Warbler December 2019

HISTORY
Wilnecote Warbler
December 2019
Wilnecote History Advent Calendar
Though you will obviously have some catching up to do……below is an advent calendar of events
which are all related to topics studied by Wilnecote students in History across years 7-11: The
Norman Conquest, Medieval England and Crime and Punishment through time (year 7), World
War One, the Suffragettes and Nazi Germany (year 8), and Medicine Through Time, Elizabeth
I, The Cold War, American Civil Rights and the Vietnam War (GCSE years 9-11). Some are key
events that are central to these topics (eg December 1st,, 9th, 13th and 14th) whilst some are just
strange reflections of the times (eg December 10th). Either way….enjoy the trivia.
December 1st: 1955 – Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to
give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, sparking the
Montgomery Bus Boycott.
December 2nd: 1961 – Fidel Castro declared that Cuba was to
adopt a Communist government.
December 3rd: 1967 – Christiaan Barnard performed the world’s
first heart transplant operation.
December 4th: 1154 – During the reign of Henry II, Adrian IV was
elected Pope, the only Englishman ever to hold the position.
December 5th: 1952 – The Great Smog began in London, leading
to the deaths of 1000s of Londoners and, eventually, to the 1956
Clean Air Act.
December 6th: 1956 – During the Soviet invasion of Hungary, a
water polo match between Hungary and USSR at the Melbourne
Olympics was called off because of Hungarian protests about the
invasion.
December 7th: 1916 – Following the losses at the Battle of the
Somme, Britain’s Prime Minister, Asquith, resigned and was
replaced by Lloyd-George.
December 8th: 1987 – President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Leader
Mikhail Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty, to get rid of intermediate
range nuclear missiles.
December 9th: 1979 – The World Health Organization declared
that, after a number of worldwide vaccination campaigns, smallpox
had been completely wiped out.
December 10th: 1951 – the Communist government in Hungary
banned posters of Santa Claus and replaced them with pictures of
Russian tractors holding gifts.
December 11th: 1961 –A US aircraft carrier arrived in Vietnam; the
first direct involvement by USA in the Vietnam War.
December 12th: 1961 - Martin Luther King Jr & 700 demonstrators
were arrested after a Civil Rights March in Albany, Georgia.
December 13th: 1577 – Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth at the
start of his journey round the world (only the second person in
history to achieve this).
December 14th: 1918 – British women voted for the first time in a
general election.
December 15th: 1961 – Nazi SS General Adolf Eichmann was
sentenced to death for his role in the Holocaust.
December 1st: 1955
December 5th: 1952
December 13th: 1577
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