In 1969 Capital Punishment for the crime of murder was abolished permanently in Great Britain
The Death penalty in the UK was established the same year of its creation in 1707. The death penalty could be given for many offenses from murder to pick-pocketing but as time went on the amount of offenses that could lead to such a punishment was reduced greatly.
The last people to be put to death for muder in the United Kingdom were Pater Allen and Gwynne Evans on the 13th of August 1964 for murder of John West. On the 9th of November 1965 The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 began but would be repealed in five years if not renewed by parliament (in Great Britain only, the death penalty for murder remained in Northern Ireland until 1971). On the 18th of December 1969 this act was made permanent for the crime of murder although it could still be given for treason and military offenses.
On the 31st of July 1998 the death penalty was abolished for all crimes in the United Kingdom in the Human Rights Act and the Crime and Disorder Act.
In 1916 the Battle of Verdun ended in a French victory against German forces in WWI
The Battle of Verdun began on the 21st of February 1916 between German and French forces. The battle was the longest of the war with huge casualties on both sides. The British initiated the Battle of the Somme (1st of July – 13th of November 1916) in an attempt to reduce the pressure on their French Allies. But the Battle of the Somme saw far more casualties than that of the Verdun (with 420,000 British, 200,000 French and 650,000 German). Despite the huge losses without any measurable advancement the Battle of the Somme did have an effect on the German strength in the Battle of Verdun and the French forces did defeat the Germans in that battle. By the end of the Battle of Verdun Germany suffered around 300,000 casualties while the French suffered around 400,000.
In 1856 British Physicist and Nobel laureate, Joseph J. Thomson, was born
It was the ancient Greeks that first proposed that all matter was made up by indivisible particles which they named atoms but during the 19th century scientist began to propose that these particles may themselves be made up of yet smaller components. However this was just a theory until after several experiment with cathode rays, British Physicist Joseph J. Thomson, provided evidence for the first sub-atomic particle, the electron, on the 30th of April 1897. Thomson was also a gifted teacher with many of his students becoming great physicists. One such student was New Zealand born, Ernest Rutherford who theorised the nucleus of an atom went on to prove the existence of the Proton (and believed to have been the first to “split the atom”) in 1917. Two more of Thomson’s famous students were, American Physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer and Danish Physicist Niels Henrik David Bohr.
