100 years ago (31 Jul 1910)
American physician Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen was arrested aboard the SS Montrose as it docked in Quebec. He had fled England after murdering his wife, and was the first criminal to be caught using wireless telegraph [more].

Using this worksheet to help them, students conduct a “Head to Head” Interview with Martin Luther King Jr. to spot mistakes in an account of his life, then produce a newspaper report based on the extra questions they choose to ask him. There is also a completed teacher version available.

75 years ago today – 1 Aug 1936 The XI Olympic Games opened in Berlin, Germany. It was the last Olympics for 12 years due to World War II

75 years ago today – 1 Aug 1936 Birth of Yves Saint-Laurent, Algerian-born French fashion designer

75 years ago today – 2 Aug 1936 Death of Louis Blériot, French aviation pioneer, engineer and inventor, the first person to fly across the English Channel

200 years ago today – 3 Aug 1811 Birth of Elisha Graves Otis, American inventor of the safety elevator

150 years ago today – 6 Aug 1861 Birth of Edith Roosevelt, American First Lady (1901–09), formalised the duties of the First Lady and refurbished the White House

20 years ago today – 6 Aug 1991 The first ever website (info.cern.ch) went live. The web’s inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, also posted a description of the World Wide Web project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup, and provided a link to download the first web browser, though it could only run on NeXT workstations

100 years ago today – 10 Aug 1911 British Members of Parliament voted to receive salaries for the first time

300 years ago today – 11 Aug 1711 The first horse race meeting at Ascot took place, initiated by Queen Anne

50 years ago today – 13 Aug 1961 East Germany sealed off the border between East and West Berlin to
prevent the exodus of refugees to the West. Initially barbed wire fences were erected; construction of the Berlin Wall began on 15th August

70 years ago today – 14 Aug 1941 World War II: Britain and the USA issued the Atlantic Charter, a joint declaration that laid out the aims and goals of the Allied powers during and after the war.

75 years ago today – 19 Aug 1936 Death of Federico García Lorca, Spanish poet and playwright

20 years ago today – 19 Aug 1991 Attempted coup in the Soviet Union. Hard-line members of the Communist Party tried to seize control from President Mikhail Gorbachev. The coup failed after just 3 days, and eventually led to the collapse of communism and the disintegration of the USSR

20 years ago today – 20 Aug 1991 The following former Soviet states declared their independence this month: Estonia (20th), Latvia (21st), Ukraine (24th), Belarus (25th), Moldova
(27th), Azerbaijan (30th), Kyrgyzstan (31st), Uzbekistan (31st)

100 years ago today – 21 Aug 1911 Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in Paris by an employee. (Recovered in 1913)

150 years ago today – 22 Aug 1861 Birth of Mary Elizabeth Wood, American librarian and missionary who established a network of libraries and a training programme for librarians in China

20 years ago today – 24 Aug 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

30 years ago today – 24 Aug 1981 Mark Chapman was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for the murder of British rock musician John Lennon

30 years ago today – 25 Aug 1981 The U.S. space probe Voyager 2 reached Saturn and sent back images and data from the planet. (It travelled on to Uranus (1986) and Neptune (1989) before leaving the solar system)

25 years ago today – 31 Aug 1986 Death of Henry Moore, British sculptor

Students complete this worksheet following from the image, and then students in the class who researched politicians as their “Fakebook” project now feedback to the class with their findings by identifying the one most important event in their lives which illustrates their importance to the civil rights struggle. Everyone in the class uses this to continue developing their thematic timeline document.