Monthly Archives: August 2014
TRIVIA TRAIL: JACK THE RIPPER
Question: Who was Jack the Ripper’s first victim? Answer: Mary Ann Nichols, who was killed August 31st, 1888 in the East End of London (Buck’s Row, Whitechapel). The serial killer who would become known as Jack the Ripper because of his brutal mutilations of his victims’ bodies went on to kill four more women until […]
HISTORY TIDBIT: ALBEMARLE STREET
Ever find yourself driving the wrong way down a one-way street in an unfamiliar city? Ever wonder how long one-way streets have been around? Well, in England, the answer is since 1617, when London’s Albemarle Street in Mayfair became the first one-way street in an attempt to achieve better traffic flow. Apparently even horses and […]
HISTORIC SPEECH: “I HAVE A DREAM”
* A day late, but here it is. Yesterday got away from me. People make speeches all the time, but some have more impact than others. It is over fifty years since civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Junior, made his famous “I Have A Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. […]
HISTORIC BAD IDEA: HITLER’S INVASION OF RUSSIA
It is said that those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them, and Germany’s Adolf Hitler obviously didn’t learn anything from a mistake made by that other proponent of world domination, Napoleon Bonaparte. By June of 1812, Napoleon was in control of almost all of Continental Europe, but […]
HISTORIC THEATRE: REGENT’S PARK OPEN-AIR THEATRE
The Regent’s Park Open-Air Theatre began as a makeshift theatre for a 1932 production of Twelfth Night, which was transferred there after being brought in as a replacement play for the New Theatre (now the Noel Coward Theatre) after the early closing of a play by the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini. (Just think how different […]
HISTORY TIDBIT: WW II LIBERATION OF PARIS
The Invasion of Normandy on June 6th, 1944 led to the liberation of many European cities, but the liberation of Paris on August 25th, 1944 was one of the most celebrated. Adolf Hitler had ordered the Commander of Paris, General Dietrich von Cholitz, to defend the city to the last man and destroy key sections […]
HISTORIC HEIST: THE MONA LISA
Despite all the pretty much identical copies around, someone once just had to have the real Mona Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting vanished from the walls of the Salon Carré in the Louvre Museum on August 21st, 1911 – and it actually took a while for anyone to notice! A visiting artist, Louis Béroud, […]
HISTORIC BIRTHS: VIRGINIA DARE
It’s possible to become famous just by being born. On August 18th, 1587, a baby girl, Virginia Dare, became the first English child born in what would become the United States of America. Back then, however, her birthplace was just a British colony on Roanoke Island, Virginia. The new arrival was the granddaughter of the […]
HISTORIC CELEBRATION: INDIA’S INDEPENDENCE DAY
After over seventy years of uprisings against British rule, it was the non-violent protests led by Mahatma Gandhi that contributed most to the eventual independence of India on August 15th, 1947. Today, India is the world’s largest democracy.
HISTORIC INVENTION: LAWN MOWERS
Have older kids who hate mowing the lawn? Well, at least they don’t have to use a scythe, and for that they can thank Edwin Beard Bunting, an engineer from Gloucestershire, England. Bunting invented the lawn mower in 1830, after watching a cutting cylinder trim cloth in a cloth mill and realizing the same principle […]
Time Travelling With Kids 