The Decline and Collapse of Soviet Control over Eastern Europe is the compulsory sourcework paper for IGCSE History, Summer 2010. This is a new programme of study on the website which can be used to teach this interesting topic.

• The following list provides important anniversaries that could be commemorated in 2010.
• It can be used by teachers preparing assemblies, extension tasks and one-off lessons.
• I am limiting the list to multiples of 50 years (1960 (50 years ago today), 1910 (100 years ago today), 1860 (150 years ago today) etc).
• This is more meaningful than the “on this day in history” format (there is a 1/365 chance that any event from the entire history of civilisation has a 1/365 chance it happened “today”!)
• If you’d like to add to this list, please contact me with your suggestion or send a tweet using the hashtag #history2010.

3rd: Elvis Presley returns to USA after 2 years in army 1960 (50 years ago today)
6th: The United States announces that 3,500 American soldiers will be sent to Vietnam. 1960 (50 years ago today)
6th: The Canton of Geneva in Switzerland gives women the right to vote. 1960 (50 years ago today)
21st: The Sharpeville massacre in South Africa results in more than 69 dead, 300 injured. 1960 (50 years ago today)
28th: Thomas Clarkson was born 1810 (200 years ago today)

Louis XV, the penultimate King of France, was born: 15th Feb. 1710 (300 years ago today)
“Popular legend holds that Louis said, “After me, the flood” (”Après moi, le déluge”). In fact this quotation is more precisely attributed to Madame de Pompadour, although it is not certain that even she ever said it. The remark was supposedly made on 5 November 1757 after Frederick the Great had defeated the French and Austrian armies at the Battle of Rossbach. It suggests that nothing matters once you are dead and has also been interpreted as a premonition of the French Revolution”
[Wikipedia Link]

Winston Churchill becomes Home Secretary in Asquith’s Liberal Government: 14th Feb. 1910 (100 years ago today). In this role he notoriously used troops to put down striking miners in South Wales and to assist police during a house siege in Sidney Street in East London in January 1911.

France tests its first atomic bomb in the Sahara: 13th Feb. 1960 (50 years ago today)
Wikipedia Link