or LOGIN

ENCYCLOPEDIA

SearchExplore

Family History Project
Build your family tree

Hidden House History
Uncover the secrets of your home

Photos for the Future
Share the past, for the future

This is replaced by the Flash content. Place your alternate content here and users without the Flash plugin or with Javascript turned off will see this. Content here allows you to leave out noscript tags. Include a link to bypass the detection if you wish.

How London Was Built: Utilities and Shopping

Sat July 4th at 11:00pm

The British Empire In Colour: A Tryst With Destiny

Mon July 6th at 2:00am

war

Act of force, usually on behalf of the state, intended to compel a declared enemy to obey the will of the other. The aim is to render the opponent incapable of further resistance by destroying its capability and will to bear arms in pursuit of its own aims. War can therefore be seen as a continuation of politics carried on with violent and destructive means, as an instrument of policy. Conversely, politics and diplomacy can be seen as attempts to avoid war.

In the wars of the late 20th century, 90% of casualties have been civilian (in World War II, the figure was 50%; in World War I only 5%).

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), there were fewer wars in 1995 than at any time since the end of the Cold War in 1989. All 30 of the wars in 1995 were civil wars fought within nations, apparently signalling a further shift from the pattern of inter‐state wars which had characterized the modern era. More of these internal conflicts were fought over territory than over government control.

Global military spending in 1997 was 800 billion dollars.

The estimated figure for loss of life in wars in the developing world since 1945 is 17 million. War is generally divided into strategy, the planning and conduct of a war, and tactics, the deployment of forces in battle.

Types of war include:

guerrilla war the waging of low‐level conflict by irregular forces against an occupying army or against the rear of an enemy force. Examples include Mao Zedong's campaign against the Nationalist Chinese and T E Lawrence's Arab revolt against the Turks.

Low‐intensity conflict
US term for its interventions in the developing world (stepped up in the 1980s), ranging from drug‐running to funding and training guerrillas, and fought with political, economic, and cultural weapons as well as by military means.

civil war the waging of war by opposing parties, or members of different regions, within a state. The American Civil War 1861–65, the English Civil War of the 17th century, and the Spanish Civil War 1936–39 are notable examples.

limited war the concept that a war may be limited in both geographical extent and levels of force exerted and have aims that stop short of achieving the destruction of the enemy. The Korean War 1950–53 falls within this category.

total war the waging of war against both combatants and noncombatants, taking the view that no distinction should be made between them. The Spanish Civil War marked the beginning of this type of warfare, in which bombing from the air included both civilian and military targets.

absolute war the view that there should be no limitations, such as law, compassion, or prudence, in the application of force, the sole aim being to achieve the complete annihilation of one's opponent. Such a concept contradicts the notion, formulated by Clausewitz, of war as an instrument of political dialogue since it implies that no dialogue is actually intended. It has been claimed that nuclear warfare would assume such proportions and would be in accordance with the doctrine of mutually assured destruction.

major armed conflict that which kills more than 1,000 people a year. The conflict in Chechnya was by far the worst of 1995, when an estimated 40,000 people were killed.

466 listings

Warning: main(/inc/javascript/ganalytics_code.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/vhosts/thehistorychannel.co.uk/httpdocs/site/inc/javascript/functions.php on line 20

Warning: main(): Failed opening '/inc/javascript/ganalytics_code.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear:') in /var/www/vhosts/thehistorychannel.co.uk/httpdocs/site/inc/javascript/functions.php on line 20

The Planet of The Apes

Victoria's Wars

European History for Dummies

Zimbabwe's Political History

Global Warming

The Arab-Israeli Conflict

Explore

VANISHINGS: Amelia Earhart

Alexander the Great

Ramses, Warrior Pharaoh

VANISHINGS: Lost In The Andes

Nazi Spies In America

RUSSIA: LAND OF THE TSARS Episode 4

The Boys of H Company

THE FIRST 48: At Close Range/Murder in Motor City

The Negotiator

The True Story Of Seabiscuit

Yasser Arafat

Jack the Ripper

The Hunt For Jack The Ripper

Soviet UFO Secrets Revealed

FIRST 48: Desert Bones/Party's Over

The Trial Of Louise Woodward

Isaac's Storm

LOST SHIPS: The Ghost Of The Trafalgar

The Boston Strangler

The Crusades

SECRETS OF ARCHAEOLOGY: Pompeii: A City Rediscovered

The Industrial Revolution

The Olympics

D-Day

Trafalgar 200

The Great War: Germany’s failed gambit

The Gunpowder Plot

The Killing Fields: The Khmer Rouge and Cambodia

Titanic Heritage Trust

Military History Channel

Captain Cook

China

The Wave

The Baader Meinhof Complex

Feature

Military Offer

Voices of the Armistice

Pompeii: The Last Day

Dambusters

Churchill's Wizards

Anthony Beevor, D-Day

The American Civil War: The Road to War

The New Big Picture Show: War at Home

NAM - Faces of Battle

Almunia's Favourite Book

Dambusters 2

Cutty Sark

A Small Piece of History

The Brits Who Fought For Spain

Last Voices of World War I

Breitling Media

Veterans Day

Imperial War Museum Student Film Festival

Zimbabwe's Political History

Global Warming

The Arab-Israeli Conflict

11 July 1973

British Prime Minister Edward Heath presides over Britain’s full entry into the European Economic Community.

2 January 1993
Warring factions discuss peace for Bosnia in Geneva. It is the first time that the head of the Muslims, Serbs, Bosnians and Croats have met face to face since the outbreak of the war in Yugoslavia.

3 January 1993
Russia and the United States sign the second START agreement in Moscow. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is a further indication that the Cold War is over.

4 January 1951

Residents of the South Korean capital, Seoul, are warned of imminent invasion by North Korean and Chinese Communist forces.

5 January 1900

Irish Nationalist leader John Edward Redmond advocates a revolt against British home rule.

6 January 1999

In England, Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones (the Duke and Duchess of Wessex) announce their engagement.

8 January 1918

President Woodrow Wilson introduces his 'Fourteen Points', through which he hopes to establish lasting peace at the end of the Great War. Amongst others, these include the right to national self-determination and the establishment of a post war world body to resolve future conflict.

9 January 1945

General MacArthur presides over the landing of the American 6th Army on Luzon, in another step towards capturing the Philippine Islands from the Japanese.

10 January 1991

United Nations Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar sets off for Baghdad in a final diplomatic effort to avoid war with Iraq.

11 January 1945

A truce is negotiated between the British-backed Democratic National Army and the communist rebel National Liberation Front during the Greek Civil War.

12 January 1879
The British-Zulu War begins.

13 January 1993

American, British and French planes bomb a series of targets over southern Iraq. The action is taken in response to repeated Iraqi breaches of the 'no-fly zone' implemented after the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

14 January 1943

World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt meet in Casablanca, Morocco, to discuss their strategy for the next phase of the war.

16 January 1992
The Chapultepec Peace Accords are signed in Mexico City, which brings an end to the civil war in El Salvador.

17 January 1991
The first full day of Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf War.

18 January 1991
The Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa come under attack from Iraqi Scud missiles during the Gulf War.

19 January 1983

The Nazi war criminal, Klaus Barbie, who was head of the Gestapo in Lyons, France during the Second World War, is arrested in Bolivia.

20 January 1945

World War II: Hungary signs an armistice with the allies.

21 January 1968

The Vietnam War: The battle for Khe Sanh begins.

22 January 1941

World War II: British and Australian seize Tobruk, Libya.

23 January 1945

World War II: German Admiral, karl Donitz launches Operation Hannibal.

24 January 1943

World War II: German General, Friedrich von Paulus, Commander in Chief of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, requests permission from Adolf Hitler to surrender his position there, but Hitler refuses.

25 January 1995

Russia almost launches a nuclear attack after a Norwegian research rocket is mistaken for missile attack by the Russian early-warning radar station.

26 January 1970

The Vietnam War: US Navy Lt. Everett Alvarez Jr. spends his 2,000th day in North Vietnam.

27 January 1945

World War II: The Red Army liberates the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, in Poland.

28 January 1945

World War II: Part of the 717-mile 'Burma Road' from Lashio, Burma, to Kunming in southwest China, is reopened by the Allies, allowing supplies to flow back into China.

29 January 1942

World War II: Iran signs an alliance with Britain and the Soviet Union.

30 January 1991

The Gulf War: The Allies suffer their first casualties of the war as twelve American soldiers are killed when Iraqi troops take control of the Saudi Arabian border town Al Khafji.

31 January 1968

The Vietnam War: Viet Cong soldiers seize control of the American embassy in Saigon for six hours before being defeated.

1 February 1995
Manic Street Preachers band member Richey James Edwards goes missing. Edwards has never been found.

2 February 1970
The Vietnam War: Antiwar protestors take legal action in an attempt to prove that the Dow Chemical Company is still making napalm.

3 February 1970
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee opens hearings on the conduct of the war by the Nixon administration.

4 February 1973
The Vietnam War: The International Commission of Control and Supervision, created by the Paris Peace Accords to supervise the ceasefire between North and South Vietnam, starts work.

5 February 2003
US secretary of state Colin Powell addresses the UN Security Council, putting forward America’s case that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

6 February 1778
The American War for Independence: The United States and France sign the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance in Paris.

7 February 1974
British Prime Minister Edward Heath calls a snap general election.

8 February 1918
The United States Army resumes publication of the military newsletter 'Stars and Stripes', first published during the American civil war.

9 February 1965
The Vietnam War: President Johnson sends the first US combat troops to fight in South Vietnam.

10 February 1971
The Vietnam War: The acclaimed photographer Larry Burrows dies along with three other journalists when a helicopter they were travelling in crashes in Laos.

11 February 1945
World War II: The end of the Yalta Conference.

12 February 2002

The trial of former President of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic begins at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

13 February 1991

The Gulf War: American planes bomb Baghdad, killing hundreds of Iraqi civilians.

14 February 1943

The Second World War: Battle of the Kasserine Pass - German General Erwin Rommel and the Afrika Korps launch an offensive against the Allies in Tunisia.

15 February 2003

Millions of people around the world protest against a war with Iraq.

16 February 1985

In England, Ministry of Defence assistant secretary Clive Ponting resigns. Ponting become famous for passing information to an M.P about the sinking of the Argentinean ship the General Belgrano by British forces during the Falklands War.

17 February 1995

A ceasefire is signed between Peru and Ecuador in the Cenepa War.

18 February 1943

Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels delivers his famous Sportpalast (total war) speech.

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.

20 February 1547

Edward VI is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.

21 February 1970

The Vietnam War: American National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger begins secret peace talks with North Vietnamese representative Le Duc Tho, in Paris.

22 February 1968

The Vietnam War: The Tet offensive ends.

23 February 1945

The Second World War: U.S. troops raise the Starts and Strips flag on Mount Suribachi on the island of Iow Jima, but the fighting against the Japanese still continues.

24 February 1991

The Gulf War: coalition forces launch a ground invasion of Kuwait and Iraq.

26 February 1991

The Gulf War: Coalition forces liberate Kuwait City.

27 February 1962

The Vietnam War: South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem survives a coup attempt when two South Vietnamese pilots bomb Diem’s presidential palace.

28 February 1993

In Waco, Texas US police raid the Branch Davidian church with a warrant to arrest the group’s leader David Koresh. Four BATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid. A siege starts, which lasts for 51 days.

1 March 1941
The Second World War: Bulgaria joins the Axis.

2 March 1943
The Second World War: U.S. and Australian forces sink a convoy of Japanese ships in the Bismarck Sea in the western Pacific.

3 March 1945
The Second World War: Finland declares war on its former ally Germany.

4 March 1944
The Second World War: The American Air Force launches its first bombing raid over Berlin, Germany.

5 March 2004
American TV personality and entrepreneur Martha Stewart is found guilty on charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and two of making false statements regarding alleged insider trading.

7 March 1951
The Korean War: U.S. forces launch Operation Ripper, designed to relive communist pressure on Seoul and push UN troops towards the 38th parallel.

8 March 1965
The Vietnam War: The first U.S. combat troops arrive in Vietnam, as 3,500 marines land in Da Nang is South Vietnam.

9 March 1945
The Second World War: American planes start one of the biggest bombing raids of the war over Tokyo, Japan.

10 March 1940
U.S. Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles meets with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to discuss a peacemaking proposal to prevent a widening of the European war.

11 March 2006
Former president of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic is found dead in his prison cell in The Hague, Netherlands where he was standing trial on charges of genocide and war crimes. He is thought to have died from a heart problem.

12 March 1972
The Vietnam War: The last Australian troops leave South Vietnam.

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 1915
The First World War: After being cornered by the two British ships off the coast of Chile, the crew of the German light cruiser Dresden abandon and scuttle the ship.

16 March 1988
During the Iran – Iraq War, the Iraqi government attacks the Kurdish town Halabja with chemical weapons, killing thousands.

17 March 2003
British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook reigns from the cabinet over the government’s policy towards Iraq.

18 March 2005
Private Johnson Gideon Beharry, of the 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, becomes the first recipient of the Victoria Cross since a posthumous award to Sgt Ian McKay, in 1982.

19 March 1953
American filmmaker, Ceil B. Demille wins his only Academy Award for best picture, for the film, The Greatest Show on Earth.

20 March 1993
In England, two IRA bombs explode in a shopping centre in Warrington, killing two young boys and injuring 56 people.

21 March 1918
The First World War: The Second Battle of the Somme begins.

22 March 1968
The Vietnam War: General William Westmoreland is appointed Army Chief of Staff with General Creighton Abrams replacing Westmoreland as commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam.

23 March 1983
Ronald Reagan purposes an American defensive shield operated in space to combat a nuclear attack on America – commonly referred to as “Star Wars.”

24 March 1918
The First World War: German troops successfully break through the allied defensive line at the Somme River in France.

25 March 1941
The Second World War: Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers, Germany, Italy and Japan.

26 March 1975
The Vietnam War: The North Vietnamese capture the South Vietnamese city Hue.

27 March 1945
The Second World War: Germany launches its last V-2 rocket attack against England from the Netherlands.

28 March 1990
American President George Bush posthumously awards Jesse Owens the Congressional Gold Medal.

29 March 1971
The Vietnam War: In America, Lieutenant William Calley is found guilty of murder at a court martial for his part in the My Lai massacre in South Vietnam.

30 March 1965
The Vietnam War: A bomb explodes outside the U.S. embassy in Saigon, killing 22 people.

31 March 1991
The Warsaw Pact, a communist rival to NATO, comes to an end.

1 April 2000

The Enigma coding machine, used by Germany to code its messages during the Second World War, is stolen from its display cabinet at Bletchley Park Museum in England.

2 April 1998
A French Court sentences former French cabinet minister Maurice Papon to 10 years in jail for his part in deporting Jews from France during the Second World War.

3 April 1987

The jewels of the late Duchess of Windsor, the former Mrs Wallis Simpson who married Edward VI of England after his abdication in 1936, fetch more than £30million at auction.

4 April 1918
The First World War: The Second Battle of the Somme ends.

5 April 1976
Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes dies aged 70.

6 April 1941
The Second World War: Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece.

7 April 2003
The Iraq War: American troops gain a strong foothold in Baghdad, and are close to gaining complete control of the city.

8 April 1945
The Second World War: Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi leader, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is hanged in Flossenburg, Germany.

9 April 2003
The Iraq War: U.S. troop and tanks roll into the centre of Baghdad, toppling a statue of Saddam Hussein.

10 April 1972
One his first visit to the U.S. in twenty years, Charlie Chaplin is awarded an honorary Oscar.

11 April 1945

The Second World War: In Germany, Buchenwald concentration camp is liberated.

12 April 2000
The Queen awards the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Northern Ireland police, the George Cross.

13 April 1990

The Soviet government officially accepts blame for the Katyn Massacre, an incident that occurred during the Second World War, when nearly 5,000 Polish military officers were murdered and buried in mass graves in the Katyn Forest.

14 April 1918
The First World War: American planes fly their first sorties over the Western Front.

15 April 2000
As the political situation deteriorates in Zimbabwe, a white farmer is hot dead by so-called “war veterans”, who are seeking to claim land for the black majority in the country.

16 April 1993
The Balkan War: The UN votes to make the Bosnian town of Srebrenica a safe haven.

17 April 1975
The Khmer Rouge takes control of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, as the countries civil war ends and Pol Pot’s rule of Cambodia begins.

18 April 1988
In Israel, Ukraine-born John Demjanjuk is convicted of Nazi War crimes. Demjanjuk who was supposedly “Ivan the terrible” later had his sentence quashed by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993.

19 April 1971

The Vietnam War: Vietnam Veterans Against the War begin a five-day demonstration in Washington, D.C.

20 April 1953
During the Korean War, one hundred United Nations prisoners are freed under Operation “Little Switch.”

21 April 1975
The Vietnam War: South Vietnam’s president, Nguyen Van Thieu, resigns.

22 April 1970
Earth Day, an event to increase public awareness of the world's environmental problems, is celebrated in the United States for the first time.

23 April 1961
During the Algerian War of Independence, three French Generals stage the Algiers putsch, a failed coup attempt to take control of Algeria.

24 April 1982
Britain suffers its first casualty in the Falklands War against Argentina.

25 April 1945
The Second World War: Berlin in completely surrounded by Allied forces.

26 April 1937
The German Luftwaffe bomb Guernica in northern Spain during the Spanish Civil War.

27 April 1945
The Second World War: Soviet and American troops join up with one another at the River Elbe in Germany

29 April 1975
The Vietnam War: U.S. troops launch Operation Frequent Wind, the helicopter evacuation of U.S. civilians from Saigon, South Vietnam.

30 April 1975
The Vietnam War: The war ends as the South Vietnamese Government surrenders to North Vietnam.

1 May 2003
The Iraq War: On board the USS Abraham Lincoln, President Bush announces that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”

2 May 1982
The Falkland War: The Argentine cruiser General Belgrano is sunk by the British submarine HMS Conqueror in the South Atlantic.

3 May 1959
The first Grammy Awards are held.

4 May 1982

The Falklands War: The British ship HMS Sheffield is sunk by an Argentinean missile.

5 May 1945
The Second World War: In Austria, Mauthausen concentration camp is liberated.

6 May 1940
John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.

7 May 1999
NATO planes accidentally bomb the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo War.

8 May 1972
The Vietnam War: The U.S. announces that it has mined the major North Vietnamese ports.

9 May 1997
Former Vietnam War POW, Douglas "Pete" Peterson, becomes the first American Ambassador to Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War.

10 May 1940
The Second World War: Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of a war time coalition government in Britain.

11 May 1987
Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon”, goes on trial in Lyon, France for war crimes committed during the Second World War. He is eventually found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

12 May 1780
During the American War of Independence, the British occupy Charles Town (later named Charleston) in South Carolina after a two-month siege.

13 May 1989
A British Second World War hero, Jackie Mann, is kidnapped by Islamic terrorist in Beirut, Lebanon. He is released over two years later.

14 May 1955
The Soviet Union; Albania; Bulgaria; Czechoslovakia; East Germany; Hungary; Poland and Romania sign The Warsaw Pact.

15 May 1948
The day after the State of Israel formally comes into existence Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia all declare war on the new country.

16 May 1943
The Second World War: The Nazi’s finally quell Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto, Poland.

17 May 1940
The Second World War: Germany occupies the Belgian capital Brussels.

18 May 1944
The Second World War: Allied troops led by the Polish Army, finally win the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy.

19 May 2005
The final film in the Star Wars series, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, is released in America.

20 May 1969
The Vietnam War: The battle for “Hamburger Hill” in South Vietnam finally ends in a U.S. and South Vietnamese victory but at great cost in terms of troops killed.

22 May 1939
German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini sign a 'Pact of Steel' to support each other in the event of war.

23 May 1960
Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion announces that Israel has captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.

24 May 1989
Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, is awarded £600,000 by the High Court in London after successfully suing the satirical magazine Private Eye for libel. The figure is later reduced to £60,000 after the magazine appealed.

25 May 1982
The Falklands War: 12 people are killed as Argentina sinks two British ships, the Atlantic Conveyor and the HMS Coventry respectively.

26 May 1998
Ex soldiers and former Japanese POWs turn their backs on Japanese Emperor Akihito for failing to give a full apology with regard to their treatment in the Second World War, during the Emperor’s state visit to Britain.

27 May 1999
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is indicted for war crimes by The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

28 May 1982
The Falklands War: British troops re-capture Port Darwin and Goose Green - taking almost 1500 Argentine prisoners.

30 May 1913
The Treaty of London is signed which settled the territorial disputes arising out of the end of the First Balkan War.

31 May 1973
The Vietnam War: The U.S. Senate votes to withdraw the financial support to American military activity in Cambodia. U.S. bombing of Cambodia is finally brought to a halt in August.

1 June 1941
The Second World War: Germany takes control of the Greek Island Crete.

2 June 1965
The Vietnam War: First Australian combat troops arrive in Vietnam.

3 June 1968
In America, radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas shoots artist Andy Warhol. Warhol survives the attack and Solanas was sentenced to three years in prison.

4 June 1944
The Second World War: Allied troops liberate the Italian capital, Rome.

5 June 1989
In Poland, in the first free elections since the end of the Second World War, Solidarity, the anti-communist party comprehensively defeats the communist party in the seats which it is allowed to contest.

6 June 1812
During the War of 1812, British troops attack American forces at the Battle of Stoney Creek in Ontario, Canada.

7 June 1942
The Second World War: Japanese troops occupy the American islands of Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska.

8 June 2006
The Iraq War: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, is killed by an allied air strike.

9 June 1944
The Second World War: The Red Army push into East Karelia, in Finland, fighting to gain back control of territory that had already been ceded to the Soviet Union.

10 June 1942
The Second World War: German troops deliberately demolish the entire Czech village of Lidice in reprisal for the assassination of senior Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich, who had been killed by Czech resistance fighters.

11 June 1976
Angolan authorities put 13 mercenary soldiers, 10 of whom are British, on trial, accused of fighting for the opposition during the country’s civil war.

12 June 1997
In Britain, the Law Lords rule that former Home Secretary, Michael Howard, acted illegally by raising the minimum sentence imposed on the killers of James Bulger.

13 June 1973
The Vietnam War: American and North Vietnam sign a further peace agreement designed to end all cease-fire violations in South Vietnam.

14 June 1991
The Gulf War: In excess of a thousand Kurds besiege the U.S. military base near the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk, begging the American troops not to withdraw from Iraq.

15 June 2000
The vast majority of British troops sent to Sierra Leone to help restore order in the war torn country finish their mission and head back home.

16 June 1998
Judges in America uphold the decision to convict British au pair Louise Woodward of manslaughter and the passing of a reduced sentence - the number of days already spent in custody awaiting trial for the killing of Matthew Eappen - the young boy left in her care in Massachussets.

17 June 1944
The Second World War: Iceland becomes a republic as it separates from Denmark.

18 June 1940
The Second World War: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes his famous, “This was their finest hour” speech to the House of Commons.

19 June 1970
In Britain, the Conservative Party wins the general election - Edward Heath becomes Prime Minister.

21 June 1945
The Second World War: Japanese forces on the Pacific island of Okinawa surrender to American troops.

22 June 1989
After nearly 15 years of civil war, opposing factions in Angola agree to a cease-fire.

23 June 1964
The Vietnam War: President Lyndon B. Johnson announces that Henry Cabot Lodge has resigned as ambassador to South Vietnam and that Gen. Maxwell Taylor will be his replacement.

24 June 1973
The Vietnam War: Graham Martin is sworn in as Ambassador to South Vietnam.

25 June 1965
The Vietnam War: Two Viet Cong bombs rip through a floating restaurant on the Saigon River killing 31 people.

26 June 1993
President Bill Clinton orders U.S. warships to fire cruise missiles at Iraqi intelligence headquarters in downtown Baghdad in retaliation for an Iraqi plot to assassinate former U.S. President George Bush.

27 June 1963
In Ireland, U.S. President John F. Kennedy receives a warm welcome as he visits his ancestral homeland.

28 June 2004
The Iraq War: The United States formally hands back sovereignty of Iraq to the Iraqi Government.

29 June 2003
Four-time Academy Award winner Katharine Hepburn dies aged 96.

30 June 1970
The Vietnam War: The Senate passes the Cooper-Church Amendment, an attempt to limit the U.S. President’s power to fund U.S. Army activity in Cambodia. A diluted version of the amendment is eventually adopted by Congress in 1971.

1 July 1991
In Prague, the formal ending of the Warsaw Pact, the defence agreement between countries under Soviet influence in Eastern Europe.

2 July 2005
The global music event Live 8 takes place in an attempt to increase awareness about poverty in Africa.

3 July 1987
Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, the ‘butcher of Lyon’, is jailed for life for crimes against humanity.

4 July 1863
American Civil War: Union forces defeat the Confederates at the Battle of Vicksburg.

5 July 1950
The Korean War: Private Kenneth Shadrick, a 19-year-old infantryman from Skin Fork, West Virginia, becomes the first American reported killed in the war.

6 July 1942
The Second World War: Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family take refuge from the Nazis by hiding in the attic of a house in Amsterdam.

7 July 1994
North Yemeni forces capture Aden to bring an end to the two-month civil war.

8 July 1996
A man wielding a machete attacks several children, parents and a teacher at a primary school in Wolverhampton, England. Teacher Lisa Potts, later awarded for her bravery, is badly injured protecting the children.

9 July 1944
The Second World War: America defeats the Japanese at the Battle of Saipan to seize control of the island.

10 July 1985
The Greenpeace campaign ship, Rainbow Warrior, sinks off Auckland in New Zealand after two explosions inside the hull. Two operatives from the French intelligence service DGSE were held responsible and were subsequently found guilty of manslaughter.

11 July 1975
China’s Terracotta Army uncovered near the ancient capital of Xian. More than 8,000 life sized warriors were buried around 206BC to guard the tomb of the first Chinese Emperor.

12 July 1943
The Second World War: German and Russian tanks clash at the Battle of Prokhorovka as the Soviets stop the German offensive at Kursk, Russia.

13 July 1643
English Civil War: Royalist forces defeat the Parliamentary Army at Roundway Down in Wiltshire.

14 July 1864
The American Civil War: Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest suffers his biggest defeat when Union General Andrew J. Smith routs his force in Tupelo, Mississippi.

16 July 1970
In Britain, Prime Minister Edward Heath declares a state of emergency following the start of a national dock strike - the first state of emergency issued in Britain since 1926.

17 July 1945
World War II: Opening of the Potsdam Conference between world leaders Harry Truman; Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill to plan for future peace once Germany has been defeated.

18 July 1969
American Senator Edward Kennedy crashes his car into Chappaquiddick River near Martha's Vineyard on the USA's east coast. Kennedy escapes, but his companion, Mary Jo Kopechne drowns.

19 July 1996
The Bosnian Serb President, Radovan Karadzic, agreed to resign after an arrest warrant was issued for him by the International War Crimes Tribunal.

20 July 1987
UN Security Council Resolution 598, condemning the Iran–Iraq War and demanding a ceasefire, is unanimously adopted.

21 July 1982
HMS Hermes, the flagship of the British taskforce in the Falklands War, arrives in Portsmouth harbour to a rapturous reception.

22 July 2003
The Iraq War: Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay are killed by U.S. troops during combat.

23 July 1951
In France the former leader of the Vichy regime during the Second World War, Marshal Philippe Petain, dies in prison.

24 July 1987
Conservative Peer and novelist Jeffrey Archer is awarded record damages by the high Court in a libel case against the Daily Star newspaper after it claimed Archer had paid to have sex with a prostitute.

25 July 1969
American Senator Edward Kennedy pleads guilty to leaving the scene of a crime and is sentenced to a two-month suspended jail sentence.

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.

27 July 1965
In Britain, Edward Heath is elected the leader of the Conservative Party.

28 July 1965
The Vietnam War: President Johnson announces that America will send an additional 50,000 troops to Vietnam.

29 July 1993
The Israeli Supreme Court overturns John Demjanjuk’s conviction for war crimes. It was alleged that Demjanjuk was the feared Nazi concentration guard known as ‘Ivan the Terrible.’

30 July 1945
The Second World War: U.S. cruiser Indianapolis is sunk by a Japanese submarine killing at least 800 people. The ship was returning to port after delivering nuclear material for making an atomic bomb.

31 July 1945
The Second World War: Pierre Laval, the puppet leader of Nazi-occupied Vichy France, surrenders to American authorities in Austria, who extradite him to France to stand trial.

1 August 1944
The Second World War: Start of the Warsaw uprising in Poland against the German occupation forces.

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.

3 August 1940
The Second World War: Italy invades the British colony of Somaliland in East Africa, territory contiguous with Italian Somaliland.

4 August 1969
The Vietnam War: The first secret negotiating session takes place between Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy in Paris.

6 August 1915
The First World War: Allied forces commanded by Sir Frederick Stopford land at Suvla Bay, on the Aegean Sea, to launch a fresh attack against Turkish and German forces on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

7 August 2003
West African peacekeepers start to patrol the wart torn Liberian capital Monrovia following a statement issued by the country's President, Charles Taylor, announcing his resignation.

8 August 1945
The Second World War: The Soviet Union officially declares war on Japan, invading Japanese-occupied Manchuria in north eastern China.

9 August 1945
The Second World War: The second atomic bomb is dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki; an estimated 70,000 people are killed.

10 August 1945
The Second World War: The Japanese inform the Allies that they have accepted unconditional surrender.

11 August 1971
British Prime Minister Edward Heath steers the British team to success to win the Admiral's Cup (in sailing).

12 August 1938
The Second World War: Adolf Hitler institutes the Mother’s Cross, to encourage German women to have more children, to be awarded each year on 12 August, Hitler’s mother’s birthday.

13 August 1920
Polish – Soviet War: Start of the Battle of Warsaw, which the Polish eventually win.

14 August 1973
The Vietnam War: America halts its bombing of Cambodia in line with Congressional demands.

15 August 1945
The Second World War: Victory over Japan day is celebrated.

16 August 1812
During the War of 1812, American General William Hull surrenders Fort Detroit and his army to the British without a fight.

17 August 1943
The Second World War: U.S. General. Patton arrives in Messina several hours before British Field Marshal Montgomery, winning the unofficial “Race to Messina” and completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.

18 August 1971
The Vietnam War: Australia and New Zealand announce the end of the year as the deadline for withdrawal of their respective contingents from Vietnam.

19 August 2003
The Iraq War: The UN’s chief envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello and 17 other people are killed when a bomb explodes at the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad.

20 August 1982
During the Lebanese Civil War, a multinational force including 800 U.S. Marines lands in Beirut to oversee the Palestinian withdrawal from Lebanon.

22 August 1944
The Second World War: Romania is conquered by the Soviet Union.

23 August 1990
The Gulf War: Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi television with several Western hostages.

24 August 1942
The Second World War: U.S. forces sink the Japanese aircraft carrier Ryuho in the Battle of the East Solomon Islands.

25 August 1997
Former East German leader, Egon Krenz, is sentenced by a court in Germany to six years in prison for instigating a shoot-to-kill policy against people trying to escape East Germany during the Cold War.

26 August 1968
Thousands of antiwar demonstrators take to Chicago’s streets to protest the Vietnam War and its support by the top Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey as the Democratic National Convention begins in Chicago.

27 August 1928
The Kellogg-Briand Pact is signed by an eventual 62 countries. The pact was supposed to outlaw the use of war as a national policy.

28 August 1990
The Gulf War: Iraq declares the occupied country of Kuwait to be the 19th province of Iraq.

29 August 1950
The Korean War: The first British troops arrive in the Koreas to bolster the United Nations force.

30 August 2001
The former president of Yugoslav Slobodan Milosevic is charged with genocide by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.

31 August 1935
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Neutrality Act, which expresses the desire of the United States to avoid a conflict which will lead to war.

1 September 1864
American Civil War: Confederate troops abandon the city of Atlanta, in Georgia which is occupied by the Unionists the following day.

2 September 2004
Former Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic is declared unfit to represent himself at his war crimes trial in The Hague. The UN tribunal appoints two lawyers to represent him.

3 September 1943
The Second World War: British troops invade mainland Italy.

4 September 1945
The Second World War: 2,200 Japanese soldiers finally lay down their arms-days after their government had already surrendered.

5 September 1969
The Vietnam War: Lieutenant Calley, of the U.S. Army, is charged with murder with regard to massacre of 109 South Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops under his command at My Lai in Vietnam.

6 September 1965
The start of a 17 day war between India and Pakistan when Indian troops invade West Pakistan.

7 September 1940
The Second World War: Germany begins regular bombing of London, commonly known as The Blitz.

8 September 1945
U.S. troops land in Korea to begin their post-war occupation of the southern part of the nation.

9 September 1943
The Second World War: Operation Avalanche, the Allied land invasion of Salerno, and Operation Slapstick, the British airborne invasion of Taranto, both in southern Italy, are launched.

10 September 1989
Hungary gives permission for thousands of East German refugees to leave Hungary for West Germany. It was the first time one of the Warsaw Pact nations broke from the practice of blocking citizens of the communist nations from going to the West.

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 1942
The Second World War: A German U-boat sinks the British troop ship, the Laconia, off the coast of West Africa, killing more than 1,400 men.

13 September 1940
The Second World War: Italy begins the invasion of Egypt.

14 September 1964
American author John Steinbeck is awarded the U.S. Medal of Freedom.

15 September 1950
The Korean War: A United Nations force launches its first major offensive of the war landing 50,000 troops at Inchon, on the west coast of Korea.

16 September 1949
Warner Brothers introduce the Road Runner in the cartoon short “Fast and Furry-ous.”

17 September 2004

The Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev claims responsibility for organised the Beslan school siege in which at least 320 hostages were killed.

18 September 1964
The Vietnam War: The North Vietnamese begin their infiltration of the South.

19 September 1918
The First World War: British forces in Palestine renew their offensive against the Turkish lines north of Jerusalem, beginning with the capture of Megiddo.

20 September 1854
Crimean War: British and French troops defeat the Russians at the Battle of Alma.

21 September 1949
Having won the Chinese Civil War, Mao Zedong announces that the new Chinese government will be led by the Communist Party of China.

22 September 1965
The United Nations Security Council unanimously passes a resolution calling for an unconditional ceasefire in the Indo-Pakistani War. The fighting stops the next day.

23 September 1969
In America, the trial of eight anti Vietnam War activists charged with organising the violent demonstrations at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention opens in Chicago. Although most of the defendants were originally convicted of various offences, these were all over turned by the Court of Appeal in 1972.

24 September 1980

Iran-Iraq War: The Iraqi air force bombs Iran's Kharg Island crude oil export terminal.

25 September 1981
Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice in history when she is sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger.

26 September 1944
The Second World War: Allied forces go “a bridge too far” and bid a hasty retreat from Arnhem in the Netherlands suffering heavy loses as Operation Market Garden fails.

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.

28 September 2005
In farcical scenes, 82-year-old Labour Party member, Walter Wolfgang, is thrown out of the Labour Party conference for mildly heckling Foreign Secretary Jack Straw about the Iraq War.

29 September 1941
The Second World War: The Babi Yar massacre of nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women and children carried out the SS begins on the outskirts of Kiev in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine.

30 September 1939
The Second World War: General Władysław Sikorski becomes Prime Minister of the Polish Government in exile.

1 October 1946
12 high-ranking Nazis, including Hermann Goering and Joachim von Ribbentrop, are sentenced to death by the International War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.

2 October 1967
Chief Justice Earl Warren swears in Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

3 October 1993
The start of the first Battle of Mogadishu; the U.S. army, backed by the UN, launches Operation Gothic Serpent an attempt to seize key leaders of the Somali militia loyal to warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.

4 October 1993
Operation Gothic Serpent fails in Mogadishu, Somalia. 18 American soldiers and 1 UN soldier are killed in a failed attempt to seize key leaders of the Somali militia loyal to warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.

5 October 1813
The War of 1812: A combined British and Indian force is defeated by the American army at the Battle of the Thames near Ontario, Canada.

6 October 1973
The start of the Yom Kippur War, as Egypt and Syrian launch an attack against Israel.

7 October 2004
The Iraq War: British hostage Ken Bigley, a British construction worker, is executed by the Islamic terrorists that kidnapped him.

8 October 2004
In America, lifestyle guru, Martha Stewart, starts her prison term after being found guilty of conspiracy and obstruction with regard to share trading.

9 October 1975
Andrei Sakharov is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Having helped to develop the Soviet Union’s first hydrogen bomb, Sakharov subsequently campaigned against the arms race and become a passionate advocate of human rights.

10 October 1957

American President Dwight D. Eisenhower offers his apologies to Ghanian Finance Minister, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, who had been refused service at a restaurant in Dover, Delaware because he was black.

11 October 2002
Former American President Jimmy Carter is awarded the Novel Peace Prize.

12 October 1972
The Vietnam War: Forty six sailors are injured in a race riot involving more than 100 sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk enroute to Vietnam.

13 October 2005
British playwright Harold Pinter is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

14 October 1994
The Nobel Peace Prize is jointly awarded to the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin; Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation Yasser Arafat.

15 October 1970
Anwar Sadat becomes President of Egypt.

16 October 1996

British Home Secretary Michael Howard announces stringent new gun controls following the mass shooting of children at a school in Dunblane, Scotland.

17 October 1961
Paris police massacre more than 200 Algerians marching in the city in support of peace talks to end their country’s war of independence against France.

18 October 1748
The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the War of the Austrian Succession.

19 October 2005
The Iraq War: The trial of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity begins in Baghdad.

20 October 1967
The Vietnam War: The biggest demonstration yet against American involvement in the Vietnam War takes when 4,000 people take to the streets of Oakland, California.

21 October 1967
The Vietnam War: More than 100,000 people protest against the war at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., U.S.A., before marching to the Pentagon.

22 October 1975
American Air Force Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, is discharged by the air force after publicly declaring his homosexuality.

23 October 1942
The Second World War: The start of the Second Battle of El Alamein in North Africa.

24 October 1945
Execution of Norweigan leader Vidkum Quisling after being found guilty of treason during World War II for collaborating with the Germans.

25 October 1929
In America, Albert B. Fall, secretary of the interior in President Warren G. Harding’s cabinet, is found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office.

26 October 1942
The Second World War: The Japanese sinks the U.S. Aircraft Carrier Hornet off the coast of the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.

27 October 1968
The Vietnam War: 6,000 anti-war protesters confront the police outside the U.S. Embassy in London, England.

28 October 1940
The Second World War: Italy invades Greece.

29 October 1956
The Suez Crisis begins as Israeli troops cross the Sinai Peninsula into Egypt heading towards the Suez Canal.

30 October 1941
The Second World War: President Franklin Roosevelt approves a Lend-Lease programme of American aid to the Soviet Union.

31 October 1997
19 year old British au pair Louise Woodward is found guilty by a court in America of murdering 8 month old Matthew Eappen. Woodward’s conviction was later reduced to manslaughter and she was immediately released from jail due to the amount of time she had already spent in custody.

1 November 1954
The Algerian War of Independence begins as The Front de Liberation Nationale launch a series of attacks against the French military in Algeria.

2 November 1963
The Vietnam War: Following the overthrow of his government by elements of the South Vietnamese army the day before, President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother are killed by the coup leaders.

3 November 1985
In a court in Auckland, New Zealand two French secret service agents change their pleas to guilty with regard to arson and manslaughter in connection with the bombing of the Greenpeace boat the Rainbow Warrior. They are both found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in jail.

4 November 1974
In England, Judith Ward is sentenced to life imprison after she is found guilty of planting a bomb on an army coach which exploded and killed 12 people. After serving 18 years, Ward’s conviction was quashed.

5 November 1930
Sinclair Lewis becomes the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

6 November 1963
The Vietnam War: Following the coup which deposed Ngo Dinh Diem, General Duong Van Minh assumes control of South Vietnam.

7 November 1944
The Second World War: Soviet spy Richard Sorge, who had used the cover of a German journalist to report on Germany and Japan for the Soviet Union, is hanged by his Japanese captors.

8 November 1942
The Second World War: British and American troops launch Operation Torchwood, the invasion of French North Africa.

9 November 1907
The Cullinan Diamond, the largest diamond yet found, is presented by the government of Transvaal to King Edward VII of Britain.

10 November 2001
In the wake of the 9th September terrorist attacks in America, President George W. Bush address the general assembly of the United Nations asking support in his war on terror.

11 November 1940
The Second World War: The British Royal Navy launches the first all-aircraft naval attack in history as the Battle of Taranto begins against Italy.

12 November 1969
The Vietnam War: American journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai massacre.

14 November 1941
The Second World War: The Royal Navy Aircraft Carrier, Ark Royal, sinks off the coast of Gibraltar after being hit by an Italian torpedo the previous day.

15 November 1942
The Second World War: The Americans defeat the Japanese at the naval Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

17 November 1970
The Vietnam War: The court-martial hearing of 1st Lieutenant William Calley begins in America. Calley was to be the only U.S. soldier convicted with regard to the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

18 November 2003
President George W. Bush begins a controversial state visit to Britain, to first since the beginning of the Iraq War.

19 November 1990
After having confessed to not actually sing the songs on their album, Girl You Know It’s True, pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award.

20 November 2003
In America, Pop star Michael Jackson hands himself into police following the issue of a warrant for his arrest in connection with charges of child molestation.

21 November 1971
India defeats Pakistan at the Battle of Garibpur during the Bangladesh Liberation War.

22 November 1943
The Second World War: Allied leaders Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Chiang Kai-shek meet for the first day of talks in Cairo, Egypt to discuss joint operations against the Japanese.

23 November 1940
The Second World War: Romania aligns itself with the Axis powers.

24 November 1944
The Second World War: America launches its first bombing raid over Tokyo.

25 November 1943
The Second World War: The Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia re-establishes the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

26 November 1983
Gold bars, worth over £25 million are stolen from the Brink’s Mat Security warehouse at Heathrow Airport near London, England.

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

28 November 1943
The Second World War: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin meet in Tehran, Iran to discuss the Allied war strategy.

29 November 1963
U.S. President Lyndon Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.

30 November 1939
The Second World War: The Soviet Union invades Finland.

1 December 1925
In England, the Locarno Treaties, post-war territorial settlements, are formally signed in London.

4 December 2003
America ends its protectionist steel policy, by withdrawing a tax on foreign steel imports, in order to avoid a trade war with Europe.

5 December 1977
Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat breaks off diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria and South Yemen in response to those countries promising to cut relations with Egypt.

7 December 2001
In the war in Afghanistan, the ruling Taliban regime is forced to retreat from its stronghold area of Kandahar.

8 December 1941
The Second World War: The Battle of Hong Kong begins as Japan invades the British colony.

9 December 1941
The Second World War: China declares war on the Axis powers Japan, Germany and Italy.

10 December 1990
The Gulf War: The first 100 British hostages are released by Saddam Hussein’s regime and arrive back in England.

11 December 1975
In the on-going “fishing war” between Britain and Iceland, an Icelandic gunboat opens fire on British fishing vessels in the North Atlantic Sea.

12 December 1937
During the battle for Nanking in the Sino-Japanese War, the U.S. gunboat Panay is attacked and sunk by Japanese warplanes in Chinese waters.

13 December 2003
The Iraq War: The United States capture Saddam Hussein.

15 December 1915
The First World War: Allied troops begin a full retreat from the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey, ending a disastrous invasion of the Ottoman Empire.

16 December 1914
The First World War: German battle cruisers begin a heavy bombardment of the English port cities Hartlepool and Scarborough.

17 December 1944
The Second World War: In America, the internment of Japanese American citizens is brought to an end.

18 December 1972
The Vietnam War: Following the breakdown of peace negotiations in Paris, U.S. President Richard Nixon announces the resumption of American bombing in North Vietnam – the Linebacker II Operation.

19 December 1964
The Vietnam War: Major Genwral Nguyen Khanh and a group of generals seize power in another bloodless coup in South Vietnam.

21 December 1937
Walt Disney’s first full-length colour animated cartoon Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premieres in Los Angeles, U.S.A.

22 December 1974
In London, the IRA bombs the home of Conservative Party leader Edward Heath, luckily for Heath he was not at home during the attack.

23 December 1948
Japan’s former premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese Second World War leaders are executed in Tokyo after being found guilty of war crimes.

24 December 1943
The Second World War: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower is appointed Supreme Allied Commander.

25 December 1941
The Second World War: Hong Kong surrenders to the Japanese.

26 December 1944
The Second World War: American troops under the command of General George S. Patton attempt to relieve Allied soldiers at Bastogne in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge.

29 December 1860
The world’s first iron-clad warship, ‘Warrior’, is launched at Blackwall on the River Thames in London, England.

30 December 1460

The War of the Roses: A Lancastrian army defeats a Yorkist army at the Battle of Wakefield in England.

31 December 1968
Scientist Marie Curie receives a second Nobel Prize - an unprecedented event in the history of the award. Born in Poland, Marie won her first Nobel Prize along with her husband, French scientist Pierre Curie, in 1903.

3 December 1989
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President George Bush effectively call an end to the Cold War at the Malta summit.

3 January 1993

Russia and the U.S.A. sign the second START agreement in Moscow. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is a further indication that the Cold War is over.

1776: United States declares independence
After a decade of economic conflict with Great Britain, the 13 colonies answer King George III's... More >

BROWSE BY ALPHABET

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

BATTLEFIELD DETECTIVES: Battle of the Bulge

In this programme scientists and historians investigate why... More >

Fri 3 Jul 9.00pm

The World at War: France Falls

We examine the events surrounding the Fall of France,... More >