On 18th July…

64CE - The Great Fire of Rome began. The fire raged for a week and completely destroyed three of the fourteen districts that made up the city. Only four of the districts were untouched. Emperor Nero set about designing and constructing a new Rome the following month.

1817 - Jane Austen the famous English novelist died. Some of her famous include Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma. Her stories depict life in middle-class England during the 18th and early 19th centuries.

1918 - Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa was born.

On 19th July…

On 20th July…

356BCe - Alexander the Great was born in Macedonia (modern day Greece). Alexander grew up to become the greatest King of ancient Greece and ruled an empire that stretched from Greece to India and Egypt. Did you know that one of his early teachers was the Greek philosopher, Aristotle? He also had over 70 cities named after him.

1837 - Euston Station, London’s first railway station opened. In the beginning there were only two platforms and trains carried passengers and cargo from London to Birmingham.

On 21st July…

On 22nd July…

2013 - Prince George, son of Prince William was born in London. Prince George is third in line to the English throne.

On 23rd July…

1914 - Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist. The ultimatum had a 48 hour reply deadline and was written in such a way that it was practically impossible to accept the terms, or that Austria-Hungary would be willing to accept any amendments of the ultimatum by Serbia in an attempt to try and reach an agreement. Germany, an ally of Austria-Hungary, tried to diplomatically ease the situation but the other Great Powers (Britain, Russia, France) were not inclined to see Austria-Hungary as acting alone because of its relatively weak military. It appeared most likely that Germany would have to stand by its allegiance with Austria-Hungary and side against Serbia. Serbia appealed to its ally, Russia for advice. If Russia was drawn into the fray, then both Britain and France by extension of their allegiance with Russia would also be brought into the conflict. Serbia agreed to all of the terms of the ultimatum with one exception. This was not acceptable to Austria-Hungary who declared war, so beginning World War I.

On 24th July…

1851 - Window tax was abolished in Britain after pressure from doctors and others who argued that lack of light was a source of ill health. The tax was introduced by King William III of England in 1696 and was a banded tax according to the number of windows in a house. Some properties such as cottages were exempt from the tax but the more windows you had, the more tax you had to pay to the government. People needed windows to let in as much light as possible because the only source of light other than daylight was the candle or oil lamp. To avoid paying the tax people began to brick up their windows, you can still see some properties in the UK with bricked up windows where glass windows were.

1969 - Apollo 11 returned to Earth after its successful mission to the moon.