The inhabitants of Eyam, Derbyshire, initiated a quarantine to control a Black Death outbreak in 1665—for fourteen months, no one was allowed into or out of the town. Only a quarter of the citizens survived. One local farmer, Elizabeth Hancock, was forced to bury her husband, along with six of her seven children, over an eight-day period in August 1666.

Admiral Horatio Nelson was shot on the deck of the HMS Victory by a French sniper during the Battle of Trafalgar. “I do believe they have done it at last,” Nelson told his flag captain. “My backbone is shot through.” On that day, October 21, 1805, the English fleet had taken fifteen enemy ships. A state funeral was held for him in London on January 8, his body having been preserved for nearly two months in a cask of brandy aboard the ship.