The history of Diwali: The five-day festival of light
The everchanging Festival of Light. Diwali is a five-day festival, and in 2024 it is celebrated between 30th October and 3rd November. Every year the dates of the festival change as the moon's position determines them. It usually falls between October and November. Each day of the festival has its own name and significance in which worshippers ...
The Filthy Few: 10 facts about the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club
The Hells Angels were founded in Fontana, California on 17th March 1948, not by the late Ralph ‘Sonny’ Berger as is often believed. The inception is usually credited to motorcycle enthusiast Otto Friedli though this has been disputed and denied by Friedli himself. Supposedly, Otto borrowed the name from Arvid Olsen, a former vet who’d ...
When is Easter 2025 and when are the school holidays?
What dates are the school Easter holidays in 2025? While all the adults only get two days off work on Good Friday (18th April) and Easter Monday (20th April), most of the nation's children can get a full two weeks off school. Exact term dates alternate by school and region, but the Easter holidays in 2025 will likely fall between 7th April - 21th April.
Everything you need to know about Queen Elizabeth I
In October 1562, Elizabeth started to feel under the weather. What first appeared to be a common cold actually turned out to be a violent case of smallpox. The Queen was very ill, and at first, her advisors thought she might die. She survived, however, and managed to avoid any major scarring - a common after-effect of the sickness.
How the Nazis lost WW2: Four major turning points
The failure of Operation Barbarossa. Though Hitler and Stalin had signed a non-aggression pact in 1939, that marriage of convenience was spectacularly annulled when the Nazis launched Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941. Stalin was stunned by the move, which opened up a 1,800-mile front and proved to be the biggest military operation in history.
The real story of Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster in history
On 26th April 1986, a routine safety test went catastrophically wrong and triggered the worst nuclear accident of all time. The incident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Ukraine led to the release of 400 times more radiation than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during WW2.. 31 people died in the immediate aftermath, whilst the long-term health effects caused by Chernobyl ...
The untold story of the doomed Romanov girls - Sky HISTORY
The untold story of the doomed Romanov girls. executed along with their parents and brother by Bolsheviks during the Russian revolution of 1917 - 1918. On 17 July 1918 Russia’s last Imperial Family – Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their five children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Al. In a guest article, award-winning ...
The biggest conspiracy theories in history
The Illuminati are the go-to villains of countless conspiracy theories. They are the ultimate ‘shadowy elite’, secretly installing world leaders, manipulating financial markets, and generally behaving like a sprawling network of Bond villains. The truth is rather more mundane, however. There was a real group known as the Illuminati, but ...
Cornelius Vanderbilt | Sky HISTORY TV Channel
Cornelius Vanderbilt. Cornelius Vanderbilt, the ‘Commodore’: the first of the robber barons. The Civil War broke his heart, but made his second fortune. Cornelius was born in 1794 on Staten Island among the harbours that would make his first fortune. Aged 11, he started work with his father, a poor illiterate seaman, but by 16, he’s ...
How Victoria became queen: The succession crisis of 1817
A succession crisis begins. In 1817, elation soon turned to despair as the princess gave birth to a stillborn son. Then just a few hours later, Charlotte succumbed to a fever and passed away. The nation mourned their deaths deeply, as in one cruel twist of fate two generations destined for the throne had been wiped out.