…in 1520, Martin Luther publicly burned the papal edict demanding he recant his 95 Theses and other public grievances against the Catholic Church.
Category Archives: Bitesize
On This Day…
… in 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy conducted a surprise military strike against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. This attack provoked the US into entering the Second World War.
On This Day…
… in 1887 Sherlock Holmes appeared in print for the first time, in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘A Study In Scarlet’.
On This Day…
… in 1919 the American-born Lady Astor became the first woman to sit as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons in Britain.
On This Day…
… in 1947 the ‘Hollywood Ten’ – a group of film producers, directors and screenwriters – were blacklisted by the majority of Hollywood Studios for their rumoured Communist affiliations.
These men included Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, Herbert Biberman, Edward Dmytryk, John Howard Lawson, Ring Lardner Jr, Samuel Ornitz, Albert Maltz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo. Most were never employed in Hollywood again, so great was the fear of Communism in the west at this time.
Interestingly, the German writer Bertolt Brecht was originally among this group, but he fled the country the day after the inquest.
On This Day…
… in 1928 Mickey Mouse made his debut in Steamboat Willie.
On This Day…
… in 1558 Queen Elizabeth I of England ascended the throne. She was the fifth and last Tudor monarch and reigned for forty-five years.
On This Day…
… in 1938 Nazi party officials and SA paramilitary forces took to the streets of Germany to ransack, raid and demolish thousands of Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues.
On This Day…
…in 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States.
Contrary to the premise of the 2012 film ‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’, the 16th US President did not, in fact, hunt vampires.
On This Day…
… in 1534 the English parliament accepted the Act of Supremacy in 1534, officially recognizing Henry VIII as Head of the Church of England.
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