August 19th, 1588: On this day Queen Elizabeth I of England delivered her famous speech to her assembled land forces at Tilbury, Essex.

July 29th, 1588: On this day in 1588, the fearsome Spanish Armada is sighted off England’s southern coast.

February 12th, 1554: England's forgotten queen, Lady Jane Grey, is executed for treason. In most popular histories, and as taught in...

On This Day, December 17th, the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia began. Held in honour of the deity Saturnus, as its name implies,...

September 13th, 1944: On This Day SOE operator Noor Inayat Khan was executed at Dachau concentration camp in Bavaria. At dawn on...

August 26th, 55 BC: Gaius Julius Caesar first ‘invasion’ of Britain takes place. Britain was not unknown to the Classical world. As early...

June 29th, 1613: The Globe Theatre burns to the ground. The first recorded performance of William Shakespeare’s ‘All is True’ took place...

May 22nd, 1455: The Wars of the Roses began. The Wars of the Roses began not on a battlefield but with a bloody clash fought on foot...

March 15th, 44 BC: Gaius Julius Caesar is stabbed to death. Idibus Martiis (‘the Ides of March’, 44 BC) should have been an unremarkable...

February 16th, 1923: One hundred years ago today Egyptologist Howard Carter unseals Tutankhamun’s tomb. Despite the builders’ best...

February 4th, 1555: John Rogers becomes the first Protestant martyr to be burnt at the stake in Queen Mary I’s persecutions. Formerly an...

January 22nd, 1879: The attempt to extend British colonial influence into Zululand is met with fierce resistance as Zulu warriors rout...

November 22nd, 1718: On This Day probably the most notorious pirate, Edward Teach, known as ‘Blackbeard’, met his demise. Towards the end...

On this day, in the early hours of October 12th, 1915, a British national, still wearing her nurses’ uniform, was led out into a yard at...

February 26th, 1852: 450 perish as the troopship HMS Birkenhead is wreaked off Danger Point on the Western Cape of South Africa. HMS...

The last battle on British soil is commonly accepted as being the French invasion at Fishguard in 1797. Under the command of...

February 22nd, 1797: ‘Britain invaded’ [1]. On February 22nd, 1797 over 1,200 French troops landed near Fishguard in Pembrokeshire, South...

February 8th, 1587: After 19 years of imprisonment, Mary Queen of Scots is beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle. Why? Fotheringhay Castle was...

February 1st, 1709: Alexander Selkirk, believed to be the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel ‘Robinson Crusoe’, was rescued after...

January 29th, 1856: The Victoria Cross is introduced. In 1854, after 39 years of peace, Britain found itself fighting a major war against...