On this day - 8 June

Emily Davison was a well known suffragette born on October 11th 1872. She was involved in many acts of activism, fighting for voting rights for women. She was arrested several times and took part in many hunger strikes which led to her being force fed.

She died on June 8th 1913 having been in hospital for several days. On June 4th she had been at the Epsom Derby where she had walked onto the horse race track and reached for the reigns of King George V's horse. The horse hit her and she fell to the ground unconscious. Despite an operation and hospital care, she never regained consciousness following a base of skull fracture. It remains unclear why she did this, but there are suggestions that she intended to place a suffragette flag around the horses neck.