June 1st - 7th
On 1st June…
193CE - The Roman Emperor Didius Julianus was assassinated. He became emperor by being the highest bidder in an auction for the support of the Praetorian Guard and only reigned for a short while. This only goes to show that buying your way to power does not guarantee that the people will like you.
Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen
1533 - Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, was crowned Queen of England. Her reign did not last long because little did she know that just under three years later she would be tried and executed for treason.
On 2nd June…
Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
1953 - Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at Westminster Abbey. It was the first British coronation to be televised. Although the queen’s coronation was in 1953, she had been reigning since her father, King George VI, died in February 1952; by the time of her coronation Elizabeth had been queen for 16 months.
On 3rd June…
Birth of King George V
1865 - King George V was born in London. He came to the throne in 1910. During World War I, in response to the anti-German feelings of the British population, he changed the royal surname from the German sounding Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the more English sounding surname of Windsor.
On 4th June…
King George III was born
1738 - King George III was born in London. Despite being one of the most cultured of all British monarchs (he gathered a huge collection of books, 65,000 of which were later given to the British Museum), he is remembered most for going mad in the later years of his reign.
On 5th June…
1646 - Elena Cornaro Piscopia was born. She was an Italian mathematician, and became the first woman ever to receive an academic degree from a university.
On 6th June…
1944 - D-Day or Operation Overlord went ahead during World War II with over 155,000 Allied troops landing on the beaches of Normandy in what was to be a successful attempt at pushing back the Nazi forces and reclaiming France.
On 7th June…
Death of Robert the Bruce
1329 - Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland died. He is famous for defeating the English at the Battle of Bannockburn and re-establishing an independent Scottish monarchy.
Henry VIII and the Cloth of Gold
1520 - Henry VIII and King Francois I of France began their meetings at the ‘Field of the Cloth of Gold’ in France in an effort to improve relations between England and France. It was the start of eighteen days of feasts, tournaments, masquerades and religious services. The event is captured in a painting most probably painted for Henry VIII himself.
Samuel Pepys and the Great Plague
1665 - Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary about the Great Plague noting that there were some houses of Drury Lane marked with a red cross. This meant that somebody living there had caught the plague and had to be locked inside for 40 days or until death.
Luckily we didn’t have to draw red crosses on our doors during the recent spread of the COVID virus.