On This Day in History

'History is an infinite reservoir of stories, examples, warnings, explanations, jokes, rebukes and inspiration . . . You can't understand the present if you can't understand the past.' In ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY Dan Snow, Britain's favourite historian, tells the story of an important event that happened on each day of the year. From the signing of the Armistice treaty at 11 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, to Rosa Parks refusing to give up her bus seat on 1 December 1955, our past is full of all kinds of fascinating turning points. From the most important battle fought on British soil that you've never heard of on 20 May 685 to the first meeting of John Lennon and Paul McCartney on 6 July 1957, and from the first instance of choreomania - an affliction that caused its victims to dance uncontrollably - on 24 July 1374, to the day Napolean Bonaparte being attacked by hundreds of wild rabbits on 12 July 1807, ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY's 365 carefully picked entries add up into a short, vivid, personal history of the world. There is no such thing as a day on which nothing happened.