Book Offer
This will close in 10 seconds
The Zulus never had an independent country again
The sack of Rome, considered by most historians to mark the fall of the Western Roman Empire, happened on this day, August 27th, 410AD. It was the first time in 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy. The Empire had been in decline for almost two centuries, with invasions, on and off, […]
The Dublin lock-out began led by Jim Larkin. William Martin Murphy dismissed hundreds of workers who he suspected of membership of the ITGWU. William Martin Murphy, a major employer at the time, was chairman of the Dublin United Tramway Company, owned Clery’s department store, and the Imperial Hotel and controlled the Irish Independent, Evening Herald, […]
Several interesting things happened on August 25th. Most prominently, the date saw the liberation of Paris by the Allies in 1944. But that tale pales into insignificance beside the story of Hugh Glass and the Grizzly Bear. Hugh Glass was an American frontiersman, who lived most of his life in that lawless wilderness of the […]
Mickey Devine was the last man to die on the hunger strike started by Bobby Sands in early March. As a young man Bloody Sunday had a deep effect on him, he was there with this brother-in-law who remembered Mickey rhetorically ask “How can you sit back and watch while your own Derrymen are shot […]
Gaius Octavius was the nephew of Julius Caesar, and his heir apparent, when the latter was brutally murdered by conspirators on the Ides of March, 44BC. At the time, Octavian (as he was then known) was twenty years old, and studying in Greece. Within 18 months, the young man had maneuvered himself into becoming one […]
On March 21st, 1612, a young girl called Alizon Device encountered a merchant called John Law, from Halifax, on the road to Pendle. She begged him to sell her some pins, but he refused, because she did not have the money. Privately, she cursed him. As luck would have it, within a few minutes, he […]
An Irish force led by Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill ambushed Sir Conyers Clifford and his men though a pass in the Curlew mountains near the town of Boyle in Roscommon.
J. Thomas Schipp and Abraham Smith were lynched in Indiana, on this day, August 7th, 1930. To date, they are the last known victims of lynching in the United States. Arrested on suspicion of murder, rape, and robbery the night before, Schipp and Smith were taken from their jail cells by an angry, all-white mob, […]
The Holy Roman Empire, founded in the 700’s, was formally dissolved on this day in 1806 by the Austrian Emperor Francis II. It had dominated European politics for a thousand years. The Empire was founded by the Carolingian dynasty of Charlemagne. In modern terms, it was not really an Empire at all, but a federation. […]
Have you ever heard the phrase “lose the battle but win the war”? The opposite happened to the Roman triumvir Mark Antony on this day in 30BC. Having been defeated at the Battle of Actium, Anthony and Cleopatra retreated to Alexandria, which was soon besieged by the forces of Octavian. For the whole month of […]
By July 29th, 1848, most of Ireland had been truly devastated by the Great starvation. Outside of Ireland, Europe was being convulsed with revolutions. In France, King Louis-Philippe was overthrown, to make way for the second republic. Revolutions seeking the vote, and liberalisation, broke out in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, and elsewhere. Inspired by these […]
This will close in 10 seconds