On the 4th of January, 1853, after having been kidnapped and sold into slavery, Solomon Northup regained his freedom. His memoir, Twelve Years a Slave, became a bestseller. Northup was born in July 1808 in Minerva, New York, into a free Black family. His father,...

Wikipedia tells me that on the 3rd of January, 69CE, the Roman legions on the Rhine refused to swear their allegiance to Galba. Instead they proclaimed their legate, Aulus Vitellius, as emperor. The year 69CE is known as the year of the four emperors, so what was...

I am spoilt for choice of events to write about for the 2nd of January. As a chartered civil engineer I really should go for the founding of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1818. Then there is the Reconquista in 1492 when the last Moorish stronghold in Spain,...

Happy New Year! But why the 1st of January? It was on the 1st of January, 153BCE that Roman first began their year in office on the 1st of January. In 45BCE the Julian calendar was adopted as the civil calendar of the Roman Republic with the 1st of January as the...

I recently posted about Vandals and their defeat by General Belisarius in 533CE. Oddly the first two events that I find for the 31st of December concern the Vandals and General Belisarius again. On this day in 406CE the Vandals, Alans and Suebians crossed the Rhine...

On the 30th of December, 1641, during the Reapers’ War, Louis XIII of France was appointed Count of Barcelona. This caught my interest because Louis XIII is a key character in The Suggested Assassin, the third book in the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures, and also my...

On the 29th of December, 1170, Thomas Becket was murdered in Cantabury Cathedral, but I’ve already posted about that. On the same day in 1989 the Czech writer, philosopher and dissident, Václav Havel, was elected the first post-communist President of Czechoslovakia....

The Tay Bridge disaster, one of the most infamous engineering tragedies in British history, occurred on the evening of the 28th of December 1879. It involved the catastrophic collapse of a section of the original Tay Railway Bridge during a violent winter storm,...

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on the 27th of December 2007. I am a life member of the Oxford Union which I joined shortly after matriculating in September 1979. Sadly I was just a few years late for Richard Nixon’s speech to the Oxford Union where he admitted to...

On the 4th of January, 1853, after having been kidnapped and sold into slavery, Solomon Northup regained his freedom. His memoir, Twelve Years a Slave, became a bestseller. Northup was born in July 1808 in Minerva, New York, into a free Black family. His father,...

Wikipedia tells me that on the 3rd of January, 69CE, the Roman legions on the Rhine refused to swear their allegiance to Galba. Instead they proclaimed their legate, Aulus Vitellius, as emperor. The year 69CE is known as the year of the four emperors, so what was...

I am spoilt for choice of events to write about for the 2nd of January. As a chartered civil engineer I really should go for the founding of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1818. Then there is the Reconquista in 1492 when the last Moorish stronghold in Spain,...

Happy New Year! But why the 1st of January? It was on the 1st of January, 153BCE that Roman first began their year in office on the 1st of January. In 45BCE the Julian calendar was adopted as the civil calendar of the Roman Republic with the 1st of January as the...

I recently posted about Vandals and their defeat by General Belisarius in 533CE. Oddly the first two events that I find for the 31st of December concern the Vandals and General Belisarius again. On this day in 406CE the Vandals, Alans and Suebians crossed the Rhine...

On the 30th of December, 1641, during the Reapers’ War, Louis XIII of France was appointed Count of Barcelona. This caught my interest because Louis XIII is a key character in The Suggested Assassin, the third book in the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures, and also my...

On the 29th of December, 1170, Thomas Becket was murdered in Cantabury Cathedral, but I’ve already posted about that. On the same day in 1989 the Czech writer, philosopher and dissident, Václav Havel, was elected the first post-communist President of Czechoslovakia....

The Tay Bridge disaster, one of the most infamous engineering tragedies in British history, occurred on the evening of the 28th of December 1879. It involved the catastrophic collapse of a section of the original Tay Railway Bridge during a violent winter storm,...

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on the 27th of December 2007. I am a life member of the Oxford Union which I joined shortly after matriculating in September 1979. Sadly I was just a few years late for Richard Nixon’s speech to the Oxford Union where he admitted to...