By Elinor Evans

Published: Sunday, 19 June 2022 at 12:00 am


19 June 1250 

After her canonisation by Pope Innocent IV, the remains of St Margaret of Scotland were moved to Dunfermline Abbey. She died in 1093, three days after her husband, Malcolm III, and her son, Edward, were killed in battle at Alnwick.


19 June 1269

The French king Louis IX announces that all Jews will be fined 10 livres of silver if they appear in public without a yellow badge.


19 June 1312 

After being condemned to death before an assembly of barons, Piers Gaveston, the favourite of King Edward II, was run through with a sword and then beheaded on Blacklow Hill, Warwickshire.


19 June 1623 

Scientist, mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne. in 1642 he designed and built one of the world’s first mechanical calculators, the Pascaline.


19 June 1861

Birth in Edinburgh of future British field marshal Douglas Haig. In 1915, Haig replaced Sir John French as commander of the British Expeditionary Force in the First World War, oversaw its rapid expansion and eventually led it to victory – albeit at a very heavy cost – over a determined and skilful enemy. Opinions remain divided over Haig. Some have described him as a callous bungler; others have argued that the horrendous casualties suffered by all armies in the conflict were inevitable given the nature of warfare at the time.


19 June 1829 

Establishment of the Metropolitan Police as parliament passes Home Secretary Robert Peel’s ‘Act for improving the Police in and near the Metropolis’.

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