Disraeli was born in 1804, one year before the battle of Trafalgar. He was a son of Jewish parents converted to Christianity. Certainly not the first or only…
Author: Dean Swift
‘Dean Swift’ is a pen name: the author has been a soldier; he has worked in sales, TV, the making of films, as a teacher of English and history and a journalist. He is married with three grown-up children. They live in Spain.
The witch trials at Salem, Massachusetts, 1692
Witch-hunting, of one type or another, has always been a popular spectator sport. Gypsies, Jews, witches, Catholics, Recusant Catholics, Protestants, homosexuals – everybody has been through it during…
Salazar of Portugal
In 1889 Antonio de Oliveira Salazar was born into a devout smallholding family of peasant origins. Showing that he had a studious and attentive mind, he was accepted…
The EIGHTY years war
There have been wars that lasted a few days; the Great War lasted a terrible four years, and the Second World War six. There was a thirty year…
Catalunya, the Revolt of Cataluña & the Count-Duke of Olivares
Catalonia (English spelling), Cataluña (Castilian spelling) and Catalunya (Catalán spelling) all refer to the same autonomous region, made up by the provinces of Barcelona, Gerona, Lérida and Tarragona…
Alexander II (killed) & Alexander III (survived) of Russia
Alexander II, the second son of Nicholas I was born in 1818. It is true but sad to say that the only significant reforms made in Russia in…
The defenestration of Prague
This is a difficult word to find in many otherwise excellent dictionaries; its source is the French word fenêtre meaning window. The act of defenestration means the throwing…
The Capet rulers of France
The Capet Dynasty dominated France for over three hundred years. The dates are 987 to 1328. Before them were the Carolingians, and it was one Hugh Capet who…
Bavaria and the War of the Bavarian Succession
Bavaria is an almost painfully beautiful area in the south-easternmost part of Germany. It is also one of the oldest existing political entities in Europe, though it has…
The Ist Duke of Berwick, illegitimate and Jacobite
James Fitzjames was born in 1670. His father was James II of England and VII of Scotland, younger brother of Charles II. His mother was Mrs Arabella Churchill,…