1910s

1910s, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Plots and tables, Rumours, Tools and methods

The airship panic of 1915 — II

In order to start characterising the possible airship panic of 1915, let’s generate some n-grams and do some distant reading to get a basic overview of press interest in Zeppelins during the early part of the war. Here are the number of articles per month in the British Newspaper Archive for 1914 and 1915 mentioning […]

A ham-bone
1910s, Archives, Art, Pictures, Reprisals

A ham-bone for Sir Edwart

An early contribution to the list of strange things dropped from the air in wartime was made by the crew of L13, a German naval Zeppelin under the command of Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Mathy. During a raid on London on the night of 8 September 1915, they dropped bombs from Bloomsbury to the City which killed

1910s, 1940s, Books, Words

The first bombing war

In the last decade or so, it seems to have become a thing to refer to the German air raids on Britain during the First World War as the ‘First Blitz’. There are now at least three books on the topic with that title or variations thereof: Andrew Hyde’s The First Blitz: The German Bomber

1910s, Air defence, Archives, Blogging, tweeting and podcasting, Books, Conferences and talks, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics

Le Queux’s war

The novelist William Le Queux is famous, or rather infamous, for beating the drum of the German invasion and spy threat before the Great War. But what did he do during the war? Unsurprisingly, he did much the same thing. On 28 February 1915, for example, The People published an article by Le Queux entitled

1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, Aerial theatre, Australia, Conferences and talks

Aviation cultures and aerial theatre

In December I’ll be giving a talk at the Aviation Cultures Mk. II: Technology, Culture, Heritage conference at the University of Sydney, entitled ‘Comparing Hendon: aerial theatre in context’. Here’s the abstract: The RAF Pageants held between 1920 and 1937 at Hendon in north London were an annual series of air shows, in which military

1910s, Aerial theatre, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Publications

The joy of six

I’m very pleased to announce that the Journal of British Studies has accepted my article, ‘The phantom airship panic of 1913: imagining aerial warfare in Britain before the Great War’, for publication. This is exciting for a number of reasons. Naturally, one reason is because it’s another peer-reviewed article (number six, by my count). That’s

Origin of the League of Nations
1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, Collective security, Conferences and talks, Disarmament, International air force, Pictures, Radio, Sounds, Turning points in history

Turning points: the League of Nations

I did my second Turning Point for ABC New England radio today, and chose to talk about the founding the League of Nations in 1920. The League is usually considered to be a failure, because it didn’t prevent the Second World War or even play any significant role after the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. But

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