On 29th August…

1782 - The British battleship HMS Royal George sank off Spithead, near Portsmouth, on the south coast of England. The crew of about 900 sailors were all killed. It was reported that the ship had sunk quickly because the bottom of it was so rotten that it completely fell away.

1923 - Richard Attenborough the English actor and director was born in Cambridge. His films include Jurassic Park (actor) and Gandhi (director) which collected eight Oscars. Did you know that he was the brother of Sir David Attenborough the world famous broadcaster, biologist and natural historian?

On 30th August…

On 31st August…

12CE - Caligula, Emperor of Rome was born in Anzio, Italy. He was assassinated by his Praetorian Guard in 41CE.

161CE - Commodus, Roman Emperor was born in Lanuvium Italy. He too, like Caligula was also assassinated in 192CE. Not sure I’d like to be a Roman Emperor, especially when a common cause of death was assassination.

1888 - The body of Mary Ann Nichols was found in Buck’s Row, Whitechapel, London. She was the first victim of Jack the Ripper, who was a famous serial murderer of Victorian England. Jack the Ripper’s identity has never been discovered.

1997 - Princess Diana, mother to Prince William and Prince Harry, died in a car crash in Paris.

On 1st September…

1159 - Pope Adrian IV, the 170th pope died. He was the only Englishman ever to hold the office of Pope. His real name was Nicholas Breakspear, and he was born near St Albans in Hertfordshire.

1967 - Siegfried Sassoon, a famous war poet of World War I, died aged 80.

1939 - World War II started when Germany invaded Poland.

On 2nd September…

1666 - The Great Fire of London broke out at a bakery in Pudding Lane. The fire lasted for five days and destroyed a third of the city. About 100,000 people were made homeless. Samuel Pepys, the diarist, wrote about the great fire in his diary and describes how he took his money and belongings to safety in the middle of the night. The Monument, a memorial built to commemorate the Great Fire, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Dr Robert Hooke. It still stands just metres away from where the fire began and its 311 steps can be climbed to see panoramic views of London.

1945 - Japan formally surrendered on board the USS Missouri, an American battleship, moored in Tokyo Bay. Their formal surrender brought an end to World War II.

On 3rd September…

1783 - Great Britain and America signed the Treaty of Paris (in Paris, France) officially recognising the United States of America as independent from Britain.

1878 - The Princess Alice, a paddle steamboat collided with a much larger collier (a coal-carrying ship) on the River Thames killing about 650 people. The Princess Alice was carrying families returning from a day out at the coast of Sheerness when it was sliced in two by the collier. Over the following days and weeks dead bodies washed up onto the banks of the Thames; people drowned by the weight of their Victorian fashions; people overcome by the raw sewage being pumped into the Thames; people unable to swim. Improvements to sewage works, emergency signalling lights on boats across the globe, and the building of the Royal Albert Dock which separated heavy goods traffic from smaller boats were all implemented in the aftermath of the tragedy.

1945 - Britain and France declared war on Germany following its invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II.

On 4th September…

1571 - Matthew Stewart, the Earl of Lennox, regent of Scotland was killed. At the time of his death, he was ruling Scotland in his grandson’s name, King James VI of Scotland, and at the same time was seeking justice for his own son’s murder. Matthew’s son was Lord Darnley, husband of Mary Queen of Scots and father of King James VI. Matthew Stewart was a main witness against Mary Queen of Scots in the case for his son’s murder as he believed Mary had ordered the murder of Lord Darnley. Matthew Stewart was shot in a fight between his men and the queen’s men at Stirling. Whether his death was an accident or not remains a mystery.

1588 - Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, one of Queen Elizabeth I’s favourites died. Elizabeth made him Master of the Horse, Privy Councillor, and Knight of the Garter. It was rumoured that he murdered his wife so that he could marry Queen Elizabeth.