In an event alternately described as one of the most heroic or
disastrous episodes in British military history, Lord James
Cardigan leads a charge of the Light Brigade cavalry against
well-defended Russian artillery during the Crimean War.

The British were winning the Battle of Balaklava when Cardigan
received his order to attack the Russians. His cavalry gallantly
charged down the valley and were decimated by the heavy
Russian guns, suffering 40 percent casualties. It was later
revealed that the order was the result of confusion and was
not given intentionally.

Lord Cardigan, who survived the battle, was hailed as a national
hero in Britain.

James Thomas Brudenell, 7th earl of Cardigan
(1797 – 1868) 

On August 24, 1814, during the War of 1812 between the United
States and England, British troops entered Washington, D.C.
and burned the White House in retaliation for the American
attack on the city of York in Ontario, Canada, in June 1813.

When the British arrived at the White House, they found that
President James Madison and his first lady Dolley (below) 
had already fled to safety in Maryland.

Soldiers reportedly sat down to eat a meal made of leftover
food from the White House scullery using White House
dishes and silver before ransacking the presidential 
mansion and setting it ablaze.


 

On July 25, 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the world’s first baby to be
conceived via in-vitro fertilization (IVF) was born at Oldham and
District General Hospital in Manchester, England, to parents
Lesley and Peter Brown. The healthy baby was delivered shortly
before midnight by caesarean section and weighed in at five
pounds, 12 ounces.

Louise Brown, the world’s first "test tube baby" today.

CAMILLE BOHANNON

In this photo, pedestrians walk across the bridge on May
27, 1937 — one day before it opened to vehicular traffic.

On March 17, 1776, British forces were forced to evacuate Boston following General George Washington’s successful placement of fortifications and cannons on Dorchester Heights, which overlooks
the city from the south.

Nearly 10,000 Redcoats, thousands of loyalists left for Canada in ‘disgrace’  —  still celebrated as Evacuation Day in Boston.