History Today back issues from July 2009:
From the editor.(space race and United States' lunar exploration)(Editorial)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Things moved very quickly in the 1960s and the Saturn V rocket moved faster than anything else. Among the most beautiful objects ever created, it attained speeds of up to 25,000 mph as it thrust fragile men of skin and bone and massive heart towards the Moon. The Apollo programme itself ...
Industrial power brokers: this year marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Industrial Revolution in what is now a quiet Shropshire town as well as the 200th anniversary of the death of one of Britain's greatest industrialists, Matthew Boulton.(FRONTLINE)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Ironically, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution occupies one of the finest scenic views in England. Opened on New Year's Day in 1781, the striking arched Iron Bridge that spans the Severn Gorge is today overlooked by the town that takes its name from the famous construction, serene ...
Decolonising minds: as Algeria prepares this month to host the second Pan-African Cultural Festival, with 48 countries participating, Martin Evans describes the original festival held 40 years ago in Algiers and the spirit of creativity and anti-colonialism that defined it.(FRONTLINE)
Jul 01, 2009; ... On July 21st, 1969, 4,000 artists converged on Algiers for the first Pan-African Cultural Festival. Representing 31 nations from across the continent, painters, poets, photographers, musicians and intellectuals transformed the streets into a meeting place of creative culture. Energy, ...
A mini milestone: the iconic Mini-Minor, which celebrates its half centenary next month, was a British industry triumph before inefficiency stalled its success.(FRONTLINE)
Jul 01, 2009; ... On August 26th the Mini will be celebrating its 50th birthday, an event inevitably accompanied by a flood of tabloid cliches referencing the Beatles, Carnaby Street, Peter Sellers, Swinging London and The Italian Job. The all-British Mini is now a comparatively rare sight on British roads ...
Byzantine revelation: the building of Istanbul's new underground railway has uncovered thousands of years of history, including the first complete Byzantine naval craft ever found.(FRONTLINE)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Archaeologist Metin Gokcay knocked on many doors in the small towns of Anatolia until he finally found the last known craftsman to carve hair combs exactly like the one he had dug out and dated back to the Byzantine era. The craftsman had stopped making the combs years ago but, to Gokcay's ...
Underwater world.(History as it Happens)(Pavlopetri )(Brief article)
Jul 01, 2009 ... Pavlopetri lies three to four metres beneath the sea, off the coast of southern Laconia in Greece and, with some of its ruins dating back to at least 2800 BC, it is considered to be the oldest submerged town in the world. Dr Jon Henderson from the ...
Unpacking the Mexican Suitcase.(History as it Happens)(Spanish Civil War negatives )(Brief article)
Jul 01, 2009 ... The 'Mexican Suitcase', three small damaged cardboard boxes, arrived at the International Center of Photography in New York from Mexico City in December 2007. It contains the Spanish Civil War negatives of the great war photographer Robert Capa, which were presumed lost when he fled from ...
Last wartime MP dies.(History as it Happens)(Ernest Millington)(Obituary)(Brief article)
Jul 01, 2009 ... Ernest Millington, the last surviving member of the wartime House of Commons died in France on May 9th, aged 93. Following the death of John Profumo on March 10th, ...
Fallen of Fromelles.(History as it Happens)(mass grave of British and Australian soldiers )(Brief article)
Jul 01, 2009 ... Work has begun in the small village of Fromelles in northern France to recover the remains of over 400 British and Australian soldiers believed to be buried in a mass grave just outside the settlement. The soldiers died on July 19th, 1916, in an offensive launched by Britain's Field ...
France rewards Algerians.(History as it Happens)(pensions for war veterans)(Brief article)
Jul 01, 2009 ... The French Secretary of State for Defence and Veterans, Jean-Marie Bockel, visited Algiers in May to discuss the pensions of Algerian veterans who fought for France during the Second World War. He awarded seven Algerian veterans a military medal in recognition of their contribution to the ...
Wrecks wrecked.(History as it Happens)(archaeological surveying in the English Channel and the Western Approaches )(Brief article)
Jul 01, 2009 ... A recent survey in the English Channel and the Western Approaches has revealed that Britain's maritime heritage has been considerably damaged as a result of the activities of the fishing industry and is in danger of being damaged irreparably. Covering an area of 4,725 square nautical ...
Dish of a thousand flowers.(History as it Happens)(Roman millefiori dish)(Brief article)
Jul 01, 2009 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Millefiori literally means 'a thousand flowers'. At the beginning of May, a Roman millefiori dish, recently discovered in the eastern cemetery of Roman London in Prescot Street, Aldgate, was revealed to the public for the first time at the Museum of London ...
Round & about: July 2009.(FRONTLINE)(Calendar)
Jul 01, 2009 ... Charles the Bold--The Splendour of Burgundy Until July 21st Groeninge Museum Dijver 12 8000 Bruges, Belgium www.brugge.be Featuring items from the museum's own collection of Flemish primitive masterpieces as well as ...
Months past: a French monarch dies, a great warship is born and a gangster is caught. Richard Cavendish looks at this month's anniversaries.(Henry II of France, HMS Victory, John Dillinger )
Jul 01, 2009; ... July 10 1559 Henry II of France dies of tournament wounds Born in 1519, the future Henry II married Catherine de Medici in 1533 when they were both 14 years old. His father, King Francis I, reportedly supervised the consummation, announcing they had both shown valour ...
Above and beyond: in 1969 men set foot on the Moon for the first time. The Apollo space programme that put them there was the product of an age of optimism and daring very different from our own.(Cover story)
Jul 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It is 40 years since Neil Armstrong took his 'giant leap for mankind' on the early summer morning of July 20th, 1969. It was the high point of a vast and expensive space programme initiated by President John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s which ended when ...
Spanning centuries: until 1729, London Bridge was the capital's only crossing over the Thames and a microcosm of the city it served, lined with houses and shops on either side. On the 800th anniversary of its original construction, Leo Hollis looks at the history of an icon.(TODAY'S HISTORY)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Every city has its foundation stones, often wrapped up in myth, conjecture and odd truths: Rome was created out of the walls built by Romulus on the Palatine Hill; Paris was born of an artificial island midstream of the Seine; London emerged out of a river crossing. In AD43 ...
William Jones and his circle: the man who invented the concept of pi: in 1706 a little-known mathematics teacher William Jones first used a symbol to represent the platonic concept of pi, an ideal that in numerical terms can be approached, but never reached. Patricia Rothman discusses Jones's significance among his contemporaries and the unique archive that forms his legacy.
Jul 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The history of the constant ratio of the circumference to the diameter of any circle is as old as man's desire to measure; whereas the symbol for this ratio known today as [pi] (pi) dates from the early 18th century. Before this the ratio had been ...
The first common market? In the 13th century a remarkable trading block was formed in northern Europe. Stephen Halliday explains how the Hanseatic League prospered for 300 years before the rise of the nation state led to its dissolution.
Jul 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Hanseatic League, or Hansa, began as a northern European trading confederation in the middle of the 13th century. It continued for some 300 years. Its network of alliances grew to 170 cities and it protected its interests from interfering rulers and ...
Paris peace discord: Hugh Purcell looks at how 90 years ago the British Empire rejected the principle of racial equality on which the Commonwealth is now based.(TODAY'S HISTORY)
Jul 01, 2009; ... The Commonwealth, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, is dedicated to the principle of racial equality. The Singapore Declaration of 1971 proclaims: 'We believe in equal rights for all citizens regardless of race ... We recognise racial prejudice as a dangerous sickness ... ...
Austria's diminutive dictator: a right-wing Catholic who crushed all his rivals, Engelbert Dollfuss fought hard to maintain his young republic's independence. A.D. Harvey looks at the life of the tiny patriot of peasant stock who stood up to Hitler and asks what might have happened had he not been assassinated during the early days of the Nazi era.
Jul 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This month sees the 75th anniversary of the assassination of Engelbert Dollfuss, one of the least-known but most intriguing of Europe's 20th-century dictators. On July 25th, 1934, less than a month after the 'Night of the Long Knives' when Hitler ...
Restoring faith: at the end of the 19th century, with religious belief under increasing attack, the British antiquarian Arthur Evans sought to 're-enchant' the world with his utopian interpretation of Crete's ancient Minoan civilisation.(TODAY'S HISTORY)
Jul 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In 1830 Auguste Comte laid out his scheme of the three phases of human development, culminating in the 'positive' stage in which belief in demons and gods would be supplanted by an understanding of natural laws. Just eight years later, Charles Darwin began ...
Poster boy: Mark Bryant looks at the artist behind one of the most iconic images of the 20th century.(CARTOON TIMES)(Alfred Leete)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Though a contemporary of such well-known graphic artists as David Low, 'Fougasse', Heath Robinson and H.M. Bateman, the cartoonist Alfred Leete is not widely known today. Yet one of his drawings, originally a cover illustration for the now long-forgotten penny weekly magazine London ...
Stranglehold on Victorian society: 'garotting', or the strangulation of a victim in the course of a robbery, haunted the British public in the 1850s. Emelyne Godfrey describes the measures taken to prevent it and the range of gruesome self-defence devices that were often of greater danger to the wearer than to the assailant.
Jul 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Walking the streets at night, a Victorian man about town knowingly ran the risk of being subjected to assault and robbery. In the mid-19th century, the public was panicked by the presence of a particular form of violent robbery: 'garotting' (or ...
Signposts The Victorians: in the second of our occasional series exploring the ways in which topical historical subjects are being tackled in a variety of media, Rohan McWilliam examines a time in Britain's history that seems to repay frequent revisiting more than a century after it ended.(Victorian culture)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Bombastic, imperialistic, pompous: the charge sheet against the Victorians is extensive. Didn't Victorian gentlemen trumpet their moral values before visiting the local prostitute? Didn't they insist that poverty was the fault of the poor? Most conversations about Victorianism usually end ...
The Victorians: Britain Through the Paintings of an Age.(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Jeremy Paxman's The Victorians: Britain Through the Paintings of an Age (BBC Books, 25 [pounds sterling]) is published to accompany the recent television series. The Newsnight and University Challenge presenter uses Victorian genre paintings, which in ...
Lancashire's Romantic Radical: The Life and Writing of Allen Clarke/Teddy Ashton.(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Allen Clarke was 'Lancashire's forgotten genius' according to the author of a biography and study of the work of this overlooked figure, Lancashire's Romantic Radical: The Life and Writing of Allen Clarke/Teddy Ashton, Paul Salveson (Huddersfield: Little Northern Books, 15 [pounds ...
Young Victoria.(Video recording review)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Young Victoria Cast: Emily Blunt, Jim Broadbent, Mark Strong, Paul Bettany, Miranda Richardson, Rupert Friend. Director: Jean-Marc Valiee Screenwriter: Julian Fellowes Producers: Sarah Ferguson, Tim Headington, Graham King, Martin Scorsese ...
The Magnificent Mrs Tennant.(Book review)
Jul 01, 2009; ... The Magnificent Mrs Tennant David Waller Yale University Press 298pp 20 [pounds sterling] ISBN 978 0300139358 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In 2005 a treasure-trove of manuscripts was discovered in a farmhouse attic: diaries, memoirs, ...
Science and Eccentricity: Collecting, Writing and Performing Science for Early 19th-Century Audiences.(Book review)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Science and Eccentricity Collecting, Writing and Performing Science for Early 19th-Century Audiences Victoria Carroll Pickering & Chatto 254pp 60 [pounds sterling] ISBN 978 1851969401 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Bernard ...
Rossetti's Wombat: Pre-Raphaelites and Australian Animals in Victorian London.(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In Rossetti's Wombat: Pre-Raphaelites and Australian Animals in Victorian London (Middlesex University Press, 12 [pounds sterling]), John Simons relates the story of Top, a wombat which belonged to the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Wombats ...
The Fall of the West: The Slow Death of the Roman Superpower.(Book review)
Jul 01, 2009; ... The Fall of the West The Slow Death of the Roman Superpower Adrian Goldsworthy Weidenfeld & Nicolson 560pp 25 [pounds sterling] ISBN 978 0297845638 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] History, no less than science fiction, will often ...
Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts.(Book review)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Lost Languages The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts Andrew Robinson Thames and Hudson 352pp 16.95 [pounds sterling] ISBN 978 0500514535 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Some children want to be engine drivers or celebrity ...
Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City.(Book review)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Mannahatta A Natural History of New York City Eric W. Sanderson, Wildlife Conservation Society Illustrations by Markley Boyer Abrams 320pp 19.99 [pounds sterling] ISBN 978 0810996335 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...
And still they come.(Charles Darwin's Evolutionary Writings; The Young Charles Darwin; Darwin for the Love of Science)(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] And still they come. In the bicentenary year of Darwin's birth and 150 years since the publication of The Origin of Species, books about the one British scientist almost everyone must be very familiar with by now, pour off the presses. History Today ...
The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought.(Book review)
Jul 01, 2009; ... The Tragic Sense of Life Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought Robert J. Richards University of Chicago Press 512pp 23 [pounds sterling] ISBN 0226712141 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As an artist known for ...
The Name of America: Martin Waldseemuller's 1507 Wodd Map and the Cosmographiae Introductio.(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 01, 2009; ... The Name of America Martin Waldseemuller's 1507 Wodd Map and the Cosmographiae Introductio John W. Hessler Giles 128pp 12.95 [pounds sterling] ISBN 978 1904832492 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Martin Waldseemtiller's World Map ...
Big bad John.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2009; ... I am surprised that Dan Jones, in his excellent article 'The Peasants' Revolt' (June 2009), did not mention Shakespeare's play Richard II, which, over the centuries, has given people a distorted view of both the Revolt and John of Gaunt. There seems to be no major study available of Gaunt ...
Khomeini's legacy.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Jeremy Black's fascinating short article '1979: The Real Year of Revolution' (May 2009) is both timely and thought-provoking. To truly understand today's world you have to go back not 20 but 30 years. As the prolific historian reminds us, 1979 was full of 'dramatic events with long-term ...
More China please.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Jonathan Fenby's article China's Interesting Times (June 2009) was one of the best primers in modern Chinese history that I have read. History Today's Editor, in his letter that month, wrote ...
Distorted visions.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2009; ... In his review of Miri Rubin's Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary, ('Reviews', May 2009), Simon Yarrow writes: 'Rubin tells the story of the 17th-century native Franciscan Miguel Sanchez, whose vision of the Virgin on the Tepeyac hill, an ancient holy site, helped to launch the ...
Mary contrary.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Any magazine or journal that professes expertise in history is expected to get its facts right especially when those facts are well known. Yet in her otherwise fascinating account of 'Mary and the Making of Europe' (March 2009), Miri Rubin seems to have slipped up on giving the date of the ...
No socialist he.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2009; ... The former long-time Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew is described as a 'socialist politician' in 'Months Past' (June 2009). If that really was the case how was it that in 1985 he 'honoured' the visit to Singapore of the then ...
Lost in translation.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2009; ... There seems to be an element of the 'Ye Olde Tea Shoppe' syndrome in Terry Wardle's 'quotation' from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ('England's First Castle, June 2009), which is not worthy of a periodical such as History Today. You could have quoted the Chronicle in the original: 'tha welisce ...
Capital crime.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2009; ... June's 'Round & About' seems to be overwhelmingly devoted to listing events taking place in London. Yet surely only a minority of your readers live in or ...
The good companion: nonagenarian historian and polymath Charles Arnold-Baker talks to Paul Lay about his extraordinary life and his equally remarkable life's work.(POINT OF DEPARTURE)(Interview)
Jul 01, 2009; ... Charles Arnold-Baker is the author of The Companion to British History, a yellow brick-like tome of more than 1,400 pages. Note that he is author rather than editor: he wrote every one of the thousands of economical, haiku-like entries covering a vast array of historical figures, events ...