History and Events

Affair of the Diamond Necklace	Be careful who you sell your jewels too
April Fools’ Day	The custom of pulling practical jokes on the first day of April
Balloonfest ’86	○ No one considered the environmental effects of releasing 1.5 million balloons into the air
Bank run	An event that occurs when people withdraw their money from a bank, believing the bank will fail in the future
Great Famine of 1876–1878, and the Bengal famine of 1943	❗● Two major British-made famines that had devastating affects on India
Boycott	🐇 The social act of abstaining use of a product, person, organisation etc
China National Highway 110 traffic jam	○ Remember this next time you complain about traffic
Chinese New Year	●🐇 A festival to celebrate the start of the Chinese lunar calendar
Defenestrations of Prague	❗ There are three recorded incidents of people thrown out of windows in Prague
George Floyd protests	❗ Protests against the murder of an unarmed Black man by US police
Great Famine (Ireland)	❗● Also known as the Irish Potato Famine; defining moment in Irish cultural history
Great Stink	Who would have thought that releasing untreated sewage into the Thames would cause London to smell
Grenfell Tower fire	❗● This 2017 fire became the UK’s worst residential fire since the Blitz
Historical negationism	The falsifying or distorting of historical record, often to cover up the past or re-write it
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic	This is a list of articles regarding the social, political, and economic effects of Covid-19
Kentucky meat shower	○ This wasn’t in the weather report!
List of bridge failures	●🐇 Someone got fired
List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events	Many people have tried to predict the end of the world, so far with a 0% success rate
List of -gate scandals and controversies	🐇 Since Watergate, a number of scandals have donned the -gate suffix
List of largest empires	🐇 The usual suspects
List of photographs considered the most important	❗●🐇 Note: copyrighted images lead to external links
List of women’s firsts	🐇 A list of feats achieved by women
List of wrong anthem incidents	At the 1920 Summer Olympics the band couldn’t find the right anthem for Italy, but the Italians went with it
Moscow Gold (Spain)	● During the Spanish Civil war multiple tonnes of gold were transferred from Madrid to Moscow
Prohibition in the United States	●🐇 A thirteen-year period in the US where alcohol was greatly restricted
Roman conquest of Britain	I’m surprised the Romans didn’t turn back once they saw the weather
Rosetta Stone	An inscribed stone unearthed in Egypt, famous for its use in deciphering Egyptian texts; currently in the British Museum
Salem witch trials	❗● A case of mass hysteria and prosecutions in Massachusetts, US
Satanic panic	❗●🐇 A moral panic in 1980s US where children were thought to be victims of abuse for satanic rituals
Scramble for Africa	❗●🐇 Western European powers fought for control over African lands with disastrous consequences for the natives
Seoul Halloween crowd crush	❗ Crowd surge down a busy street in Itaewon causing 159 deaths and 196 casualties
Silk Road	● Trade route linking Europe with East Asia
Surfside Condominium Collapse	❗● In 2021, in Miami, part of a condominium collapsed killing 98 people
Timeline of the Great Depression	🐇 ‘When America sneezes, the World catches a cold’
Timeline of women’s education	🐇 Women across the world today are still fighting for the right to an education
White flight	Racist white people don’t like their new neighbours
Woodstock ’99	❗ A revival of the famous 1969 festival marred by extreme heat, poor sanitation, vandalism, and sexual violence