Vaguely Interesting

In This Week in …

• 241 BCE, the Romans sink the Carthaginian fleet in the Battle of the Aegates Islands and bring the First Punic War to an end (10 March 241 BCE).
• 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev is selected as the new general secretary and leader of the Soviet Union (11 March 1985).
• 1933, 8 days after inauguration, FDR gives his first “fireside chat” radio broadcast to the nation from the White House (12 March 1933)
• 1881, Tzar Alexander II of Russia is assassinated in St. Petersburg by a bomb thrown by a member of the “People’s Will” group (13 March 1881).
• 1964, Jack Ruby, Killer of Lee Harvey Oswald, is found guilty of the “murder with malice” and sentenced to die in the electric chair (14 March 1964).
• 44 BCE, Julius Caesar is murdered by his own senators at a meeting in a hall next to Pompey’s Theatre (15 March 44 BCE).
• 1968, the My Lai massacre takes place in Vietnam. Between 200 and 500 civilians are killed (16 March 1968).

Vaguely Interesting Round-up | 6 March 2014

• Poor Thameslink! Crossrail, the sexier east-west alternative, gets all the attention, but the Thameslink programme will create a north-south railway corridor that will be just as critical an addition to London’s infrastructure. Maybe it shuns the spotlight because it has suffered so many false starts and delays (the redevelopment was originally called Thameslink 2000 and will only be complete in 2018. But things are moving forward for the line – new stations (e.g. Farringdon, Blackfriars and London Bridge) and new trains. Lots of new trains. Really long new trains. Check them out here.

• As Lego: The Movie opens to general critical acclaim, the Economist looks at Lego: The Company and charts its rise and rise to become one of the world’s biggest toy makers.

What connect David Cameron, the 12^th Duke of Grafton and Diana, Princess of Wales? They are all descendants of royal bastards, the illegitimate children of kings from across the centuries. Their illegitimacy barred them from succession to the Crown, but family ties ensured they would be granted titles, lands, wealth and power. And some started dynasties that thrive to this day.

Over nearly a thousand years of royal history since the Norman Conquest, the monarchy has augmented its power, wealth and influence by marrying well and producing children. The legitimate children of kings and queens are only part of the story; a surprisingly important role is played by the progeny of the illegitimate offspring of England’s monarchs.

Well into the twenty-first century, descendants of royal bastards occupy some of the top branches of the aristocracy, the Establishment and even Number 10.

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Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 4 March 2014

The final exam before war

Professor Margaret Snowdon’s definitive account of the history leading up to the outbreak of the First World War (The War that Ended Peace: How Europe abandoned peace for the First World War) includes a snippet showing how clearly the French anticipated invasion. The final exam at the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr (one of France’s leading military academies) in 1913 had a question that asked the candidates how they deal with Germany invading Belgium.

The British still operated in the Indian-Chinese opium trade until 1910

The supply of opium for the huge Chinese market came mostly from India, where opium became a major export. This lucrative export was orchestrated by the British, first from the East India Company and then directly through the state. It was not until 1910 that the Chinese convinced Britain to dismantle the India-China opium connection.

After the defeat of the Confederacy, thousands of Americans decided to emigrate to Brazil. They dreamed of building a new slave-owning society in a country almost as large as continental America with plenty of undeveloped land. Ironically, their presence would highlight slavery as an issue and lead to its eventual abolition in Brazil.

The Economist’s 2013 Christmas Special tells the story of the murder of Joaquim Firmino de Araújo Cunha. The story goes on to show how America and Brazil were “once bound together by slavery, and how the end of the peculiar institution in one country helped, in a roundabout way, end it in another.”

For those in favour of slavery, or at least to the way of life that the ‘peculiar institution’ permitted, the defeat of the southern Confederate States of America by unionist forces in 1865 was a calamity. Would they stay in their home states to watch their antebellum way of life destroyed? Or should they move on to find a new and more permissive home?

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In This Week in …

• 1284, the Statute of Rhuddlan incorporates the Principality of Wales into England (3 March 1284).
  
• 1933, Roosevelt is inaugurated as the 32nd President of the United States of America (4 March 1933).
• 1946, Churchill delivers his famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri (5 March 1946)
• 1857, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in the Dred Scott case and America moved closed to civil war (6 March 1857).
• 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was issued with US patent number 174,465 for his telephone system. This would become one of the most lucrative patents in history (7 March 1876).
• 1917, a revolt breaks out in St Petersburg, Russia. It is called the ‘February Revolution’ despite seemingly occurring in March because Russia used the Julian calendar until 1918 (8 March 1917).
• 1959, the first Barbie doll goes on display at the American Toy Fair in New York City (9 March 1959).

Few spy thrillers have plots that are as implausible as the reality presented to French military intelligence in 1904. A German officer presented himself and offered to sell top secret war plans. He called himself “The Avenger” and met his handlers with his face entirely wrapped in bandages. The facts were so implausible that it was dismissed as a German ruse. If they had taken the documents seriously, could the French have averted the near-catastrophe on the Western Front?

By the time the continental Great Powers went to war in 1914 their armies had already created detailed battle plans. Germany’s Schlieffen Plan would be pitted against France’s Plan XVII. If successful, Germany would swing around to join its ally, Austria-Hungary and its Plans B and R to fight against Russia and its Plan 19.

A German officer working in the General Staff wrote to his French counterparts in 1904 and offered “documents of the highest importance”.  He was to remain anonymous, signing himself only as Le Vengeur – the Avenger. The only clue at this stage was a postmark showing that the letter had been sent from Liège in Belgium.

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Vaguely Interesting Round-up | 27 February 2014

• As Britain debates banning smoking in cars, a timely reminder of how far we’ve come in the past 70 years. On the back of an exhibition at the New York Public Library (“Not a Cough in the Car”) showing tobacco ads that emphasized healthiness, Time Magazine produced a photo series of some of the most, ahem, striking adverts in Your Doctor Wants You to Smoke.

• There are few things that can shape a weekend as completely as a Sunday Roast. If it is done well, you are instantly transported to a comfortable nirvina of gravy topped glory. A poor roast can leave the whole day, the whole weekend, with an unsatisfied feeling of failure. To try and avoid the latter scenario, the Londonist collected twenty of the best Sunday Roasts in London. Just look at the photo of what they serve up at the Hawksmoor!

The creation of the UK railway network in the nineteenth century saw the equivalent of billions, if not trillions, of pounds invested in infrastructure. In five years alone, 5,000 miles of track were laid as the nation succumbed to railway mania. As with any such boom there were winners who would walk away with immense fortunes and, in some cases, bring about big changes to society.

Robert Stephenson was one of the pioneers of the railway. Along with his father, George Stephenson, he was the engineer responsible for designing the Rocket, the locomotive that famously won the trials to decide the best engine for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

Already instrumental in Britain’s first timetabled passenger railway, he would become a powerful force behind its most important line – the London and Birmingham Railway. His salary as chief engineer would eventually reach £2,000 – an economic status equivalent to several million pounds – placing him firmly in the league of today’s best-remunerated bankers and executives.

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Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 25 February 2014

The British Civil Wars are not part of citizenship tests because they are deemed too sensitive a subject

The British Civil Wars of the 17th century are, according to the Home Office, too raw a subject for citizenship lessons. A Home Office publication surveying British history for immigrants omits the entire period of the Civil Wars on the grounds that ‘the wounds are still too fresh’.

Yale students rioted when forced to use blackboards in class

The ‘Conic Sections Rebellion’ occurred at Yale University in 1830 when changes in mathematics education resulted in students being required to draw their proofs on a blackboard. Previously, students were allowed to refer to diagrams in their textbooks. A number of students staged a rebellion in which they refused to take the exams at all. They were summarily expelled.