HistoryPod

“Humbug Billy”, bought his stock from the confectioner Joseph Neal who made peppermint lozenges using powdered gypsum in place of some of the relatively expensive sugar, but he mistakenly added arsenic ...

His promotion to brigadier general on 27 October 1954 came six years after President Truman ordered the desegregation of the US military, and made him the first African American general in the US Air ...

The gunfight at the O.K. Corral took place between the Earp brothers and a gang of outlaws in Tombstone, ...

Due to miscommunication and a lack of clear orders Lord Cardigan led the Light Brigade, a cavalry unit consisting of approximately 670 horsemen, in a frontal assault against a fortified Russian artillery position at the end of the ...

Taylor had a specially constructed barrel built of oak, reinforced with iron bands, and fitted with internal padding. She survived the plunge with just some bruising and a small cut to her ...

The writer Thomas Carlyle is credited with giving the conflict its name in his 1858 biography of the Prussian King Friedrich ...

The Granville–Paris Express train ran across the station platform in Paris, crashed through a 60cm wall, and fell 10 metres to the street below after it overran the buffer stop at the Gare Montparnasse ...

The breakthrough came when the team used carbonised cotton thread as a filament. A lamp that was initially illuminated on 21st October stayed lit for more than thirteen hours, providing evidence that a practical incandescent lamp was ...

Maria Theresa inherited the Austrian throne, prompting the War of the Austrian ...

After seventeen years, the Second Punic War was finally brought to an end with the decisive victory of the Roman general and consul Scipio Africanus over Hannibal at the Battle of ...

Instruments on board Venera 4 measured temperature, pressure, and the composition of the surrounding gases, with the results transmitted by radio to receiving stations on ...

Once the beer began to pour into the street, it quickly began to fill the cellars of nearby houses in which families lived, killing eight ...

The light cruiser HMS Southampton and the destroyer Mohawk were damaged, while sixteen Royal Navy sailors died and 44 were ...

Napoleon was exiled to the island of St Helena, situated roughly halfway between Africa and South America, where he lived for six years before his ...

A U-2 spy plane captured images of the construction of a missile site on Cuba, triggering the Cuban Missile ...

As she was accompanied through the Members’ Lobby, Travers Symons broke away from her escort and burst into the chamber where MPs were debating a bill regarding issues related to ...

Cyrus the Great’s Persian forces defeated the Babylonians at the Battle of Opis before entering Babylon on 12 October, bringing the Neo-Babylonian Empire to an end. He subsequently incorporated Mesopotamia into the Persian Empire while preserving Babylon’s importance as a major ...

The Pope granted the Latin title Fidei defensor to Henry after he published a book in which he defended Catholic doctrine against the criticisms levelled at it by Martin Luther in his Ninety-five Theses during the early stages of the Protestant ...

At around 6am on 10 October the hurricane made landfall at Barbados in the Lesser Antilles, where it unleashed its full fury as it moved through the ...

Charles opened the fifth session of the Cavalier Parliament in the Great Hall at Christ Church College in Oxford, having left London to escape the Great ...

The Great Stand on the Ugra River marked the start of the decline of the Great ...

Keen to consolidate the newly-united Germany, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck turned to diplomacy in an attempt to ensure the status quo in ...

The Jazz Singer demonstrated to a large audience that recorded dialogue could be incorporated successfully into a commercial feature film. It used the Vitaphone system that played large phonograph discs in synchronisation with the film ...

Two cultural icons made their first appearance when Dr No, the first of the James Bond series of films, hit cinema screens on the same day as the Beatles released their debut single ‘Love Me ...

By the 16th Century a sizable drift had developed between the Julian calendar, the lunar calendar, and the real moon which the new calendar sought to ...

The bomb was successfully detonated at 8 a.m., making Britain the third country to successfully develop and detonate a nuclear weapon, after the United States and Soviet ...

United States President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed on his left-hand ...

The Chinese Communists in the People’s Liberation Army had been fighting the second stage of a long and costly civil war against the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek, known as the Kuomintang, since shortly after the end of the Second World ...

The Flintstones attracted strong ratings, demonstrating that an animated series could compete with live-action programmes in an evening schedule and establishing Hanna-Barbera as a major television animation ...

President George Washington wrote to Congress, stating that the military was something on which the “honor, safety and well being of our Country so evidently and essentially ...

Fleming found that a petri dish containing staphylococci bacteria had been contaminated with an unidentified fungus. The bacteria around the fungus had been destroyed, whereas bacteria that were further away ...

The railway was developed by to improve the transport of coal from inland collieries to Darlington and the port at ...

The first United States presidential debate took place between John F. Kennedy and Richard ...

The Battle of Stamford Bridge saw both sides suffer heavy casualties but, with Harald Hardrada slain in battle, the English emerged ...

The vehicle, designated RM1, was conceived by London Transport to replace its extensive trolleybus network with motor buses and was developed in conjunction with the Associated Equipment Company (AEC), with Park Royal involved in the construction of the ...

Teletext was the dominant medium for accessing breaking news until the arrival of the World Wide ...

Hale volunteered to gather intelligence on British troop movements and strategies but was captured, swiftly subjected to a trial by British authorities, found guilty of spying, and condemned to death as an illegal ...

The Convention unanimously decreed that ‘royalty is abolished in France’ and subsequently ordered that official documents should be dated from ‘the first year of the French Republic’, establishing the Republican ...

The Ragamuffin War began when Brazilian rebels in the southern province of Rio Grande do Sul captured Porto ...

The German forces reached the outskirts of the French capital on 15 September and General Helmuth von Moltke, the commander of the Prussian army, gave the order to begin surrounding the ...

Lake, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and several geyser basins where they encountered numerous geothermal features, including the geyser that they named Old Faithful due to its regular ...

The talks concluded with the signing of two separate agreements – ‘A Framework for Peace in the Middle East’ and ‘A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and ...

Claimed by its fans to be the greatest comedy film of all time, Life of Brian has courted controversy since its release due to its satirical portrayal of religion that is interpreted by some as ...

At the end of the visit Khrushchev and Eisenhower agreed to continue discussions, signalling a temporary improvement in relations that became known as the ‘Spirit of Camp ...

On the 14th September 1814, the poem that was to provide the lyrics for the United States’ national anthem was written by 35 year-old Francis Scott ...