The British MP William Huskisson died as a result of a fatal accident on the opening day of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was created in order to link Manchester, a major industrial city in the north west of England, with the nearby port of Liverpool. Intended to lower the cost of transporting imported cotton to the Manchester textile mills, the 35-mile railway was an incredibly expensive project as it was the first railway to use locomotives to haul goods and passengers.

William Huskisson was the MP for Liverpool, and fought hard to secure parliamentary representation ...

On the 14th September 1814, the poem that was to provide the lyrics for the United States’ national anthem was written by 35 year-old Francis Scott Key. Called “Defence of Fort M'Henry”, the poem provides an account of the British attack during the Battle of Baltimore.

The War of 1812 had already been raging for two years when the British launched a seaborne invasion of Baltimore. At the time of the invasion, Key was aboard one of the British Navy ships lying off the coast. He had sailed to the flagship HMS Tonnant the previous week in order to negotiate ...

Michelangelo’s David is considered to be one of the greatest examples of Renaissance sculpture. Carved from a piece of marble from a quarry near the Tuscan town of Carrara, the statue is a nude male standing 517cm tall without his pedestal.

Michelangelo was not the first artist to begin carving a statue of David from the marble block. The Florentine sculptor Agostino di Duccio had first been contracted by the Overseers of the Office of Works of Florence Cathedral in 1464 to create the statue as one of twelve figures to appear on the buttresses of the recently-completed cathedral. Having ...

On September 12th 1919, Adolf Hitler officially joined the German Workers’ Party (DAP). At the time no membership cards were issued but, when they made available in January 1920, Hitler was given membership number 55 although he later claimed in Mein Kampf to have been the seventh. Hitler was actually the seventh executive member of the Party's central committee. His membership card actually identified him as number 555 since the party began its numbering at 500 in order to make it appear to have more members than it really did.

At the time Hitler was working as an army intelligence ...

Alexander Hamilton was made the first United States Secretary of the Treasury by President George Washington.

Alexander Hamilton was born on the Caribbean island of Nevis to a Scottish-born father and a half-British, half-French Huguenot mother who had left her husband and son on the Danish-ruled island of St. Croix in the Virgin Islands. Alexander’s parents were consequently unmarried when he was born, and he became an orphan around the age of twelve following his mother’s death. His father had left the family a number of years earlier, and Hamilton moved to live first with his older cousin and later ...

On the 10th September 1989, the Hungarian government announced the opening of the border with Austria to allow thousands of East Germans to leave the Communist Bloc. Met with incredible anger from the East German government, Hungary’s decision was a major step on the road to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Hungary had been inundated with East Germans since the government began removing the border fence in May that year. Inspired by the Hungarian government’s moves towards a more democratic political system, East Germans had travelled to Hungary as tourists but then sought refuge in the West German embassy. ...

Elvis Presley appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, the USA’s most popular television show, for the first time.

Ed Sullivan was a former New York entertainment columnist who had once vowed never to have Elvis Presley appear on his variety show. He had previously turned down an opportunity to hire the singer for $5,000 but realised his mistake when his show ratings were crippled by Elvis’ appearance on a rival show hosted by Steve Allen.

Sullivan consequently agreed to pay the unprecedented sum of $50,000 for three appearances, the first of which took place on the new season premiere. Sullivan, however, ...

On the 8th September 1888, the very first Football League games were played in England. Consisting of twelve teams, the first day’s table – if one had been printed – would have featured West Bromwich Albion at the top based on the calculation of ‘goal average’ that acted as the tie-break criteria. However, under the modern rules of ‘goal difference’ that was introduced in 1976, Derby County would have been top of the table on the first day.

The Football League was the brainchild of William McGregor, a director of Aston Villa, who hoped to provide a system whereby all ...

The Nazi German Luftwaffe launched the first of 57 consecutive days and nights of bombing raids on London in what became known as the Blitz.

The Luftwaffe had been attacking British targets in the Battle of Britain since June 1940. This was an attempt to achieve air superiority over the RAF to enable a land invasion by the Nazis or force the British government to sue for peace.

Having failed to defeat the RAF in the Battle of Britain, Hitler and Göring instead ordered a policy designed to crush civilian morale. The first raid of the Blitz took place on 7 ...

Shortly after midnight on the morning of the 6th September 1972, nine Israeli Olympic athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists from the Black September group in the Munich massacre. The terrorists were seeking the release of 234 prisoners held in Israeli jails along with the two leading members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang held in Germany. However, the hostages and five of the eight terrorists were killed in a shootout at an airfield a short distance outside Munich during a failed rescue attempt by German police.

Security at the 1972 Munich Olympics was kept purposefully low-key in an attempt to shed ...