Fortified Homes: the castle
An interior courtyard at Berkeley / built.org.uk “An Englishman’s home is his castle” as the old saying has it, and the phrase implies a multitude of meanings. Castles were defendable fortified buildings, increasingly [...]
Commerce in History: the slave trade
Thinking people still get hot under the collar when the subject of the trade in slaves looms. But then, more nonsense is spoken about the slave trade by otherwise intelligent and educated people than one [...]
1936: The Remilitarization of the Rhineland
Triumphant remilitarization, the Rhineland 1936 / iwm.org.uk The ill-prepared and unfortunate Treaty of Versailles (q.v.) had left the left bank of the Rhine plus an area 50 kilometres deep on its right bank [...]
A child’s guide to the Greek philosophers
Socrates teaching / schillerinstitution.org I suppose that the Peloponnesian War (q.v.) was, shamefully, the downfall of the ancient Greek Empire. War had penetrated men’s minds and they did bad things. With Pericles as [...]
The Battle of Kursk
Artist’s impression of the Battle of Kursk / growthplates.wordpress.com This was the last and perhaps least written-about offensive on the Eastern front. It was July, 1943, and perhaps the greatest tank battle in [...]
English monarchs from the Norman Line to the Windsors
The Crown of St. Edward / theguardian.com Before a Norman Duke successfully invaded England, there had been in the Danish or Viking Line six kings including the last two, Edward the Confessor (started [...]
The Spartakus League
Spartakists street fighting / walkingbutterfly.com Spartacus (with a ‘c’) was a slave and gladiator from Thracia whom we know was crucified around 71 B.C. This intelligent and athletic man led a slaves’ revolt [...]
The International Brigade(s)
A Brigade section training; note the extreme youth of many of the volunteers / iwm.org.uk Volunteers from countries foreign to Spain rushed from around the world to aid the republican cause during the [...]
Coup de Shanghai
/ historyplanet.wordpress.com In 1927, Jiang Jieshi a.k.a. Chiang Kai-shek (q.v.) tried very hard to eliminate the Chinese Communist Party, which we will call the CCP. This is hard to understand because in his [...]
Some more eccentricities of pronunciation
Some more eccentricities of pronunciation Spanish television announcers are lax when it comes to telling the viewers about the films they interminably show. Perhaps they do it on purpose, though I doubt that. This might [...]
Who was Richard Sorge?
/ russianspectrum.com He was a German-born spy who served in the trenches during the Great War. Like many others who survived this hell on earth, he admired Communist efforts in Russia to change [...]
The sailors rise at Kronstadt!
The Red Army crossing the sea ice on the way to Kronstadt / thecommune.co.uk Russian sailors at Petrograd (which had been St. Petersburg) were among the first of their countrymen to become revolutionaries, [...]
Alfred von Tirpitz
/ globalsecurity.org German admiral, Secretary of State for the Navy, philosopher, organiser and devoted enemy of Britain, Alfred was born in 1849 and lived to the age of eighty. All his adult life [...]
Pope Pius the Twelfth
/ acatholiclife.blogspot.com Eugenio Pacelli was born in 1876, and was elected Pope in 1939. He came from a familyprominent for its loyal service to the Vatican. He was ordained priest in 1899 at [...]
Who were the ‘Recusants’?
A genuine Priest’s Hole / friendswithinchrist.blogspot.com […]
Protestant
Martin Luther / evangelicancalvinist.blogspot.com […]
French ‘salons’ in the 17th century
Madame de Rambouillet / en.wikipedia.org Aristocratic French ladies presided over salons invariably held in their extensive drawing rooms in the capital or at Versailles. Though all these ladies shared homes(with their husbands and [...]
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