Have you ever heard of Vice President William King?
Have you ever heard of William King? I bet you haven’t, and never knew that he was a vice president of the United States. But that isn’t what made him famous. His fame comes from four things. He is the only Vice President or President to take the oath of office on foreign soil. He […]
After the Romans and before 1066 who invaded England?
During this period England was open to be conquered by any north European tribe, therefore the Germans, the Vikings and then the Danish invaded. First came the Germans As soon as the Romans left in 410AD we started to be invaded by raiding parties of Germans. It wasn’t a large invasion, just tribes, such as […]
Did they have inflation in the 16th Century
Yes, they did, but it was not inflation as we know it, because prices didn’t rise as fast as they do today. However, in those days they called it the Price Revolution, which they blamed on the Spanish and then called it the Spanish Price Revolution. Basically, it was a series of economic events that […]
Lying on the beach have you ever thought who started the Package Holiday?
It was a man called . More interestingly it was 180 odd years ago in 1841 when a cabinet maker from Leicestershire, called Thomas Cook, launched the first travel package trip. Yes, a cabinet maker came up with the first one! How did it all start? It all happened because he believed that alcohol […]
Why do we hang stockings at Christmas?
Did you know: That we hang them up because of Saint Nicholas, the Christian Bishop of Myra? So, who was this man whose actions we celebrate every year? Well, first of all where is Myra? It was, it is no more, on the south Mediterranean coast of Turkey, near the modern town of Demre. At […]
Would you use this defence today?
This story is about a lady called Phryne, history tells us that she was an ancient Greek courtesan, who ended up as one of the wealthiest women in Greece. Where was she from? She was born in Thespiae in Boeotia at around 370BC. Legend tells us that they called her Phryne because she had […]
What was the Silk Road?
What was the Silk Road? The Silk Road was a network of trade routes from China to Europe that ran from the second century BC until the mid-15th century. It went for more than 4,000 miles becoming the major route for economic, cultural, political, and religious interaction between the East and West. Why was it […]
What was the biggest company in the world between 1600 and 1750?
It was the East India Company. What was it? It was a company that was so powerful that it effected the global balance of trade, moving between the east and the west. This was because by the mid-1700s it appeared to have become involved in half the world’s trade. This British company, was part owned […]
The Three Hundred- and Thirty-Five-Years War!
It is incredible because, yes, there was a war that lasted 335 years, in which no one died, and everyone forgot about. Even more amazing was that this 335 years’ war was fought between the Isles of Scilly, yes, those little islands off the end of Cornwall, and the Republic of the Netherlands! It lasted […]
What is the shield wall?
What is the shield wall? Today when a demonstration goes nasty, we see the police build a shield wall to defend themselves and then slowly move it forward, but when checking our musical 1066 – The Battle of Hastings I realised that the shield wall has been a policy used by armies for hundreds of […]