Here for students of history is a plan of events between the naval battle of Trafalgar and the final battle in the European conflict against Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo. The career of Arthur Wellesley, the boy from Eton who became Duke of Wellington marches alongside the campaigns. (more…)
Definition: a social democrat is a usually suscription-paying member of a left-wing, ex-communist or centre-left political party that combines basically socialist aims with constitutional methods, plus a general acceptance (or tolerance) of some of the basic tenets of the capitalist system. The present system in China springs to mind as an unequalled example of an ex-communist country embracing a good many of the principles of social democracy. A bad example would be Cuba, where the system is wholly totalitarian, and the methodology of early sovietism in Soviet Russia is commonplace. (more…)
Before bullying political correctness did its best to blow good language off the map, ‘Native Americans’ meant “Redskins”, “Red Indians”, occasionally (especially in Westerns) “them varmints!”, “the red man”, “Indians!”, “Take cover behind the wagons, “‘tis them savages agin!” etc. etc. (more…)
Lord Palmerston / yalebooks.wordpress.com
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston was born in 1784. George Canning was born in 1770. Neither man saw much point in the other, and the difference of fourteen years in their age did not prevent them from internecine conflict. (more…)
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (also known as the Soviet Union) used to occupy all the northern part of Asia, and a substantial part of Eastern Europe. Under that name, what was before, and is now again Russia lasted from 1936 to 1991. It comprised fifteen constituent republics. (more…)
A corner of the University of Santiago, Spain, one of the oldest universities in the world / tuhostal.com
It is an institute of higher education, responsible for taking students from the schools and giving them, through teaching, research and studies, an extended education which may lead to a Degree. The difference between a College and a University is that there may be many colleges in one university campus, each teaching different disciplines. (more…)
/ es.doblaje,wikia,com
The fortieth President of the United States was born in 1911. He grew up to be a college athlete and a handsome actor in Hollywood movies, westerns in particular. He was by no means a bad actor, just an underrated one. In California, where the peculiar tradition of actors becoming politicians is noted, Reagan became a Republican (conservative) Governor in 1966 when he was fifty-five years old. (more…)
The pilgrimage ‘of Grace’ / channel4.com
Pilgrimage of Grace is a euphemism for an outbreak of rebellions in the northern counties of England in 1536/7. The most prominent of these was led by a lawyer called Robert Aske. (more…)
Wrestling, one of the original Olympic games / greece.greekreporter.com
The London 2012 Olympics draw nearer. Several private persons and many corporations will become infinitely richer by the no doubt spectacular ending. Others may well be filing for bankruptcy. Mayor of London Boris Johnson will achieve either more splendour or some derision depending on the results of his and Lord Sebastian Coe’s organisation.
The Olympics are supposed to be a world festival of sports inspired by the ancient Greek games held at Olympia in Greece until their prohibition in 393 AD. Our modern version owes its existence to a Frenchman, the Baron de Coubertin. He conceived a super-championship for amateur sportsmen and athletes to be held every four years. (more…)
Princeton, one university from the Ivy League
In the United States there are hundreds of universities. Only eight of them belong to an exclusive club or association called the Ivy League. Each is a private institute of learning; each is thought to excel not only in teaching and adjudication, but also in sports. As in the United Kingdom, a ‘university’ is a collection of colleges gathered under one name, rather like the US is itself a collection of federated states. The only equivalent in Britain to the Ivy League is ‘Oxbridge’ – meaning the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Naturally, the latter are much older. (more…)