Libya
is a country more than twice the size of Spain on the north coast of the great land mass of Africa, bounded by Tunisia and Algeria to the west, Niger and Chad to the south, [...]
Eton College
The statue of the Founder / touriststamps.co.uk Eton is not only the name of the best-known school in the world; it is also historical, in that it was founded by a king. Henry [...]
The Gunpowder Plot
“Remember, remember/ The Fifth of November /Gunpower, Treason and Plot/ I see no reason/ Why gunpowder treason/ Should ever be forgot!” The finding and arrest of Guy Fawkes / lookand learn.com This traditional [...]
The Great Plague & Fire of London
The Great Fire that extinguished the Plague / answers.com Bubonic plague had recurred often in the Europe of the Middle Ages. Thought to have been spread by ship-going rats (themselves immune) the plague [...]
Benito Mussolini Il Duce
Mussolini when he was super-popular / taringa.net The future dictator of Italy was born at Forli (Romagna) in 1883. His father was a blacksmith, his mother a schoolteacher. Before he was twenty Benito [...]
Richard III, or how a Pack of Lies became History
The most popular portrait of Richard, playing with his sovereign’s ring / simple.wikipedia.org William Shakespeare usually wrote his History plays with careful regard for the facts. He read Polydore Virgil, Edmund Hall, Holinshed [...]
The Song of Roland & The Battle at the Pass of Roncesvalles
A bit of Romance does no-one any harm, and the story of Roland, his famous horn, and the conflict at Roncesvalles is the very stuff of medieval romance. 777 B.C. Several Muslim ambassadors present themselves [...]
The Monmouth Rebellion & The ‘Glorious’ Revolution
The infamous, and terminally sick Judge Jeffries / en.m.wikipedia.org The Duke of Monmouth’s revolt was a bloody insurrection, needlessly causing the deaths of soldiery and ordinary working folk in the British West Country [...]
Caesar Augustus
Octavian, adopted son of Julius Caesar / blog.iese.edu Many rulers of Rome have names so obscure the average student is ignorant of them. On the other hand names like Julius Caesar, Hadrian, Tiberius, [...]
What is the Opus Dei?
In a conversation with a European or American Catholic, if the words Opus Dei, or the Masons are mentioned, reactions can be mixed: outright dislike, grudging admiration, or bewilderment – which of these depends on [...]
The Olympic Games
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 [...]
The Ivy League
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 [...]
The Hundred Years War
Jeanne d’Arc leading the people / democratic-republicans.us First, a note of English grammar: the phrase is correct; the word ‘years’ does not need a possessive apostrophe, as the term clearly means “The war [...]
22 Bonds divided by Six
Connery was not at first liked by Ian Fleming, though he changed his mind / the prismacompany.co.uk The twentieth century would not be the same without the massive importance of the cinema. And [...]
The British Labour Party
In 1884, following the Third Reform Act, a movement started in earnest in Great Britain, seeking direct representation of working class interests in Parliament. The movement was naturally revolutionary, but not violent. Britons are neither [...]
Spain, November 20: the Bad-hatter’s Tea party
The Spanish people will go to the polls on this date, and it is to be fervently hoped, for the sake of fairness, that this year young people of 18 – 21 years will use [...]
Chiang Kai-shek a.k.a. Jiang Jiehi
Chiang Kai-shek / m.bbvietnam.com This Chinese general and statesman was born in 1887. He assumed control of the Chinese government (Kuomintang) in 1926, and led a far from pacific Northern Expedition from 1926 [...]
Recent Comments