On this day in history: Vacuum cleaner patented, 1901

On this day in history: Capital punishment abolished in Tuscany, 1786
In 1765, Peter Leopold Joseph Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard succeeded his father, Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, as Grand Duke of Tuscany. For five years of his reign a group of counsellors selected by his mother administered the Grand Duchy. Finally, in 1770 he visited Vienna and secured full control over Tuscany. Peter Leopold set about reforming t

On this day in history: Most points scored by one player in NFL game, 1929
Born in Willow River, Minnesota, in 1903, Ernie Nevers developed his sporting prowess while at high school. He gained notoriety playing American football for Stanford University, being named as the Player of the Game in their 1925 Roseball victory against the University of Notre Dame. The following year he made his professional sporting début as a pitcher for the St. Louis Browns baseball team, before also signing for the Duluth Eskimos AFL side as

On this day in history: Première of Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra, 1896
Richard Strauss was born in June 1864 in Munich, where his father, Franz, was the principal horn player at the Court Opera. Richard received a musical education from his father and started writing music at the age of six; yet, when he entered the city's university he chose to study philosophy and art history, rather than music. He spent a year at Munich University before moving to Berlin where he briefly studied music before securing a post as an assistant c

On this day in history: The Great Storm of 1703
On the night of 26th November 1703, the gale force winds that had swept over Britain for a week reached a climax. Winds travelling at an estimated 120 mph blew down buildings and carried people and animals through the air. Gusts uprooting over four-thousand oak trees in the New Forest alone.  The gales first struck the West Country causing widespread flooding in the Bristol area. In nearby Wells, Bishop Richard Kidder and his wife were

On this day in history: American Woman Suffrage Association formed, 1869
In January 1866, at a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Boston, Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone proposed the creation of a new organisation with the goal of universal suffrage. On 10th May, Anthony and Stone founded the American Equal Rights Association (AERA) along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass. The relationship between black rights activists and woman suffragists was a difficult one, exposing the differences between the two, pa