Heinrich Brüning
/ es.wikipedia.org At the age of forty-five he became Foreign Minister and Chancellor of Germany. He was a Roman Catholic member of the Centre Party and became Chancellor during the Great Depression (q.v.). [...]
Like to spend the night in a Tudor castle?
West wing at Thornbury / en.wikipedia.org Should you be touring Britain and find yourself in Gloucestershire, you might want to sleep and eat in a genuine Tudor castle at Thornbury, though it is [...]
Abdication of the Spanish King
Today he becomes King Philip VI of Spain / en.wikipedia.org Don Juan Carlos was destined by General Franco to become Juan Carlos I, King of Spain, moving aside for political reasons his father, [...]
Bonapartism & Doubts about Napoleon III
Napoleon III / es.philatelia.net ‘Bonapartism’ was three things put under one invented name: a political movement, a system of government, and a boxed set of political principles. It supported the descendents of Napoleon [...]
What was the CNT?
/ es.wikipedia.org The Confederación Nacional de Trabajo was a Spanish labour/syndicalist movement, heavily involved in the Civil War of 1936/1939. The arrival of this trade union movement in 1911 helped Spanish union workers [...]
The Czechoslovakian Crisis
The historic meeting at Bad Godesberg / collections.yadvashem.org Many years before The Czech Republic and Slovakia freed themselves from the yoke of being simply Czechoslovakia, this crisis evolved from territorial demands made by [...]
Jan Christian Smuts
Smuts with Churchill during World War II / flickr.com The South African soldier, hero and future Prime Minister was born in the Cape Colony in 1870. No-one was more in the centre of [...]
The German Revolution
German sailors revolt in Kiev / www.history.com This was not a socialist revolution, as in Russia and France; nor was it anti-colonial, as it was in North America. It began just one month [...]
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
/ paperdroids.com Perversely enough, it was one of the great film comedies that contained a set piece showing with alarming exactitude what happened in Chicago in 1929. The film is called Some like [...]
Gleichschaltung (coordination by putting in the same gear)
/ thisdaythen.blogspot.com This dubious process began in Germany in February 1933, when civil liberties were suppressed. The newly established Hitler dictatorship meant to rid itself of all independent institutions. In March of the [...]
Giuseppe Mazzini
/ the famous people.com Giuseppe Mazzini was an Italian revolutionary, born in Genoa, a son of a medical doctor whose radical views were impressed on Giuseppe as a boy. He was born in [...]
What was Chartism?
Feargus O’Connor / cottontimes.co.uk What was Chartism? It was by far the most outstanding political movement inspired by genuine working men in Britain in the nineteenth century. There had been radical movements, such [...]
The ‘Showa’ Restoration (Japan)
November 1930; Hamaguchi Osachi shot in the street / ndl.go.jp The Showa Restoration . The word showa means ‘Enlightened Peace’ in English. It was chosen as a ‘reign name’ by the Emperor Hirohito. [...]
The Bard in the Bible
William Tyndale’s statue: he was strangled and burned at the stake, but not in England, for heresy The Bard in the Bible. Here is a mystery for Shakespeare fans and inquisitive youngsters who [...]
Ferdinand (Fernando) VII of Spain
/ from a painting by Goya Ferdinand (Fernando) VII. With a few notable exceptions Spain, like Britain, has not always been fortunate in its kings. Fernando the Seventh of that name stands out [...]
Oh dear, these history books . . .
Not bad for hunchbacked, lame man with a withered arm; Richard III’s last cavalry charge / historyfiles.co.uk Oh dear, these history books. An online bookseller I deal with kindly sent me a copy [...]
The battle of Tannenberg
Russian P.O.W. after Tannenberg /probertencyclopaedia.com The battle of Tannenberg. In one of the better Hollywood attempts to re-produce the Second War on celluloid, The Night of the Generals had Peter O’Toole at his [...]
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