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The Grand Armee of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte entered Moscow and captured it on this day, September 14th, 1812. It was the culmination of the biggest – and ultimately fatal – mistake of Napoleon’s brilliant career. Napoleon’s invasion of Russia was a major miscalculation. At the time of the invasion, he dominated Europe, with only […]
ON THIS DAY: 12TH SEPTEMBER 1919 Dáil Éireann was declared illegal by the British Parliament when Sinn Féin TDs refused to sit in Westminister and set up their own parliament in Dublin, Dáil Éireann The British authorities called it a ‘dangerous assembly, because of this the first Dáil had to meet in secret at different […]
The people of Gibraltar voted to remain British, and against unification with Spain, on this day, September 10th, 1967. The result was overwhelming: 12,138 votes were cast to remain British. Just 44 people in all of Gibraltar voted to become Spanish. Gibraltar has been under British rule since 1704, when it was captured by Anglo-Dutch […]
“Quinctilius Varus, where are my eagles?!!!” is what Brian Blessed’s Emperor Augustus exclaims, in the BBC Classic “I Claudius”, upon hearing of the battle of the teutoburg forest, which took place on this day, September 9th, 9AD. The battle was the most catastrophic defeat the Roman Empire would suffer for several centuries. Three Legions, and […]
Newspapers report a potato blight has hit Ireland. High rents imposed by absentee landlords meant that most people could only afford to live on small tenant farms with inferior soil that only potatoes could grow on; but the potato crop was prone to disease and the farmers did not have extra land to rotate crops. […]
Michelangelo’s “David”, probably the most famous sculpture in the world, was first unveiled to the public on this day, September 8th, 1504, in the Piazza della Signoria, in Florence. The statue, as the name suggests, represents the David who defeated Goliath in the bible. David was a favourite of the Florentines because, as a small […]
The Legion of Mary, which remains the largest lay organisation in the Roman Catholic Church, was founded in Dublin on this day, September 7th, 1921, by Frank Duff, and celebrates 99 years in existence today. Almost a century after it was founded in a small room on Francis Street, Dublin, the Legion of Mary has […]
After the Treaty of Limerick and the Battle of the Boyne, the Irish and English parliaments brought in draconian measures to crush the Catholic population. Even though Catholics had retained ownership of a mere 22% of the land which was further reduced to 14%, the penal laws attempted to ensure that no Irish Catholic would […]
Aodh Mór Ó Néill (Hugh O’Neill), Earl of Tír Eoghan and Rudhraighe Ó Domhnaill (Rory O’Donnell) Earl of Tír Conaill – modern day Donegal), fled Ireland for the continent with about ninety followers on this day, September 4th, 1607. It’s often said that their flight from Ireland came at the end of the Nine Years […]
Oliver Cromwell, the butcher of Drogheda, died on this day in 1658, having suffered a painful end from a urinary tract infection that caused blood poisoning. Three years after he died, his body was exhumed and ceremonially hanged in chains, and then thrown into a pit, so that his enemies could be sure that he […]
September 2nd is not a day, oddly, on which much of significance happened. It’s the calendar’s version of a slow news day. But on this day in 1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt of the United States gave a speech to the Minnesota state fair, in which he uttered a phrase which has long outlived him […]
Martha, the last passenger pigeon, died on this day, September 1st, 1914. With her death, her kind became extinct. The passenger pigeon was driven to extinction by humans, and because they were so easy to catch. As recently as 1850, there were almost a million pigeons in North America. But the passenger pigeon was tasty, […]
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