Each Tuesday the intrepid team of TPS History detectives meet to delve into the past and research famous events to coincide with the publishing date of The Courier that week. They have only one hour to research, write and illustrate their articles. We hope you enjoy them and discover some fascinating bits of History.
Joanna Hall-Tomkin, Head of History and Pastoral Head Years 5&6
By Sophia Elsmore, Georgia Greenway, Kate Blackmore-Greasley, Aryan Sharma, Max Workman, Alan Wang, Daisy Jacobi, Trystan Davies and Georgia Greenway
1901 The Wyatt Rebellion Ends
On this day in history, Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion ended. Thomas Wyatt was an English politician, soldier and rebellion leader. He 
was born in 1521 and died in April 1554. Wyatt was Protestant: the purpose of the rebellion was to protest about Mary I’s marriage to the Spanish Catholic Prince Philip, remove Mary from the throne and replace her with her Protestant sister Elizabeth. Thomas Wyatt marched up to the gates of London, but as soon as they got there the gates were shut on them. He started off with an army of 4000 men but after the gates were closed on them, all but 500 men deserted and after the battle he was left with 400 injured men. Wyatt and 100 of his men were captured and hung.
1979 £1 million UK Football Transfer
Football team Nottingham Forest got Britain’s first 1 million pound transfer deal on the 9t
h of February 1979. It is hard to believe that the transfer record was only 1 million but the first transfer was just 100 pounds. The current transfer record is £198 million!! He moved on to be manager of Crystal Palace, but left in April 2003 after the club’s terrible performance. He enjoyed very successful seasons in Manchester City, Sampdoria (in Italy) and Glasgow Rangers. He even went on to manage Sheffield Wednesday.
2002 Princess Margaret dies
Princess Margaret was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Eliza
beth. She was born on August 21st 1930 and died on February 9th 2002. Margaret married Antony Armstrong-Jones and they had two children called Lady Sarah Chatto and David Armstrong-Jones. Margaret spent much of her childhood in the company of her elder sister and parents. She was educated alongside her sister, Princess Elizabeth, by their Scottish governess Marion Crawford. Margaret’s education was mainly supervised by her mother. When World War II broke out, Margaret and her sister were at Birkhall, where they stayed until Christmas 1939, enduring nights so cold that drinking water in carafes by their bedside froze.
2013 – 900th Anniversary of the Knights of Malta
The Knights of Malta is also known as the Sovereign Military Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta. It is the oldest surviving chivalric order. The order’s mission is humility and charity; its 13,500 members of Knights and Dames trace their origins to warrior friars. It was founded to look after pilgrims during the Crusades. When Jerusalem was conquered by Muslims, the order made its base first on Cyprus, then Rhodes, and then Malta. It finally made its home in Rome after Napoleon expelled the order from Malta in 1798. The order is sovereign. It prints its own stamps, coins, license plates and passports, but it has no territory. Today, it has become an international humanitarian organization with nearly 100,000 doctors, nurses and volunteers worldwide. Sovereign Order of Malta provided a week of celebrations in Rome on February 2013. It marked the 900th anniversary of Pope Paschal II’s Solemn Privilege Pie Postulatio Voluntatis of 15 February 1113 that officially recognised the monastic community of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem and gave it its sovereign and independent status.
