Melanie King 
One of the deadliest earthquakes in recorded history, the Shaanxi earthquake, struck China’s Shaanxi province. It had a magnitude of between 8.0 and 8.3, and resulted in the deaths or displacement of an estimated 830,000 people. At least 100,000 died directly from the quake, while a further 730,000 either perished in the ensuing famines or … Read more
A strange new piece of men’s apparel went on display in Marshall Field’s department store in downtown Chicago. In 1887 a Boston company had introduced the ‘jockstrap’ to protect ‘jockeys’ riding bicycles — a relatively new invention — along the city’s cobbled streets. Now, in 1935, the ‘Jockey brief’ was introduced by another firm, Coopers … Read more
An English journal, The Annual Register, which chronicled events around the world, reported ‘a very odd affair’ at the Convent of the Capuchins in Ascoli Piceno in Italy. After the monks chastised their cook ‘a little too severely’, he took revenge by mixing opium into the sauce for their supper and, when they were fast … Read more
ON THIS DAY: 18 December 1912 – Amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson presented members of the Geological Society in London with a reconstructed skull, fragments of which had been discovered, he claimed, in a gravel pit south of Ashdown Forest in East Sussex. Dawson was backed by respected palaeontologist Arthur Smith Woodward from the British Museum, … Read more
Ada Lovelace, a mathematician and pioneering computer programmer, was born as the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) and Anne Isabella Milbanke. Her parents’ marriage was unhappy, and Byron separated from his wife just a month after Ada’s birth. As a child, Ada was often sickly, but her mother strongly … Read more
Five days of deadly smog began in London, leaving thousands of people dead. The Great Smog of London was caused by a combination of industrial pollution and high-pressure weather conditions. The weather was unusually cold and windless, preventing the dispersion of particles. London was brought to a near standstill. Visibility was so poor that people … Read more
ON THIS DAY: 22 November 1906 – The SOS, or International Morse code distress call, became standard worldwide. The SOS Morse code distress signal is represented by the sequence (. . . _ _ _ . . .), which equates to three dots, three dashes, and three dots. Popular belief suggests that SOS stands for … Read more
ON THIS DAY: 17 November 1950 – 15-year-old Tenzin Gyatso officially became the 14th Dalai Lama. Tibetan Buddhists believe that the Dalai Lamas are manifestations of Avalokiteshvara, also known as Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and the patron saint of Tibet. Amongst many Buddhists, there is the belief that Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, intervenes … Read more
A Scottish fleet of five ships put ashore on the Darién Gap, on the Isthmus of Panama, with 1,200 people. Bent on establishing a Scottish colony, New Caledonia, in the impenetrable rainforest, the settlers christened their capital New Edinburgh. In the seventeenth century, Scotland’s economy was small, its exports were limited, and the nation was … Read more
ON THIS DAY: 30 October 1938 – The War of the Worlds radio play caused mass hysteria across America. Twenty-three-year old Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air, based in New York, adapted H.G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds into a series of fake news bulletins describing a Martian invasion of … Read more