… 70 years ago, the NHS (National Health Service) was launched in the UK.
Category Archives: Weekly Special
On This Day…
100 years ago today, in 1918, the Representation of the People Act marked the first step towards women’s suffrage in the UK. The act gave women over the age of 30, who either owned land themselves or were married to men with property, the right to vote. The act also lowered men’s voting age from 30 to 21. It would be another decade before the vote was given to all women over the age of 21 on equal terms with men.
On This Day…
in 1917 – one hundred years ago – the Third Battle of Ypres began. It is also known as the Battle of Passchendaele. The battle lasted for 105 days, gaining the Allied forces just 5 miles, at the cost of at least a quarter of a million casualties (not including around 220,000 lost on the German side). 90,000 Allied bodies were never identified, with a further 42,000 never even recovered. Having recently been to see the graves of two of my Great Great Uncles who fought in the First World War, it is incredibly painful to imagine not being able to visit them, or to see them resting peacefully after enduring such horrors.
Was it Fire, not Ice, that Ultimately Caused the Titanic to Sink?
New evidence would suggest that a huge fire in one of the Titanic’s bunkers actually played a far bigger role in her sinking than previously believed. Examining rare photographs taken by the ship’s chief electrical engineers before she left the … Continue reading
A Conversation with Historian Ian Garden on WW2 Propaganda and 2016 Politics
Ian Garden is a military historian and an authority on Nazi propaganda. His latest book, Battling With The Truth, examines the way both the British and Nazi governments manipulated coverage of key events in the Second World War. You can … Continue reading
Dorothy Gibson: The Woman Who Survived The Sinking of the Titanic and a Nazi Prison
Dorothy Winifred Gibson (1889-1946) is arguably one of the most fascinating women of the twentieth century. Her story is more than deserving of its own film or TV show and yet, if it was to ever appear on the screen, … Continue reading
5 Things I Didn’t Know About Berlin
I have been to Berlin three or four times in the past eighteen months for work, but have never been able to see more than the airport, the inside of a taxi, the inside of a focus group facility, and my hotel room. When I went back last week, I decided I would finally set things right, so I set out on a 3.5 hour walking tour of the city (The Original Free Berlin Tour – would highly recommend).
Here are the top five things I learned/saw (a little random, granted, but variety is the spice of life):
A Tale of Two Façades
This week I am in Moscow, conducting focus groups for some upcoming films. Sadly, the nature of the job leaves little time to explore, but I have ticked off the Red Square and, given that we are staying at the … Continue reading
On This Day…
… in 1415, the Battle of Agincourt took place between the English and the French during the Hundred Years’ War. The result was a major English victory, despite the fact that the French troops vastly outnumbered the English. Their success is attributed to their use of longbows – an English weapon that was greatly superior to the French crossbow. A trained English archer could shoot six aimed arrows a minute, and these arrows could penetrate armour from 100 yards away (and kill from 200).
15th Century miniature depicting the Battle of Agincourt
Did Alexander The Great’s Subjects Believe He Was A God?
I wrote a piece over at The Groovy Historian, discussing whether or not Alexander The Great’s subjects believed he was a god.
My History Cafe 