… in 1649 King Charles I of England was beheaded for treason by order of Parliament, under the direction of the leader of the Puritan Revolution, Oliver Cromwell.
Tag Archives: on this day
On This Day…
… in 1945 the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Allies. Of the 1,300,000 Jews, homosexuals, Poles and other perceived ‘enemies’ of the Nazi state sent to Auschwitz, 1,100,000 never left.
May we never forget nor trivialise the sheer brutality of war and the darkest extremities of human nature.
On This Day…
… in 17BC the Roman poet Ovid died. He was responsible for works including the ‘Metamorphoses’ and a selection of love poetry, including ‘Amores’ and ‘Ars Amatoria’. These love poems contained such tongue-in-cheek advice as:
“If you want to be loved, be lovable”.
Curiously, despite enjoying much popularity, Ovid ended his life in exile – a punishment he described as the result of “a poem and a mistake”. This has puzzled ancient historians the world over…
On This Day…
…In 1612 Galileo observed Neptune for the first time. He recorded it as a ‘fixed star,’ not realising that it was a planet.
On This Day…
…in 1520, Martin Luther publicly burned the papal edict demanding he recant his 95 Theses and other public grievances against the Catholic Church.
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.
My History Cafe 