The first Orient Express train, known at the time as Express d’Orient, departed Paris.
17th December 497 BCE: The first Saturnalia festival celebrated in ancient Rome
17th December 2020
On the 27th March 1963, Chairman of the British Transport Commission Dr Richard Beeching published his report entitled The Reshaping of British Railways.
The worst fire in the history of the London Underground killed 31 people at Kings Cross St Pancras station.
Prior to the adoption of universally accepted time zones, the vast majority of settlements around the world observed local mean solar time.
On the 22nd October 1895, the Granville–Paris Express train ran across the station platform, crashed through a 60cm wall, and fell 10 metres to the street below after it overran the buffer stop at the Gare Montparnasse terminus.
On the 8th October 1829, Robert Stephenson’s steam locomotive The Rocket won the Rainhill Trials and secured a prize of £500 and the contract for Robert Stephenson and Company to produce locomotives for the new Liverpool & Manchester Railway that opened the following year.
18th January 1919: The Paris Peace Conference begins
18th January 2021
17th January 1991: Gulf War combat begins with Operation Desert Storm
17th January 2021
11th November 1918: WW1 Armistice of Compiègne is signed
11th November 2020
1st September 1939: Nazi Germany invades Poland
1st September 2018
9th November 1989: East Germany opens the Berlin Wall
9th November 2019