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17 July 1453. French forces under Jean Bureau defeated the English and Gascony led by the Earl of Shrewsbury at the Battle of Castillon. It’s considered the last major battle of the Hundred Years’ War. As a result, the English lost all landholdings in France, except Calais.
7 July 1930. Scottish born writer Arthur Conan Doyle died (aged 71). He created the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes in 1887 when he published A Study in Scarlet, the first of 4 novels and more than 50 short stories about Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson.
24 May 1930. British pilot Amy Johnson became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. Flying G-AAAH Jason, she left Croydon Airport on 5 May and landed at Darwin, Northern Territory on 24 May, having travelled 11,000 miles.
7 May 1663. The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, was opened. In 1672, the theatre caught fire and a larger one built on the same site. It was subsequently rebuilt twice more. The third building was also destroyed in a fire in 1809. The building that stands today opened in 1812.
5 May 1930. Amy Johnson departed from Croydon Airport in the plane G-AAHH on the first solo flight to Australia by a woman. She landed at Darwin, Northern Territory on 24 May 1930 having travelled 11,000 miles.
5 May 1813. Søren Kierkegaard was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He’a regarded as the first existentialist philosopher. Most of his work examines how to live one life, prioritising concrete human reality over abstract thinking and highlighting the importance of personal choice.
25 April 1792. The words and music of what became the French national anthem “La Marseillaise” were completed by the French army officer Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle. The song was at first called Chant de guerre pour l’armée du Rhin (”War Song for the Army of the Rhine”).
15 April 1865. US President Abraham Lincoln (aged 56), died at 7.22 AM in William Petersen’s boarding house, opposite Ford’s Theatre, Washington DC, where he had been fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth on the night before.
14 April 1939. The classic novel Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck was first published in the USA. It’s set in the Great Depression, focusing on the poor Joad farming family struggling with economic hardship. The novel helped Steinbeck to win the Nobel Prize in 1962.
@Alan_Allport I took a selfie after my first one 😂 ps did you have headaches after first one? I did.