#onthisday 29 May 1940 - HMS Grafton (H89) was Torpedoed by U-62, then scuttled by HMS Ivanhoe.

During the Siege of Calais, Grafton escorted the light cruisers Arethusa & Galatea as they provided naval gunfire support for the 30th Motor Brigade on 26 May. The following day she

#onthisday 29 May 1660 – English Restoration: Charles II is restored to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651 & King of England, Scotland, & Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the

#onthisday 29 May 1630

King Charles II was born

Charles was born in St James's Palace on 29 May 1630. His parents were Charles I, who ruled the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and Henrietta Maria, the sister of the French king Louis XIII. Charles was their

#onthisday 28 May 1941 - HMS Mashona was attacked & sunk by Luftwaffe bombers with the loss of 46 of her crew.

#lestweforget #remembrance #britishhistory #royalnavy #Secondworldwar The National Museum of the Royal Navy Royal Navy Imperial War Museums

#onthisday 28 May 1660

👑 King George I of Great Britain was born

George was born on 28 May 1660 in Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire. He was the eldest son of Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, & his wife, Sophia of the Palatinate. Sophia was the granddaughter of

#onthisday 28 MAY 1533

Anne Boleyn becomes Queen of England

Anne Boleyn (born, c. 1501 – d.19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 28 May 1533 – 17 May 1536 as the second wife of King Henry VIII & Marquess of Pembroke in her own right.

Henry and Anne married on 25 January

#onthisday 27 May 1922 – Christopher Lee was born (d. 2015)

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was an English actor, singer, & military officer. In a career spanning more than sixty years, Lee became known as an actor with a deep & commanding voice who often portrayed villains

#onthisday 27 May 1897 – John Cockcroft was born (d. 1967)

Sir John Douglas Cockcroft was a British physicist who shared with Ernest Walton the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951 for splitting the atomic nucleus, & was instrumental in the development of nuclear power.

After service

#onthisday 27 May 1941 – World War II: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic, killing almost 2,100 men.

Bismarck was the first of two Bismarck-class battleships built for Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine. Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the ship was

#onthisday 27 May 1940 – World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 99 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops; two survive.

The Le Paradis massacre was a World War II war crime committed by members of the 14th Company, SS Division

#onthisday 27 May 1915 - HMS Majestic (1895) while stationed off W Beach at Cape Helles, Majestic became the third battleship to be torpedoed off the Gallipoli peninsula in two weeks.

Around 0645 hours, Commander Otto Hersing of the German submarine U-21 fired a single torpedo

#onthisday 27 May 1915 – HMS Princess Irene, while being loaded with mines prior to a deployment mission, explodes & sinks off Sheerness, Kent, with the loss of 352 lives.

HMS Princess Irene was a 5,394 GRT ocean liner which was built in 1914 by William Denny and Brothers Ltd,

#onthisday 27 May 1199 - King John coronation
__________

Reign: King of England - 27 May 1199 – 19 October 1216.

He ruled as Lord of Ireland: May 1177 – 19 October 1216. He lost the Duchy of Normandy & most of his other French lands to King Philip II of France, resulting in the

Tributes have been paid to Sqn Ldr Mark Long who has died after the Spitfire he was flying crashed in a field close to RAF Conningsby, Lincolnshire.

The World War Two aircraft belonged to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF) based at the station.
In a statement, the RAF

Remembering Sergeant Peter Frederick Jackson DFM 🇬🇧

From West Norwood, London was born in March 1919, the son of George Arthur Jackson (1890-1963) & Winifred Eleanor Jackson (nee Greenslade 1894-1975).

After leaving school he worked in an advertising agency. He joined the RAFVR

Remembering Captain John Christopher Craven Barnes 🇬🇧

8th Battalion, Border Regiment.

Death: 29 May 1916.

CWGC family information: Son of Lt. Col. Henry John Barnes & Nellie Ross Barnes (nee Hyland), of Greencroft, Colyton, Devon.

#lestweforget #remembrance #britisharmy

#otd 27 May 1153 – Malcolm IV coronation as king of Scots.

Reign: 24 May 1153 – 9 December 1165.

Malcolm was the eldest son of Henry, Earl of Huntingdon & Northumbria (died 1152) & Ada de Warenne.

Called Malcolm the Maiden by later chroniclers, a name which may incorrectly

#onthisday 27 May 1541

Margaret Pole was executed.

On the morning of 27 May 1541, Margaret was told she was to die within the hour. She answered that no crime had been imputed to her.

Nevertheless, she was taken from her cell to the place within the precincts of the Tower of

#onthisday 26 May 1650 – John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough was born (d. 1722)

General John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1st Prince of Mindelheim, 1st Count of Nellenburg, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire was an English soldier & statesman.

From a gentry family, he

#onthisday 26 May 1942 – World War II: The Battle of Gazala takes place.

The Battle of Gazala (near the village of Gazala) was fought during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War, west of the port of Tobruk in Libya, from 26 May to 21 June 1942. Axis troops of the