Snippets

Until 1983, no television was broadcast in July in Iceland. It took until 1987 for broadcasts to be made on Thursdays on state broadcaster RÚV (European Journalism Centre); Drury Lane Theatre was destroyed six times by rioting in the turbulent 18th century (British Library); and Heroine was produced in the laboratories of Bayer. One story of how it got its name was that the head of Bayer’s research […]

Which country shut down TV for July for summer holidays?

Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 14 May 2014 One of the reasons Churchill’s speeches were effective was because of his use of Anglo-Saxon words One of the best known speeches given in the English language is Churchill’s “We Shall Fight on the Beaches”, the common title given to his defiant oration delivered to  the House of Commons on 4 June 1940. The most quoted section is: “we shall defend our […]

Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 7 May 2014 Belgium was more economically valuable to the Nazis than the occupied USSR According to ITV’s magisterial World At War series, Belgium provided greater economic benefit to the Germans during the Second World War than the entire occupied territory in the Soviet Union. Belgium’s intact infrastructure and manufacturing base compared to the scorched earth of Stalin’s western territory. Were carrots […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 26 March 2014 Magenta gets its name from a bloody battlefield in Italy In the mid-nineteenth century, chemists were having financial success by creating chemical compounds for new shades of colour. French chemist Francois-Emmanuel Verguin invented a reddish-purple dye and called it “fuchsine” as it evoked the color of a fuchsia in bloom. A similar colour was created by British chemists Chambers […]

Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 18 March 2014 The site of the former US Embassy in Tehran is now a museum to the ‘Great Satan’ The New York Times provides this article on the fate of the former US Embassy: “The old American Embassy building in the heart of this capital city was recently opened to tours for Westerners. It is now a museum run by the […]

Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 11 March 2014 Quick march – cocaine used in the First World War and criminalised soon after In 1914 the British Army issued ‘Forced March’ tablets containing cocaine to troops. In 1920, cocaine was banned in the UK under the Dangerous Drugs Act. Much of the pressure for the ban came from stories of ‘crazed soldiers’ who had been exposed to the […]

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 […]

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 […]

Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 18 February 2014 Chinese men had to adopt a hairstyle to show submission to the emperor After a failed uprising, China’s Qing rulers issued an edict ordering all Chinese men to shave their forehead and to braid the rest of their hair into a hairstyle known in English as a ‘queue’ (or ‘cue’). This would make the Han majority identical to those […]

Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 11 February 2014 The assassin of Martin Luther King was arrested at Heathrow Airport James Earl Ray, the notorious assassin of Martin Luther King, was finally tracked down to London and arrested at Heathrow Airport on 8 June 1968. A subtle commemoration of Charles I You have to really strain to see it, and even then it could just be a spot […]

Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 4 February 2014 India has a prison wing dedicated for mothers-in-law A prison in India has a special wing for mothers-in-law. According to the Christmas special of the Economist, “among 12,000 prisoners at Delhi’s sprawling Tihar jail, a portion of female inmates are kept in a dedicated, barracks-like “mother-in-law wing”.

Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 28 January 2014 Bananas are radioactive The world’s favourite fruit is a natural source of radioactive isotopes. It is used to demonstrate and reassure people on exposure to radiation by a measurement known as the ‘banana equivalent dose’. Flying from New York to London will give you a BED of 500 – you’d have to eat 500 bananas to get an equivalent […]

Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 21 January 2014 Britain has fully 108 preserved steam railways. The Economist notes that in 2011 they carried 7.1m passengers. Helping those passengers get from A to, well, usually a little bit further along the line and then back to A, are 18,000 volunteers. They range from the 20 miles of the West Somerset Railway (making it, according to the Daily Telegraph, […]

Vaguely Interesting Snippets | 14 January 2014 The Wellington Arch on Hyde Park Corner is used as a ventilation shaft for the underground road tunnels that plunge the A4 below ground at Piccadilly and emerge to the south of Hyde Park approaching Knightsbridge. Whilst being held for trial at the International Military Tribunal held at Nuremburg, the defendants were subjected to a barrage of psychological tests. […]