On this day…

… in 1835, the first installment of Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales was published in Copenhagen, Denmark. This was the first of three installments published between May 1835 and April 1837, and marked Andersen’s first venture into the fairy tale genre. Notably, this first collection contained The Princess and the Pea.

On This Day…

100 years ago today, in 1918, the Representation of the People Act marked the first step towards women’s suffrage in the UK. The act gave women over the age of 30, who either owned land themselves or were married to men with property, the right to vote. The act also lowered men’s voting age from 30 to 21. It would be another decade before the vote was given to all women over the age of 21 on equal terms with men.

On This Day…

…in 1914, the first trenches were dug on the Western Front. As it became ever more apparent that the war would not be ‘over by Christmas’, both Allied and German forces began digging trenches. In total, if these trench systems were laid out in one long row, they would stretch for 25,000 miles. 12,000 of those miles belonged to the Allies; 13,000 to the Central Powers.

cheshire_regiment_trench_somme_1916

Allied Trench, The Somme 1916