D-Day succeeded thanks to an ingenious design called the Mulberry Harbours
Reading time: 4 minutes
When Allied troops stormed the beaches at Normandy, France on June 6, 1944 – a bold invasion of Nazi-held territory that helped tip the balance of World War II – they were using a remarkable and entirely untested technology: artificial ports.
To stage what was then the largest seaborne assault in history, the American, British and Canadian armies needed to get at least 150,000 soldiers, military personnel and all their equipment ashore on day one of the invasion.
‘Excessive severity’: Treason and the Grenadian Rebellion of 1795
Reading time: 9 minutes
Late in the night of 2 March 1795, a rebellion broke out on the Caribbean island of Grenada. Grenada was a British colony, taken from the French in the mid-18th century. It still had a substantial francophone population. They had restricted political, religious and civil rights, particularly for those considered mixed race. The island also had a massive population of enslaved people ( around 30,000).
A love story that threatened the Commonwealth: Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams
Reading time: 7 minutes
A relatively unknown name in contemporary Britain, Sir Seretse Khama left an indelible mark on southern African politics. From 1966, he served four terms as the first president of newly independent Botswana. Under Khama, Botswana took immense economic and socio-political strides, leaving a multiracial, democratic, and prosperous nation behind him. He provided a real-world example of how racial equality could function in a part of the world that saw apartheid South Africa just beyond its southern border.
Sheepskin was used as an anti-fraud device in British legal documents for hundreds of years
Reading time: 4 minutes
The 16th and 17th centuries were a notably litigious period in British history. New rights, wealth and obligations had to be protected through legal transactions – and that needed documentation.
Such was the importance of deeds – legal documents concerning the ownership of property – that lawyers chose to write on parchment, made from animal skin, despite the widespread use of paper. This continued a tradition that stretched back to at least the 13th century.
90 years ago, Yorta Yorta leader William Cooper petitioned the king for Aboriginal representation in parliament
Reading time: 4 minutes
Ninety years ago, Yorta Yorta leader William Cooper dreamed of Aboriginal people being represented in the Commonwealth parliament. In August 1933, he set about petitioning the British king, George V. The key demand was for: a member of parliament, of our own blood or white men known to have studied our needs and to be in sympathy with our race, to represent us in the Federal Parliament.
Ammonite: the remarkable real science of Mary Anning and her fossils
Reading time: 6 minutes
Palaeontologist Mary Anning is known for discovering a multitude of Jurassic fossils from Lyme Regis on England’s Dorset Coast from the age of ten in 1809.
Her discoveries included the first complete Icthyosaurus (although it was her little brother who first stumbled across the skull, Anning spent the next year excavating and preparing the rest of the fossil), the first complete Plesiosaurus and subsequent plesiosaur species, a perfectly preserved belemnite complete with anterior sheath and inkbag, and the first pterodactyl Dimorphodon.
The debate on the origins of the First World War
Reading time: 5 minutes
The way historians have viewed the causes of WWI has changed in the hundred years since war broke out. This article explores the origins of the Great War.
How could the death of one man, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was assassinated on 28 June 1914, lead to the deaths of millions in a war of unprecedented scale and ferocity? This is the question at the heart of the debate on the origins of the First World War. Finding the answer to this question has exercised historians for 100 years.
The Philadelphia zebras … and six great animal escapes of the Victorian era
Reading time: 7 minutes
Exotic animal escapes are relatively rare today, and usually end reasonably happily. But in the 19th century, when travelling menageries and circuses traversed Britain and the US, such break-outs were far more common. Menageries toured widely from the late 18th century, bringing exotic animals within reach of even the poorest members of society. Health and safety was not a priority for exhibitors, and it wasn’t unheard of to find an orangutan in your bedroom or a tiger loose in the street.
Roman Britain was multi-ethnic – so why does this upset people so much?
Reading time: 4 minutes
Mary Beard, professor of classics at the University of Cambridge, has recently been at the receiving end of a “torrent of aggressive insults” for suggesting that Britain under the Roman empire – which at its height stretched from northern Africa to Scotland – was ethnically diverse. The trouble started when Beard described an educational cartoon produced by the BBC, which included a black Roman solider in Britain, as “pretty accurate”.
The Roman dead: new techniques are revealing just how diverse Roman Britain was
Reading time: 6 minutes
Our knowledge about the people who lived in Roman Britain has undergone a sea change over the past decade. New research has rubbished our perception of it as a region inhabited solely by white Europeans. Roman Britain was actually a highly multicultural society which included newcomers and locals with black African ancestry and dual heritage, as well as people from the Middle East.
Would London Fire Brigades really let your house burn down if you were uninsured?
Reading time: 4 minutes
Here’s an interesting fact: if you didn’t pay your insurance premiums in 17th and 18th century London, firefighters would simply let your house burn, even if they were on the scene. This fact has been repeated many times by many people, so it must be true, right? Or is it?
Carols, ration books and bomb shelters: how Britain celebrated Christmas in 1940
Reading time: 6 minutes
At Christmas 1939, Britons had been able to maintain a semblance of normality. The blackout prevented displays of lighted Christmas trees in front windows, but there was no rationing and Britain’s key ally, France, remained unconquered behind the allegedly impregnable Maginot Line.
Following the fall of France, the evacuation at Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, Christmas 1940 was much bleaker – the first real wartime Christmas. It took place in the middle of the Blitz. In December, the Luftwaffe attacked Southampton, Bristol, Sheffield and Leicester. Manchester took heavy pounding on the night of December 22/23 and again on Christmas Eve. Rationing was beginning to bite hard as the German occupation of Europe and blockade by U-boats cut off important sources of supply.
Women in the Second World War: Military service in East Africa
Reading time: 8 minutes
Hundreds of women served with the British Army in East Africa, and their role in the conflict goes largely untold.
America’s Favourite Fighting Frenchman: Marquis de Lafayette
Reading time: 8 minutes
Hamilton is a smash hit depicting the lives of America’s founding fathers. But, when it comes to Lafayette, it got a few things wrong.
From the bookshelf: ‘The Scrap Iron Flotilla’
Reading time: 4 minutes
Mike Carlton has emerged as a gifted historian of Australia’s outstanding naval contributions in two world wars. He polishes this reputation in his new book, The Scrap Iron Flotilla: five valiant destroyers and the Australian war in the Mediterranean. Carlton has always been persuasive in print. His earlier books, Cruiser on the wartime record of HMAS Perth, and First victory 1914, detailing HMAS Sydney’s destruction of the German raider Emden, suggested both the enthusiasm for and appreciation of Australian naval history which the author has in abundance.
A TALE OF REMEMBRANCE, ADMONITION, AND DESPAIR: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
Reading time: 6 minutes
The vivid and graphic imagery of the First World War has indeed become a potent symbol of the need for everlasting commemoration, and a continuous reminder of armed conflict’s futility. Yet with the inevitable passing of time, direct links to the “War to end all Wars” have regretfully vanished, with all veterans who served in the trenches now gone. This most special group of soldiers may now be physically silent, but their haunting messages of warning remain.
Jamaica’s Morant Bay Rebellion and it’s brutal repression
Reading time: 11 minutes
On 12 October 1865, John Davidson, a magistrate in the east of Jamaica, wrote to the island’s Governor, Edward John Eyre:
‘The people at Morant Bay [on the island’s southeast coast, St. Thomas-in-the-East parish] have risen, burnt down the Court-house, released all the prisoners, murdered several white people.’
‘Experimental in every sense’: The Metropolitan Police Women Patrols
Reading time: 8 minutes
On 18 October 1918, Sir Cecil Macready, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, submitted a recommendation to the Home Secretary, Sir George Cave, ‘for the experimental formation of a body of Women Police’. Soon after, the Metropolitan Police Women Patrols were formed in 1919, led by Superintendent Sofia Stanley This was the first time women were formally inducted into the Metropolitan Police.
The Right of Wreck
Reading time: 8 minutes
With howling westerly winds and in freezing rain, the unforgiving waves push ships closer to the treacherous rocks of the merciless Cornish coastline. The crew has travelled miles with precious cargo, desperately trying to right their course with no modern navigation. In an attempt to save the vessel and themselves, they begin to throw goods overboard.
Women in the Second World War: The Palestinian Auxiliary Territorial Service
Reading time: 8 minutes
As the women’s branch of the British Army during the Second World War, the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) was formed in 1938. Women serving in the ATS were tasked with the ultimate aim of ‘freeing up’ men for combatant roles on the front line.
How the British navy hid the heroic voyage of crippled second world war submarine HMS Triumph
Reading time: 5 minutes
In September 1941 the British press enthralled its readers with a story of naval heroism that the public, battered by German bombing and strict rationing, was crying out for: a tale of survival against the odds.
The colonial origins of scientific forestry in Britain
Reading time: 27 minutes
Around 1850 Britain had no forestry service and there was no formal training of foresters. Forestry was still practised in the context of estates mainly owned by the aristocracy and managed by foresters who had learned the traditional management techniques under an apprentice system from their predecessors. British forestry was fragmented, not formalised, and far from centralised during the entire 19th century.
Five myths about the partition of British India – and what really happened
Reading time: 6 minutes
This August marks 75 years since the partition of the Indian subcontinent. British withdrawal from the region prompted the creation of two new states, India and Pakistan.
The process of transferring power grossly simplified diverse societies to make it seem like dividing social groups and drawing new borders was logical and even possible. This decision unleashed one of the biggest human migrations of the 20th century when more than ten million people fled across borders seeking safe refuge.
The Scrap Iron Flotilla – Speaker: Mike Carlton via Zoom
Live Presentation via Zoom August 17 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm AEST (UTC+10)
When war broke out in the Northern Hemisphere in 1939, the British called upon their Australian allies for support. The Australian government responded by sending five navy destroyers – HMAS Stuart, Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager and Waterhen.