This photograph shows the so-called Great Procession and Women’s Demonstration that took place in Edinburgh, Scotland on the 9th of October, 1909.
Amongst the banners being carried are those calling for Votes for Women. Women in the United Kingdom were not given equal voting rights as men until 1928.
Australian girls at a Highland Gathering at Sydney Showground on New Year’s Day.
1st January 1937. Photographed by Sam Hood.
The United Kingdom’s worst peacetime rail disaster occurred at London’s Harrow and Wealdstone station on the 8th of October, 1952.
112 people were killed when the City of Glasgow – an express train from Perth, Scotland – crashed into the back of a local passenger train at rush hour. The wreckage covered other rail lines, resulting in a third train – another express – to crash.
The wrecked City of Glasgow.
In addition to over a hundred deaths, 340 other people were injured, with 88 transported to hospital for treatment.
An investigation found that the driver of the Perth train missed three signals before crashing, but as those involved were killed, the reason for this was never discovered.
The march to the sea. First World War.
5th October 1914: French Cavalry on the march pass troops of the 1st Battalion, Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). The British soldiers slept hidden during the day and marched at night.
Germany had declared war on France two months earlier. The photograph is credited to British Army officer Robert Cotton Money (1888-1985).
Scottish poet Robert Burns was born on the 25th of January, 1759.
The date is celebrated in Scotland and by the Scottish diaspora as Burns Night.
A detail of a 1561 painting of the Regent.
The first recorded assassination by firearm happened in Scotland on the 23rd of January, 1570. James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray and Regent of Scotland was killed at Linlithgow Palace.
Miles Birket Foster’s 19th century painting of Linlithgow Palace
The assassin was James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, a supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots.
A nineteenth century depiction of the killing.
Some accounts of the execution were recorded centuries after it happened, making some facts a little bit unclear.
One version states that Lady Mondegreen was killed by a second shot, but this is a myth.
On the 8th of January, 1697, Scottish student Thomas Aikenhead was hanged for blasphemy. He was the last person in Britain to be executed for the crime, and was eighteen at the time.
The gallows at Grassmarket in Edinburgh.
Aikenhead was put on trial in Edinburgh and found guilty in December the year before. He was hanged at 2pm.
This final execution for blasphemy came 85 years after the final person was burnt for heresy.
