This project traces key events in European history since 1900 by photographing the exact locations on their anniversaries. Each image marks a site where significant, often irreversible events occurred. Grounded in detailed research, it draws on archival photos, artefacts, and eyewitness accounts to ensure accuracy. On This Day creates a visual dialogue between past and present, inviting reflection on how familiar places carry historical weight. While some sites, such as Sarajevo’s bridge or Downing Street, appear unchanged, they evoke moments that have shaped history. By merging contemporary photography with precise historical study, the project redefines documentary practice, using the present to confront the enduring presence of the past.

Image: 9th Sept 2022. Wardens outside Windsor Castle mark the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning British monarch, who died at Balmoral Castle aged 96.
Archive image: Public domain portrait of Her Majesty wearing Canadian insignia as Sovereign of the Order of Canada and the Order of Military Merit.

The catastrophic fire that broke out in Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey high-rise in North Kensington, West London was caused by an electrical fault in a refrigerator and exacerbated by combustible cladding. The blaze burned for 60 hours, claiming 72 lives, injuring over 70, and forcing 223 to escape. Declared a major disaster, it involved over 250 firefighters, 70 fire engines, and extensive emergency services. Starting in September 2017, the Grenfell Tower Inquiry highlighted regulatory non-compliance; its final report is expected in September 2024. Following the fire, the council's leadership resigned, direct control of council housing was reallocated, and a civil settlement was reached in April 2023 with 900 affected individuals.
Archive image: Natalie Oxford /Creative Commons 4.0.

The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, began with Bosniak males being rounded up and transported to various execution sites. One key site was the football field in Nova Kasaba, where many of these men were detained before being executed. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague ruled that these events amounted to genocide, a designation that Serbia fiercely disputes.
Archive image: CTY Through Children’s Eyes by Igor, 12, Sarajevo.

June 22nd, 1948. Tilbury Docks. Essex. The landing stage where HMT Empire Windrush arrived, carrying 492 passengers from the Caribbean, many of whom were invited to help rebuild Britain after the Second World War. This marked a key moment in British history, often seen as the start of the Windrush Generation. Archive image: Postcard from HMT Windrush (artist’s collection).

Akyarlar beach in Bodrum, Turkey, where the lifeless body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, a Syrian refugee, was discovered in September 2015. This story brought global attention to the refugee crisis, highlighting many's desperate journeys in search of safety and a better life.
Archive image: Nilüfer Demir / Researchgate / DHA /CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Geneva. Switzerland. Corridor of CERN Building 2 where Sir Tim Berners Lee released the source code for the world’s first web browser and editor. Originally called Mesh, the browser that he dubbed ‘WorldWideWeb’ became the first royalty-free, easy-to-use means of browsing the emerging information network that developed into the internet as we know it today.

Archive image: The source code contained approximately 9,555 lines, including implementations of the three languages and protocols. Public Domain.

Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, Berkshire. The first recorded death in the UK of coronavirus was at The Royal Berkshire NHS Trust. The patient, in her 70s, had been "in and out of hospital for non-coronavirus reasons”. On March 5th 2020 the prime minister's official spokesman said it was "highly likely the virus is going to spread in a significant way”. On the same day, the number of UK people diagnosed with the virus had reached 116, a rise of more than 30 in 24 hours.

Archive image: England's chief medical officer, Chris Whitty during a coronavirus information campaign.
Photograph courtesy: HM Government.

Wannsee, Berlin, Germany.
The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of Departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews that Reinhard Heydrich had been appointed as the chief executor of the “Final solution to the Jewish question”.

Archive image: Nazi Officer Reinhard Heydrich. He was an SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei and also chief of the Reich Main Security Office. Photograph courtesy: German Federal Archive.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) attempted to assassinate members of the British government at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England. A time-delay bomb had been planted in the bathroom wall of Room 629 a month earlier by Patrick Magee. Five people were killed, including the Conservative MP and Deputy Chief Whip, Sir Anthony Berry, and a further 31 were injured. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher narrowly escaped the explosion. It has been suggested that this event was the most serious attempt to blow up the British Government since the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
Archive image: Conservative Party chairman, Norman Tebbit, as seen on BBC TV News as he is pulled from the rubble of the Grand Hotel, Brighton after he was trapped for four hours following the IRA bomb blast. He suffered a broken leg and chest injuries. BBC TV News.

Auschwitz II‚ Birkenau concentration camp.
An estimated 1.3 million people were sent to the camp, of which at least 1.1 million died. Around 90% of those were Jews; approximately one in six Jews killed in the Holocaust died at the camps. More people died in Auschwitz than the British and American losses of World War Two combined. The day is now commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Archive image © IWM. Pencil Sketch from Auschwitz by Jan Hartman.

Women from the Greenham Common Peace Camp formed a 14-mile human chain from Greenham to Aldermaston. The camp was established to protest against American Nuclear Cruise missiles being placed at RAF Greenham Common, Berkshire, England. The media attention surrounding the camp inspired people across Europe to create other peace camps. Sections of the fence were cut and there were hundreds of arrests. The camp was active for 19 years but in 2000 most of the fences surrounding the base were finally taken down. The site of the protests has now been turned into a Country park and memorial to honour the disarmament movement. ⁣

Archive Image: © PA/Alamy.

Diorama at the Coventry Transport Museum depicts a rescue worker operating a Coventry Climax fire pump amidst the shroud of smoke and drizzle that cloaks the city of Coventry following the air raid of the 14th November 1940. During the raid, 4,330 homes were destroyed also three-quarters of the city's factories were damaged along with the city's tram system. Out of a fleet of 181 buses, only 73 remained. Most of the city's gas and water pipes were smashed and people were advised to boil emergency water supplies. Amongst the devastation lay the bodies of 554 men, women and children many of whom were never identified also 865 people were injured. During the raid, the Luftwaffe dropped 30,000 incendiary bombs, 500 tons of high explosives, 50 landmines and 20 oil mines. The attack had gone on non-stop for almost eleven hours. The world had never witnessed this sort of airborne destruction before and the Germans coined a new word for it 'coventrated'.’

Archive image © Mirrorpix/Alamy.

Great Yarmouth, England.
Imperial Navy Zeppelin airships took off from Fuhlsbvottel, Germany. Zeppelin L3 crossed the coast of East Anglia and then curved southeast towards Great Yarmouth. L3 then dropped its bombs onto the St Peter’s Plain area of Great Yarmouth killing shoemaker Samuel Alfred Smith and spinster Martha Taylor. They became the first British civilians to be killed by aerial bombardment in World War One.

Archive image: Unexploded ordnance dropped from Zeppelin airship. Picture courtesy: Norfolk County Council.

Chamberlain Street, Derry, Ireland. Bloody Sunday, sometimes called the Bogside Massacre. British soldiers shot 28 unarmed civilians during a peaceful protest march against internment. Fourteen people died: thirteen were killed outright while the death of another man four months later was attributed to his injuries. Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Chamberlain Street was the site where Jackie Duddy (17) and Patrick Doherty (31) were shot.

Archive image: Father Edward Daly’s blood-soaked handkerchief became the iconic image of the Bloody Sunday massacre. Photograph courtesy: Museum of Free Derry.

Maastricht, The Netherlands.
The Maastricht Treaty was signed by twelve member states of the European Community at the Government buildings of the Limburg province, Maastricht, Netherlands. It led to the creation of the single European currency, the euro and changed the official denomination of the EEC, henceforth, it was known as the European Union.

Archive image: Souvenir euro banknote issued for the Moneyfair conference in Maastricht 2018 printed by the official Euro banknote printing company. Photograph courtesy: Artist’s collection.

Cambridge, England
Room 103, Austin Wing, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge.
The historic site where James Watson and Francis Crick proposed the double helix structure of DNA in 1953 was made possible in part by the critical X-ray diffraction data produced by Rosalind Franklin, whose pioneering work was foundational to this discovery.

Archive image: Photo 51 X-ray diffraction image of crystallised DNA taken by Raymond Gosling, who is working as a PhD student under the supervision of Rosalind Franklin. It was critical evidence in identifying the structure of DNA. Photograph courtesy: King’s College London. UK.

Atocha Station, Madrid, Spain.
At 07:34hrs ten explosions occurred aboard four commuter trains. The bombings constituted the deadliest terrorist attack carried out in the history of both Spain and the European Union killing 192 people and injuring more than 1,800. There was strong evidence, including the type of explosives used, that al-Qaeda-inspired militants were behind the attacks, but a decade on, there are those in Spain who still refuse to rule out the possibility of ETA involvement.

Archive image: Six of the 29 men charged with 191 counts of murder and 1,755 counts of attempted murder in the Madrid train bombings, from left to right at the top: Emilio Suarez Trashorras, Jamal Zougam and Rabei Osman. From left to right at the bottom, Hasan al Haski, Youssef Belhadj and Abdelmajid Bouchar.

Photograph courtesy: CNP handout.

Gdansk Shipyards, Poland.
The Trade Union Solidarity began a nationwide strike in protest against the police beating several union activists (including Jan Rulewski) in Bydgoszcz. The Union then held a four-hour national warning strike. The whole country was brought to a standstill, demonstrating the enormous influence of Solidarity.

Archive image: Envelope and postage stamp of Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa. Photograph courtesy: Artist’s collection.

Cobh, Ireland.
RMS Titanic was anchored off Roches Point for just two hours. A total of 123 passengers embarked at Queenstown (now called Cobh) three travelled first class, seven in second class while the remainder travelled in steerage (third class). After boarding the tenders at the White Star Pier they proceeded to the Deepwater Quay (where Cobh Heritage Centre is now located) to load mail bags from the mail train. A total of 1,308 passengers were on board as they left Queenstown together with 898 crew members making a total of 2,206 people on board as she embarked on her final fateful journey.

Archive image: RMS Titanic passenger list of British passengers that embarked at Southampton for New York. Photograph courtesy: Michael W. Pocock.

O'Connell Street, Dublin, Ireland.
The Easter Uprising took place in April 1916 in Dublin and is one of the pivotal events in modern Irish history. At the end of the Easter uprising,15 men identified as leaders were executed at Kilmainham Jail. To some, these men were traitors, to others they became heroes. About 1,200 members of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army mustered at several locations in central Dublin. The General Post Office in O'Connell Street would be the rebels' headquarters for most of the Rising. Archive image:

Archive image: The starting handle of Michael Joseph O'Rahilly's De Dion-Bouton motorcar, which he drove to O'Connell Street on Easter Monday. The car was used as a barricade outside the General Post Office. Photograph courtesy: National Museum of Ireland.

Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina.
The Latin Bridge in Sarajevo was the site of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria who was mortally wounded by Gavrilo Princip. Which led to the start of the First World War.

Archive image: Archduke Franz Ferdinand with his wife Sophie lying in state. Photograph courtesy: IWM.

Downing Street, London, England.
The United Kingdom general election of 1979 was held to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons. The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher ousted the incumbent Labour government of James Callaghan with a parliamentary majority of 44 seats.

Archive image: Christmas card featuring a photo of the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with her husband Denis outside 10 Downing Street. December 1980. Photograph courtesy: John Jochimsen/COI

Tattenham Corner, Epsom Racecourse, Surrey.
Emily Wilding Davison was a militant activist who fought for women’s suffrage in Britain. She was jailed on nine occasions and force-fed 49 times. She is best known for stepping in front of King George V’s horse Anmer at the Epsom Derby on 4th June 1913, sustaining injuries that resulted in her death four days later.

Archive image: Emily Wilding Davison memorial leaflet. Photograph courtesy: People’s History Museum Manchester.

Arromanches-les-Bains, Normandy, France.
D- Day (operation Overlord). More than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily-fortified French coastline, More than 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion.

Archive image: German army signal sent at 04:15 hrs 6th June 1944. Translated from German; “Tracked down thousands of ships. They’re Coming”. Photograph courtesy: Artist’s collection.

Sheffield, England.
The Battle of Orgreave was a violent confrontation between police and pickets at a British Steel Corporation (BSC) coking plant in Orgreave, South Yorkshire. It was a pivotal event in the 1984–85 UK miners’ strike and one of the most violent clashes in British industrial history. Historians have described the confrontation as “almost medieval in its choreography at various stages a siege, a battle, a chase, a rout”.

Archive image © National Coal Mining Museum. NUM Miners’ Strike Stickers.

Delville Wood, Longueval, France.
The Battle of the Somme remains one of the bloodiest battles in history having caused approximately 57,000 casualties for the British Army in the first day alone. It was blamed on the inexperience and patchy training of the British soldiers. After four months of fighting about 420,000 soldiers of British and Commonwealth forces died, were wounded or went missing. In four months an area of 20 miles wide and 6 miles long was taken from German possession.

Archive image © IWM. Cross-section of a tree trunk bearing embedded bullet in the centre of section and inscription (in pencil) ‘LONE TREE’.

Edgware Road, London, England.
On the morning of Thursday, 7 July 2005, four Islamist extremists separately detonated three bombs in quick succession aboard London Underground trains across the city. The bomb, on a westbound Circle Line train heading towards Paddington, exploded in the second carriage close to the second set of double doors. It killed six people.

Archive image: London suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan relays a message before claiming the lives of six people and injuring 120 in the Edgware Road Circle Line attack. Photograph courtesy: Al Jazeera.

Paris France.
Diana, Princess of Wales was involved in a fatal car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris. Her driver, Henri Paul, who was the Deputy Head of Security of the Hôtel Ritz Paris was the driver of the Mercedes Henri Paul had been off duty that evening but was called back to drive Diana and Dodi Fayed to their apartment. The car crashed at high speed only their bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones survived. There have been many conspiracy theories surrounding the car crash. British and French police investigations put the blame largely on Henri Paul for being affected by alcohol and prescription drugs, and driving recklessly.

Archive image: Photograph used at the inquest into the deaths. It shows Diana with Fayed in the lift at the Ritz Hotel the afternoon before they both died. Photograph courtesy: HM Corners’s Office.

Aberfan, Mid Glamorgan, Wales.
The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a National Coal Board (NCB) colliery spoil tip in the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, UK. The tip slid down the mountain above the village at 09.15hrs, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed the local junior school and other buildings in the town. The collapse was caused by the build-up of water in the accumulated rock and shale tip, which suddenly slid downhill in the form of slurry.

Archive image: Colour slide of the village of Aberfan showing the extent of the devastated area. Photograph courtesy: National Museum Wales.

Berlin, Germany.
The Bornholmer Strasse border crossing was the first breach of the Berlin wall by citizens of the DDR. Paving the way for German reunification. Archive image: Archive image: Small section of the Berlin Wall was acquired by the British Military Forces. Photograph courtesy: IWM.

The Maltings, Salisbury, England. Sergei and Yulia Skripal fell unconscious on a public bench after being poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. Skripal was a former Russian military officer and double agent for the UK's intelligence services. A similar poisoning of two British nationals in Amesbury involved the same nerve agent. A man found the nerve agent in a Premier Jour perfume, in a litter bin, he gave it to a woman who sprayed it on her wrist. The woman, Dawn Sturgess, died on 8 July, and the man survived. Sergei and Yulia both regained consciousness one month later.

Archive image: The Premier Jour perfume bottle used in the attack.

Photograph courtesy: Metropolitan Police.

Fingerpost Field, Much Marcle, Herefordshire. Fred West was an English serial killer who committed suicide at HM Prison Birmingham. Together with his wife Rosemary, he committed at least twelve murders between 1967 and 1987 in Gloucestershire. His first known victim was Anne McFall, (18), McFall's remains were found in Fingerpost Field, Much Marcle, Herefordshire. Her body had been placed in a rectangular pit and covered with loose topsoil. She had been pregnant with a daughter and her pregnancy had been in its eighth month.

Archive image: Frederick and Rosemary West during their appearance at Gloucester Magistrates Court in 1994.
Photograph courtesy: Julia Quenzler / Alamy/ PA images.

St. Petersburg, Russia. The Russian Revolution was led by the Bolsheviks, who used their influence in the Petrograd to organise the armed forces. Bolshevik Red Guards forces under the Military Revolutionary Committee began the takeover of government buildings and the Winter Palace (the seat of the Provisional government located in Petrograd, then capital of Russia), was captured.

Archive image: Taken by Viktor Bulla on the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and Sadovaya. This photograph became the visual incarnation of the Revolution, despite having been taken in July and not in October.

*The Julian calendar was employed in Russia at the time. 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar

Tundergarth, Lockerbie, Scotland.
Flight 103 was a regularly scheduled Pan Am  from Frankfurt to Detroit via London and New York. N739PA, the aircraft operating the transatlantic leg of the route, was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 259 passengers and crew members along with 11 people on the ground. A Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was convicted in 2001 for placing the bomb. He was the only person ever found guilty. Libya later accepted responsibility and paid compensation to victims’ families, though it denied direct involvement by top officials. There are also alternative theories suggesting involvement by Iran or Palestinian groups, but none have been proven.

Archive image: Test-loaded Samsonite suitcase containing a modified Toshiba SF16 cassette player (that contained an improvised explosive device). Photograph courtesy: Public Domain/ COPFS

Stephen Lawrence was a black British teenager from Plumstead, southeast London, who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus in Well Hall Road, Eltham he was 18 years old. The case became a cause célèbre: its fallout included changes of attitudes on racism and the police, and to the law and police practice. It also led to the partial revocation of the rule against double jeopardy. Two of the perpetrators were convicted of murder on 3rd January 2012. Archive Image: Justin Williams/ Alamy/PA

Old Sally Port, Portsmouth. When Argentina invaded the Falklands Islands, it sent shockwaves around the world. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government ordered a plan for the war, code-named Operation Corporate. More than 100 ships set sail from Portsmouth for the Falklands, the scale of which had not been seen since the build-up to the D-Day landings in 1944. The armada included aircraft carriers HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible. Archive image: 40 Commando Anti-Tank Troop march towards Port Stanley, Falkland Islands. Royal Marine Peter Robinson, carried the Union Flag attached to the aerial of his radio. Photograph courtesy: IWM.