A seal used for the authentication of state documents of the highest importance.
Great Seal
Fact of the Day
The Spartans had a way of tackling childhood obesity: every ten days, they would get their children to strip naked and, if they were fat, they would beat them.
Quote of the Day
"I let down my friends, I let down my country. I let down our system of government,
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~ Richard Nixon
On This Day
86 BCE Lucius Cornelius Sulla's army finally broke through the walls of Athens during the First Mithridatic War, brutally sacking the city and making the streets run with Athenian blood.
40 Marcus Valerius Martialis (Martial), wisecracking Roman poet, was born.
991 A peace between King Æthelred the Unready and Duke Richard of Normandy was ratified at Rouen, banning the Normans from harbouring the Vikings, and improving relations between England and Normandy.
1244 Gruffudd ap Llywelyn Fawr, son of Llywelyn the Great, fell to his death while trying to escape from the Tower of London. He was being forcibly held by Henry III as a 'guest'.
1555 Nostradamus published his first prophecies about impending disasters. They have rarely been out of print since and have allegedly successfully predicted world events.
1815 Following his escape from Elba, Napoleon landed on the French coast between Cannes and Antibes with 1,000 men.
1946 The Bank of England was nationalised under the Bank of England Act.
1947 The International Monetary Fund began its financial operations. The first country to borrow from it was France in May 1947.
1950 Atomic physicist Klaus Fuchs was convicted of espionage under the Official Secrets Act for supplying information to the Soviets. He was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment.
1954 The US detonated an atomic bomb on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. They had promised residents they would be able to return after the tests. Unsurprisingly, this wasn't possible.
1966 The Chancellor of the Exchequer, James Callaghan, announced that Britain would introduce decimal coinage from 1971.
1966 The Soviet Venera 3 space probe probably crash-landed on Venus, making it the first spacecraft to 'land' on another planet.
