A Pillock's Guide To History On This Day

19th June 1586 – The attempt at the first English settlement, Roanoke, in North America is abandoned. It was so bad we don’t even know what happened. And we know what that means- conspiracy theories. Transcript So the English were pretty good at the whole colonisation thing, much to the detriment of a big chunk […]

14th June 1807 – Napoleon wins the Battle of Friedland to end the war of the Fourth Coalition. Just one battle in one of the Napoleonic Wars. Let’s have a look at all them wars and who was getting involved. Transcript That’s just detail, everyone knows the Napoleonic War was won by the brave British […]

12th June 1550 – The capital of Finland, Helsinki, is founded. But that wasn’t too interesting, so instead how about a quick history of Scandinavia after the Vikings. Transcript We are big fans of the Nordic folk, they seem to have life mostly figured out, but it wasn’t always that calm up there in […]

1628 – The Petition of Right is accepted by Charles I. The King of England has to accept that he isn’t allowed to act like such a dick anymore. Not that he stops. Transcript Alright then, first up what was the Petition if Right? It is a nice legal document which said that the […]

1849 – Denmark sacks off their absolute monarchy and swaps it on for a far more manageable constitutional monarchy. So what is an absolute monarchy? For that matter what’s a constitutional monarchy? And do they still exist? Yeah, they do. Transcript Denmark gets itself a constitution and becomes a Constitutional Monarchy rather than an Absolute […]