Happy Birthday to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman (who didn’t keep her gender a secret) to qualify in Britain as a physician and surgeon by having first crossed the English channel and becoming the first female doctor of medicine in France. She was also the first woman in the country to be elected to a… Read more Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Starting on 8 June 1783 and continuing on until until 7 February 1784, hell on earth came to Iceland. The Lakagígar (Craters of Laki), a a 25 km (15.5 mi) long volcanic fissure with 130 craters opened up on the side of Laki mountain, and over 8 months it spewed 14 km3 (3.4 cu mi)… Read more Síðueldur and Móðuharðindin – Hell Came to Iceland in 1783
On 4 June 1913 an ardent and militant suffragette by the name of Emily Davison was struck by King George V‘s horse Anmer at the Epsom Derby. The blow fractured her skull, and she died a few days later, having never regained consciousness. Eyewitnesses and historians dispute what she was trying to do on the… Read more Suffragette Suffering for Suffrage
On 3 June 1839 a Chinese patriot, moralist, and scholar-official of the Qing dynasty named Lin Tse-hsü (his name was also spelled Lin Zexu, and he additionally went by the courtesy name Yuanfu) ordered the destruction of approximately 1.2 million kg (2.6 million poiunds) of opium from British merchants in Guangdong Province. There was so… Read more The Beginning of the Opium Wars
One of the nicest things about camping at Chapel Farm House (aside from sponging off our Host Family) was the short, easy walk to the Church of St. Mary, which just happens to be a Grade II listed building dating back from the early 1400s, with additions in the 1600s and some restoration in 1883. … Read more The Church of St Mary, Craswall, Herefordshire
I have been camping, and lo it was very much fun! Sweet Babou and I and the small herd of daughters were invited to go along with our friends, whom we call our Host Family who are showing us how to be properly British and do British stuff, on a small camping trip for the… Read more Camping in the Welsh Marches
On 25 May 1553, Lady Jane Grey married Lord Guilford Dudley, the fourth son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, at the insistence of the dying King Edward VI. Although the whole thing was young king’s idea, poor Northumberland was cast as a criminal mastermind using a union between Lady Jane and his son to… Read more The Unjust Unpopularity of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland
Sunday was a lovely, sunshiny day in South Wales so my Sweet Babou and I loaded the kids up and took them to meet some friends for an amiable amble through Fforest Fawr (which means the big (hunting) woods in Welsh), also known to locals as Bluebell Woods. It feels wonderfully rural but in reality… Read more A Sunny Sunday in Fforest Fawr
Today is the 80th anniversary of the tragic end of the Hindenburg zeppelin. The airship burst into flames on May 6, 1937 and was destroyed in less than a minute. There were 36 passengers and 61 crewmen on the Hindenburg, and despite the fact the ship turned into a plummeting inferno, the majority of… Read more The Hindenburg Disaster
Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the greatest generals in the history of the Western world, died on 5 May 1821 in exile on the Island of Saint Helena, after his ambition exceeded even the limits of his military genius. The last word he ever spoke was the name of his first wife and true love, “Joséphine“.… Read more The Death of Napoleon Bonaparte