August 31 Through The Years

I haven't done a history post for awhile because the emails I get from Wikipedia haven't been as interesting as I usually find them. Either that or I didn't have time to post about the topic because my opinions were screaming to be shared. =P But today I will share some history with you instead of doing the normal youtube video(s).

Today in 1422, Henry the Sixth became the King of England at the ripe old age of eight months when his 35-year-old father, Henry the Fifth, died unexpectedly.

A quick biography from Wikipedia:

Henry VI (6 December 1421 – 21 May 1471) was King of England from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. Until 1437, his realm was governed by regents. Contemporaneous accounts described him as peaceful and pious. His periods of insanity and his inherent benevolence eventually led to his own downfall, the collapse of the House of Lancaster, and the rise of the House of York.

On this date in 1888 the body of Mary Ann Nichols was discovered at 3:40 in the morning in Whitechapel, about 150 yard from London Hospital. Her murder was the first in a set of five Whitechapel murderers which were attributed to the legendary "Jack the Ripper."

An interesting note from Wikipedia:

Unlike murderers of lesser fame, there is no waxwork figure of Jack the Ripper at Madame Tussauds' Chamber of Horrors, in accordance with their policy of not modelling persons whose likeness is unknown. He is instead depicted as a shadow. In 2006, Jack the Ripper was selected by BBC History magazine and its readers as the worst Briton in history.

The last one I'm going to mention is perhaps the most famous. In 1997 Princess Diana was killed in a car accident in Paris. A lot of controversy has surrounded the accident and Diana's death, but it was determined in court in 2008 that the drunken driver was solely to blame.