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 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 meaning 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 East 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, the Berlin Wall. The Wall separated families and friends as it was built, people who had lived next door to each other now found themselves on opposite side 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 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.

On 10th November…

On 11th November…

1918 - The Armistice (which is an agreement to stop fighting) signed by both the Allies and Germany in World War I came into effect on the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month. It was called the Treaty of Versailles and it meant that the war was over. Over 8.5 million soldiers had died fighting in the war; over 21 million soldiers were wounded; and the total casualties of the war including prisoners and missing persons was over 37 million people - that’s more than half the population of the U.K. This day is remembered around the world under various names - Remembrance Day, Armistice Day, Veterans Day. Here in the U.K. people buy and wear red poppies to remember those who fought and died defending our country and our freedom; and on Remembrance Sunday, just after the two-minute silence and gun salute, soldiers and veterans march through Whitehall to the Cenotaph to place wreaths of poppies in honour of the fallen soldiers. The poppy was the first flower to start blooming all over the battlefields where many soldiers had fallen.

On 12th November…

1912 - Captain Robert Scott’s body was found with his diary in the Antarctic. Captain Scott had set out with a group of eleven other men in a race to reach the South Pole. The team were beset by problems, and before they had reached their destination, they had fallen to just five men; the others having to return to base camp. The remaining men managed to reach the South Pole on January 17th, 1912 but found that Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian, had already beaten them to it. Frustrated that they had been beaten, they started their return journey only to be battered by exceptionally bad weather which kept them inside a tent for nine days. Their supplies of food ran out and slowly the men starved to death knowing that another food supply was less than eleven miles away. Captain Scott kept a diary of their exploits, his final entry was on March 29th, 1912. Searchers for the men found their bodies in their tent along with the diary. The men were buried where they were found.

On 13th November…

1093 - King Malcolm III of Scotland died in battle at Alnwick, where he was trying to gain lands for Scotland and also reclaim the English throne for his brother-in-law Edgar whom he believed was the rightful heir following the Norman invasion.

1642 - The Battle of Turnham Green took place just outside London between King Charles I and his royalist troops and the men of the Parliamentarian army during the English Civil War.

1839 - The last Stamford Bull Run was held in Stamford, Lincolnshire. The event was held every year on St Brice’s Day or 13th November and had been a custom since the days of King John. A large bull was chased through the streets of Stamford and into Bull Meadow across the river where it would be slaughtered, and its meat given to the poor people of Stamford.