Mathew Lyons

Pompeii is Found

Identified on 20 August 1763, Pompeii’s value was as a source of antiquities for Charles VII, king of Naples.

The First Map of the Moon

At 9pm on 26 July 1609, Thomas Harriot pointed his telescope at a five-day-old crescent moon. It made him the first person to train such an instrument on the skies and map the moon. 

The Menin Gate is Unveiled

The finished Menin Gate memorial, unveiled on 24 July 1927, recorded 54,896 British and imperial soldiers who died at Ypres between 1914 and 1918, and whose bodies were lost. 

Birth of a Pastry Chef

Born into poverty on 8 June 1783, Antonin Carême’s spectacular confectionary constructions made him patissier to royalty.

Sancta Sophia Collapses

Disaster struck on the morning of 7 May 558, when repair works to the Sancta Sophia caused it to collapse.

Cleansing the Causeway

The soldiers of Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, fought the men of James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, in Edinburgh on 30 April 1520.