On this day on 10th January

On this day in 49 BC Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon (shallow river in northeastern Italy). To make sure everybody knew about his military victories, Caesar wrote a book about his campaigns and had it published in Rome. The Senate became concerned about his growing popularity. To prevent Caesar from gaining power they appointed another famous Roman soldier, Pompey, to take control of the country. The Senate then passed a motion insisting that Caesar should retire from office.

Caesar reacted by ordering his men to march on Rome. At Corfinium, in 48 BC Caesar defeated troops loyal to the Senate. When news reached Rome of Caesar's victory, his enemies fled. Velleius reported: "Caesar, victorious over all his enemies, returned to Rome, and pardoned all who had borne arms against him, an act of generosity almost beyond belief. He entertained the city with the magnificent spectacle of a gladiatorial show, a sham battle of cavalry, infantry, and even mounted elephants."

Pompey decided to retreat to Macedonia, where he knew he could rely on the loyalty of his troops. However, Caesar's troops, highly experienced after their campaigns against the Gauls, were vastly superior to Pompey's soldiers who had not fought for twelve years. After a series of defeats, Pompey escaped to Egypt.

Frightened that Caesar would now invade Egypt, Ptolemy XIII arranged the execution of Pompey on 28th September. The head of Pompey was sent to Caesar to prove he was not being protected by the Egyptians. When Caesar arrived in Alexandria two days later, Ptolemy presented him with Pompey's severed head. Caesar was appalled by this act of violence against a leading Roman citizen. Caesar reacted by seizing the Egyptian capital.

At first he intended to demand a large sum of money in return for leaving the country. However, while in Egypt, Caesar met Cleopatra, the country's twenty-one-year-old queen. Caesar, who was now fifty-two and had already been married three times before, fell deeply in love with Cleopatra. After defeating King Ptolemy XIII, Caesar restored Cleopatra to her throne, with another younger brother Ptolemy XIV as new co-ruler.

On 23 June 47 BC Cleopatra gave birth to a child, Ptolemy Caesar (nicknamed "Caesarion"). Cleopatra claimed that Caesar was the father and wished him to name the boy his heir, but Caesar refused, choosing his grandnephew Octavian instead.

When Caesar returned to Rome he appointed 300 of his supporters as members of the Senate. Although the Senate and Public Assembly still met, it was Caesar who now made all the important decisions. By 44 BC Caesar was powerful enough to declare himself dictator for life. Although in the past Roman leaders had become dictators in times of crisis, no one had taken this much power.

A whole range of magnificent buildings named after Caesar and his family were erected. Hundreds of sculptures of Caesar, most of them made by captured Greek artists, were distributed throughout the Roman Empire. Some of the statues claimed that Caesar was now a God. Caesar also became the first living man to appear on a Roman coin. Even the month of the year that he was born, Quintilis, was renamed July in his honour.

Caesar began wearing long red boots. As the ancient kings used to wear similar boots, rumours began to spread that Caesar planned to make himself king. Caesar denied these charges but the Roman people, who had a strong dislike of the kingship system, began to worry about the way Caesar was dominating political life.

Cleopatra, Ptolemy XIV and Caesarion visited Rome in summer 46 BC. They stayed in one of Caesars country houses. Members of the Senate disapproved of the relationship between Cleopatra and Caesar, partly because he was already married to Calpurnia Pisonis. Others objected to the fact that she was a foreigner. Cicero disliked her for moral reasons: "Her (Cleopatra) way of walking... her clothes, her free way of talking, her embraces and kisses, her beach-parties and dinner-parties, all show her to be a tart."

Later Plutarch attempted to explain why some men found her attractive: "Her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself remarkable... but the attraction of her person, joining with the charm of her conversation... was something bewitching. It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice, with which, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to another, so that there were few of the nations that she needed an interpreter... which was all the more surprising because most of her predecessors, scarcely gave themselves the trouble to acquire the Egyptian tongue."

Caesar attempted to gain the full support of the people by declaring his intention to lead a military campaign against the Parthians. However, many had doubts about the wisdom of trying to increase the size of the Roman Empire. They believed it would be better to concentrate on organising what they already had.

Rumours began to spread that Caesar planned to make himself king. Plutarch wrote: "What made Caesar hated was his passion to be king." Caesar denied these charges but the Roman people, who had a strong dislike of the kingship system, began to worry about the way Caesar made all the decisions. Even his friends complained that he was no longer willing to listen to advice. Finally, a group of senators decided to kill Caesar.

Even some of Caesar's closest friends were concerned about his unwillingness to listen to advice. Eventually, a group of 60 men, including Marcus Brutus, rumoured to be one of Caesar's illegitimate sons, decided to assassinate Caesar.

Plans were made to carry out the assassination in the Senate just three days before he was due to leave for Parthia. When Caesar arrived at the Senate a group of senators gathered round him. Publius Servilius Casca stabbed him from behind. Caesar looked round for help but now the rest of the group pulled out their daggers. One of the first men Caesar saw was Brutus and was reported to have declared, "You too, my son." Caesar knew it was useless to resist and pulled his toga over his head and waited for the final blows to arrive.

Afterwards Cicero commented: "Caesar subjected the Roman people to oppression... Is there anyone, except Antony who did not wish for his death or who disapproved of what was done?... Some didn't know of the plot, some lacked courage, others the opportunity. None lacked the will."

On this day in 1776 Thomas Paine published Common Sense, a 47 page pamphlet that attacked the British Monarchy and advocated independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places. In proportion to the population of the colonies at that time (2.5 million), it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history. Paine argues in the pamphlet: "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason."

Paine said of the Monarchy: "One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion... For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have the right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever, and tho' himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his cotemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them."

Paine believed that the monarchy led to wars: "In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there were no kings; the consequence of which was there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throws mankind into confusion... In England a king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshipped into the bargain! Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived."

On this day in 1840 New York Journal of Commerce reports on the Amistad Mutiny. In 1839 Jose Ruiz purchased 49 slaves in Havana, Cuba. With his friend, Pedro Montez, who had acquired four new slaves, Ruiz hired Ramon Ferrer to take them in his schooner Amistad, to Puerto Principe, a settlement further down the coast.

On 2nd July, 1839, the slaves, led by Joseph Cinque, killed Ramon Ferrer, and took possession of his ship. Cinque ordered the navigator to take them back to Africa but after 63 days at sea the ship was intercepted by Lieutenant Gedney and the United States brig Washington, half a mile from the shore of Long Island. The Amistad was then towed into New London, Connecticut.

Joseph Cinque and the other Africans were imprisoned in New Haven. James Covey, a sailor on a British ship, was employed to interview the Africans to discover what had taken place. The Spanish government insisted that the mutineers be returned to Cuba. President Martin van Buren was sympathetic to these demands but insisted that the men would be first tried for murder.

Lewis Tappan and James Pennington took up the African's case and argued that while slavery was legal in Cuba, importation of slaves from Africa was not. The judge agreed, and ruled that the Africans had been kidnapped and had the right to use violence to escape from captivity.

The United States government appealed against this decision and the case appeared before the Supreme Court. The former president, John Quincy Adams, was so moved by the plight of Joseph Cinque and his fellow Africans, that he volunteered to represent them. Although now seventy-three, his passionate eight-hour speech won the argument and the mutineers were released.

Lewis Tappan and the anti-slavery movement helped fund the return of the 35 surviving Africans to Sierra Leone. They arrived in January, 1842, along with five missionaries and teachers who formed a Christian anti-slavery mission in the country.

On this day in 1869 Grigori Rasputin, the son of a Russian peasant, was born in Pokrovskoye, Siberia. His mother gave birth to seven other children but they all died in childbirth. His father, Yefim Rasputin, was described as "a typical Siberian peasant... chunky, unkempt and stooped". He served as an elder in the village church, and one local spoke of his "learned conversations and wisdom".

Although he briefly attended school he failed to learn how to read or write. As a child he went with his parents to nearby monasteries and it is claimed that he wanted to become a monk. One biographer, Joseph T. Fuhrmann, points out: "Grigori's personality embodied divergent and contrasting strains - the religious seeker and the debauched hell-raiser."

In 1886, Rasputin met the 20 year-old Praskovia Dubrovina. They were married five months later on 2nd February 1887, three weeks after his 18th birthday: "She was plump with dark eyes, small features and thick blonde hair. Though short, she was strong, an important asset in a wife expected to bear children while tackling the harvest." The first child was born the following year, but died at six months of scarlet fever. They then had twins, who both died of whooping cough. Another child also died but three children survived childhood: Dimitri (1895), Maria (1898) and Varya (1900).

Rasputin became a "holy wanderer" and a visitor to holy sites. On his return he developed a small group of followers. He became a vegetarian and argued against drinking alcohol. He also built a chapel in his father's cellar. It was rumoured that female followers were ceremonially washing him before each meeting and that the group was involved self-flagellation and sexual orgies.

It has been claimed that he visited "Jerusalem, the Balkans and Mesopotamia". He claimed he had special powers that enabled him to heal the sick and lived off the donations of people he helped. Rasputin also made money as a fortune teller. In about 1902 he travelled to the city of Kazan on the Volga river, where he acquired a reputation as a holy man. Despite rumors that Rasputin was having sex with some of his female followers, he gained the support of senior figures of the church and was given a letter of recommendation to Bishop Sergei, the rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Seminary.

Soon after arriving in St. Petersburg in 1903, Rasputin met Hermogen, the Bishop of Saratov. He was impressed by Rasputin's healing powers and introduced him to Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra Fedorovna. The Tsar's only son, Alexei, suffered from haemophilia (a disease whereby the blood does not clot if a wound occurs). When Alexei was taken seriously ill in 1908, Rasputin was called to the royal palace. He managed to stop the bleeding and from then on he became a member of the royal entourage.

The Tsarina was completely convinced by the supernatural power of Rasputin. "In their despair at the inability of orthodox medicine to overcome or alleviate the disease, the imperial couple turned with relief to Rasputin... She attached physical power to objects handled by Rasputin. She sent Rasputin's stick and comb to the tsar so that he might benefit from Grigori's vigour when attending ministerial councils."

The Tsarina became very dependent on Rasputin. One one occasion, when he had to spend time outside St. Petersburg, she wrote: "How distraught I am without you. My soul is only at peace, I only rest, when you, my teacher, are seated beside me and I kiss your hands and lean my head on your blessed shoulders... Then I only have one wish: to sleep for centuries on your shoulders, in the embraces."

Ariadna Tyrkova, the wife of the British journalist, Harold Williams, wrote: "Throughout Russia, both at the front and at home, rumour grew ever louder concerning the pernicious influence exercised by the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, at whose side rose the sinister figure of Gregory Rasputin. This charlatan and hypnotist had wormed himself into the Tsar’s palace and gradually acquired a limitless power over the hysterical Empress, and through her over the Sovereign. Rasputin’s proximity to the Tsar’s family proved fatal to the dynasty, for no political criticism can harm the prestige of Tsars so effectually as the personal weakness, vice, or debasement of the members of a royal house."

On 12 July, 1914, a 33-year-old peasant woman named Chionya Guseva attempted to assassinate Grigori Rasputin by stabbing him in the stomach outside his home in Pokrovskoye. Rasputin was seriously wounded and a local doctor who performed emergency surgery saved his life. Guseva claimed to have acted alone, having read about Rasputin in the newspapers and believing him to be a "false prophet and even an Antichrist."

In February 1914, Tsar Nicholas II accepted the advice of his foreign minister, Sergi Sazonov, and committed Russia to supporting the Triple Entente. Sazonov was of the opinion that in the event of a war, Russia's membership of the Triple Entente would enable it to make territorial gains from neighbouring countries. Sazonov sent a telegram to the Russian ambassador in London asking him to make clear to the British government that the Tsar was committed to a war with Germany. "The peace of the world will only be secure on the day when the Triple Entente, whose real existence is not better authenticated than the existence of the sea serpent, shall transform itself into a defensive alliance without secret clauses and publicly announced in all the world press. On that day the danger of a German hegemony will be finally removed, and each one of us will be able to devote himself quietly to his own affairs."

In the international crisis that followed the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the Tsar made it clear that he was willing to go to war over this issue, Rasputin was an outspoken critic of this policy and joined forces with two senior figures, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Durnovo, to prevent the war. Durnovo told the Tsar that a war with Germany would be "mutually dangerous" to both countries, no matter who won. Witte added that "there must inevitably break out in the conquered country a social revolution, which by the very nature of things, will spread to the country of the victor."

Sergei Witte realised that because of its economic situation, Russia would lose a war with any of its rivals. Bernard Pares met Witte and Rasputin several times in the years leading up to the First World War: "Count Witte never swerved from his conviction, firstly, that Russia must avoid the war at all costs, and secondly, that she must work for economic friendship with France and Germany to counteract the preponderance of England. Rasputin was opposed to the war for reasons as good as Witte's. He was for peace between all nations and between all religions."

On the outbreak of the First World War General Alexander Samsonov was given command of the Russian Second Army for the invasion of East Prussia. He advanced slowly into the south western corner of the province with the intention of linking up with General Paul von Rennenkampf advancing from the north east. General Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff were sent forward to meet Samsonov's advancing troops. They made contact on 22nd August, 1914, and for six days the Russians, with their superior numbers, had a few successes. However, by 29th August, Samsanov's Second Army was surrounded.

General Samsonov attempted to retreat but now in a German cordon, most of his troops were slaughtered or captured. The Battle of Tannenberg lasted three days. Only 10,000 of the 150,000 Russian soldiers managed to escape. Shocked by the disastrous outcome of the battle, Samsanov committed suicide. The Germans, who lost 20,000 men in the battle, were able to take over 92,000 Russian prisoners. On 9th September, 1914, General von Rennenkampf ordered his remaining troops to withdraw. By the end of the month the German Army had regained all the territory lost during the initial Russian onslaught. The attempted invasion of Prussia had cost Russia almost a quarter of a million men.

By December, 1914, the Russian Army had 6,553,000 men. However, they only had 4,652,000 rifles. Untrained troops were ordered into battle without adequate arms or ammunition. "Untrained troops were ordered into battle without adequate arms or ammunition. And because the Russian Army had about one surgeon for every 10,000 men, many wounded of its soldiers died from wounds that would have been treated on the Western Front. With medical staff spread out across a 500 mile front, the likelihood of any Russian soldier receiving any medical treatment was close to zero".

Tsar Nicholas II decided to replace Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich Romanov as supreme commander of the Russian Army fighting on the Eastern Front. He was disturbed when he received the following information from General Alexei Brusilov: "In recent battles a third of the men had no rifles. These poor devils had to wait patiently until their comrades fell before their eyes and they could pick up weapons. The army is drowning in its own blood."

Alexander Kerensky complained that: "The Tsarina's blind faith in Rasputin led her to seek his counsel not only in personal matters but also on questions of state policy. General Alekseyev, held in high esteem by Nicholas II, tried to talk to the Tsarina about Rasputin, but only succeeded in making an implacable enemy of her. General Alexseyev told me later about his profound concern on learning that a secret map of military operations had found its way into the Tsarina's hands. But like many others, he was powerless to take any action."

As the Tsar spent most of his time at GHQ, Alexandra Fedorovna now took responsibility for domestic policy. Rasputin served as her adviser and over the next few months she dismissed ministers and their deputies in rapid succession. In letters to her husband she called his ministers as "fools and idiots". According to David Shub "the real ruler of Russia was the Empress Alexandra".

On 7th July, 1915, the Tsar wrote to his wife and complained about the problems he faced fighting the war: "Again that cursed question of shortage of artillery and rifle ammunition - it stands in the way of an energetic advance. If we should have three days of serious fighting we might run out of ammunition altogether. Without new rifles it is impossible to fill up the gaps.... If we had a rest from fighting for about a month our condition would greatly improve. It is understood, of course, that what I say is strictly for you only. Please do not say a word to anyone."

In 1916 two million Russian soldiers were killed or seriously wounded and a third of a million were taken prisoner. Millions of peasants were conscripted into the Tsar's armies but supplies of rifles and ammunition remained inadequate. It is estimated that one third of Russia's able-bodied men were serving in the army. The peasants were therefore unable to work on the farms producing the usual amount of food. By November, 1916, food prices were four times as high as before the war. As a result strikes for higher wages became common in Russia's cities.

Rumours began to circulate that Grigori Rasputin and Alexandra Fedorovna were leaders of a pro-German court group and were seeking a separate peace with the Central Powers. This upset Michael Rodzianko, the President of the Duma, and he told Nicholas II: "I must tell Your Majesty that this cannot continue much longer. No one opens your eyes to the true role which this man (Rasputin) is playing. His presence in Your Majesty's Court undermines confidence in the Supreme Power and may have an evil effect on the fate of the dynasty and turn the hearts of the people from their Emperor."

Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the head of MI6, became very concerned by the influence Rasputin was having on Russia's foreign policy. Samuel Hoare was assigned to the British intelligence mission with the Russian general staff. Soon afterwards he was given the rank of lieutenant-colonel and Mansfield Smith-Cumming appointed him as head of the British Secret Intelligence Service in Petrograd. Other members of the unit included Oswald Rayner, Cudbert Thornhill, John Scale and Stephen Alley. One of their main tasks was to deal with Rasputin who was considered to be "one of the most potent of the baleful Germanophil forces in Russia."

The main fear was that Russia might negotiate a separate peace with Germany, thereby releasing the seventy German divisions tied down on the Eastern Front. One MI6 agent wrote: "German intrigue was becoming more intense daily. Enemy agents were busy whispering of peace and hinting how to get it by creating disorder, rioting, etc. Things looked very black. Romania was collapsing, and Russia herself seemed weakening. The failure in communications, the shortness of foods, the sinister influence which seemed to be clogging the war machine, Rasputin the drunken debaucher influencing Russia's policy, what was to the be the end of it all?"

Samuel Hoare reported in December 1916 that poor leadership and inadequate weaponry had led to Russian war fatigue: "I am confident that Russia will never fight through another winter." In another dispatch to headquarters Hoare suggested that if the Tsar banished Rasputin "the country would be freed from the sinister influence that was striking down to natural leaders and endangering the success of its armies in the field." Giles Milton, the author of Russian Roulette: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Global Plot (2013) argues that it was at this point that MI6 made plans to assassinate Rasputin.

At the same time Vladimir Purishkevich, the leader of the monarchists in the Duma, was also attempted to organize the elimination of Rasputin. He wrote to Prince Felix Yusupov: "I'm terribly busy working on a plan to eliminate Rasputin. That is simply essential now, since otherwise everything will be finished... You too must take part in it. Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov knows all about it and is helping. It will take place in the middle of December, when Dmitri comes back... Not a word to anyone about what I've written."

Yusupov replied the following day: "Many thanks for your mad letter. I could not understand half of it, but I can see that you are preparing for some wild action.... My chief objection is that you have decided upon everything without consulting me... I can see by your letter that you are wildly enthusiastic, and ready to climb up walls... Don't you dare do anything without me, or I shall not come at all!"

Eventually, Vladimir Purishkevich and Felix Yusupov agreed to work together to kill Rasputin. Three other men Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov, Dr. Stanislaus de Lazovert and Lieutenant Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin, an officer in the Preobrazhensky Regiment, joined the plot. Lazovert was responsible for providing the cyanide for the wine and the cakes. He was also asked to arrange for the disposal of the body.

Yusupov later admitted in Lost Splendor (1953) that on 29th December, 1916, Rasputin was invited to his home: "The bell rang, announcing the arrival of Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov and my other friends. I showed them into the dining room and they stood for a little while, silently examining the spot where Rasputin was to meet his end. I took from the ebony cabinet a box containing the poison and laid it on the table. Dr Lazovert put on rubber gloves and ground the cyanide of potassium crystals to powder. Then, lifting the top of each cake, he sprinkled the inside with a dose of poison, which, according to him, was sufficient to kill several men instantly. There was an impressive silence. We all followed the doctor's movements with emotion. There remained the glasses into which cyanide was to be poured. It was decided to do this at the last moment so that the poison should not evaporate and lose its potency."

Vladimir Purishkevich supported this story in his book, The Murder of Rasputin (1918): "We sat down at the round tea table and Yusupov invited us to drink a glass of tea and to try the cakes before they had been doctored. The quarter of an hour which we spent at the table seemed like an eternity to me.... Yusupov gave Dr Lazovert several pieces of the potassium cyanide and he put on the gloves which Yusupov had procured and began to grate poison into a plate with a knife. Then picking out all the cakes with pink cream (there were only two varieties, pink and chocolate), he lifted off the top halves and put a good quantity of poison in each one, and then replaced the tops to make them look right. When the pink cakes were ready, we placed them on the plates with the brown chocolate ones. Then, we cut up two of the pink ones and, making them look as if they had been bitten into, we put these on different plates around the table."

Lazovert now went out to collect Rasputin in his car on the evening of 29th December, 1916. While the other four men waited at the home of Yusupov. According to Lazovert: "At midnight the associates of the Prince concealed themselves while I entered the car and drove to the home of the monk. He admitted me in person. Rasputin was in a gay mood. We drove rapidly to the home of the Prince and descended to the library, lighted only by a blazing log in the huge chimney-place. A small table was spread with cakes and rare wines - three kinds of the wine were poisoned and so were the cakes. The monk threw himself into a chair, his humour expanding with the warmth of the room. He told of his successes, his plots, of the imminent success of the German arms and that the Kaiser would soon be seen in Petrograd. At a proper moment he was offered the wine and the cakes. He drank the wine and devoured the cakes. Hours slipped by, but there was no sign that the poison had taken effect. The monk was even merrier than before. We were seized with an insane dread that this man was inviolable, that he was superhuman, that he couldn't be killed. It was a frightful sensation. He glared at us with his black, black eyes as though he read our minds and would fool us."

Vladimir Purishkevich later recalled that Felix Yusupov joined them upstairs and exclaimed: "It is impossible. Just imagine, he drank two glasses filled with poison, ate several pink cakes and, as you can see, nothing has happened, absolutely nothing, and that was at least fifteen minutes ago! I cannot think what we can do... He is now sitting gloomily on the divan and the only effect that I can see of the poison is that he is constantly belching and that he dribbles a bit. Gentlemen, what do you advise that I do?" Eventually it was decided that Yusupov should go down and shoot Rasputin.

Yusupov later recalled : "I looked at my victim with dread, as he stood before me, quiet and trusting.... Rasputin stood before me motionless, his head bent and his eyes on the crucifix. I slowly raised the crucifix. I slowly raised the revolver. Where should I aim, at the temple or at the heart? A shudder swept over me; my arm grew rigid, I aimed at his heart and pulled the trigger. Rasputin gave a wild scream and crumpled up on the bearskin. For a moment I was appalled to discover how easy it was to kill a man. A flick of a finger and what had been a living, breathing man only a second before, now lay on the floor like a broken doll."

Stanislaus de Lazovert agrees with this account except that he was uncertain who fired the shot: "With a frightful scream Rasputin whirled and fell, face down, on the floor. The others came bounding over to him and stood over his prostrate, writhing body. We left the room to let him die alone, and to plan for his removal and obliteration. Suddenly we heard a strange and unearthly sound behind the huge door that led into the library. The door was slowly pushed open, and there was Rasputin on his hands and knees, the bloody froth gushing from his mouth, his terrible eyes bulging from their sockets. With an amazing strength he sprang toward the door that led into the gardens, wrenched it open and passed out." Lazovert added that it was Vladimir Purishkevich who fired the next shot: "As he seemed to be disappearing in the darkness, Purishkevich, who had been standing by, reached over and picked up an American-made automatic revolver and fired two shots swiftly into his retreating figure. We heard him fall with a groan, and later when we approached the body he was very still and cold and - dead."

Felix Yusupov added: "Rasputin lay on his back. His features twitched in nervous spasms; his hands were clenched, his eyes closed. A bloodstain was spreading on his silk blouse. A few minutes later all movement ceased. We bent over his body to examine it. The doctor declared that the bullet had struck him in the region of the heart. There was no possibility of doubt: Rasputin was dead. We turned off the light and went up to my room, after locking the basement door."

The Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov drove the men to Varshavsky Rail Terminal where they burned Rasputin's clothes. "It was very late and the grand duke evidently feared that great speed would attract the suspicion of the police." They also collected weights and chains and returned to Yusupov's home. At 4.50 a.m. Romanov drove the men and Rasputin's body to Petrovskii Bridge. that crossed towards Krestovsky Island. According to Vladimir Purishkevich: "We dragged Rasputin's corpse into the grand duke's car." Purishkevich claimed he drove very slowly: "It was very late and the grand duke evidently feared that great speed would attract the suspicion of the police." (37) Stanislaus de Lazovert takes up the story when they arrived at Petrovskii: "We bundled him up in a sheet and carried him to the river's edge. Ice had formed, but we broke it and threw him in. The next day search was made for Rasputin, but no trace was found."

The following day the Tsarina wrote to her husband about the disappearance of Rasputin: "We are sitting here together - can you imagine our feelings - our friend has disappeared. Felix Yusupov pretends he never came to the house and never asked him." The next day she wrote: "No trace yet... the police are continuing the search... I fear that these two wretched boys (Felix Yusupov and Dmitri Romanov) have committed a frightful crime but have not yet lost all hope."

Rasputin's body was found on 19th December by a river policeman who was walking on the ice. He noticed a fur coat trapped beneath, approximately 65 metres from the bridge. The ice was cut open and Rasputin's frozen body discovered. The post mortem was held the following day. Major-General Popel carried out the investigation of the murder. By this time Dr. Stanislaus de Lazovert and Lieutenant Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin had fled from the city. He did interview Felix Yusupov, Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov and Vladimir Purishkevich, but he decided not to charge them with murder.

Tsar Nicholas II ordered the three men to be expelled from Petrograd. He rejected a petition to allow the conspirators to stay in the city. He replied that "no one had the right to commit murder." Sophie Buxhoeveden later commented: "Though patriotic feeling was supposed to have been the motive of the murder, it was the first indirect blow at the Emperor's authority, the first spark of insurrection. In short, it was the application of lynch law, the taking of law and judgment forcibly into private hands."

Several historians have questioned the official account of the death of Grigori Rasputin. They claim that the post mortem of Rasputin carried out by Professor Dmitrii Kosorotov, does not support the evidence provided by the confessions of Felix Yusupov, Dr. Stanislaus de Lazovert and Vladimir Purishkevich. For example, the "examination reveals no trace of poison". It also appears that Rasputin suffered a violent beating: "the victim's face and body carry traces of blows given by a supple but hard object. His genitals have been crushed by the action of a similar object."

Kosorotov also claims that Rasputin was shot by men using three different guns. One of these was a Webley revolver, a gun issued to British intelligence agents. Michael Smith, the author of Six: A History of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (2010), argues that Oswald Rayner took part in the assassination: "He (Rasputin) was shot several times, with three different weapons, with all the evidence suggesting that Rayner fired the fatal shot, using his personal Webley revolver."

On this day in 1913 May Billinghurst makes speech at the Old Bailey. Billinghurst was born in Lewisham in 1876. Her father, Henry Billinghurst, was a banker. Her mother, Rosa Brinsmead, was the daughter of a wealthy piano manufacturer. A healthy child at birth but when she was five months old, she suffered an illness which left her whole body paralysed, and although she regained the use of her hands and arms she would never walk unaided.

The Billinghurst family paid for a governess to provide her with a good basic education. However, her disability made it impossible for her to go to university. Her sister, Alice Billinghurst, was a superintendent at a local children's home, arranged for her to do voluntary work for the Greenwich and Deptford Union Workhouse. She was shocked by what she saw and later recalled: "My heart ached and I thought surely if women were consulted in the management of the state happier and better conditions must exist for hard-working sweated lives such as these."

May Billinghurst became interested in politics and the subject of women's suffrage. She later recalled: "My heart ached and I thought surely if women were consulted in the management of the state happier and better conditions must exist for hard-working sweated lives such as these... It was gradually unfolded to me that the unequal laws which made women appear interior to men were the main cause of these evils. I found that the man-made laws of marriage, parentage and divorce placed women in every way in a condition of slavery - and were as harmful to men by giving them power to be tyrants."

She attended meetings where she heard Millicent Fawcett, Charlotte Despard and Emmeline Pankhurst give speeches. However, it was Christabel Pankhurst who inspired her to become a suffragette: "I wondered how the public could ever be made to think about it. In the midst of the hopelessness of it all Christabel Pankhurst sounded the war note of militancy and was imprisoned for her boldness, and the subject of votes for women was on every tongue." May joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in October 1907. Over the next few months her family donated a considerable sum of money to the organisation.

Billinghurst also left the Liberal Party in protest to the way they had dealt with the issue of women's suffrage. She wrote to the Manchester Guardian where she argued: "I feel that the present government is not acting in accordance with the first principles of Liberalism, by refusing the right of representation to women taxpayers. I have joined no other party and I still claim to be a Liberal woman but a Liberal woman on strike."

In July 1910 Billinghurst she became the secretary of the Greenwich branch of the WSPU. In November Billinghurst was one of 159 women arrested at a demonstration outside the House of Commons. Afterwards she recalled: "At first the police threw me out of the machine on to the ground in a very brutal manner. Secondly when on the machine again they tried to push me along with my arms twisted behind me in a very painful position. Thirdly they took me down a side road and left me in the middle of a hooligan crowd, first taking all the valves out of the wheels and pocketing them so that I could not move the machine."

Another suffragette later testified: "Her crutches were lodged on each side of her self-propelling invalid chair and when a meeting was being broken up or an arrest being made she would charge the aggressors at a rate of knots that carried all before her. When the police retaliated and tried to control this she ran the risk of being ejected on to the ground, where she was quite helpless. Of course she took the risk with her eyes open and when this happened, as it did on occasion, made full and unscrupulous use of her infirmities so as to obtain the maximum publicity for the cause."

Fran Abrams the author of Freedom's Cause: Lives of the Suffragettes (2003) argues that May Billinghurst became an important figure in the WSPU campaign: "May Billinghurst was no fool. She knew full well, and so did the leaders of the WSPU, that her hand-propelled invalid tricycle gave her a special advantage in the propaganda battle they were waging. It made it difficult, if not impossible, for the media to portray May as a howling harridan with little care for the safety of others. At its least effective the sight of her at a demonstration was a picturesque one, commented on lightly along with other aspects of the pageantry of the day. At best, it served to underline in bold the brutal tactics of the police and the vulnerability of the suffragette demonstrators."

In November 1911, May Billinghurst was arrested again. Henry Nevinson reported: "Just at that time as I was returning to Whitehall I met Miss Billinghurst, that indomitable cripple, being carried shoulder high by four policemen in her little tricycle or wheel-cart that she propels with her arms. Amid immense cheering from the crowd she followed the rest into the police station."

One newspaper claimed that she had "set her chair going at full tilt towards the police". May Billinghurst was charged with obstruction and sentenced to five days' imprisonment or a five shilling fine. Someone must have paid the fine because there is no record of her having gone to Holloway Prison on this occasion.

In March 1912 the WSPU organised a new campaign that involved the large-scale smashing of shop-windows. May agreed to hide some of the stones underneath the rug covering her knees. According to Votes for Women: "From in front, behind, from every side it came - a hammering, crashing, splintering sound unheard in the annals of shopping... At the windows excited crowds collected, shouting, gesticulating. At the centre of each crowd stood a woman, pale, calm and silent."

May Billinghurst was arrested and was eventually sentenced to one month's hard labour. She spent the time in Holloway Prison although the authorities found that the "hard labour" part impossible to enforce. A fellow prisoner, Alice Ker, a doctor from Liverpool, wrote to her daughter on 7th April: "Miss Billinghurst, the tricycle lady, is going out on the 11th and will take this (letter). She is quite lame, wears irons on her legs and walks with crutches when she is out of her tricycle. We shall miss her very much when she goes out."

On her release she took part in the campaign to destroy the contents of pillar-boxes. By December 1912, the government claimed that over 5,000 letters had been damaged by the WSPU. A fellow suffragette, Lilian Lenton, argued: "She (May Billinghurst) would set out in her chair with many little packages from which, when they were turned upside down, there flowed a dark brown sticky fluid, concealed under the rug which covered her legs. She went undeviatingly from one pillar box to another, sometimes alone, sometimes with another suffragette to do the actual job, dropping a package into each one."

May Billinghurst was eventually arrested at Blackheath preparing for a pillar-box raid. She seemed pleased about being caught as she told the police officer: "With all the pillar boxes we've done, there has been nothing in the papers about it - perhaps now there has been an arrest there will be something." May appeared at the Old Bailey in January 1913.

During the trial Billinghurst argued: "The government authorities may further maim my body by the torture of forcible feeding as they are torturing weak women in prison at the present time. They may even kill me in the process for I am not strong, but they cannot take away my freedom of spirit or my determination to fight this good fight to the end."

Billinghurst was found guilty and sentenced to eight months in Holloway Prison. The judge remarked: "No one could, I think, doubt for a moment - as mistaken as I think you to be - that you were animated by the highest and purest motives in what you did... you do not belong to the class of hysterical women, many of whom are associated with this movement, who appear to be animated mainly or at any rate in some measure by a desire for notoriety." Emmeline Pankhurst wrote from Paris: "I cannot tell you how deeply I feel your splendid courage and endurance. All my heart will be with you during the ordeal that lies before you."

May Billinghurst immediately went on hunger-strike: "I just laid on my back and endured it all - on Sunday I was very weak and on Sunday night I tried to get out to the bell because my head was swimming round so I fell on the floor and fainted... My head was forced back and a tube jammed down my nose. It was the most awful torture. I groaned with pain and I coughed and gulped the tube up and would not let it pass down my throat. Then they tried the other nostril and they found that was smaller still and slightly deformed, l suppose from constant hay-fever. The new doctor said it was impossible to get the tube down that one so they jammed it down again through the other and I wondered if the pain was as bad as child-birth. I just had strength and will enough to vomit it up again and I could see tears in the wardresses' eyes."

After protests about her treatment by George Lansbury and Keir Hardie in the House of Commons, and comments from the prison doctor, who feared she would die of a heart-attack, she was released on 18th January, 1913. While May was living at home her mother received an anonymous letter: "Do not allow your daughter to go out in the neighbourhood of Blackheath alone or she will be it worse cripple than she now is - as she will be treated as a coward (which she is considered to be) for not taking her punishment. If you can leave the neighbourhood do so as sooner or later she will be attacked (and possibly yourself as you are much disliked for being the mother of a coward)."

On 21st May 1914, May Billinghurst took part in a WSPU demonstration outside Buckingham Palace. This eventually turned into a battle between the suffragettes and 1,500 policemen. Billinghurst drove her tricycle into the police lines. Charlotte Drake was one of those taking part in the protest: "I was beside her. They threw us back, but we returned. Two policemen picked up the tricycle with Miss Billinghurst in it, turned it over and dropped her to the ground. The excitement gave me strength - I picked her up bodily and lifted her back. We straightened the machine as best we could, rested a little to rake breath and struggled on again."

On 4th August, 1914, England declared war on Germany. The leadership of the WSPU began negotiating with the British government. On the 10th August the government announced it was releasing all suffragettes from prison. In return, the WSPU agreed to end their militant activities and help the war effort.

After receiving a £2,000 grant from the government, the WSPU organised a demonstration in London. Members carried banners with slogans such as "We Demand the Right to Serve", "For Men Must Fight and Women Must work" and "Let None Be Kaiser's Cat's Paws". At the meeting, attended by 30,000 people, Emmeline Pankhurst called on trade unions to let women work in those industries traditionally dominated by men.

Billinghurst supported this change in policy and she took part in these various pro-war demonstrations. In 1918 she helped Christabel Pankhurst in her attempt to be elected to represent The Women's Party in the House of Commons.

After the passing of the Qualification of Women Act May Billinghurst ceased to be politically active. However, she did attend the funeral of Emmeline Pankhurst and the unveiling of her statue in 1930. May Billinghurst died in Weybridge on 4th July 1953.

On this day in 1915, over 3,000 women attended a meeting that formed the Woman's Peace Party. On the outbreak of the First World War a group of women pacifists in the United States began talking about the need to form an organization to help bring it to an end. On the 10th January, 1915, over 3,000 women attended a meeting in the ballroom of the New Willard Hotel in Washington and formed the Woman's Peace Party. Jane Addams was elected chairman and other women involved in the organization included Mary McDowell, Florence Kelley, Alice Hamilton, Anna Howard Shaw, Belle La Follette, Fanny Garrison Villard, Emily Balch, Jeanette Rankin, Lillian Wald, Edith Abbott, Grace Abbott, Crystal Eastman, Carrie Chapman Catt, Emily Bach, and Sophonisba Breckinridge.

In April 1915, Aletta Jacobs, a suffragist in Holland, invited members of the Woman's Peace Party and suffrage members all over the world to an International Congress of Women in the Hague. Some of the women who attended included Sheepshanks, Jane Addams, Alice Hamilton, Grace Abbott, Emily Bach, Lida Gustava Heymann, Mary Sheepshanks, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Emily Hobhouse, Chrystal Macmillan, Rosika Schwimmer. At the conference the women formed the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Afterwards, Jacobs, Addams, Macmillan, Schwimmer and Balch went to London, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Rome, Berne and Paris to speak with members of the various governments in Europe.

It was decided to form the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Käthe Kollwitz produced lithographs of war-stricken mothers and children that were distributed as postcards. She wrote in her journal: "I am working with an international society opposed to war, I am filled with a warm sense of contentment. I know, of course, that I do not achieve pure art in the sense of Scmidt-Rottluff's for example. But still it is art. Everyone works the way he can. I am content that my art should have purposes outside itself. I would like to exert influence in these times when human beings are so perplexed and in need of help."

Emily Bach, who was dismissed as professor of political economy at Wellesley College as a result of her anti-war activities, became secretary of the organization. She was replaced by Mary Sheepshanks in 1927. The WILPF continued after the war and the international headquarters of the organization is based in Geneva and there are branches in around 50 different countries.

On this day in 1925 Billie Sol Estes, one of six children of John and Lillian Estes, was born on a farm near Clyde, Texas. According to the New York Times: "He was an average student. His family was poor, but Billie Sol showed early promise as a financier. At 13, he received a lamb as a gift, sold its wool for $5, bought another lamb and went into business. At 15, he sold 100 sheep for $3,000. He borrowed $3,500 more from a bank, bought government surplus grain and sold it for a big profit. By 18, he had $38,000."

After marrying in 1946 he moved to the small town of Pecos. As a result of high irrigation costs, local farmers found it difficult to make profits from their cotton crops. Estes started up a company providing irrigation pumps that used cheap natural gas. Farmers had previously used irrigation pumps powered by electricity. Estes also sold anhydrous ammonia as a fertilizer. This was a great success and Estes soon became a wealthy businessman. In 1953 he was named one of America’s 10 outstanding young men by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce.

Estes's business encountered problems when the Department of Agriculture began to control the production of cotton. Allotments were issued telling the cotton farmers how much they could and could not plant. In 1958 Estes made contact with Lyndon B. Johnson. Over the next couple of years Estes ran a vast scam getting federal agricultural subsidies. According to Estes he obtained $21 million a year for "growing" and "storing" non-existent crops of cotton.

In 1960 Henry Marshall was asked to investigate the activities of Billie Sol Estes. Marshall discovered that over a two year period, Estes had purchased 3,200 acres of cotton allotments from 116 different farmers. Marshall wrote to his superiors in Washington on 31st August, 1960, that: "The regulations should be strengthened to support our disapproval of every case (of allotment transfers)".

When he heard the news, Billie Sol Estes sent his lawyer, John P. Dennison, to meet Marshall in Robertson County. At the meeting on 17th January, 1961, Marshall told Dennison that Estes was clearly involved in a "scheme or device to buy allotments, and will not be approved, and prosecution will follow if this operation is ever used." Marshall was disturbed that as a result of sending a report of his meeting to Washington, he was offered a new post at headquarters. He assumed that Bille Sol Estes had friends in high places and that they wanted him removed from the field office in Robertson County. Marshall refused what he considered to be a bribe.

A week after the meeting between Marshall and Dennison, A. B. Foster, manager of Billie Sol Enterprises, wrote to Clifton C. Carter, a close aide to Lyndon B. Johnson, telling him about the problems that Marshall was causing the company. Foster wrote that "we would sincerely appreciate your investigating this and seeing if anything can be done." Over the next few months Marshall had meetings with eleven county committees in Texas. He pointed out that Billie Sol Estes scheme to buy cotton allotments were illegal. This information was then communicated to those farmers who had been sold their cotton allotments to Billie Sol Enterprises.

On 3rd June, 1961, Marshall was found dead on his farm by the side of his Chevy Fleetside pickup truck. His rifle lay beside him. He had been shot five times with his own rifle. County Sheriff Howard Stegall decreed that Marshall had committed suicide. No pictures were taken of the crime scene, no blood samples were taken of the stains on the truck (the truck was washed and waxed the following day), and no check for fingerprints were made on the rifle or pickup.

Marshall's wife (Sybil Marshall) and brother (Robert Marshall) refused to believe he had committed suicide and posted a $2,000 reward for information leading to a murder conviction. The undertaker, Manley Jones, also reported: "To me it looked like murder. I just do not believe a man could shoot himself like that." The undertaker's son, Raymond Jones, later told the journalist, Bill Adler in 1986: "Daddy said he told Judge Farmer there was no way Mr. Marshall could have killed himself. Daddy had seen suicides before. JPs depend on us and our judgments about such things. we see a lot more deaths than they do. But in this case, Daddy said, Judge Farmer told him he was going to put suicide on the death certificate because the sheriff told him to." As a result, Lee Farmer returned a suicide verdict: "death by gunshot, self-inflicted."

Sybil Marshall hired an attorney, W. S. Barron, in order to persuade the Robertson County authorities to change the ruling on Marshall's cause of death. One man who did believe that Marshall had been murdered was Texas Ranger Clint Peoples. He had reported to Colonel Homer Garrison, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, that it "would have been utterly impossible for Mr. Marshall to have taken his own life."

Peoples also interviewed Nolan Griffin, a gas station attendant in Robertson County. Griffin claimed that on the day of Marshall's death, he had been asked by a stranger for directions to Marshall's farm. A Texas Ranger artist, Thadd Johnson, drew a facial sketch based on a description given by Griffin. Peoples eventually came to the conclusion that this man was Mac Wallace, the convicted murderer of John Kinser.

In early 1962, Oscar Griffin Jr., the city editor of The Pecos Independent and Enterprise, published an article arguing that thousands of mortgages had been taking out for nonexistent fertilizer tanks. Soon afterwards Billie Sol Estes was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on fraud and conspiracy charges. Time Magazine reported that "He (Billie Sol Estes) considered dancing immoral, often delivered sermons as a Church of Christ lay preacher. But he ruthlessly ruined business competitors, practiced fraud and deceit on a massive scale, and even victimized Church of Christ schools that he was supposed to be helping as a fund raiser or financial adviser."

It was also disclosed by the Secretary of Agriculture, Orville L. Freeman, that Henry Marshall had been a key figure in the investigation into the illegal activities of Billie Sol Estes. As a result, the Robertson County grand jury ordered that the body of Marshall should be exhumed and an autopsy performed. After eight hours of examination, Dr. Joseph A. Jachimczyk confirmed that Marshall had not committed suicide. Jachimczyk also discovered a 15 percent carbon monoxide concentration in Marshall's body. Jachimczyk calculated that it could have been as high as 30 percent at the time of death.

On 4th April, 1962, George Krutilek, Estes chief accountant, was found dead. Despite a severe bruise on Krutilek's head, the coroner decided that he had also committed suicide. The next day, Estes, and three business associates, were indicted by a federal grand jury on 57 counts of fraud. Two of these men, Harold Orr and Coleman Wade, later died in suspicious circumstances. At the time it was said they committed suicide but later Estes was to claim that both men were murdered by Mac Wallace in order to protect the political career of Lyndon B. Johnson.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations also began to look into the case of Billie Sol Estes. Leonard C. Williams, a former assistant to Henry Marshall, testified about the evidence the department acquired against Estes. Orville L. Freeman also admitted that Marshall was a man "who left this world under questioned circumstances."

It was eventually discovered that three officials of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in Washington had received bribes from Billie Sol Estes. Red Jacobs, Jim Ralph and Bill Morris were eventually removed from their jobs. However, further disclosures suggested that the Secretary of Agriculture, might be involved in the scam. In September, 1961, Billie Sol Estes had been fined $42,000 for illegal cotton allotments. Two months later, Freeman appointed Estes to the National Cotton Advisory Board.

It was also revealed that Billie Sol Estes told Wilson C. Tucker, deputy director of the Agriculture Department's cotton division, on 1st August, 1961, that he threatened to "embarrass the Kennedy administration if the investigation were not halted". Tucker went onto testify: "Estes stated that this pooled cotton allotment matter had caused the death of one person and then asked me if I knew Henry Marshall". As Tucker pointed out, this was six months before questions about Marshall's death had been raised publicly.

However, the cover-up continued. Tommy G. McWilliams, the FBI agent in charge of the investigation, came to the conclusion that Marshall had indeed committed suicide. He wrote: "My theory was that he shot himself and then realized he wasn't dead." He then claimed that he then tried to kill himself by inhaling carbon monoxide from the exhaust pipe of his truck. McWilliams claimed that Marshall had used his shirt to make a hood over the exhaust pipe. Even J. Edgar Hoover was not impressed with this theory. He wrote on 21st May, 1962: "I just can't understand how one can fire five shots at himself."

Joseph A. Jachimczyk also disagreed with the FBI report. He believed that the bruise on Marshall's forehead had been caused by a "severe blow to the head". Jachimczyk also rejected the idea that Marshall had used his shirt as a hood. He pointed out that "if this were done, soot must have necessarily been found on the shirt; no such was found."

The Robertson County grand jury continued to investigate the death of Henry Marshall. However, some observers were disturbed by the news that grand jury member, Pryse Metcalfe, was dominating proceedings. Metcalfe was County Sheriff Howard Stegall's son-in-law. On 1st June, 1962, the Dallas Morning News reported that President John F. Kennedy had "taken a personal interest in the mysterious death of Henry Marshall." As a result, the story said, Robert Kennedy "has ordered the FBI to step up its investigation of the case."

In June, 1962, Billie Sol Estes, appeared before the grand jury. He was accompanied by John Cofer, a lawyer who represented Lyndon B. Johnson when he was accused of ballot-rigging when elected to the Senate in 1948 and Mac Wallace when he was charged with the murder of John Kinser. Billie Sol Estes spent almost two hours before the grand jury, but he invoked the Texas version of the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer most questions on grounds that he might incriminate himself.

Tommy G. McWilliams of the FBI also appeared before the grand jury and put forward the theory that Henry Wallace had committed suicide. Dr. Joseph A. Jachimczyk also testified that "if in fact this is a suicide, it is the most unusual one I have seen during the examination of approximately 15,000 deceased persons." McWilliams did admit that it was "hard to kill yourself with a bolt-action 22". This view was shared by John McClellan, a member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He posed for photographs with a .22 caliber rifle similar to Marshall's. McClellan pointed out: "It doesn't take many deductions to come to the irrevocable conclusion that no man committed suicide by placing the rifle in that awkward position and then (cocking) it four times more."

Despite the evidence presented by Jachimczyk, the grand jury agreed with McWilliams. It ruled that after considering all the known evidence, the jury considers it "inconclusive to substantiate a definite decision at this time, or to overrule any decision heretofore made." Later, it was disclosed that some jury members believed that Marshall had been murdered. Ralph McKinney blamed Pryse Metcalfe for this decision. "Pryse was as strong in the support of the suicide verdict as anyone I have ever seen in my life, and I think he used every influence he possibly could against the members of the grand jury to be sure it came out with a suicide verdict."

Estes trial began in October 1962. John Cofer, who was also Lyndon Johnson's lawyer, refused to put Estes on the witness stand. Estes was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to eight years in prison. Federal proceedings against Estes began in March 1963. He was eventually charged with fraud regarding mortgages of more that $24 million. Estes was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

In 1964 the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations reported that it could find no link between Marshall's death and his efforts to bring to an end Billie Sol Estes' cotton allotment scheme. The following year Billie Sol Estes went to prison for fraud relating to the mostly nonexistent fertilizer tanks he had put up for collateral as part of the cotton allotment scam. He was released in 1971 but he was later sent back to prison for mail fraud and non-payment of income tax.

In 1964 J. Evetts Haley published A Texan Looks at Lyndon. In the book Haley attempted to expose Johnson's corrupt political activities. This included a detailed look at the relationship between Estes and Johnson. Haley pointed out that three men who could have provided evidence in court against Estes, George Krutilek, Harold Orr and Howard Pratt, all died of carbon monoxide poisoning from car engines.

The case was taken up by the journalist Joachim Joesten. In his books, The Dark Side of Lyndon Baines Johnson (1968) and How Kennedy was Killed: The Full Appalling Story (1968), Joesten argues that Lyndon B. Johnson was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and was as a direct result of the scandals involving Estes and Bobby Baker.

Clint Peoples retired from the Texas Rangers in 1974 but he continued to investigate the murder of Henry Marshall. In 1979 Peoples interviewed Billie Sol Estes in prison. Estes promised that "when he was released he would solve the puzzle of Henry Marshall's death".

Billie Sol Estes was released from prison in December, 1983. Three months later he appeared before the Robertson County grand jury. He confessed that Henry Marshall was murdered because it was feared he would "blow the whistle" on the cotton allotment scam. Billie Sol Estes claimed that Marshall was murdered on the orders of Lyndon B. Johnson, who was afraid that his own role in this scam would become public knowledge. According to Estes, Clifton C. Carter, Johnson's long-term aide, had ordered Marshall to approve 138 cotton allotment transfers.

Billie Sol Estes told the grand jury that he had a meeting with Johnson and Carter about Henry Marshall. Johnson suggested that Marshall be promoted out of Texas. Estes agreed and replied: "Let's transfer him, let's get him out of here. Get him a better job, make him an assistant secretary of agriculture." However, Marshall rejected the idea of being promoted in order to keep him quiet.

Estes, Johnson and Carter had another meeting on 17th January, 1961, to discuss what to do about Henry Marshall. Also at the meeting was Mac Wallace. After it was pointed out that Marshall had refused promotion to Washington, Johnson said: "It looks like we'll just have to get rid of him." Wallace, who Estes described as a hitman, was given the assignment.

Billie Sol Estes also told the grand jury that he met Clifton C. Carter and Mac Wallace at his home in Pecos after Marshall was killed. Wallace described how he waited for Marshall at his farm. He planned to kill him and make it appear as if Marshall committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. However, Marshall fought back and he was forced to shoot him with his own rifle. He quoted Carter as saying that Wallace "sure did botch it up." Johnson was now forced to use his influence to get the authorities in Texas to cover-up the murder. The grand jury rejected the testimony of Billie Sol Estes. Carter, Wallace and Johnson were all dead and could not confirm Billie Sol's testimony. However, the Grand Jury did change the verdict on the death of Henry Marshall from suicide to death by gunshot.

On 9th August, 1984, Estes' lawyer, Douglas Caddy, wrote to Stephen S. Trott at the U.S. Department of Justice. In the letter Caddy claimed that Estes, Lyndon B. Johnson, Mac Wallace and Clifton C. Carter had been involved in the murders of Henry Marshall, George Krutilek, Harold Orr, Ike Rogers, Coleman Wade, Josefa Johnson, John Kinser and John F. Kennedy. Caddy added: "Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders."

Four days later, the Texas Bureau of Vital Statistics ruled that there was now "clear and convincing" evidence to prove Henry Marshall was murdered and State District Judge Peter Lowry ordered that the death certificate should be changed to "homicide by gunshot wounds".

In 1984 Billie Sol Estes' daughter, Pam Estes, published Billie Sol: King of Texas Wheeler-Dealers. This was followed by JFK, the Last Standing Man (co-written with William Reymond) in France (Le Dernier Temoin). In the book Estes claims that Lyndon B. Johnson was involved in assassination of President John F. Kennedy. When interviewed by the American journalist, Pete Kendall, Estes said: “He (Johnson) told me if I wouldn’t talk, I would not go to jail.” Estes has had no contact with LBJ’s other long-ago associates, he said, since the book’s publication. “About all of them are dead, really. I think I’m about the last one standing.” That’s partly why, he said, he wasn’t interested in doing a book sooner. “I’ve been accused of being dumb,” he said, “but I’m not stupid.”

Douglas Caddy, Billie Sol Estes's lawyer, in reply to questions on the JFK Forum, said on 3rd March, 2012:

(1) I give great credibility to the accusations made by Billie Sol Estes in the relevant 1984 letter to the U.S. Department of Justice. There were contemporaneous newspaper reports of the untimely deaths of almost all of the persons listed by him in the letter. In addition, Texan historian J. Evetts Haley in his 1964 book, A Texan Looks at Lyndon, wrote in great detail about Estes and the victims.

(2) I don’t think my having met Estes, which originally occurred in 1983 when I was asked to do so by Shearn Moody, Jr., of the Moody Foundation in connection with a grant request from Estes, influenced my assessment of the accusations one way or the other. This is because there already existed in the public record much evidence to support Estes’ accusations.

(3) U.S. Marshal Clint Peoples, who had closely followed Estes’ activities for 25 years, told me on several occasions that his research supported Estes’ accusations. His exact words to me: “It is about time that the truth comes out.” It was Marshal Peoples who arranged for Estes to testify in 1984 before the Robertson County grand jury. Press reports at the time disclosed that Estes reiterated his accusations in his grand jury testimony.

(4) There was no signed and notarized document of Estes dating before I met him that recorded his accusations. He had not determined to tell what he knew until while still in federal prison at Big Spring, Texas, he contacted Shearn Moody, Jr. in 1983 and indicated he was prepared to relate for the public record what he knew.

(5) Estes has maintained that he has taped recordings of conversations of the conspirators that support his accusations. I have not heard the recordings and have no knowledge of their whereabouts.

(6) He confided in U.S. Marshal Peoples of what he knew. Peoples is now deceased. However, the transcript of Estes’ testimony before the Robertson County grand jury in 1984, if it were unsealed, would clarify much.

(7) At the time of JFK assassination, LBJ was facing criminal proceedings stemming from his involvement in the Billie Sol Estes and the Bobby Baker scandals that were reaching the explosive stage. LBJ’s involvement in these two scandals certainly adds credence to what Estes has alleged.

Billie Sol Estes died at his home in Granbury, Texas, on 13th May 2013.

On this day in 1931 John Muir, Secretary of the Workers' Educational Association (1928-31) died. Muir was born in Maryhill, Scotland in 1879. After leaving school he became an engineer. He also joined the Independent Labour Party and began working closely with other socialists in Glasgow including John Wheatley, Emanuel Shinwell, James Maxton, David Kirkwood, Campbell Stephen, William Gallacher, Tom Johnston, Jimmie Stewart, Neil Maclean, George Hardie, George Buchanan and James Welsh.

Muir was opposed to Britain becoming involved in the First World War and was a member of Clyde Workers' Committee and organisation that had been formed to campaign against the Munitions Act, which forbade engineers from leaving the works where they were employed. Muir was also editor of the Clyde Workers' Committee journal, The Worker. In 1916 the newspaper was prosecuted under the Defence of the Realm Act for an article criticizing the war. Muir and William Gallacher were both found guilty and sent to prison. Gallacher for six months and Muir for a year.

In the 1922 General Election Muir was elected to the House of Commons for Maryhill. Also successful were several other militant socialists based in Glasgow including David Kirkwood, John Wheatley, Campbell Stephen, Emanuel Shinwell, James Maxton, Tom Johnston, Campbell Stephen, Jimmie Stewart, Neil Maclean, George Hardie, George Buchanan and James Welsh.

In January 1924 Ramsay MacDonald appointed Muir as Minister of Pensions. However, he lost office when he was defeated in the 1924 General Election.

On this day in 1950 journalist Ernest Poole died. Poole was born in Chicago on 23rd January 1880. After graduating from Princeton University in 1902 he worked as a journalist where he campaigned for social reforms including an end to child labour. Poole's first novel, The Voice of the Street, was published in 1906.

On the outbreak of the First World War Poole worked as a war correspondent for The Saturday Evening Post. He wrote a novel about trade unions, entitled, The Harbour, was published in 1915. Two years later His Family won the Pulitzer Prize.

In 1917 The New Republic magazine sent him to Russia. He interviewed one farmer about the way the war had changed farming: "Our cooperative store has still quite a stock of goods, and the steadier peasants all belong. We have eighteen hundred members now. Each paid five roubles to buy a share. There were six thousand purchasers last year; and because we charge higher prices to outsiders than to members, so many more peasants wish to join that we are almost ready to announce a second issue of stock. Of course, our progress has been blocked by the war and the revolution. Goods have gone up to ruinous rates. Already we are nearly out of horseshoes, axes, harrows, ploughs. Last spring we had not ploughs enough to do the needed ploughing, and that is why our crop is short. There is not enough rye in the district to take us through the winter, let alone to feed the towns. And so the town people will starve for awhile - and sooner or later, I suppose, they will finish with their wrangling, start their mills and factories, and turn out the ploughs and tools we need."

These farmers were very critical of what was taking place in Petrograd: "Just take a trip to Petrograd. Go to any railroad siding there and you will see perfect hills of scrap iron. Why can't they melt it up again and out it to use? Soon we shall have no axles left, no tyres for our wagon wheels, no chains for the logs, no ploughs for the fields, no horseshoes for our horses! But still they do nothing! The blind fools! The trouble with those people is that they think all the best things are made in the cities. It is not so. Here we grow the flax and grain; here we raise the meat they eat, and the wool to keep them warm; we cut trees to build their houses and firewood to heat their stoves. Thy could not even cook without us! Other country districts turn out the coal and the iron ore. All the real things in Russia are done in the villages. What kind of crops do they raise in the towns? Only Grand Dukes, Bolsheviks and drunkards!"

Poole's experiences during the Russian Revolution were described in The Village: Russian Impressions (1918) and The Dark People: Russia's Crisis (1919). Other books by Poole include Russian Sketches (1925), an autobiography, The Bridge (1940), Giants Gone: Men Who Made Chicago (1943) and Great White Hills of New Hampshire (1946).

On this day in 1951 novelist Sinclair Lewis died of paralysis of the heart in Rome. Lewis, the son of a doctor, Edwin J. Lewis, was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, on 7th February 1885. His mother, Emma Kermott Lewis, died when he was six. In 1892 his father married Isabel Warner. Although he got on fairly well with his step-mother, at the age of thirteen he ran away from home, wanting to become a drummer boy in the Spanish-American War.

Lewis was educated at Oberlin Academy and Yale University. In 1906 Upton Sinclair, a member of the Socialist Party, and a successful writer, decided to use some of his royalties into establishing, Helicon Home Colony, a socialist community at Eaglewood. One of those who joined was Sinclair Lewis, who was to be greatly influenced by Upton Sinclair's views on politics and literature. Four months after it opened, a fire entirely destroyed Helicon. Later, Sinclair blamed his political opponents for the fire.

After his graduation from Yale University, Lewis worked for newspapers and publishing houses. His main objective was to be a full-time writer. For a period he was a member of Carmel, California writers' colony. He met Jack London and sold him plots of novels, including the one he used for The Assassination Bureau.

In 1908 Lewis moved to New York City where he became a freelance writer. His first novel, Hike and the Aeroplane was published in 1912. He married Grace Livingston Hegger in 1914. They had one son, Wells Lewis (1917–1944), who was named after author H.G. Wells.

Sinclair Lewis published Our Mr Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man in 1914. This was followed by The Trail of the Hawk (1915), but it was his novel Main Street (1920), that established his reputation as a great novelist. The book sold 180,000 copies in the first six months, and within a few years sales were estimated at two million.

Lewis's greatest work, Babbitt, was published in 1922. One critic wrote "The creation of George F. Babbit - whose name has become synonymous with bourgeois mediocrity - an intellectually empty, emotionally immature man of dubious morals who nevertheless remains a lovable comicstrip figure, is Lewis's greatest accomplishment."

His next novel, Arrowsmith (1925), about a young doctor's attempt to maintain his integrity in a world of commercialism, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. His next novel, Elmer Gantry, the story of a revivalist minister, appeared in 1927. Dodsworth (1929), was an account of a retired automobile manufacturer travelling in Europe. Both books were well-received and in 1930 Lewis became the first American novelist to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. When he received the prize he warned that writers were "still afraid of any literature which is not a glorification of everything American, a glorification of our faults as well as our virtues."

Although no longer an active socialist, Lewis continued to write books that revealed his commitment to political and social change. This included Ann Vickers (1933), a book about the women's movement and prison reform, and It Can't Happen Here (1935) a warning about the dangers of fascism.

After the Second World War his novels included Cass Timberlane (1945), Kingsblood Royal (1947) and God-Seeker (1949). Sinclair Lewis was an alcoholic and after a heart attack his doctors advised him that he must stop drinking if he wanted to live. Lewis was unable to do this and died on 10th January 1951.

On this day in 1961 Dashiell Hammett died. Hammett, the son of a clerk, was born in St. Mary's County, Maryland, on 27th May, 1894. He left school at 13 and was employed in a variety of different jobs before joining the Pinkerton Detective Agency in 1915.

Lillian Hellman later claimed that Hammett turned down an offer of $5,000 to "do away with" Frank Little while working in Montana. Little, a leading figure in the Industrial Workers of the World was lynched in August 1917. Hellman recalled: "Through the years he was to repeat that bribe offer (to kill Frank Little) so many times, that I came to believe, knowing him now, that it was a kind of key to his life. He had given a man the right to think he would murder, and the fact that Frank Little was lynched with three other men in what was known as the Everett Massacre must have been, for Hammett, an abiding horror. I think I can date Hammett's belief that he was living in a corrupt society from Little's murder."

Disgusted by the behaviour of the Pinkerton agents, Hammett joined the United States Army during the First World War. However, he contracted tuberculosis and spent some time in army hospitals. While in hospital Hammett met and married a nurse, Josephine Dolan. The couple had two daughters, Mary Jane (1921) and Josephine (1926). However, the couple eventually parted abut Hammett continued to financially support his wife and daughters. In 1929 he began an affair with Nell Martin, the author of several stories that had been made into movies. This included The Adventures of Mazie (1925), The Vanishing Armenian (1925), High, But Not Handsome (1926) and Little Andy Looney (1926).

Hammett's work with the Pinkerton Detective Agency provided material for detective stories that he published in the Black Mask Magazine. His first novel, Red Harvest, appeared in 1929. This was followed by The Dain Curse (1929) and The Maltese Falcon (1930), a novel that introduced the fictional detective, Sam Spade. After the publication of The Glass Key (1931) and The Thin Man (1932), Hammett was invited to Hollywood where he worked on several scripts.

During this period he began living with Lillian Hellman and over the next few years the couple became involved in the campaign against the growth of fascism in Europe. They joined with other literary figures such as Clifford Odets, Michael Gold, John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway in supporting the Popular Front government during the Spanish Civil War. In 1937 he joined the American Communist Party.

On 26th May, 1938, the United States House of Representatives authorized the formation of the Special House Committee on Un-American Activities. The first chairman of the Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was Martin Dies. The original intention of the HUCA was to investigate both left-wing and right wing political groups. In a statement made on 20th July 1938, Dies claimed that many Nazis and Communists were leaving the United States because of his pending interrogations. The New Republic argued that the right-wing Dies, who it described as "physically a giant, very young, ambitious, and cocksure" would target those on the left. It was no surprise when Dies immediately announced that he intended to investigate aspects of the New Deal that had been established by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

J. Parnell Thomas, a member of the HUCA, described the Federal Theatre Project as being "infested by radicals from top to bottom" and on 26th July, 1938, called for Hallie Flanagan to answer questions before the committee. Flanagan immediately went on the attack arguing that: "Some of the statements reported to have been made by him (Parnell Thomas) are obviously absurd... of course no one need first join or be a member of any organization in order to obtain employment in a theatre project."

Dashiell Hammett was one of those who came to the defence of Flanagan. In October 1938 he argued: "We indignantly reject these irresponsible attacks. At this crucial time when the cooperation of all democratic forces is so essential, this attack throws a very dubious light on the character of the whole Dies investigation. It emphasizes the need for the greatest alertness on the part of all democracy-loving American people."

Hammett was involved in the screenplay for Woman in the Dark (1934), Mister Dynamite (1935), The Glass Key (1935), Satan Met a Lady (1936), After the Thin Man (1936), Another Thin Man (1939), Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) and The Maltese Falcon (1941).

In 1942, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hammett enlisted in the United States Army. As a victim of tuberculosis he was not fit enough for active service and so he was sent to the Aleutian Islands, where he edited an army newspaper, which people complained was too pro-Russian.

After the Second World War Hammett decided to concentrate on politics rather than writing. On 5th June 1946 he was elected President of the Civil Rights Congress. Later that year a bail fund was created by the CRC to help those arrested for political reasons. The three trustees of the fund were Hammett, Robert W. Dunn, and Frederick Vanderbilt Field.

On 20th July, 1948, Eugene Dennis, the general secretary of the American Communist Party, and eleven other party leaders, including William Z. Foster, Benjamin Davis, John Gates, Robert G. Thompson, Gus Hall, Benjamin Davis, Henry M. Winston, and Gil Green were arrested and charged under the Alien Registration Act. This law, passed by Congress in 1940, made it illegal for anyone in the United States "to advocate, abet, or teach the desirability of overthrowing the government". The CRC fund was used to bail thses men.

Hammett testified on July 9, 1951 in front of Judge Sylvester Ryan. During the hearing Hammett refused to provide the list of contributors to the bail fund. On every question regarding the CRC or the bail fund, Hammett took the Fifth Amendment. Hammett was then called to appear before the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Hammett agreed to talk about his own involvement with radical groups, but was unwilling to give names of his comrades. He was found guilty of contempt of Congress and as well as being blacklisted, was sent to prison for six months.