Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 30 April 2014 President Lincoln established the US Secret Service on the same day that he was assassinated Sometimes history throws up some decidedly pointed ironies. On 14 April 1865, President Lincoln signed the legislation that created the United States Secret Service. The same evening, he made his way to Ford’s Theatre for his fateful and tragic encounter with his assassin, John Wilkes Booth. The derogatory […]
Monthly Archives: April 2014
One of the most successful appeals for money to support the British war effort was inspired by the tank. Seen as a wonder weapon that could shorten the war, the cumbersome and ungainly vehicles became popular icons and were ultimately used not only to promote War Bonds, but as kiosks to sell them from. A watercolour by Sir William Orpen illustrates clearly why the tank initially […]
The Trafalgar Square Tank Bank
In This Week In … 1945, Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans and hung upside down for public display (28 April 1945); 1968, in the midst of the culture wars, the musical Hair opens on Broadway (29 April 1968); 1789, the USA’s first ever presidential inauguration is held as George Washington is sworn into office in New York (30 April 1968); […]
It is a scene from the darkest days of the Blitz. A squadron of German planes flies over the East End and the City releasing a deadly stream of bombs on the people below. A school in Poplar is blown up and more than 162 people in total are killed. But this is not a story from the Second World War; it is a chapter from […]
Death from the skies
Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 16 April 2014 In the 1916, a man was fined for buying his wife a drink – so was his wife and the barmaid In the First World War, the British government faced up to one of its most serious enemies. Not the Germans or the Austrians, but alcohol. My article, Fighting spirits (and beer, cider and wine) looked at the ‘No […]
At 9:33 a.m. on 14 September 1954, a Soviet Tu-4 bomber dropped a 40,000-ton atomic weapon from a height of 25,000 feet just north of Totskoye in the steppes of the southern Urals. In the early years of the Cold War, the testing of nuclear weapons was not unusual – there would be 8 others in that year and over 200 in the same decade. What […]
This is not a test
In 1914, German soldiers sacked the Belgian city of Louvain. Its population was expelled and some were carried off in freight trains to camps in Germany. Its library, together with its priceless collection of rare manuscripts and early printed books, was deliberately burnt. . A cowed and defeated civilian population watches helplessly as their conquered city is taken and burnt by German soldiers. Prominent citizens are […]
The sack of Louvain
Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 9 April 2014 Mr. Potato Head was originally introduced without a potato Mr. Potato Head was introduced to the American public in 1952. The original toy was just a set of plastic body parts and you had to ‘bring your own potato’ to create the iconic faces. The original patent application noted that the body parts were for “affixing on a fresh […]
If you are powerful, celebrated or heroic you may be remembered by having things named after you. Schools, airports, roads, squares and public buildings are all dedicated to politicians, royalty, celebrities and heroic figures from a nation’s past. One way to be immortalised is to have a popular food, drink or dish named after you. The only danger is that the product becomes so ubiquitous that […]
The people behind the menu – 3
In This Week in … 1776, the US Navy captures its first British warship. USS Lexington, under Captain John Barry, takes the Royal Navy’s HMS Edward (7 April 1776); 2013, Baroness Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, dies at her suite in the Ritz (8 April 2013); 1865, Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia, effectively ending the US Civil […]
In 1898, the British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury gave a speech on foreign relations. The core message seemed simple enough; weak states become weaker whilst strong states become stronger. But, in the dying days of the European peace, it was a remarkably prescient, perhaps even self-fulfilling prophecy. . On 4 May 1898, Lord Salisbury gave a remarkable speech to the Conservative party faithful. The Prime Minister […]
The dying nations of the world
Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 2 April 2014 Injured Indian soldiers fighting for Britain in the First World War were treated at the Brighton Pavilion India produced one of the greatest volunteer armies in the First World War. Approximately 1.5 million men from across the subcontinent volunteered to serve in the British Army. They arrived as soon as September 1914, bolstering the Allied lines at a critical […]
If you are powerful, celebrated or heroic you may be remembered by having things named after you. Schools, airports, roads, squares and public buildings are all dedicated to politicians, royalty, celebrities and heroic figures from a nation’s past. One way to be immortalised is to have a popular food, drink or dish named after you. The only danger is that the product becomes so ubiquitous that […]