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Posted: 26-10-2012 11:50 Post subject:

There was a similar report a few years ago, which made quite a good case for the site being wrongly identified.

I can't find the post right now - I'd guess it is buried somewhere in the Hidden History or History Rewritten threads. Smile

Posted: 26-10-2012 12:06 Post subject:

Nazi sympathisers try to rewrite history, by stealing it

October 25, 2012 - 14:58

Posted: 29-11-2012 00:32 Post subject:

The Dark Ages: An Age of Light - 1. The Clash of the Gods

The Dark Ages have been misunderstood. History has identified the period following the fall of the Roman Empire with a descent into barbarism - a terrible time when civilisation stopped.

Waldemar Januszczak disagrees. In this four-part series he argues that the Dark Ages were a time of great artistic achievement, with new ideas and religions provoking new artistic adventures. He embarks on a fascinating trip across Europe, Africa and Asia, visits the world's most famous collections and discovers hidden artistic gems, all to prove that the Dark Ages were actually an 'Age of Light'.

In the first episode he looks at how Christianity emerged into the Roman Empire as an artistic force in the third and fourth centuries. But with no description of Jesus in the Bible, how were Christians to represent their God? Waldemar explores how Christian artists drew on images of ancient gods for inspiration and developed new forms of architecture to contain their art.

Available until
8:59PM Tue, 25 Dec 2012

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00zbtmr/The_Dark_Ages_An_Age_of_Light_The_Clash_of_the_Gods/

Posted: 16-02-2013 13:53 Post subject:

Posted: 08-04-2013 21:26 Post subject:

Shakespeare 'may have been a humble schoolmaster'
By Hannah Richardson, BBC News education reporter

William Shakespeare may have spent some of his "lost" early years working as a schoolmaster in a Hampshire village.
Local historians in Titchfield near Southampton believe the Bard worked as a schoolmaster at a school there for three years between 1589 and 1592.
The theory has its roots in his relationship with the third Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, who sponsored Shakespeare for a time.

It may answer the mystery of where the author was between 1589 and 1592.
Academics have long tried to fill in the details of Shakespeare's lost years between the birth of his twins in 1589, and 1592 when he was recorded as being in London.

Local historian Ken Groves says he has established beyond reasonable doubt that a house near the historic Titchfield Abbey, known as Place House Cottage, was a schoolhouse at the time. And he also believes the buildings were owned by Henry Wriothesley's family.

He places this evidence alongside a claim from the 17th Century writer John Aubrey that Shakespeare worked as a schoolmaster.
Aubrey wrote about England's most famous dramatist in his book Brief Lives, basing his claim on verbal evidence from the son of a contemporary writer of Shakespeare who told him the Bard had been a teacher in rural England.

Henry Wriothesley is known to have sponsored Shakespeare for a time and Imperial College Professor John Dover Wilson wrote in 1933 that Shakespeare had worked as a tutor for the third Earl of Southampton.

Mr Groves, a retired physicist, said: "All we are doing is putting the pieces of a the jigsaw together.
"If he was a schoolmaster he probably would have had to have had a close connection with a noble family.
"We have a school that was there at the right time, which had a connection with one of the earls who we know Shakespeare had a connection with.
"And we have the written evidence in Brief Lives that Shakespeare was a teacher."
He added: "The school itself was run as a monastic school and quite a small one with a maximum of about 12 pupils.
"They would have taught Latin, religious studies, grammar and a bit of maths."

Mr Groves has also found a number of interesting connections between the Shakespeare family and key noblemen and women who would have been living in the area around Titchfield at the time.
And he found some clues in the material that Shakespeare produced in his early years.
He says it is telling that one of Shakespeare's earliest plays was based on the life of a lesser known king, Henry VI who got married to Margaret Anjou in Titchfield Abbey in 1445.
"If he was here," says Mr Groves, "you can just imagine the stories that the locals would have told about that event."

Kevin Fraser, chairman of the Titchfield Festival Theatre, said there was evidence Shakespeare lived in Stratford, that he lived in London and now Titchfield.
He added: "There is a quite a body of evidence coming through now. It's not just a rustic fantasy. There really is quite a bit of heavyweight evidence coming through now."
This includes claims he worked with some of his contemporaries such as Thomas Nashe and Peter Green in the large library of the Earl of Southampton.

His organisation is applying for a heritage lottery fund grant to fund a Shakespeare trail around the area. The trail would bring the key elements together, The Barn, Place House (Titchfield Abbey) The Old Grammar School and the Southampton tombs in St Peters Church in the centre of Titchfield.
All these would be linked with a downloadable app and an interactive exhibition in the Great Barn and small Elizabethan style theatre.

But Prof Michael Dobson, director of the Shakespeare Institute, said although there had been speculation that Shakespeare had been a guest of the Earl of Southampton, he thought it was highly unlikely that he spent much time in the countryside.
"When Shakespeare pops up in London in 1592, he's already an up and coming playwright."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22064636

I'm quite taken with this idea. My parents-in-law lived near Titchfield, so I was often in the area. And the story mentions "Place House cottage" - only this evening I was processing some photos for a website of "Place Manor". And when I was at school, my geography teacher had the nick-name 'Titch'! You can see how the evidence stacks up!!! Psychout

Posted: 08-04-2013 22:00 Post subject:

Mention of Brief Lives as an authority provides me with a good excuse to post one of my favourite Youtube clips. Smile

I recall seeing the tv version of this as a young lad, little imagining I would turn into such a figure. Confused

Posted: 04-05-2013 23:17 Post subject:

Perhaps the Wrights were not the pioneers of heavier than air flight.

Posted: 11-07-2013 15:19 Post subject:

Posted: 22-07-2013 10:33 Post subject:

Is the Mosquito the greatest warplane of all?
The Spitfire is more famous but, discovers Jasper Copping, the de Havilland Mosquito can claim to be the plane that won the war
[video]
By Jasper Copping
7:00AM BST 21 Jul 2013

While the Spitfire and Hurricane are remembered as the machines that saved Britain from Nazi invasion, the Lancaster and Halifax are lauded as the warhorses that took the fight to the Third Reich.
But there is an argument that the country’s greatest aircraft of the Second World War was none of these, but the less heralded de Havilland Mosquito.

This versatile, two-man machine, designed by the British aviator pioneer Geoffrey de Havilland, served with distinction as a fighter, bomber, U-boat hunter and night fighter, as well as in reconnaissance roles and as a pathfinder on large-scale bombing attacks.
It was behind some of the most stunning raids of the war – among them the precision operation to attack the Gestapo headquarters in Oslo, Norway; and another to breach the walls of a prison in Amiens to allow the escape of condemned resistance fighters.

Its greatest attribute, its speed, came from its unusual construction. To preserve metal reserves, it was made of wood, its parts crafted by carpenters and joiners in workshops turned over from furniture and cabinet-making. The components, from spruce, birch, balsa and plywood, were then put together with glue.

But at the end of the war, this unique characteristic became its biggest weakness. While metal-framed aircraft endured, most Mosquitos simply rotted away in their hangars.
For almost 20 years, there have been no airworthy Mosquitos since the last one crashed at an air show near Manchester in 1996, killing both crew members.

This lack of airborne Mosquitos and the higher profile enjoyed by the Spitfire and Lancaster, in particular, has led some to overlook the contribution made by the so-called “Wooden Wonder”.

But tonight, a Channel 4 documentary, The Plane that Saved Britain, seeks to correct that. And for the presenter, Arthur Williams, the show is also a more personal quest. The former Royal Marine has been fascinated with aviation – and, above all, the Mosquito – since childhood. But he took up flying only after a car crash in 2007 had left him in a wheelchair.

In the show he traces the history of the Mosquito: he speaks with a designer who overcame official doubts to create the revolutionary machine, as well as several of those who flew it. But he also travels to the US in an attempt to get aboard a newly restored one.

Overcoming last-minute health-and-safety concerns linked to his disability, he is able to fly the aircraft, which has been rebuilt by Jerry Yagen, an American aviation enthusiast, following an eight-year, £2.6m restoration. Back on land, after the flight, Williams says: “It seems kind of ironic that the whole journey that started me off on my flying career was the worst day of my life, which was the car crash that put me in my wheelchair. And now, six years down the line, we’re here, and I’m experiencing, by a long way, the best day of my life. It feels like two bookends.”

Williams, 27, had served in Sierra Leone before he broke his back and severed his spinal cord in the car accident near Pershore, Worcestershire, where he had been visiting family.

He trained as a Paralympian wheelchair racer and hand cyclist before switching to broadcasting and getting a job with Channel 4 during last summer’s Games. But he said it was flying that gave him a “crutch” and restored the confidence he had lost following the accident.
“I had struggled with how to reassert myself as a man after the crash. It might be my old Royal Marine mentality, but becoming a pilot has helped me do that,” he said last week. “People look at you in a wheelchair and perhaps assume you are spoon-fed. When you tell them you are a pilot, their jaw drops.

“Flying also gives you a freedom. Down here, I am restricted in what I can do physically, which can sometimes frustrate me. When you are flying, you are strapped in and become part of the aircraft.”

The title of tonight’s show makes a bold claim on behalf of the Mosquito, but Williams has marshalled strong support for the aircraft.
Eric “Winkle” Brown, a wartime test pilot, tells him: “I’m often asked, what type of aircraft saved Britain. My answer is that the Mosquito was particularly important because it wasn’t just a fighter or a bomber. It was a night fighter, a reconnaissance aircraft. A ground-attack aircraft. It was a multi-purpose aircraft.”

Sir Max Hastings, the historian, agrees: “The Mosquito helped transform the fortunes of the bomber offensive. It was obvious that this was a real gamechanger. In many ways, from the outset it became plain that the Mosquito was a much more remarkable aircraft than the Lancaster. Yes, the Lancaster is the aircraft that everybody identifies with Bomber Command, but in many ways the Mosquito, although it has received much less attention, was a much more remarkable aircraft.”

He adds: “You’ve got the range, the height, the speed. It can do anything and in that sense, I think some of us would argue this is a more remarkable design achievement than the Spitfire.”

The Germans had nothing equal to the Mosquito and it sapped their morale. Its fighter pilots were allowed to claim two “kills” for each one they were able to shoot down. Cool

As well as enhancing the accuracy of heavy bombers by flying ahead and dropping “markers”, one of the Mosquito’s greatest contributions was in creating a new form of aerial warfare – surgical strikes, many of them for propaganda purposes.
As well as the Oslo and Amiens attacks, one of the most celebrated was a raid on the Berlin radio station on which Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe, was about to deliver a speech. The British newsreel gleefully reported afterwards that the “fat Field Marshal” had been delayed by one hour.

Indeed, never mind the judgment of historians such as Hastings or the reminiscences of former pilots, the greatest tribute to the aircraft came from Göring himself, who said it made him “green and yellow with envy”.

He added: “The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses, and we have the nincompoops.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10192280/Is-the-Mosquito-the-greatest-warplane-of-all.html

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-plane-that-saved-britain/4od

I saw the documentary last night, and although I thought I was fairly familiar with the mozzie, the fact that it could be fitted with a sub-busting gun was new to me, as was the fact that it could land on aircraft carriers! Cool

Posted: 29-07-2013 10:59 Post subject:

I'm not sure how much of a rewrite this really is, but it's good to have this stuff collected in one book:

Fortress Britain? No, we've had dozens of invasions
Britons have long considered their fortress island secure and their coast inviolate, at least since the Norman Conquest.
By Jasper Copping
10:00PM BST 28 Jul 2013

But a new study had found that in the 1,000 years since 1066, these shores have seen more than 70 military invasions.
The incursions – at the rate of more than seven a century – range from large scale operations to small coastal raids.
The attacks have been launched from as far away as America and Africa, though, in by far their greatest number, from rather closer to home: France.

The list has been compiled by author Ian Hernon, after he started to research some of the more well known invasion threats over the centuries, such as the Spanish Armada.
“I started by researching the major ones, but through the course of my research, I picked up so many. There is this sort of myth that the British coast since 1066 has been inviolate.
“I wanted to nail this myth. We have had so many invasions, raids and full blown invasions for much of our island history.”

The research, contained in a new book Fortress Britain, defined an invasion as any incursion by a hostile foreign, or foreign-backed, military force on the soil of the British Isles. Ireland was included since, for a large part of the period, its affairs were so closely linked to those in Britain.

Mr Hernon, who has previously written books on the British Empire, reached a figure of 73 invasions without including hundreds of raids on southwestern England, Wales and Ireland by Barbary pirates, during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. These corsairs – as they were known – came from as far as north Africa, although some were European. They conducted an estimated 700 raids on the British Isles, capturing locals who were then enslaved.

At one point, they even established a base on Lundy, in the Bristol Channel. Since there is so little reliable evidence about their activities, Mr Hernon has only included the five best documented Barbary raids in the study.

The Barbary raiders are not the most geographically remote power to stage incursions on the British Isles. This was the Americans, who during the War of Independence, sent ships to attack the British mainland. A force led by John Paul Jones raided Whitehaven, in Cumbria, and also landed across the Solway Firth at Kirkcudbright, in 1778.

Of the many French invasions on the list, 42 were during the Hundred Years War, which spanned from the mid-fourteenth to mid-fifteenth century. Mr Hernon said there were actually many more mentioned in French and English archives of the period, but that there was insufficient detail to precisely identify them.

The most recent was at Fishguard, Wales, during the French Revolutionary Wars, in 1797, which ended in farce when many of the French soldiers got drunk. The invasion had been coordinated with landings in Ireland and
Newcastle, but these were even less successful.

Other invasions include those by the Spanish, at Cork, Ireland, in 1601, and Loch Alsh, north west Scotland, in 1719; the Dutch, in 1667, at Felixstowe, Suffolk, and Sheerness, Kent; and the Danes, with two in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest.

Ten of the invasions were of the Channel Islands, including the most recent, by the Germans during the Second World War. The most invaded part of the mainland is Winchelsea, in East Sussex, sacked by raiding forces seven times. Nearby Rye and the Isle of Wight have also suffered multiple invasions.

Mr Hernon said his research disproved the long-held assumption that the English Channel had kept Britain safe from invasion. In fact, he argues, it has acted as a “highway” for invaders.
What has led most major raids to fail, he says, is the British weather – which has scuppered many attempts – and, latterly, the Royal Navy.

Two invasions have been successful in replacing the rulers. Firstly, in 1216, when a French army invaded Kent, at the invitation of English nobles, in dispute with King John. The French leader, Louis, was proclaimed king, in London, before being expelled by barons, who switched sides after John’s death.

Of more lasting impact, was the invasion of 1688, by William of Orange, during the Glorious Revolution. Even though William arrived at the invitation of many in England, it was a traditional, military invasion, involving a flotilla of 463 ships, twice the size of the Spanish Armada. It was also opposed by many, and led to the Battle of Reading, at which William’s forces prevailed allowing him to take the throne.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/10206682/Fortress-Britain-No-weve-had-dozens-of-invasions.html

Posted: 29-07-2013 12:56 Post subject:

Doesn't mention the French landing in Connaught in 1798. General Humbert

Posted: 29-07-2013 12:58 Post subject:

Ah, went loking for the book and found a Zombie novel.

http://www.amazon.com/Arisen-Book-One-Fortress-ebook/dp/B008TQ0T8A

Posted: 03-08-2013 09:16 Post subject:

'Your Country Needs You' - The myth about the First World War poster that 'never existed'
It is perhaps the best known and most enduring image of the First World War: the commanding, moustached face of Lord Kitchener, his accusing, pointing finger and the urgent slogan “Your country needs YOU”.
3:10PM BST 02 Aug 2013

The picture is credited with encouraging millions of men to sign up to fight in the trenches, many of them never to return.
But new research has found that no such poster was actually produced during the war and that the image was never used for official recruitment purposes. In fact, it only became popular and widely-used after the conflict ended.

James Taylor, who has researched the history of recruitment posters, said the popular understanding of the design and the impact it had was almost entirely mistaken.
“It’s widely believed to have been the most popular design of First World War, instrumental in recruiting millions of men. But the truth is: that simply wasn’t the case. It’s an urban myth,” he added.

As part of his research, he studied the official records of the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, the body responsible for recruitment posters, in the National Archives at Kew.
These documents provided details of the production of almost 200 official recruitment posters produced during the war and indicated which ones were deemed popular. The so-called ‘Your Country Needs You’ poster is absent. He also analysed thousands of photographs of street scenes and recruitment offices from the period in search of the image, again, without finding it.

In his new book, Your Country Needs You, Mr Taylor traced the picture back to its origins, on 5th September 1914, barely a month after the start of the war.
On that day, the image was used on the front cover of the popular magazine London Opinion, beneath the masthead, and alongside two promotional offers: “This paper insures you for £1,000” and “50 photographs of YOU for a shilling”.

It had been designed by Alfred Leete, a graphic artist, who had adapted a portrait of Kitchener to give him the distinctive pointing finger. The slogan was adapted from the official call to arms, which said: “Your King and Country Need You”.

In a subsequent edition, a week later, the magazine, which had a circulation of almost 300,000, said readers would be able to buy postcards of the image for 1s. 4d for 100.
Despite this, Mr Taylor has not been able to track down any surviving examples in public or private collections. He is now offering a £100 reward for anyone who can find the first. Cool

Mr Taylor, who will present his research at an event at the National Army Museum, west London, next month, found that the original artwork for the magazine was acquired by the Imperial War Museum in 1917 and was mistakenly catalogued as part of the poster collection, contributing to later misunderstanding about its use.

“There has been a mass, collective misrecollection. The image’s influence now is absolutely out of all kilter with the reality of its initial impact. It has taken on a new kind of life. It is such a good image and saying that it was later seized upon. Some many historians and books have used it and kept repeating how influential it was, that people have come to accept it.”

This “myth” surrounding the poster echoes that around the “Keep Calm and Carry On” sign, which has been widely reproduced in recent years. That poster, designed in 1939, had limited distribution and no public display.

Mr Taylor’s book shows how the Kitchener image did inspire similar posters, which were used, including one, which was produced by LO, with the word BRITONS, above the same picture of the Field Marshal pointing, with the words “wants YOU – Join Your Country’s Army!”, beneath, and the words ‘God Save The King’ printed along the bottom.

However, Mr Taylor said there was no evidence the poster was particularly popular or a dominant design of the war, as some historians have claimed.

The only occasion in which the image and the wording did appear in poster form was an elaborate design, when the words and picture appear, in a smaller scale, below five flags and surrounded by details or rates of pay and other information, including the additional slogan – “Your Country is Still Calling. Fighting Men! Fall In!!”. The effect is very different from the image of popular imagination and again, Mr Taylor found no evidence it was particularly widespread or popular at the time.

He found that the most popular poster of the era, in terms of numbers produced, did feature Kitchener, but without the pointing finger and featuring a 30-word extract from a speech he had made.

The book also shows how the image and slogan has been adapted for use in other countries, from the United States to the Soviet Union.

Leete’s original image and slogan, which are not covered by copyright, is now sold on aprons, bookmarks, fridge magnets, oven gloves, postcards, towels and T-shirts. The slogan remains a popular political phrase. David Cameron used it in his first party conference speech after becoming prime minister.

Horatio Kitchener had been appointed Secretary of State for War at the outbreak of the conflict - the 99th anniversary of which is this weekend - and correctly predicted that victory would take several years and require huge new armies.
He instigated a huge recruitment campaign to form “Kitchener’s Army”, or the “New Army” – whose men were later to die in campaigns such as the Somme.

He was already the country’s most famous soldier, a recognisable and influential figure having served in a number of Imperial campaigns, including in the Sudan, and South Africa, during the Second Boer War.

He died two years before the end of the First World War when he was travelling to Russia on a diplomatic mission, aboard the warship HMS Hampshire. The vessel struck a mine and sank west of the Orkney Islands. Kitchener, his staff, and 643 of the crew of 655 were drowned or died of exposure. Survivors who saw him in his final moments testified to his outward calm and resolution.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10218932/Your-Country-Needs-You-The-myth-about-the-First-World-War-poster-that-never-existed.html

Posted: 03-08-2013 09:39 Post subject:

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. None of that sounds very certain. He 'hasn't found evidence' for rather a lot - that's it. If he'd found solid details of its production and display that contradicted the established view, that would be a different matter. He hasn't.

Not finding it in a contemporary photo is hardly surprising.