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Guy Fawkes, born on 13th April 1570 in Yorkshire, is a name almost everyone in the UK will know. After his father’s death in 1579, his mother remarried and it is known the family were then against, and resisting, the authority of the Church of England. Guy Fawkes finally converted to Catholicism when in his mid teens. At this period, religion was a big part of life and Catholicism was not the religion to be in. Catholics were openly persecuted, with harsh punishments. For example, Margaret Clitherow was caught harbouring Catholics and was punished by being crushed to death.

The Space Race was a competition, not in the traditional sense, between United States and the Soviet Union to get in to space. The Soviets launched Sputnik 1 on 4th October 1957 into Earth orbit. This was the first time a man-made object had been launched from the Earth’s surface and placed into space.

The Black Death has his many countries around the world killing millions. An estimated 100 million at it's height, may be more, in the mid 14th century. The Black Death is commonly thought to be an out break of bubonic plague, although this has been questioned.

What if the structure of DNA had not been discovered, or had been discovered 100 years earlier? Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) stores the information that tells cells how to develop and what their function is. Without this, life as we know it is not possible. It was in 1951 that James Watson and Francis Crick started their work on figuring out the structure of DNA. Since then development has increased dramatically to the point where animals and plants can be genetically engineered by altering their DNA.

What if the structure of DNA had been found 100 years earlier?

What If: Charles Darwin had never developed and/or published his theory of evolution by natural selection? This year, 2009, is Darwin’s 200th birthday, having been born on 12 February 1809 and 150 years since the publication of "On the Origin of Species." Darwin took on various studies and interests and eventually ended up studying nature. He formed varying ideas; he looked at the transmutation of species, which was essentially the forerunner to evolution, as well as other areas.