November 4th - 10th
On 4th November…
On 5th November…
On 6th November…
On 7th November…
On 8th November…
1847 - Bram Stoker, the Irish author of Dracula, was born in Dublin, Ireland. Dracula is the story about a vampire called Count Dracula who survives not by eating regular food, but by drinking human blood.
1965 - The Murder Act came into effect which abolished the death penalty for murder in the U.K. It suspended the death penalty for an initial five-year period but was made permanent in 1969. You could still be sentenced to death for treason or piracy with violence as these weren’t abolished until 1998.
The U.K. is now fully abolitionist, which means that there is no death penalty whatsoever for any crime committed in the U.K.
On 9th November…
1888 - Mary Jane Kelly, possibly the last victim of the Victorian serial killer, Jack the Ripper was found murdered in her bed at 13 Miller’s Court in London.
1953 - The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died aged 39 years. He is best known for his poem ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ and short play ‘Under Milk Wood’.
1989 - The Berlin Wall stopped being a barrier between East and West Germany when guards were allowed to open the border and allow German citizens from East Germany to cross into West Germany. Germany had been divided between Russia and the West after World War II. The Eastern side of the country was under Russian rule and became communist whilst West Germany remained free. At the time of the division Berlin was the German capital city and stood in the Eastern sector. The city became divided in two and was separated by a wall known as the Berlin Wall. As it was built the wall separated families and friends, people who had lived next door to each other now found themselves on opposite sides of the Wall. West Berlin was an island of free capitalism in the middle of communist East Germany. Many people had died trying to get from East to West Germany by going over or under the Wall, so as soon as it was known that people could cross freely thousands of people flooded to the wall to get across. People began breaking down the Wall, demolishing it and sending huge parts crashing to the ground. The guards who had monitored East Germany and who had been ordered to shoot people attempting to cross just hours before, were now happily letting them pass through. Germany was being reunified into one country again.