in coat patterns (no two zebras are alike), taxonomists were left with a number of so-called "species", and a sneaky suspicion that none of these were separate species or even subspecies but a growing idea that most were simply natural variants. Taxonomists were, of course completely in the dark about the Quagga because it had become extinct 30 years before the arguments started.

A century later, science galloped to the rescue and our Quagga became the first ever extinct creature to have its DNA studied. Genetic scientists at the Smithsonian Institution have demonstrated that the Quagga was not a separate species, but diverged from the plains zebra, Equus burchelli, between 120,000 and 290,000 years ago.

For those of you, and I know there are many, that like to get stuck into the Minutiae of nomenclature, this discovery suggests that Equus quagga should be named Equus burchelli quagga. However, heaven forefend that we should forget the rules of biological nomenclature, which clearly state that where there are two or more alternative names for a single species, the name first used takes priority. As the Quagga was described about 30 years earlier than the plains zebra, it appears that the correct terms are E. quagga quagga for the Quagga and E. quagga burchelli for the plains zebra. Some people in South Africa (known as 'raving loonies' where I come from) have begun a project to breed back our Quagga by selective breeding from plains zebra stock.

Thermopylae 11 August

On this day, 11 August, in 480 BC, Leonidas, King of Sparta was killed at the Battle of Thermopylae. This battle is used in military academies around the world to this day to show how a small group of well-trained and well-led soldiers can have an impact out of all proportion to their numbers. Xerxes I, king of Persia, was continuing a campaign started by his father Darius to defeat the Greek city states. Xerxes is sometimes estimated to have had between 3 and five million men; Herodotus wrote that the Persian army drank entire rivers and ate the food supplies of entire cities.

The Greeks, were, not suprisingly, somewhat at a loss as to how to deal with such a massive force. Hurriedly, an alliance of Greek city-states was formed, which was headed by the militaristic Sparta, whose supremely disciplined warriors were trained from birth to be amongst the best soldiers in the world at that time. The Spartans contributed a small force of 300 hoplites, hand-picked and commanded by King Leonidas. Leonidas, realising the likely outcome of mixing it with the Persians, took to battle only men who had fathered sons that were old enough to take over the family responsibilities of their fathers.

The mountain pass of Thermopylae, (the "Hot Gates"), was chosen by the Greeks as the site of battle. This was a stroke of genius because at the time it consisted of a pass so narrow that two chariots could barely move abreast - on one side rose the sheer side of the mountain and the other was a vertical drop into the sea. An army of some 7000 Greeks, led by 300 Spartans, stood in this narrow spot to receive the full force of the Persian army, numbering more than 280,000.

The Greeks formed up in a deep phalanx - a wall of overlapping shields and layered long (3 - 4 metre) spears, which spanned the entire width of the pass. Despite repeated waves of attack resulting in massive casualties, the Persians could not break through the Greeks defensive phalanx. Because of the terrain that the Greeks had chosen, the Persians were unable to surround or flank the Greeks, which was the normal method of defeating a phalanx and, because of the narrowness of the pass of Thermopylae, the superior Persian numbers were useless.

It is not inconceivable that, given time, the Persians might have been defeated but after the second day of fighting, a Greek named Ephialtes defected to the Persians and told them of another lightly defended path through Thermopylae, which the Persians quickly exploited to surround the Greeks. Leonidas realized that the game was up and on August 11 he sent away all but what remained of his 300 Spartans. Bravely, a contingent of about 600 Thespians, led by Demophilus, refused to leave with the other Greeks. Instead, they chose to stay with Leonidas and fight in a suicidal effort to delay the advance and allow the rest of the army to escape. The fighting was, as you might imagine, extremely brutal. After a time all of the long spears of the phalanx were broken, but the Spartans and Thespians kept fighting with their xiphos (short swords). After those too were broken, they fought with their bare hands and teeth.

Although the Greeks fought with outrageous bravery against overwhelming odds, Leonidas was eventually killed, along with all of his men. The last Spartans were killed by a barrage of arrows that are said to have blackened the sky.

There is an epitaph on a monument at the site of the battle with Simonides's epigram to the Spartans which reads (in English translation):

"Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie". or, perhaps: "Friend, tell the Spartans that on this hill we lie obedient to them still".

Diesel 10 August

On this day, the 10th of August, in 1893 the deisel engine ran succesfully for the first time in Augsburg, southern Germany. Rudolf Diesel developed the idea of the compression ignition engine and went on to build a functional prototype in early 1897. The 'Diesel engine' was named after him. Originally it was known as the "oil engine".
Being something of a visionary, Deisel said: "The diesel engine can be fed with vegetable oils and would help considerably in the development of agriculture of the countries which use it" He predicted that: "The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time."
On 29 September 1913, Diesel boarded the "SS Dresden", a cross-channel ferry, to attend the opening of a factory in Ipswich; however, he never made it and his body was found a couple of days later by local fishermen. As was usual at the time, the seamen only took his belongings and threw the body back into the sea. It is suspected that because Diesel decided to allow anyone to purchase a license for his engine patents, including the rivals of Imperial Germany, he was murdered by German agents and tossed into the North Sea.
Nevertheless, because of Rudolph's clever idea, the 10th of August is marked in the calendars of engine mechanics the world over as International Biodiesel Day - an idea we may yet be glad of.

Battle of Gravelines 8 August

On this day, 8 August, in 1588 the Battle of Gravelines ended - the Spanish Armada was defeated by the English during an invasion attempt by Phillip II of Spain. The surviving parts of the Spanish Armada set sail for home. Sadly for the Spanish, only 67 of the original 130 ships that set out to biff the English returned to Spain and most of these were in very poor condition. Queen Elizabeth, being aware that the Spanish fleet had been defeated, decided to rally the troops who were assembled to repel a possible invasion at Tilbury in Essex - thus proving that the modern Labour Party did not invent spin.

"We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear, I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust." Her Majesty said, continuing with the unforgetable:

"I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field."
Brave stuff, especially when the enemy has already packed up and gone home.

Wireless 20 July

Various people have made a number of more or less ribald comments about my use of the word wireless. People have intimated that the word is old fashioned - some have suggested that it is anachronistic! Well, all I can say is "tosh" or possibly "fiddlesticks" because on this day, the 20th of July, in 1872, an American, Mahlon Loomis was granted the first ever patent for the transmission of intelligence without the aid of wires - wireless (or radio as some people erroneously call it). Almost everyone thought that he was potty, indeed Loomis himself was none too sure of his sanity and was heard to say; "I know that I am regarded as a crank, perhaps a fool by some, and as to the latter, possibly I am, for I could have discarded this thing entirely and turned my attention to making money." Nevertheless, he should receive the credit for being the first to use a complete antenna and ground system, carrying out the first experimental transmission of wireless telegraph signals, being the first to use of kites to carry an antenna aloft and being the first user of balloons to raise an antenna wire. He also built the first vertical antenna (steel rod mounted on top of a wooden tower) and was the first person to formulate the idea of ‘waves’ travelling out from his antenna. He is, of course, completely unknown and all the kudos for the invention of wireless goes to Nikola Tesla in 1893 and to Guglielmo Marconi in 1896. It was the continuing spat between these two men and arguments over patents and royalties that started the now more common usage of the American word 'radio' – Tesla insisting on ‘radio’ and Marconi on ‘wireless’. Neither Tesla’s nor Marconi’s systems could do more than transmit morse code and it wasn't until 1906 that Canadian-American scientist Reginald Aubrey Fessenden was the first to wirelessly transmit a human voice. On Christmas Eve, 1906, using his heterodyne principle, Fessenden transmitted the first audio radio broadcast in history from Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Ships at sea, that were equipped with wireless sets, heard a broadcast that included Fessenden playing the song O Holy Night on the violin and reading a passage from the Bible. To quote Mahlon Loomis' dying words, uttered in 1886: "I know that I am by some, even many, regarded as a crank - by some perhaps a fool.... But I know that I am right, and if the present generation lives long enough their opinions will be changed - and their wonder will be that they did not perceive it before. I shall never see it perfected - but the wireless will be, and others will have the honour of the discovery ". Wireless – possibly the greatest invention ever.

Great Fire of Rome 18 July

On this day, 18 July in 64 AD, a fire started in some shops that were close to the Circus Maximus, in Rome. The fire quickly spread and eventually 10 of the 14 districts that comprised ancient Rome were destroyed. The fire raged, in all, for nine days. The story that everyone remembers is that the Emporer Nero started the fire in order to clear space for his planned new palace the Domus Aurea (Golden House). He is supposed to have stood on his private stage and extemporized verses comparing the present disaster to the Fall of Troy, accompanying himself on the lyre, while he watched the fire burn from a safe distance at his villa on the Quirinal Hill. Interestingly however, this may not be entirely, or even slightly, correct. The story was reported by Tacitus who, at the time of the fire, was a young teenager. Tacitus describes the story as a rumour that was going about during the time of the fire. Nero was away at Antium when the fire started,

What certainly is true is that many Romans lived in insulae, which were apartment buildings of three to five floors, with wooden floors and partitions that were built closely packed together in ancient winding lanes. Fires broke out in these conditions all the time. The fire burned hot enough to melt iron gates and nails in the roofs and it seems certain that a firestorm raged, which allowed the fire to advance in the opposite direction to the way the wind was blowing.

What is also certainly true is that Nero accused the Christian sect of starting the fire and embarked on the most appalling persecutions of Christians, with much feeding to the lions, using them as human torches and as targets for gladiators. It has been suggested that the Christians set the fire in order to fulfil an Egyptian prophecy that stated that the day Sirius (the dog star) first rises would mark the fall of the great evil city. Even if they did not start it, some Christians certainly added to the fire after it began. Nero built his Domus Aurea but it was of little use to him - he committed suicide in 68 AD.

Rosetta Stone 15 July

During the early part of the Napoleonic war, Bonaparte attempted to threaten the British position in India by conquering Egypt. On this day, July 15, 1799, while supervising the digging of foundations for an extension to a fort near the town of el-Rashid (Rosetta), French Captain Pierre-Francois Bouchard discovered a black basalt, inscribed tablet, which became known as the Rosetta Stone. The scientists on the expedition realised that the stone was of significance because it was carved with an inscription in three different scripts. One in Egyptian hieroglyphs at the top, a second in what is known as 'demotic script' (a sort of 'everyday use' type of hieroglyph) in the middle, and Greek at the bottom. The translation of the Greek passage revealed that the inscription was a royal edict issued on March 27, 196 BC. Hieroglyphs had slipped from use in the 4th century AD, so for 1400 years, no one had known how to read them. The Greek inscription was a translation of the upper two Egyptian passages. It wasn't too long before the bright sparks on the spot realised that the Greek bit might be used as a key to decipher the Egyptiann bits - and hence all the other hieroglyphs that were laying about all over Egypt.
At the second battle at Abu Qir in 1801, Bonaparte was defeated in Egypt and the Rosetta Stone became forfeit, in the name of King George III and the stone found its way to the British Museum. By now, the scientific community was getting excited and copies of the inscriptions were sent to linguistic experts all over Europe. Finally, after only 14 years of trying, in 1822, a Frenchman, Jean-Francois Champollion, solved the puzzle. Interestingly, the beginnings of Bonapartes defeat in Egypt began with the Battle of Abu Qir Bay (Battle of the Nile) in which Admiral Nelson's fleet defeated the French Mediterranean fleet. The first ship to open fire in the battle was HMS Bellerophon (Bellerophon means 'bearing darts' and he is the hero from Greek mythology that killed the Chimera). On this day in 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte finally surrendered aboard HMS Bellerophon before being transported to St Helena (named after the Greek 'Helena of Constantinople', who is said to have discovered the whereabouts of the True Cross). Handy, the Greeks.

Bastille Day 14 July

Back in 1789, on this day, 14 July, 600-odd disgruntled Frenchmen, wearing silly hats, assembled at the Hôtel des Invalides with the intention of attacking the notorious Parisian gaol, the Bastille. Although this act was an important development in, and later a symbol of, the French Revolution, the main aim of the attackers at the time was to obtain large quantities of arms and ammunition that were stored there. Apart from the armaments, the gaol was nearly empty with only seven residents - four forgers, two "lunatics" and one "deviant" aristocrat, the Comte de Solages (there’s always one!). As the day wore on, ninety-eight attackers died and just one defender; nevertheless, at around 17.30, the governor, De Launay, realising that he couldn’t hold out for much longer surrendered. De Launay was stabbed repeatedly and his head was then sawn off and fixed on a pike and paraded through the streets. Thus was Liberté, égalité, fraternité and the age of enlightenment born.
Two years later, in 1791, On July 14, in not-particularly-revolutionary Birmingham, the Constitutional Society of Birmingham arranged a dinner to celebrate the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. Members of the Lunar Society, including Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin, James Watts and Joseph Priestley attended the dinner. A well-organised mob, orchestrated by the Church and the British government, chose the occasion to attack the homes of several of the diners. This event became known as the Priestley Riots. Sadly, Joseph Priestley lost all his material possessions in the riots and the labour of years was gone with them. Despite this setback, we have Priestley to thank for discovering 9 gases including nitrous oxide. He invented soda water, (which is handy for those of us who like a fizzy drink after a hot summers day storming grubby French prisons), refrigeration, and gum erasers for which he coined the term "rubber". He discovered photosynthesis and he contributed towards the discovery of oxygen, which he referred to as ‘dephlogisticated air’ (Phlogisticated substances are those that were thought to contain ‘phlogiston’ and are "dephlogisticated" when burned. Priestley, when he discovered oxygen, thought it was ‘dephlogisticated air’ because it was capable of combining with more phlogiston and thus supporting combustion for longer than ordinary air). After the Priestley Riots, Priestley left England and emigrated to Pennsylvania where he built a home and laboratory and collected a 1600 volume library, which was then among the largest in America. He is regarded as a founder of liberal Unitarian thinking. A lasting legacy, if another were needed, of his philosophy and insight was that he persuaded his friend Thomas Jefferson to initiate what Americans call a liberal arts education.
An interesting addendum to the tale takes us back to revolutionary France. In the spirit of the now burgeoning age of enlightenment, in September of 1774, Priestley took his ‘dephlogisticated air' to a leading French scientist called Lavoisier. Lavoisier proved that air contained a new element, oxygen, which combined with hydrogen to make water and, in the process disproved the phlogiston theory. Controversially, a Swedish apothecary Carl Wilhelm Scheele claimed to have beaten Priestley by 2 years but was deprived of credit because Lavoisier denied receiving a letter Scheele claims to have sent in September 1774 describing his 1772 discovery of "fire air". History favoured our hero Priestley - until Scheele's missing letter was found in 1992 in Paris, 218 years late. Lavoisier received it on Oct 15, 1774. Incroyable! Crapaud français! (trans: Incredible French clamping plate).

Ruth Ellis 13 July

On this day, the 13 July in 1955, Ruth Ellis became the last woman in Britain to be executed. The hanging took place at 9.00 am BST at Holloway Prison and was carried out by the executioner Albert Pierpoint. She left behind an 11-year-old son. Ellis was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey for shooting her lover, racing driver David Blakeley, 25, outside the Magdala public house in north London on Easter Sunday. Despite the fact that, at her trial, the jury took only 14 minutes to find her guilty, the hanging of Ruth Ellis was one of the most controversial executions ever to have taken place. It is now widely accepted that this case was in large part instrumental in the bringing about the eventual suspension of the death penalty in Britain in 1965. It has often been postulated that, in any other country, Ruth Ellis would not have been hanged. If ever there was a crime of passion, this was it.
Ellis had been in her short life a photographic model, a club hostess, a mother and a divorcee. Ruth Ellis was no saint, a peroxide blonde, she often came across as a "brassy tart" (to quote the press of the day). She had a tragic attraction to men who drank heavily, who abused her, who two-timed her with other women and who liked to live what passed for the 'high life' in the West End clubs and bars of the 1950s. Ruth Ellis was David Blakeleys lover. Ruth said of him in evidence, "He was violent on occasions...always because of jealousy in the bar…he only used to hit me with his fists and hands, but I bruise easily, and I was full of bruises on many occasions.." Ruth was also living with Desmond Cussen, another fast car fan and it was Desmond Cussen who drove her, with her .38 revolver, to the Magdala Public House. Blakeley was in the pub with a friend, Clive Gunnel who was a friend also of Anthony and Carole Findlater. Blakeley had been having an affair with Carole Findlater for some time, with the full knowledge of Anthony Findlater, who serviced Blakeleys cars, and this was no secret to Ruth. Blakeley and Gunnel had gone from the Findlater’s home, where they were drinking, to the Magdala to buy more cigarettes and booze. Four days before the murder Blakeley had left Ellis after yet another fight and gone to stay with the Findlater’s. Ellis was beside her self with anger, hurt and jealousy. She drank Absinthe for four days, could not sleep and was taking tranquillisers. She had also had an abortion just ten days previously . As the two men stepped from the pub, Ruth walked up and emptied her Smith and Wesson revolver into Blakeley, in full view of witnesses. As Blakeley lay in a pool of blood, a Metropolitan Policeman came out of the pub and arrested Ruth Ellis for murder.
In September of 2003, the Criminal Cases Review Commission brought the case to the Court of Appeal arguing that Ellis was suffering "battered woman syndrome". The appeal judges ruled she had been properly convicted of murder according to the law as it stood at the time. The defence of diminished responsibility did not then exist.

The Battle of The Boyne 12 July

On this day, the 12 July, in 1690, the first proper victory for the League of Augsburg, which was the first ever alliance between Catholic and Protestant countries, was won. The opposing armies in the battle were led by King James of England, Scotland and Ireland who had been deposed from his English and Scottish thrones in the previous year and his successor, the co-monarch William III (William reigned jointly with his wife, James's daughter Queen Mary II). Despite being deposed in England and Scotland, James’s supporters still controlled much of Ireland and the Irish Parliament. The battle was the culmination of James's unsuccessful attempt to regain the thrones of England and Scotland. William’s army at the Boyne was about 36000 men and was comprised of mixed religions, the Dutch Blue Guards for example, had the Papal Banner with them on the day, and many of the Guardsmen were Dutch Catholics. The Jacobites were 25,000 strong and James had several regiments of protestant French troops and a number of regiments of German Protestants. The crucial difference between the two sides was not religion but the fact that William’s army was equipped with the new and hugely efficient flintlock musket while James’s men had the obsolete matchlock musket. Over the years, the war metamorphosed into, on the one hand an issue of Irish sovereignty as well as religious toleration and land ownership and on the other about maintaining Protestant and British rule in Ireland. Nowadays, of course it is an occasion for waving orange flags about and being unpleasant to ones neighbours. Which is strange, because originally, Irish Protestants commemorated the Battle of Aughrim on the 12th of July. At Aughrim, which took place a year after the Boyne, virtually all of the old native Irish Catholic and Old English aristocracies were wiped out. What was celebrated on the Twelfth was the extermination of the elite. What happened was that by the time the Orange Order was founded in the 1790s, a new Gregorian calendar had been introduced. A consequence of this was that the date of the Battle of the Boyne was now also on the 12 of July (it had, originally been the First) and the entirely erroneous celebration of William's "victory over popery at the Battle of the Boyne" was born. I shall leave greater minds than mine to decide whether or not this forms the basis for stamping about the "Queen's highway" wearing daft hats to celebrate a spurious identity earned in the not very ‘Glorious Revolution’ settlement or just an excuse for anti social behaviour.