François P.G. Guizot
/ en.wikipedia.org This statesman was born 1787, not a safe time to be born anywhere in France. His father was killed by the guillotine during the Terror (q.v.); somehow François survived to serve [...]
Immigration to the United States
Immigrants – those who arrive in a new country having left their own: Emigrants – those who leave their own country to go to another: Emigration – the act of leaving one’s country to start [...]
The influenza pandemic (and panic) of 1918
Mass treatment for influenza in the USA / en.wikipedia.org The Plague, or the Black Death or Bubonic Plague struck down nearly a third of the population in most European countries during the Middle [...]
The riot in the Haymarket Square
/ fineartamerica.com Haymarket Square is in Chicago. In 1886 a diminutive anarchist movement, led by German agitators, gathered there to cause trouble. They called on the crowds to achieve reforms by violent action, [...]
The Russo-Polish War of 1929
Following the collapse of Germany at the end of the Great War, Poland foundf herself independent, a most unusual position for that sad country. It was November, 1918; Marshal Pilsudski was commander of Polish forces [...]
Friedrich Engels
Engels as a young man / theguardian.com Marx and Engels go together like Marks and Spencer; Karl and Groucho are however better known than Engels, though without him we would probably have had [...]
Charles James Fox
/ telegraph.com was born in 1749, but his upward mobility was such that he was in Parliament at the age of nineteen. This may have been been because in debating societies at school [...]
Erich von Falkenhayn
/ es.wikipedia.org This Junker was born in 1861. As a child at severe schools he was perceived as self-reliant, honest and intelligent. He must have used these talents well because by 1913 he [...]
Who were ‘the Free French?’
/ en-wikipedia.org Germany attacked France in May, 1940. 136 German divisions faced 125 British, French and Belgian ones. The Germans had over two thousand tanks, but even their commander admitted half were obsolete. [...]
Herbert Asquith (Ist Earl of Oxford and Asquith)
/ en.wikipedia.org Only Dickens, or perhaps Anthony Trollope, could have invented the name Asquith for one of their novels. It is a respectable surname, but certainly rather odd. Our subject was born in [...]
What was the ‘Wild West’?
William Bonney / the bluegrassspecial-com It was a term used, mainly by Americans, to describe frontier society in the second half of the nineteenth century. Before the eighteen fifties the huge area between [...]
Nicolas I of Russia
/ en.wikipedia.org This younger brother of Alexander I was born in 1796, and became Tsar in 1825 at nearly thirty years old. Any chance that there might have been to make him a [...]
The English Pope
Pope Adrian at a crowning ceremony / telegraph.co.uk Strictly speaking, our title should be ‘The only English Pope’, since that is the case. There were several other leaders of the Roman Catholic church [...]
War at sea (part III)
The sinking of HMS Sheffield / theatlantic.com The sail and massive oars had been the chief propelling medium for centuries when during the middle part of the nineteenth century, steam power first used [...]
War at sea: (part II)
Cape St. Vincent by Donald Macleod / sellsell.blogspot.com Spain's royal champion don Juan of Austria was commander of the Christian fleet at the Battle of Lepanto (1571). This was a battle of galleys, [...]
War at sea:part I
Carthage v. Rome /newinternationaloutlook.com Historians are convinced that navies, squadrons of fighting ships, were first developed by the ancient Greeks and they are probably right. In the seventh century B.C. The Greeks had [...]
Sir Robert Peel, ‘Peelites’ and ‘Peelers’
/ en.wikipedia.org He was a Lancashireman, son of a rich industrialist. Born in the eighteenth century (1778) he got into Parliament as a Tory at twenty-one years of age. By 1812 he was [...]
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