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.