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INFAMOUS MURDERS: RED LIGHT MURDERS

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The Civil War: The Cause

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The Civil War: Gettysburg

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Lee, Robert E(dward) (1807–1870)

US military strategist and Confederate general in the American Civil War. As military adviser to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, and as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, he made several raids into Northern territory, but was defeated at Gettysburg and surrendered in 1865 at Appomattox.

Lee was born in Virginia. He graduated from West Point, was commissioned in 1829, and served in the Mexican War 1846–48. In 1859 he suppressed John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. On the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 he joined the army of the Confederacy of the Southern States, and in 1862 received the command of the Army of Northern Virginia and won the Seven Days' Battle defending Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, against General George McClellan's Union forces.

In 1863 Lee won victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and in 1864 at Cold Harbor, but was besieged in Petersburg from June 1864 to April 1865. He surrendered to General Ulysses Grant on 9 April 1865 at Appomattox Court House.

Lee had freed his own slaves long before the war began, and he was opposed to secession, however his devotion to his native Virginia led him to join the Confederacy.

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European History for Dummies

The Arab-Israeli Conflict

Alexander the Great

Yorkshire Ripper (Peter Sutcliffe)

The Krays

The Boys of H Company

Isaac's Storm

LOST SHIPS: The Ghost Of The Trafalgar

The Crusades

SECRETS OF ARCHAEOLOGY: Pompeii: A City Rediscovered

The Industrial Revolution

D-Day

Trafalgar 200

The Killing Fields: The Khmer Rouge and Cambodia

The Zulu War of 1879

The Falklands War

Captain Cook

The Baader Meinhof Complex

'Che' Film Review

The American Civil War: The Road to War

The Arab-Israeli Conflict

11 July 1959

Cuban President Fulgencio Batista is forced to flee the country because of the success of the revolution led by Fidel Castro.

5 January 1985

The world first learns about Israel’s 'Operation Moses', in which thousands of Jewish Ethiopian refugees have been airlifted out of Sudan, fleeing the famine in Ethiopia.

8 January 1921

David Lloyd George becomes the first British Prime Minister to occupy a country mansion in Buckinghamshire. The grace and favour house was presented to the nation as a gift by The Lord Lee of Fareham.

11 January 1916

World War I: In order to provide a safe area for the thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting in Serbia, French forces take formal military control of the Greek island of Corfu.

24 January 1986

In London, Newspaper workers launch a strike against Rupert Murdoch's News International for wanting to move newspaper production away from Fleet Street. The action comes to be known as the Wapping dispute.

26 January 2005

Condoleezza Rice is confirmed as the US Secretary of State. She is the highest ranking African-American woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet.

27 January 1991

In Somali, dictator Muhammad Siyad Barre flees the capital Mogadishu as rebels overrun his palace and take control of the capital.

1 February 1978
Director Roman Polanski skips bail and flees to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a minor. Polanski has never returned to the US for fear of prosecution.

7 February 1986
Haitian leader Jean-Claude Duvalier forced to flee the island.

8 February 1904
Japan launches a surprise naval attack against Port Arthur, a Russian naval base in China. The Russian fleet was decimated.

19 February 1965

The Vietnam War: South Vietnam’s leader, General Nguyen Khanh is forced to flee Saigon after dissident officers move several battalions of troops into the city with the intention deposing him.

26 February 1995

Barings Bank, Britain’s oldest investment bank, collapse after "rouge trader" Nick Leeson loses over a billion pounds of the bank's money.

7 March 1959
Kanyama Chiume, one of the leaders of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC), an independence movement in the British territory of Nyasaland in central Africa, flees to London to escape arrest.

9 March 2004
A Virginia Court sentences John Allen Muhammad to death and Lee Boyd Malvo to life in prison for the Beltway sniper attacks in America.

10 March 241
The Romans sink the Carthaginian fleet at the Battle of the Aegates Islands, ending the first Punic War.

13 March 1983
Joshua Nkomo, leader of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, flees to London as the country teeters on the edge of civil war.

14 March 1964
Jack Ruby is sentenced to death for the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President Kennedy, by a court in Dallas, Texas. Ruby subsequently died whilst awaiting a re-trial.

17 March 1957
British European Airways withdraw their fleet of Viscount 701s from service after one of them crashes at Manchester in England.

23 March 1996
Lee Teng-hui becomes the first directly elected President of Taiwan.

30 March 2002
In Britain, The Queen Mother dies peacefully in her sleep, aged 101.

9 April 1865
At Appomattox, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War.

14 April 1931
The Second Spanish Republic is proclaimed. King Alfonso XIII flees the country.

20 April 1657

The Spanish Fleet is destroyed in the Battle of Santa Cruz by an English Fleet commanded by Admiral Blake.

1 May 1898
The United States Navy destroys the Spanish Pacific fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War.

2 May 1866
A combined alliance of Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador force the Spanish fleet to withdraw at the Battle of Callao during the Chincha Islands War in South America.

8 May 1902
Mount Pelee in Martinique erupts, killing over 30,000 people.

13 May 1787
The first fleet of ships carrying convicts to a new penal colony in Australia leaves England. They arrive in January 1788.

27 May 1905
Russo-Japanese War: The Battle of Tsushima. The Japanese Fleet sinks over half of the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Tsushima Strait between Korea and Japan.

6 June 1982
Israel launches the Operation Peace of the Galilee, the invasion of Southern Lebanon.

7 June 1977
In Britain, the official Silver Jubilee Day for Queen Elizabeth II who became Queen on the death of her father, George VI, in 1952.

11 June 1962
John and Clarence Anglin and Frank Lee Morris attempt to escape from Alcatraz federal prison. Whilst they do escape from “the Rock”, it is thought that they drowned in the surrounding water.

19 June 1944
The Second World War: Battle of the Philippines Sea between U.S. and Japanese fleets near the island of Saipan.

21 June 1963
France withdraws its navy from the North Atlantic fleet of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

1 July 1863
American Civil War: Start of the three day Battle of Gettysburg with Confederate troops, led by General Robert E. Lee, launching the first attack.

3 July 1940
The Second World War: British warships destroy the French fleet in Mers-el-Kebir, a port in Algeria, to prevent their ships from falling into German hands.

6 July 1978
In England, eleven people are killed as fire breaks out on the Penzance-to-Paddington sleeper train.

19 July 1545
English warship Mary Rose, pride of the battle fleet of King Henry VIII, sinks in the Solent with the loss of 700 lives. The ship is raised on October 11, 1982 and taken to Portsmouth Dockyard.

26 July 1945
In Britain, the Labour Party led by Clement Attlee wins a landslide victory in the General Election, defeating Winston Churchill who had just led the country to victory during the Second World War.

1 August 1798
A British fleet, commanded by Lord Horatio Nelson, engages with the French fleet at Aboukir Bay in the Battle of the Nile. The French are defeated the next day.

2 August 1990
The Gulf War: Iraq invades Middle East neighbours Kuwait and takes control of the country in eight hours. The Kuwaiti royal family flees to Saudi Arabia.

10 August 1977
Amid tight security, Queen Elizabeth II, as part of her Silver Jubilee, visits Northern Ireland for the first time in 11 years.

17 August 1962
East German guards gun down Peter Fechter whilst he tried to escape across the Berlin Wall into West Berlin and leave him to bleed to death.

27 August 1967
The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein dies from an overdose of sleeping pills.

29 August 1350
The English fleet commanded by Edward III defeats a Castilian fleet at the Battle of Winchelsea.

10 September 1813
U.S. Captain Oliver Hazard Perry leads a fleet of nine American ships to victory over a squadron of six British warships at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812.

11 September 1814
War of 1812: The U.S. fleet forces the British to abandon their siege of the U.S. fort at Plattsburg and retreat to Canada on foot.

12 September 1953
American Senator, and later President, John F. Kennedy marries Jacqueline Lee Bouvier in Newport, Rhode Island.

14 September 1951
British Prime Minister Clement Attlee opens the largest oil refinery in Europe in Southampton.

17 September 1894
The First Sino-Japanese War: The Japanese and Chinese fleet engage at the Battle of Yalu River.

22 September 1998
Thousands of civilians flee the fighting in Kosovo as Serbian troops resume their fight against the Kosovo Liberation Army.

27 September 1964

In America, the Warren Commission report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is released. The report concludes that there was no conspiracy behind Kennedy’s death and that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin.

30 September 1994
Whilst in a stop over in Ireland, Russian President Boris Yelstin fails to meet the Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds due to oversleeping!

11 October 1776
American Revolution: A British fleet defeats 15 American gunboats at the Battle of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain, New York.

20 October 1827
During the Greek War of Independence, the combined fleets of the British, French and Russian navies destroying the Egyptian and Turkish fleets at The Battle of Navarino, off the coast of Greece.

1 November 1914
The First World War: British warships Good Hope and Monmouth are sunk by a German fleet at the Battle of Coronel off the southern coast of Chile.

3 November 1941
The Second World War: The Combined Japanese Fleet receive Top-Secret Order No. 1: In 34 days time, Pearl Harbor is to be bombed, along with Mayala, the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines.

16 November 2004
American President George W. Bush announces that he is to nominate national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to become the new Secretary of State. Upon confirmation, Rice becomes the first African-American women to hold this position.

24 November 1963
In America, Lee Harvey Oswald, accused of the assassination of U.S. President John Kennedy, is shot and killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby while being transferred from Dallas Police Headquarters in Texas.

26 November 1941
The Second World War: The Japanese First Air Fleet set out for Pear Harbour.

27 November 1942
The Second World War: The French fleet is scuttled in Toulon Harbour to prevent the warships falling into German hands.

7 December 1955
In Britain, former Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party Clement Atlee, resigns.

8 December 1941
The Second World War: Britain, Australia and the United States of America declare war on Japan following the surprise attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, the day before.

13 December 1862
The American Civil War: Confederate forces, commanded by Robert E Lee, defeat the Union Army at Fredericksburg.