April 21st - 27th
Happy St George's Day
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Happy St George's Day -
On 21st April…
753BCE - According to legend, the city of Rome was founded by brothers, Romulus and Remus, on this day.
Death of King Henry VII
1509 - King Henry VII of England died. He was the first Tudor king and ended the War of the Roses when he won the Battle of Bosworth Field. On his death, his 17-year-old son, also called Henry, become King Henry VIII.
1816 - Charlotte Bronte the novelist and author was born. She became a famous writer along with two of her sisters, Emily and Anne. Charlotte’s most famous novel is Jane Eyre which was published in 1847.
Queen Elizabeth II was born
1926 - Queen Elizabeth II was born in London. She was the longest reigning Britsh monarch, reigning for 70 years and 214 days. Elizabeth was the longest reigning queen in the world and the second longest reigning monarch of any soverign state.
On 22nd April…
1500 - Pedro Alvares Cabral became the first European to discover Brazil. He claimed it for his home country, Portugal.
1915 - In World War I the German army used poison chlorine gas as a weapon against the Allied troops at Ypres in Belgium. This was the first time that poison gas had been used in warfare and caused panic amongst the terrified Allied soldiers on the front line; at this point in time gas masks were not part of the standard kit issued to soldiers.
1970 - Earth Day was first celebrated in the USA. Millions of people participated in rallies and marches to increase public awareness of the world’s environmental problems. Today Earth Day is recognised in over 190 countries around the world with people taking part in local clean-ups, climate strikes, and measuring of air quality and plastic pollution near their homes, amongst many other activities.
On 23rd April…
303 - St George is believed to have died on this day. He is the patron saint of England, and legend has it that he killed a dragon to save a princess although this story was added a long time after his death. Did you know that Saint George was not English and never set foot on English soil? He was born in Cappadocia in Turkey and is also the patron saint of Ethiopia, Portugal, Venice, Catalonia, and Genoa.
1014 - King Brian Boru of Ireland was murdered. King Brian Boru had just defeated the Vikings in a battle at Clontarf near Dublin, unfortunately a small retreating group of Vikings came upon the King’s tent by chance, they overpowered his bodyguards and murdered the King.
1124 - David I became King of all Scotland on the death of his older brother, King Alexander I. David had already been in control of the lands south of the Forth and Clyde rivers which had been bequeathed to him by another brother, King Edgar. Edgar had split the land on his deathbed between his two younger brothers, David and Alexander. It was under David’s rule that Scotland forged its strongest bonds with England.
1445 - King Henry VI of England married Margaret of Anjou. Henry VI was only nine months old when he became King of England. His reign was dominated by the War of the Roses which was a civil war between the House of York and the House of Lancaster over the throne of England. Henry VI was from House Lancaster and reigned from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471.
Birth and death of a famous playwright
1564 - William Shakespeare, the famous playwright of Tudor England was born. His plays are as popular now as they were in Elizabethan England with many of his stories being used as a basis for films and stories today, such as Disney’s The Lion King (Hamlet).
Shakespeare also died on this day in 1616.
Can you work out how old he was when he died?
1775 - J.M.W. Turner, the famous British landscape painter, was born in Covent Garden London. Many of his paintings can be seen the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.
On 24th April…
1479 BCE - Thutmose III became Pharaoh of Egypt.
1184 BCE - The Greeks entered the ancient city of Troy during the Trojan wars using a Trojan Horse. The Trojan horse was presented as gift to the city, it was a huge hollow wooden horse that hid Greek soldiers inside. When night fell the Greek soldiers emerged from the horse and opened the city’s gates allowing the rest of the Greek army to enter the city and win the war.
On 25th April…
Edward II was born
1284 - King Edward II was born in Caernarfon Castle in Wales. He was the fourth son of King Edward I and became King of England in 1307 when his father died. He ruled England until his death in 1327.
Birth of Oliver Cromwell
1599 - Oliver Cromwell was born. He was a leading figure of the English Civil War and signed the order for the execution of King Charles I of Great Britain. After the execution of the king Cromwell became Lord Protector of England.
On 26th April…
121CE - Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius was born. He was Roman Emperor from the year 161 - 180.
1994 - Apartheid, the racial separation of blacks and whites, was officially abolished in South Africa. The new South African flag was raised for the first time and the first ever multi-racial elections began with nearly 18 million blacks voting for the first time. Nelson Mandela was elected president and F.W. de Klerk was elected vice-president.
On 27th April…
1828 - London Zoo was first opened in Regent’s Park as a place of scientific study. It is the world’s oldest scientific zoo and didn’t open its doors to the public until nearly twenty years later in 1847.
Auschwitz
1940 - Heinrich Himmler ordered the establishment of Auschwitz in the suburbs of Oswiecim which was a Polish city annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis. Auschwitz was a concentration camp originally designed to accommodate the mass arrest of Polish people in the early stages of World War II. By 1942 Auschwitz had become the largest extermination centre where mass executions of European Jews, better known as the Holocaust, was carried out.
Pilecki escaped Auschwitz
1943 - Three years to the day of its inception, Witold Pilecki, a Polish resistance fighter, escaped from Auschwitz. He had got himself imprisoned voluntarily in September 1940 as a plan to gain information about Auschwitz, he was not prepared for the brutality that he witnessed and endured.