Conservative History Journal

Anniversaries Tory Historian did not mention in late October:

The greatest of all is on October 21, Battle of Trafalgar. A great battle, a great victory and a great tragedy with the death of the Admiral, Lord Nelson. And on the left readers can see a chart of how the battle lines were drawn up.

October 22 was a bleak day in 1962 as President Kennedy, comprehensively outwitted by Nikita Khrushchev, announced that there were Soviet missiles on Cuba, pointing at the United States. The most frightening period of the Cold War when the two protagonists faced each other without any intermediaries between them began.

October 23 is too often remembered as the beginning of the Hungarian revolution of 1956 but let us not forget that it was also the date of the Battle of Edgehill in 1642. This was the first major battle of the Civil War with Charles I and Prince Rupert leading the Royalists and the Earl of Essex the Parliamentarians. Who won? Well, that’s a difficult one. It was a draw though if Charles had moved faster he would have been the real winner as the road to London was open to him. That is what Prince Rupert advocated. Instead, Charles proceeded with caution (most unlike him in political terms) and Essex reached London first.

Moving right along there, October 24, 1537 marks the death of Henry VIII’s third Queen, Jane Seymour, the one who produced the coveted heir. Presumably, had she survived puerperal fever, she would have kept her head as the mother of the heir. Or maybe not.

October 25, 1854 saw the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War and the less said about it the better. In any case, Tennyson said it all before and in much better metre. Well, actually, the day saw the battle itself, including the Charge of the Heavy Brigade, which was successful and is, therefore, rarely remembered by anyone except tedious people like Tory Historian. Incidentally, Captain Nolan, the man who seems to have been responsible for the messy lack of communication between various commanders, was not an upper class twit, but a career officer from a less than well-off army family. He had trained and served in the professional Continental armies and wrote books on the cavalry.

October 26, 1863 is a most important date as it marks the formation of the English Football Association, otherwise known simply as the FA. The first meeting was held in the Freemasons’ Tavern in Great Queen Street, in London.

October 27, 1914 was the day the poet Dylan Thomas was born.

October 28, 1831 was when Michael Faraday demonstrated the dynamo. This can be considered the beginning of electro-magnetism.

Sir Walter Raleigh, known variously as adventurer, courtier, historian, poet and pirate, was beheaded on October 29, 1618. The charming statue that used to stand in Whitehall until it became dwarfed by huge memorials to World War II generals, has now been moved to Greenwich.

Just two more dates and we shall complete this rather busy period. October 30, 1925 saw the transmission of the first television moving image by John Logie Baird. I don’t think we can blame him for what TV has become since that day. And finally, a very important date for modern history: on October 31, 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. The beginning of the Protestant reformation.