History News

The Alt-Right claim Jane Austen, Martin McGuinness gets an early obituary and Donald Trump remembers a past. This is the week in historical news, March 20th to 27th. When Jimmy met Martin The main story of the week was the death of…

Have you heard the one about the bad scientists who called the good scientists’ science bad science? Like so many historical goings-on recorded since recording became a thing, it is just one more preposterous example of bringing ad hominem…

‘Race,’ President Obama said in his farewell address, ‘remains a potent and often divisive force in our society.’  ‘You never really know a person,’ he said, quoting Atticus Finch, hero of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, ‘until you…

On June 22nd 1941, in the largest German military operation of World War II, Hitler struck east to invade the Soviet Union. It was a big affair; over three million German soldiers and three thousand tanks. In December of that year, four…

The Hiroshima Carp won their first baseball league pennant in twenty-five years the day my girlfriend and I visited Kobe City. The news hardly blew us away. Had it not happened however, one hot-dog chef would not have stepped out of his bar…

Once upon a time, in a political landscape far, far away, a fascist buffoon said, “Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice, it is a fallacy. You in America will see that someday.” The buffoon’s name was Benito Mussolini. Now, as…

American women have spent their entire lives choosing between presidential candidates of the opposite sex. That is until now. This year, Hilary Rodham Clinton made history by becoming the first female nominee from a major party. She is,…

Mayday, mayday – how did that come to be the international code of distress? May is also the month of special worship of the Virgin Mary, and the time for the many May Balls at universities in this part of the world (although some of them,…

April 23rd 2016 is the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. Although his plays and poems have lived on and are enjoyed across the globe, relatively little is known for certain about the man himself. This is particularly so for…

January 25 marks the fifth anniversary of the mass uprisings in Egypt, most famously in Tahrir Square in central Cairo, which led to a regime change. The event, following on the heels of the “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia, signalled the…