Showing results by author "David James Smith" in History

At a time when Edwardian Britain seemed a golden place, basking in its imperial glory, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen and his wife, Belle, lived among the suburban villas of North London, renting a house at 39 Hilldrop Crescent. After supper on 31st January 1910, their friends went home and Crippen killed Belle with poison, dismembered her body and buried some of her remains beneath the brick floor of the coal cellar. Crippen never admitted killing his wife and took the secrets of the crime with him when he was hanged, following his conviction for murder.

Young Gavrilo Princip arrived at the Vlajnic pastry shop in Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina on the morning of 28th June 1914. He was greeted by his fellow conspirators in the plot to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The archduke, next in line to succeed as emperor of Austria, was beginning a state visit to Sarajevo later that morning. Ferdinand was not a very popular character - widely thought of as bad-tempered and arrogant and perhaps even deranged. To the young students, he embodied everything they loathed about imperial oppression.