The first bombers didn’t fly but sailed: they were warships known as bomb vessels, which mounted heavy mortars firing explosive shells. These could be used in naval battles, but weren’t very accurate and so were usually used to attack targets on land, including cities. The French navy used bomb vessels to bombard Genoa in 1684, […]
It’s a hundred years today since Louis Blériot became the first person to fly an aeroplane across the English Channel. (He wasn’t the first person, period; Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries together crossed it by balloon in 1785.) As x planes has already post-blogged the flight itself, I’ll focus on one reaction to the flight,
Pierre-Antoine Courouble. The Riddle of the Wooden Bombs. Toulon: Les Presses du Midi, 2009. One of my early posts on this blog was about a story which goes something like the following. The Germans are constructing a fake airfield to decoy Allied bombers, with dummy aircraft made out of wood. On the day it is
When did people wearing monocles stop being taken seriously in public life? Noel Pemberton Billing, independent candidate for Hertford, in 1916. From N. Pemberton-Billing, Air War: How to Wage It (London: Gale & Polden, 1916).
Perhaps the first mass outbreak of mystery aircraft sightings took place in 1892 in Russian-occupied Poland, near the German border. The Manchester Guardian reported on 26 March that a ‘large balloon coming from the German frontier appeared about the fortress of Kovno‘. The Russian defenders fired at it, but it returned safely over the border.1
Pierre-Antoine Courouble. The Riddle of the Wooden Bombs. Toulon: Les Presses du Midi, 2009. A remarkably thorough attempt to run the wooden bomb stories to ground. Note: review copy.
Chris Williams (AKA Chris A. Williams) has put online a recording of a lecture he gave last year about the evolution of the police C3I system, by way of train control and air defence. (See also here.) More like this, please!
Last time I did this, it worked very well, so I’m going to try it again! As mentioned recently, I’m going to holiday in the UK for three weeks in September. I’ve pretty much done next to no organising for this, so it’s time I did. Where should I go? The constraints are that I’m
[Cross-posted at Cliopatria.] The Royal Historical Society has for some years maintained an online bibliography of British and Irish history, updated three times a year. It currently has over 460,000 records. It’s a fantastic resource for scholars interested in any aspect of the history of the British Isles, not least because it’s free. But from
