The Enigma of Hirohito
/ pacificwar.org.au This controversial Emperor of Japan was born in the same year (1901) Queen Victoria died, and the two monarchs shared much the same mystique. The Emperor was the son of Crown [...]
The Blackshirts
Giacomo Matteotti – a victim of the Blackshirts / hc-blackmilk.xf.cz This was an early 20th century nickname or expression facilely describing the ‘Action Squads’ or ‘Squadre d’Azione. These were ‘fascist’ paramilitary groups formed [...]
Hiroshima
/ librosyliteratura.es Nearly seventy years after the dropping of an atomic bomb over this naval port and military base in Japan the debate still rages. Was the action of the United States necessary? [...]
Gallipoli
Turkey, a European country once described as ‘the sick man of Europe’, decided to unite with the Central Powers in the First World War; by January, 1915, the Western Powers thought it might be prudent [...]
The Treaty of Washington
This very interesting piece of legislation took place in 1871, some six years after the end of the American Civil War (1861-65). It was attended by the Canadian Prime Minister J.A. Macdonald as well as [...]
Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, Viscount Turenne
The name could hardly sound more French, and yet Henri was the grandson of William of Orange ‘The Silent’, which should make him at least a Netherlander. Henri’s grandfather had earned his nickname by keeping [...]
Victoria, the Queen Empress
I am lucky enough to have a wife who found an almost complete collection of early Victorian lithographs in a back street of Lymington. They are dated and signed by the lithographer, and the date [...]
Thomas Cromwell: different opinions
Thomas Cromwell This early sixteenth century politician has had a mostly stinking press since his execution at the order of his master Henry VIII. In the 1960s BBC TV serial The Six Wives [...]
The talented Mr. Rich
Not only did Henry VIII spend (and mostly waste) the vast fortunes accumulated by his father the first Tudor, in his youthful desire to be the king of kings in Europe; he also wasted the [...]
Western Philosophy
There can be found marked differences between westernized philosophy and the Indian, Chinese, Arabic and African versions. These speculate more about the nature of the world, human existence, offering a solution to the tormenting ills [...]
The ancient game of football
In the first twenty minutes or so of a foolish movie called First Knight, cinemagoers were treated to the Hollywood spectacle of a young and beautiful Lady of the Manor playing football with the burly [...]
A message from Dean Swift
There will be fewer posts during the next few weeks as we are assembling and compiling etc. a book. It is a selection taken from the six hundred or so posts we have published in [...]
Political murders in Phoenix Park
Ireland, in the form of the Republic of Eire, or that still-British bit at the top around Belfast, has never been a safe place. Throughout the Middle Ages blood was spilled every day there, for [...]
War in Vietnam
It is now an independent socialist/communist state bordered to the east by the South China Sea, and to the west by Laos and Cambodia. Dominated by China for many centuries, it was ‘visited’ by the [...]
The Tudors
I do not refer to the hideous filmed television series of the same name, designed more as pornography for sexually deprived viewers than students of England’s history. I refer to a family of minor Welsh [...]
Juan Prim y Prats
If he had not been assassinated, this 19th century Spanish soldier and politician would probably have been forgotten, but as his death added to the unattractive list of conspiracy theories, the neglect historians usually apply [...]
Some classic outtakes in the cinema
It is possible that these tales of fubs and fumblings are apocryphal, but as they have been repeated numberless times in the comparatively closed world of the film studios, they are obviously based on true [...]
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